Mr. Speaker, I am in agreement with my Reform colleague's speech on one point, the fact that our amendment concerning replacement workers says a lot about the kind of party we are.
We must admit that there is a lack of courage on the government side, since this does take courage. When government members were in the opposition, they were vociferous, they spared no energy, no word was strong enough to demand provisions prohibiting replacement workers.
Of the Reform Party we must say that it is not courage it lacks, but sensitivity. If it had not been for the Bloc Quebecois, this issue would not have been raised during today's debate.
The issue of replacement workers is not a recent concern for the Bloc Quebecois. The member for Richelieu introduced a private member's bill dealing with this very thing. The member for Bourassa and the member for Saint-Laurent followed suit.
It is incredible that we still have to justify, to explain why antiscab legislation, which prohibits the use of replacement workers, is an element of paramount importance to the balance we must always strive for in labour relations.
Why is a piece of legislation banning the use of replacement workers so important? Because it has to do with the violence and the length of labour disputes. Recently I looked at some statistics compiled by a professor of industrial relations regarding the bill passed in 1977 in Quebec. I had to laugh when the minister told us in committee that since there was no consensus we could not proceed. Do you think for one moment that there was a consensus in Quebec in 1977 when the government of René Lévesque, a most courageous man, decided to go ahead? Of course not.
Contrary to some of my colleagues, I was not very old in those days. If you recall, in 1977, when the Lévesque government went ahead with this, the Conseil du patronat threatened to go to court, the Liberal Party believed that it would be the first shot in a civil war. There was an atmosphere of fear that was nurtured by some very specific, clear-cut groups, whose immediate interest it served.
But once the Liberals were in office, do you think they challenged the antiscab legislation? Of course not. They realized it could not only make disputes more civilized, but also allow some kind of balance to be struck.
It takes some doing to come and tell us today that they could not go ahead because there was no consensus, because the necessary conditions were not met.
If this government had had the courage of its convictions and had stood by the positions taken when it sat on this side of the House, it would have endorsed the amendment proposed by the Bloc Quebecois. But it is not going to happen now because, on this issue as on many others, the members opposite lack the political courage required to take a position of their own.
A study conducted by a number of industrial relations experts shows that, Quebec in particular, but three other provinces as well, still have, for the most part, antiscab provisions. There was Quebec, British Columbia, Ontario. This meant that 50 per cent of Canada's labour force was protected by antiscab legislation.
When there are laws such as the ones I am describing, conflicts are resolved more quickly. This goes without saying, because the legislation forces the parties to negotiate. It also results in less violence. In those provinces where there are antiscab laws, the duration of conflicts was, on average, 35 per cent shorter than elsewhere. This means something after all. Yet, this Parliament still refuses to accept Quebec's position, which could have been beneficial to all workers.
What is worse is the hybrid, half-baked formula being proposed by the government, which thinks that the Canada Labour Relations Board will have to develop regulations and guidelines that woul allow it, when the union's representation duty will be undermined, to issue an order providing that replacement workers cannot be used.
We cannot imagine a more weird and crazy scenario than the one proposed by the government. At what point will it be determined that a union's ability to represent its members has been undermined? Is the objective to prohibit the use of replacement workers? This is absolutely crazy. It does not make any sense. No witness said anything of the sort. Could the minister tell us who, among university professors, unions, militants and workers, supported such a solution? Of course not, because it is a hybrid solution where one tries to play both ends against the middle, as is too often the case with the legislation put forward by the government.
It is rather disappointing and we would have liked for the government to take into consideration what is being done in the Province of Quebec, where section 109 of the Quebec Labour Code recognizes as an unfair practice the use of replacement workers by an employer. The Canada Labour Code clearly defines what is an unfair practice. An unfair practice, as defined, is an allegation that an employer, a trade union or an individual has taken part in an activity that is prohibited pursuant to the Canada Labour Code. And then a number of examples are given. At least six of them are traditionally linked to unfair practices.
Section 24 stipulates that no employer shall, after notification that the application for certification has been made, alter the conditions of employment, since this is considered an unfair practice. To negotiate in bad faith is clearly an unfair practice. We saw, closer to home, that such a recourse can be used. In the dispute opposing them to Air Canada and national airlines, regional carriers Air BC, Air Nova, Air Ontario and Air Alliance invoked section 50 in referring to the last negotiations.
A third example is employer interference in union business. It is also prohibited as an unfair practice.
For the union, failure to provide fair representation can be cause for legal action, as can failure to provide members with financial statements, although a bit unusual, and a certain number of prohibitions set out in section 95.
Since our historic entry into the House of Commons-and you will not often see an official opposition as dynamic as the one before you-we have made representations to successive labour ministers in order to ensure that our message is heard. One day, we will leave this Parliament and we will speak as equals within a true partnership. We would have liked, as a team of parliamentarians, to be able to say with pride that one of the contributions we made to this debate, a milestone in our time as the Bloc Quebecois team in the House of Commons, has been to convince English Canada and the government of the need to make labour relations more civilized and to adopt anti-scab legislation.
We are not admitting defeat. There are still a few weeks left before we are, perhaps, able to ask Quebecers once again for their vote. There will be another referendum, that is certain. I see the member from British Columbia, who has very definite ideas on a number of topics I would prefer not to get into. I can and I wish to tell her personally not to force me to go door to door in her riding. She knows very well that I am particularly fond of Vancouver.
I do not know if this is a human being in front of me. I heard loud shouts coming awfully close-