Debates of Feb. 20th, 1998

The House resumed from February 19 consideration of the motion that Bill C-19, an act to amend the Canada Labour Code (Part I) and the Corporations and Labour Unions Returns Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Canada Labour Code

[Jim Gouk, Reform, West Kootenay—Okanagan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, for clarification, as I understand it, the member from the Liberal Party had just finished speaking at the last period for debate on this bill and is now subject to a period of 10 minutes of questions and comments.

Is it possible to proceed in that way, given that comments can be made by opposition members relative to the speech she made?

[The Speaker]

Technically speaking it is, if the time is available. I do not know if the member is here.

The hon. member has 10 minutes of questions and comments coming to her. Are there any questions and comments?

[Jim Gouk, Reform, West Kootenay—Okanagan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I was reviewing the speech made by the hon. member when this bill was last debated in the House and I would like to comment on a couple of the things she stated.

First of all, and I am quoting from Hansard , she said: “I reject the view that collective bargaining is no longer relevant. The freedom of workers to organize and bargain collectively is a cornerstone of our democratic, market based society”.

She went on to suggest that Canadian employers have also benefited from the collective bargaining system. She said: “It helps to ensure stability, predictability and efficiency”. She goes on to state that 95% of collective agreements in Canada are negotiated without a work stoppage.

The problem is not with the 95% of the collective agreements which are settled without a work stoppage. The problem is the overwhelming impact of large national employers that represent the 5%. That is the stoppage we are worried about.

One side says do we penalize the 95% because of the problems created by the 5%? We say no, do not penalize anybody. Who says that something that started 150 years ago should carry on without change? Who says it should not be brought in at least to the 20th century as we approach the 21st?

Strikes and lockouts are not a part of collective bargaining. They are a result of the breakdown of collective bargaining. Strikes and lockouts are a form of coercion used by one side or the other to try to return to real collective bargaining.

What we need is a dispute settlement mechanism which works without causing catastrophic harm to Canadians, to Canadian workers, to Canadian business, to the Canadian economy and to our international reputation of having reliable suppliers.

She uses the words reliability, certainty and efficiency in her speech, but what we need is something which absolutely ensures Canadians that—

[The Speaker]

I will give the hon. member a chance to respond.

[Brenda Chamberlain, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my hon. colleague. His point is well taken.

There is no doubt that when 5% of the workforce is affected by a strike or a lockout, a disruption in service, there is an impact. However, it must be balanced with the fact that collective bargaining has been and continues to be in some fields a very necessary tool in maintaining safety in the workplace and work standards, in setting hours that are to be worked to avoid inordinate hours and in setting types of pay. Collective bargaining is important in many different aspects.

As the hon. member pointed out, 95% to 97% of all bargaining is settled. That is a heck of a good record. When both sides sit down they have the opportunity to air their complaints and they come to an agreement. That agreement fosters a good working environment. People want to work together and they want the company to do well.

We have to look at all sides of the issue. In this piece of legislation there are a number of riders and conditions concerning strike and lockout rights which will be helpful, such as the provision for a 72 hour advance notice of a strike or lockout which must be given to the other party and filed with the minister of labour. That will avoid surprising the parties and the public.

There are a number of key things such as that in the bill.

[The Speaker]

My colleagues, if I know how many hon. members want to ask questions or make comments then I can divide the time.

[René Canuel, Bloc, Matapédia—Matane, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of clarification from my hon. colleague.

I would say that a lockout or a strike is serious enough as it is. I cannot understand why there is no provision in this Bill C-19 to prevent the employer from hiring replacement workers. When there are disputes, sometimes, there is violence. In Quebec, we have antiscab legislation prohibiting the replacement of strikers.

I wonder why a similar provision was not included in this bill, so that workers cannot be replaced while on strike. I think this would make the rules of the game clearer. This would prevent acts of violence. It would prevent outbursts of anger and fights.

[Brenda Chamberlain, Liberal, Guelph—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to answer this question. The reason that the bill does allow for some conditions for replacement workers is that we believe the bill has to be balanced and fair.

We will hear Reform Party members say they want that very strongly. We will hear the NDP and the Bloc say they do not want any.

The reality is that the Liberal Party has always stood for fairness and balance in trying to find a compromise that is workable. That is what we are trying to achieve in this bill, some sort of compromise that allows for employers to continue if it is needed, but that there are safeguards.

There are things in the bill like the formation of the new board which my colleague from Lambton—Kent—Middlesex is going to address later this morning.

They all are an integral part of the bill which will make it work well. I really hope members will support this. I went to Vancouver with the minister and we had about 140 individuals come to speak to us, with very few dissenting votes on this bill.

Farmers pleaded for it. We had labour pleading for it. We had several different types of management pleading for it. I think we really need to get on with this. It needs reform and we are going to try to do that in a balanced way.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the aspects of Bill C-19 that we are optimistic about is the composition of the new industrial relations board.

I would like to ask if the parliamentary secretary to the minister could speak a little about how she might see the composition of this new board speeding the backlog of cases currently pending.

