Mr. Speaker, I am certainly getting an opportunity to speak to final offer arbitration today and it is a good thing.
I would like to begin by saying that I do not want the government to see us as being too soft an opposition. It has always been my point that we should not oppose simply to oppose. We agreed to extend the hours on a gentlemen's agreement. Members are here in the Chamber to deal with legislation. Our intention is to improve the legislation, not simply to oppose for the sake of opposition.
I would like to point out something the member for Hillsborough said in his remarks. He said he felt this was doing away with the collective bargaining process. I could not disagree with him more. As a matter of fact, every time back to work legislation is used in the House the bargaining process is usurped. It is not served well by back to work legislation and I think exactly the opposite is true of final offer selection arbitration.
Just in case there is still some misunderstanding between the member for Hillsborough and me on this point, I would not mind going over it one more time. We have advocated a final offer selection arbitration not as a tool to strengthen one bargainer's hand over another but one that can be used equally. As I pointed out the last time I spoke to this, when used to its ultimate, it is not used at all.
Both labour and management know there is no such thing as a long strike duration under these circumstances because Parliament will have pressure applied to deal with back to work legislation, which none of us cares to do. I do not think there is a member in the House who enjoys having to deal with back to work legislation. So why do we do it over and over again? Why not adopt a measure that will actually enhance the bargaining process, present the tools so that disputes can be settled by the parties rather than by others, which is always the best resolution.
I could go on and on about the good points of final offer selection arbitration. Suffice it to say we see this as something that will enhance the process. I cannot emphasize that enough.
I know the hon. member for Hillsborough has his political points to score, but he must admit at some point that this is a reasonable solution to a problem facing Canadian shippers and has a tremendous impact on the Canadian economy.
As I mentioned the last time I spoke to final offer arbitration, healthy economies and particularly primary economies create healthy job situations. With primary economies there are endless opportunities for value added. If we have problems shipping our commodities then we have problems, as my colleague from Vegreville pointed out, with production of commodities. In the case of a farmer, if he cannot sell his crop-he has to have input costs for the next year-if he cannot get the cash flow for the input costs he is really in a catch-22 situation. Not only is that farmer in a bad situation but the people who are employed as a spin-off from the agriculture are in a bad situation as well.
When that happens then ultimately the Government of Canada, which is in a rather precarious situation as far as finances are concerned and needs every penny of revenue that it can get, is also in a precarious situation because those people who are not working are certainly not paying taxes.
That is kind of a roundabout way, but it all fits together as far as resolving the work stoppages whether they are lockouts or whether
they are strikes. A work stoppage is a work stoppage and it ultimately interferes with getting the product to market. And getting the product to market is what drives our economy. It is what keeps our economy rolling, and the spin-off benefits from all these primary sectors, certainly in the value added area, are very significant.