Madam Speaker, in committee, I asked the Minister of Transport to stand up to his colleague, the Treasury Board President, and tell him that employees of local port authorities, employees of the St. Lawrence seaway, contrary to what was done in the case of the airports and Nav Canada, would continue to belong to a crown corporation. With this in mind, I asked the Minister of Transport to really reaffirm his role as leader and say that Treasury Board officials would not be the ones to decide that these employees would be out of the pension plan.
Contrary to what my Reform colleague has just said, it is clear in the amendment in Motion No. 18 moved by the Bloc Quebecois, and it is worth taking the trouble to read, that:
—any person who, at the time of the coming into force of those sections or subsection was employed by one of those bodies and remains employed, may, if that person was a contributor under the Public Service Superannuation Act, elect to remain subject to the terms of the Public Service Superannuation Act—
Our amendment makes this an obligation and allows employees to continue to belong to the government pension plan. The same reasoning as that used in the case of the airports and Nav Canada cannot be applied.
I respectfully submit that, when the minister tells us that employees will continue to be covered by a comparable pension plan, it is true that they will continue to be covered, but employees of these local port authorities are losing an important bargaining tool. Allow me to explain.
If a port's board of directors has a salary mass of $500,000 to divide among employees in the next collective agreement, the pie can only be cut into so many pieces. If, at the bargaining table, the port's finance director says that, under the legislation, this amendment, the government has obliged him to maintain a comparable pension plan.
I am not an actuary, but after 18 years in labour relations, I am well aware that maintaining a comparable pension plan for a group of 50 employees, such as in the port of Grande-Anse, in the Saguenay, or in the port of Quebec City, involves a different actuarial cost than allowing them to continue to belong to the government pension plan. The finance director for the port of Quebec City is therefore going to tell employees that he has $500,000 for improving working conditions in that particular year. If I maintain your pension plan, because you are just a small group, it will cost $400,000. There will only be $100,000 left to increase death benefits, annual leave and salaries”.
This is why, if our amendment to Motion No. 18 is not accepted, I predict that workers in Canadian ports will lose their negotiating power and the possibility to improve, in a dignified manner, through negotiations, their working conditions. As for the comparable pension plan, the cost involved in the case of a small group of employees will not be the same as would otherwise be the case.
So, Motion No. 19 moved by the government does not satisfy us. It is not because we oppose maintaining the right of workers, but because we feel our Motion No. 18 would have been absolutely fair by providing a fair chance to negotiations and to employees to improve their conditions of employment, instead of being part of a comparable pension plan.