One aspect is that, from this point onwards, a single chair or vice-chair might be able to hear certain matters, rather than waiting for the composition of the full three person panel. We would hope that might be able to expedite a backlog of cases.

I would be interested in hearing some targets or goals or ways she might be planning on dealing with that.

[Brenda Chamberlain, Liberal, Guelph—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is very kind of my hon. colleague to allow me to elaborate a little on this because I think it is a key part in the good working of this bill.

The bill provides for the establishment of a new representational industrial relations board to replace the non-representational Canada labour relations board. I think that is a key part.

The statute will require that the chair and vice-chairs have experience and expertise in industrial relations. It seems to be common sense, although it was not always there, that the minister consult employer and employee organizations on the appointment of representative members, again a really good thing.

It will make the board more responsive. It will provide flexibility necessary to ensure that applications are dealt with in a timely manner and allow for a more cost effective administration of the code and encourage the use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, which again is key because we are looking at different ways to solve disputes. That is key when we have problems in this area.

It will address complex labour relations issues in today's changing workplace, a very important part of this bill.

[Jim Gouk, Reform, West Kootenay—Okanagan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is West Kootenay—Okanagan. A number of MPs have a bill in to amend the names of ridings. By the time you have got it, it is going to change again. I just thought I would put you on warning.

I am very pleased to rise speak to Bill C-19. There is a lot to be said about it and I believe a lot of people in the House will be speaking about it today.

It is interesting that the Liberal member who just spoke said it was neither fish nor fowl. They like to sit in the middle. They have not really done a lot for this side or that side. They have done a bit here and a bit there. Sometimes that works and other times it does not. This is an example of when that type of approach to things simply does not work. Instead of fixing the problems, they make it a little bad for both sides. In other words, they reduce the problem to the lowest common denominator of a problem.

It is appropriate that I lead off with a reiteration of the Reform Party's written policy on labour, the right of workers to organize democratically, bargain collectively and strike peacefully.

I would like to break that down into three separate parts so we can deal with exactly how the bill relates to our written policy on these things. The first one is the right to organize democratically.

Democracy can refer to the right of an individual or it can refer to the right of a group. In the case of the bill it allows the renamed CIRB to certify a union without the support of a majority of the employees. The bill also allows the CIRB to order an employer to release to the union the name and addresses of employees who work off site without requiring the employees' permission. Both these provisions totally ignore the rights of individual employees and ignore the rights of employee groups.

How can it possibly be said that democracy is being upheld, the question of organizing democratically, if the majority of the bargaining unit or the employee group has not said they want to be part of this union but this new CIRB can go ahead and establish it anyway? That is hardly organizing democratically. It is basically one person or a small group of people making an arbitrary decision for a very large group of people. That is something that flies in the face of democracy.

Likewise, to say that an off site employee, a contracted employee, can have his name and address applied to a union without his permission is also undemocratic. If the Liberal Party is looking for balance, this thing that says we do not want to go too far this way or too far that way, how about making a requirement that the employer pass on to these individuals materials supplied by the unions? These individuals would have an opportunity to see what the union is proposing, what it wants to do and a way of contacting it if that is what they choose to do.

However, to arbitrarily hand out names of non-union people to the union so that they can take whatever action they choose to take, I do not think meets the test of democracy at all.

The second part of our written policy deals with collective bargaining, the right to bargain collectively. Here is where I differ from the member who just spoke and the NDP member who intervened in questions and comments. I do not see taking away the right to strike in certain situations as ending collective bargaining. I do not understand the concept of thinking or lack thereof that goes through someone's head when they say that strikes are what collective bargaining is all about.

Strikes are an indicator of the failure of the collective bargaining system. That is all it is. Collective bargaining involves three things. I have told hon. members this before. Maybe if I tell them enough it will start to sink in. There are three components to collective bargaining: negotiation, conciliation and mediation. Those are the tools of collective bargaining.

When collective bargaining fails we have a strike by the employees or a lockout by the employer. It is pure and simple. Even then that strike or that lockout does not solve the impasse. It drives them back to the other point where either an offer comes through negotiation or they go back to mediation and conciliation. Strikes and lockouts do not solve problems. They are a form of coercion that is used to drive the other side back to one of the three steps of collective bargaining.

Consider the taking away of the right to strike of workers in certain situations, essential services. Let us use an example that everybody accepts. Would we expect to see the police standing on the sidewalk watching someone being beaten, mugged, raped or killed and doing nothing because they were on strike? Of course we would not. We understand that in the public interest we must have the police on duty. Even the NDP accepts that.

Have we done away with collective bargaining? Why can we not allow them to negotiate, to have conciliation, and to have mediation? If all those things broke down, the only difference would be that rather than go on strike and get into the scenario I have just described we would have a dispute settlement mechanism that is as fair as possible.

We will talk a little later, as I am sure many members expect, about final offer arbitration. The point is that during the kind of collective bargaining where the right to strike is not an end result, if something goes wrong we still have the collective bargaining process. During that process any method of settlement could be agreed upon. Right now we can still do that.

