House of Commons Hansard #136 of the 35th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was grain.

Topics

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:25 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Milliken)

Is the House ready for the question?

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:25 p.m.

Some hon. members

Question.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:25 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Milliken)

The question is on Motion No. 1 in Group No. 1. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:25 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:25 p.m.

Some hon. members

No.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:25 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Milliken)

All those in favour will please say yea.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:25 p.m.

Some hon. members

Yea.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:25 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Milliken)

All those opposed will please say nay.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:25 p.m.

Some hon. members

Nay.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:25 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Milliken)

In my opinion the nays have it.

I therefore declare the motion negatived.

(Motion No. 1 negatived)

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Milliken)

The House will now debate motions in Group No. 2 which includes Motions Nos. 2 and 3.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-66 be amended by adding after line 15 on page 1 the following new Clause:

"1.1 The Act is amended by adding the following after section 4:

4.1 (1) This Part applies in respect of the Professional Institute of the Public Service, its members and the employers of those members.

(2) The Minister shall, not later than six months after the coming into force of this section, by regulation, amend or repeal those provisions in any Act of Parliament whose amendment or repeal are necessary to the effective application of Part I to the Professional Institute of the Public Service, its members and the employers of those members."

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-66 be amended by adding after line 15 on page 1 the following new Clause:

"1.1 The Act is amended by adding the following after section 4:

4.1 (1) This Part applies in respect of the Public Service Alliance, its members and the employers of those members.

(2) The Minister shall, not later than six months after the coming into force of this section, by regulation, amend or repeal those provisions in any Act of Parliament whose amendment or repeal are necessary to the effective application of Part I to the Public Service Alliance, its members and the employers of those members."

Mr. Speaker, you have before you a man who is surprised, to say the least, to see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour rising in this House to make the barefaced statement that national chaos will result if the federal government adopts this amendment. I think that the parliamentary secretary has both erred a little, and overdone it a little, since he himself ended up with flour on his face when the amendment by the official opposition was under discussion.

This does, however, give us some idea of where we stand. You will agree that, if the government does not even have the little courage required to put flour mills under provincial jurisdiction, we will not be able to reach agreement. It must be agreed that the government will be acting in an authoritarian, even despotic, manner, by adopting such a hard line.

With this second group of amendments, we will attempt to get the parliamentary secretary out from under the flour in which he has buried himself, and to get him to understand another level of rationality.

What we are proposing with these amendments is what was asked of us in committee by the representatives of the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the Professional Institute of the Public Service when they met with us. Both unions asked, in a completely rational manner and as mandated by their rank and file, to come under the Canada Labour Code, Part I, and not the Public Service Staff Relations Act as they do at present.

I trust that the government will broaden its horizons a little, be a little bolder, and have the courage to acquiesce to this demand. Why did the two unions in question ask to be brought under Part I of the Canada Labour Code? Because they felt this would give them greater leeway in their negotiations, and particularly because they felt that a number of their key priorities relating to the quality of everyday life in the workplace could be negotiated immediately.

As we know, under the Public Service Staff Relations Act, the process is somewhat unwieldy, because Treasury Board is involved. Things are not always easy, nor is there much flexibility, yet extremely important elements are at stake.

So if the government went along with this amendment, which was inspired by nothing else than common sense, public service employees represented by those two unions would be able to bargain directly on the following points: job security, which is not an easy matter to negotiate, as I think the hon. member for Terrebonne will agree, and protection against technological change.

As you know, we have been an enlightened and very advanced opposition. We have tabled a series of amendments-and we will get back to them in due course-that would ensure that no major technological changes are introduced in a company or the public service without the employees having their say. This will be the challenge of the years to come, and there will be further debate on this.

Both PIPS and PSAC have asked to be covered by the Canada Labour Code, and this demand goes back several years. They want this first of all because they feel they will be in a far better position and have more leeway when negotiating job security, protection against technological change and also a third element that is crucially important, and I am referring to position classifications and task definitions. A fourth group of concerns includes appointments, promotions and transfers, which could conviently come under the heading career plan.

In committee it was pointed out that there were two major advantages to accepting such a demand. The Canada Labour Code allows unions to negotiate their members' working conditions more directly. There is no limitation in the code on the rights of employees, such as the right to strike or to refer all grievances to a third, impartial, party.

These are very important considerations, and I hope the parliamentary secretary will take a more vigorous and bolder approach, as opposed to the almost die hard conservativism he has shown so far.

In concluding, since I believe my time is running out, I may remind you of another of our concerns about this so-called modernization, since when the minister spoke in committee and in the House about undertaking a review of the Canada Labour Code, Part I, he told us it was to modernize labour relations, and of course we all agree that labour relations are quite different today from what they were in the seventies.

We tried to deal with this and, personally, as the member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve and labour relations critic, I tabled a motion in the House asking the government to give the Royal Canadian Mounted Police the right to collective bargaining. The connection with the public service as a whole is extremely tenuous, since the RCMP has the status of sole employer as far as Treasury Board is concerned. Imagine my reaction, imagine my consternation when I discovered that the government, totally unreasonably and obsessively to some extent I would say, rejected such a motion.

