Mr. Speaker, as I look at the motions in Group No. 3, I must state that I cannot agree with my hon. colleague who tried to speak on behalf of the Reform Party, which seems to be one of those things the Liberals think they are good at. I would rather that they try to justify the legislation they bring forward, but I realize that can be hard. Surely we can speak for ourselves and we hope they would justify their position.
Motion No. 7 requires the Canada Industrial Relations Board to seek approval from the human resources development committee on the location of its head office and regional offices. This the type of blatant political interference we want to stay away from. I cannot think of any reason whatsoever that the HRD committee would be in command of better knowledge, better decision making ability or more information as to where these offices should be located than the institution itself.
That is why the Reform Party, legitimately and with common sense, is opposed to this type of motion. Politics has no real place in the management of allowing these boards to do their own jobs. Do we in the House of Commons think we are going to get into micromanagement right down to where the offices are going to be located, how much rent they are going to pay, how much square footage per employee they will have, how many telephone lines they are going to put in? Surely we would be able to delegate some authority. It seems absolutely preposterous that we would reserve this for ourselves, that we alone could make this type of decision. It is commons sense that we would oppose this motion. I hope everyone else would do the same.
Motion No. 9 of the bill would allow the CIRB to revoke the appointment of an employer representative if it believed the representative no longer qualified to act, et cetera. I am a little concerned about the one sidedness of this motion. It would allow the CIRB to revoke the appointment of an employer person on the board but it says absolutely nothing about a union representative on the board. This type of imbalance in legislation is what we do not want.
Again, with common sense and with a normal type of representation in this House, the Reform Party says surely this type of motion does not belong in the legislation on the books of Canada. Therefore we legitimately oppose this motion.
I have a concern about Motion No. 45, which deletes the section allowing certification of a union without the majority support. I am concerned about the House getting involved in legislation giving power to the CIRB to basically be its own judge, jury and execution. This is the type of information that we see coming forward in Motion No. 45.
When I look at Motion No. 49, it is not a bad motion, giving an off site worker the option of having names and locations provided to the union representative and organizers. I am opposed to the Liberal position that the CIRB, again in its wisdom of being judge, jury and executioner, will be given the right to determine on what basis private information is going to be given to a third party.
I understand that there has been a study done by the government. It has spent a significant number of dollars, I understand about
$600,000, to study this type of information. It is still waiting for that report to come back. However, government has decided to proceed, to go ahead with the legislation anyway, rather than waiting for any kind of return on its investment.
Speaking to this issue, I find it very disconcerting that time and time again in this House we find that individual rights are being trampled on. The legislation would give the CIRB the right to pass on the names without the person's having any real input, saying "no, I do not want that to happen".
Is that not much different from when the government introduced its gun legislation and gave the peace officers the right to search and to seize without a search warrant? We see this type of legislation creep in in various other areas.
We are trampling all over individual rights with this type of legislation. We are doing it again in Bill C-66. If this government has its way, it will do that whenever it wants. Canadians will rise up and say "it is time that these guys got out of here and we put in somebody who does recognize that individual rights are there for a reason". That is why we are opposed to this motion.
The acrimony that can exist between management and unions in the event of a strike can be quite serious. It is our position to do everything we can to try to foster harmony and to bring that broken relationship together again so that management and labour can continue to produce goods and services to earn a living.
If we think the CIRB will be the font of all knowledge, be endowed with wisdom beyond the average man, be given powers that are vague, undetermined and yet very significant, and if we think these people will be able to do this type of job as a middleman, especially if it happens to be filled with patronage appointments by Liberals who are passed over or who did not win the election, we would find it rather difficult to put any credibility in the board whatsoever.
Therefore the Reform Party and common sense say surely this bill which says that this information can be passed to the unions under certain circumstances should be changed to allow it provided that the people agree.
Otherwise we will find that there will be a backlash down the road. It may be a backlash that the government does not come back after the election. Would that not be nice? It would be nice. Perhaps the government would have to reconsider.
Motion No. 50 would have the corporation returns act tabled in the House. I understand that our hon. colleagues from the separatist party want it referred to the HRD committee. I imagine that would be a matter of course. If we see a return tabled in the House we would, as a matter of course, refer it to the individual committee. I do not know exactly what my separatist friends are trying to achieve by this motion.
However, it may be like all the rest of the motions they have proposed which basically are to disrupt the entire management of the government and the affairs of Canada. I will just leave it at that.