Is it appropriate that the RCMP should be the only police force in Canada without the right to collective bargaining? I was very pleased by what I read in Hansard . It says there that the third party in the House, the Reform Party, gave its approval, as expressed by one of its members. I think the member for Calgary rose to say he recognized the situation as discriminatory.

We must recall that the RCMP is not claiming the right to strike. They are asking for the right to negotiate their working conditions, as all police forces do across Canada, with outside arbitration. There are those, who are a bit muddled, who say that they already have arbitration. In fact, this is the subject of the entire rather weak speech by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General, who rose in this House to say that an internal negotiation system known as divisional representation already existed.

Obviously, for those who are looking in from the outside and for those who know a little about labour relations, it is like a sort of small shop union, which does not provide a solid base for collectively negotiating working conditions.

I hope the parliamentary secretary will rise to explain the reason for the fear. If the Labour Code is useful in providing a balance in labour relations, as the minister says, why not include the employees of the public service who want to be included and who have given their union representatives a mandate. I am thinking of course of the Professional Institute, the Alliance and the spokespersons of the RCMP. We are not talking about speculation or guessing, these are duly authorized union spokespersons, people who have mandates.

They came to see us in committee, and explained that, as regards the five indicators I mentioned concerning job security, protection against technological change, position classification and career advancement, "We think it would be more beneficial for our members, and this is a motivating factor: it is significant for an employer to be covered by part I of the Canada Labour Code".

I hope that, in all lucidity, the minister and the parliamentary secretary will rise in the House, thank the opposition for the acuity of its remarks and support the amendments before the House today.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:40 p.m.

Reform

Dale Johnston Reform Wetaskiwin, AB

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the comments of my colleague from Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. He tried to put the case that somehow the RCMP is at a terrible disadvantage because we do not allow its members to join a union.

One very important fact has escaped my colleague. By no means does the majority of members of that force want the option of joining a union. That has been made very clear in the House several times. Perhaps those were days when my friend should have been paying attention and was not.

Had he paid attention I am sure he would have picked up on that fact. It has been brought to the House several times by me and by my colleague from Calgary. It is a well known fact. I have had several representations from members of the RCMP in my constituency and elsewhere who say that the divisional representative situation is working just fine for them.

I also find it interesting that my colleague would like to pick and choose. He would like to say that the flour mill workers, for instance, should be taken out of federal jurisdiction and another group of people should be moved into federal jurisdiction. The more legislation we create in this place, the more need there is for legislation.

If we come up with a plan whereby members of the RCMP could join a union, what good will the union do? Will it give them the right to strike, or will they immediately be declared an essential service? If so, what has been gained? We would have passed two pieces of legislation, one really nullifying the other.

I do not want to belabour the point so I will not take up the full 10 minutes to make my point.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:40 p.m.

Bloc

Osvaldo Nunez Bloc Bourassa, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take part in the debate on Motion No. 2 regarding Bill C-66, and in particular on RCMP members' right to unionization and to collective bargaining.

I have, on a number of occasions, taken part in the debate and asked that the Canada Labour Code be amended in order to allow RCMP members to unionize, like any other federal public servants, and like any other police force in Canada. Members of these police forces have the right to unionize. Why deny members of the RCMP this legitimate right?

The International Labour Organization gives all wage earners without exception the right to unionize. But in Canada, a country espousing the principles of the ILO, a police force that is very important to the country is denied this right.

I think that labour relations at the RCMP would benefit from collective bargaining, discussion of working conditions by the parties, and a collective agreement. I think that there would be advantages to RCMP management and members alike. I am in favour of the RCMP's right to unionization and collective bargaining.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:45 p.m.

Hillsborough P.E.I.

Liberal

George Proud LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Labour

Mr. Speaker, the official opposition has submitted two related motions to make part I of the Canada Labour Code applicable to the Professional Institute of the Public Service, its members and the employers of those members, and the Public Service Alliance of Canada, its members and the employers of those members.

At the outset let me say that we have some difficulty understanding the purpose of the motions. It would appear that the purpose is to repeal the Public Service Staff Relations Act or, at the very least, significantly reduce the numbers of federal public service employees subject to the act. If that is the case-and let me say that such a proposal is unacceptable to the government-in essence these motions would bring 80 per cent of the public servants currently covered by the Public Service Staff Relations Act under part I of the code, leaving 20 per cent of the public service represented by the 14 other unions under the public service collective bargaining regime.

Quite frankly we fail to see the rationale behind these motions which would effectively split public servants into two groups: one covered by the private sector labour relations regime and the other covered by the public sector labour relations regime. The basis for such distinction escapes us.

While the task force established to review part I of the code did not address the issue of applying this statute to the federal public sector, it did note the potential for achieving benefits by consolidating the Public Service Staff Relations Board and the Canada Labour Relations Board. Although a merger of these two tribunals is not being proposed at this time, value and efficiencies could be realized in an administrative consolidation of the private and public sector boards.

Among the benefits that could be achieved through such rationalization we could easily identify cost savings for the boards, savings to the parties who would benefit from a single source, and harmonization of procedures which would eliminate unnecessary diversity in dealing with essentially similar topics and broader based coverage.

Although collective bargaining in the private sector and in the public sector have much in common, there are important distinctions which would require careful consideration before any decision to harmonize the two regimes is made.

In the private sector labour legislation is designed to regulate the relationship between private parties with economic power being the main disciplining mechanism. In the public sector the legislation is largely designed to take into account the government's role in protecting the public interest. Such fundamental differences have resulted in the application of separate labour relations regimes to govern employees in most Canadian jurisdictions.

The public service has been through some significant changes in the past 10 years as many of its activities have been removed to new forms of agencies outside the traditional public service or have been simply transferred to private or crown corporations. In those two last situations the collective bargaining of employees affected by such transfers is currently being governed by part I of the code.

Some would argue that these changes in the nature of the public service are the most persuasive reasons for revisiting the rationale for the creation and maintenance of the two separate legislative regimes. However we have to be careful before rushing into harmonization. Such an exercise would require extensive consultations of all the interested parties.

The minister has already expressed his intention to pursue further the analysis of the amalgamation and harmonization concepts with interested colleagues and parties.

For the reasons just outlined we ask the members of the House to reject both Motions Nos. 2 and 3 as they raise complex issues that were obviously overlooked by the official opposition and would require further study.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:50 p.m.

Reform

John Williams Reform St. Albert, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am always pleased to speak on motions such as the ones at report stage of Bill C-66. The motions were hopefully introduced to improve the bill, but from our perspective we do not see much being improved by the motions in front of us at the moment.

One of the things I would like to talk about this morning is the concept of contracts with unions should the government divest itself of a department, for example air navigation which will be taken from the government and put into a not for profit organization called Nav Can.

I have a problem with the contract with employees in situations such as these flowing through to the new employer, not just Nav Can but all situations. We are trying to achieve flexibility in management-labour negotiations and responsibilities. If we take the contract that exists today between the government and its

employees we find it is fossilized, if I may use that term. It needs to be brought up to date with modern management techniques.

By entrenching in other sectors such as Nav Can and perhaps the new agricultural food inspection agency, the contract that exists today between the government and public servants guarantees the problems inherent in the contract will remain inherent in the relationship in the new organization. It will prevent the organization from evolving and improving its management efficiency.

We must move to the concept of merit being one of the major criteria by which we evaluate the compensation package we provide to employees. As we open negotiations with the federal public service and government I hope the government recognizes the need for merit, the need to compensate people according to their production and contribution and not according to age or number of years of experience regardless of whether or not they are productive.

The type of motion would continue to entrench the one salary pays everybody, one shoe fits all employees. That cannot be tolerated much longer in the new competitive world we are entering into.

I attended a conference last September in Victoria of people from around the world, for example the auditor general of the United Kingdom and people from the United States, Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world. We were discussing accountability in government. It became quite apparent that Canada lags way behind the United Kingdom when it comes to being visionary in the way it will improve the efficiency of government in the years ahead.

The United Kingdom realizes that the role of government primarily is to develop public policy. The implementation of public policy can quite easily be handled by other institutions such as not for profit institutions, competitive institutions and private sector institutions, so the role of government is reduced to its real function of development of public policy.

As the delivery of public services have been spun off into competitive environments, it recognizes the need to protect the current employee and therefore says that the currently existing contract shall flow through to protect current employees in the new institution they are working for. In Canada it could be Nav Can.

The organization by which they are employed has the opportunity to set new terms, new employment conditions and new wage rates for newly hired employees. This is a wonderful way to reach a compromise. It ensures that current employees are protected and are slowly introduced to a competitive environment, giving the competitive institution providing the service the flexibility to deal with its employees in a much more enlightened environment, and giving them the opportunity to introduce the concept of merit that those who work hard get more and those who work less get less.

That is how the private sector is changing. That is why when so many businesses downsize the employees who lose their jobs create new little home based businesses or perhaps larger businesses. Through their flexible working conditions they are able to thrive and prosper in a flexible environment that allows them to make profit, compared with the monolithic dinosaur for which they were working before.

These motions are regressive. They prevent the worker-management relationship from evolving into a much more competitive and dynamic relationship. Opportunities to improve the working environment, to recognize the efficient and hard working employee and to compensate people who deserve the best compensation are being denied through these motions.

That is why the Reform Party is opposed to the motions we are dealing with in group No. 2. The rationale I have found in my experience is that we need to give flexibility, opportunity, motivation and desire to every worker so they do the best they can. When they are locked into one contract that fits all they lose motivation. They find they cannot break through and be the best they can be.

I hope the government, not only in Bill C-66 but in its relationship with its employees, will recognize the need for new enlightened management-labour relationships is long overdue.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Milliken)

Is the House ready for the question?

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Some hon. members

Question.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Milliken)

The question is on Motion No. 2. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Some hon. members

No.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Milliken)

All those in favour will please say yea.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Some hon. members

Yea.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Milliken)

All those opposed will please say nay.

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Some hon. members

Nay.