When someone is negotiating and things are not going well, if they have the right to strike the decision can be to go on strike or to lock the employees out. They can mutually agree to binding arbitration. They can agree to flipping a coin. They can agree to just about anything. Under what we have proposed they could still do that.

Final offer arbitration is a dispute settlement mechanism that is used to prevent work disruption that has a catastrophic impact on Canadians, our economy, our business and our international reputation. They can still settle on whatever other method they want. All we want is to have some dispute settlement mechanism that can be used if all else fails and they cannot agree on anything else.

The third part is to strike peacefully. We believe in the right of unions under normal circumstances to strike peacefully if things have not gone well. It is a very inefficient way to settle the problems, but in the normal run of things we agree that under the present process they can strike if they cannot reach a settlement and this is the route they choose to go, as long as it is a peaceful strike.

Maybe the question of what is and what is not peaceful needs to be examined. Peaceful does not necessarily refer only to the lack of violence. A strike, for example in the port of Vancouver, impacts on business and industry across British Columbia because they need products coming in through the port The strike could involve towns and communities being shut down and workers being laid off.

This could happen in certain small towns in my riding. In one town the principal employer is a smelter. In another town the principal employer is a pulp mill. If they cannot export their products or bring in ore or the different supplies and materials they need to run their plants, they shut down entire towns. It affects farmers right across the prairies.

Is that peaceful? Is it peaceful when the entire economy of a town is thrown into turmoil and some people lose their businesses or their livelihoods? Maybe they have mortgaged their homes to put money into their businesses and they risk losing them. They are not even part of the negotiation process. They are an example of what happens when it goes wrong.

Over the past few years we have had national port strikes and national rail strike. I had the same problem in my riding during the national rail strike. We reached a point where it was almost a shutdown of the economies of entire communities.

We have just had a Canada Post strike, the fourth strike in 10 years. Each time it ends up in legislation. Is this a good process? Should we let them go on strike? Should we say “Yes, you have the right to strike, but when you go out we will legislate you back”, or should we come up with something that meaningfully deals with some form of dispute settlement mechanism? It would ensure that workers would not lose their wages and the company would not lose its revenue and ultimately some of its business, which means jobs for the employees. What about all the people who are impacted by mail dependent businesses?

Maybe we need to look at this situation collectively. I realize that each party has different political philosophies and points of view. Instead of standing on our own little hills and saying I am right, maybe we need to sit down together to find some way to address all the problems.

The bill, by singling out the grain industry for special consideration, is acknowledging the need to make special provisions. Why do we not do it across the board? The bill recognizes that there should be some certainty in the ability of farmers to ship grain and in our fulfilling international grain contracts.

In this case we are talking of the ports. What about all the other things that go through ports? A tremendous amount of potash from Saskatchewan used to be shipped internationally through the port of Vancouver. The port was so unreliable that the Saskatchewan potash industry made a deal with the port of Portland, Oregon, to build new facilities. It is shipped by rail down there. It is felt to be a much more certain method of shipment. The port of Vancouver has lost that business.

Workers have lost work because of strikes which have resulted in shippers being concerned about the reliability of that port. That business has gone. They cannot come back and sign a 10 year contract. Those facilities have been built and the contracts have been made down there. That is business lost to Canada. That is revenue lost to Canada. Those are jobs lost to Canadians.

When we start questioning the right to strike, we are not only doing it for business, for taxes, or for things of that nature. We are doing it for jobs, about which I am sure the other parties feel very strongly. They want more jobs for Canadians. They want better jobs for Canadians. We cannot have better jobs for Canadians if Canadians lose their jobs because the people who use the services do not feel confident about them.

Strikes and lockouts hit absolutely everyone. They hit the businesses, employees and jobs I have just described. Everybody is impacted. It is an old, archaic way of dealing with a problem. We have to find a new way.

I would like to touch on one aspect of the bill on which I admit that I differ from my own party's position. Who says at any time that everything is right or everything is wrong? There are always different colours. I want to address the fact that I differ for a very specific reason on the point of replacement workers. I happen not to like the concept of replacement workers. From my point of view I would be quite happy if there were no replacement workers. I know this is at odds with my party. The strength of our party is the fact that we do not all have to stand and sing off the same song sheet.

The whole concept of strikes is stupid. It has to be changed and I have already addressed that at length. Replacement workers tilt the scales to one side. If there is a strike or a lockout employees cannot replace the company. They cannot replace management and go back to work while management stays out because they did not co-operate. How can there be an offset of balance on the other side? They cannot replace the company but the company can replace them.

The collective bargaining system needs to be amended so that we have a better dispute settlement mechanism and there are no strikes. Then the question of replacement workers will not even come up. While it is there, all we are doing is trying to soften some of the impacts of strikes to make like it is not as bad as it is. It is bad.

Some people might find this humorous, but I recently saw a rerun of an old episode of the original Star Trek program. A planet had been at war for 300 years. In order to get rid of the carnage and the destruction of its civilization, buildings and everything else, it agreed to fight the war by computer. What happened was another world mounted an attack by computer. The computer decided how effective the attack would be and how many people would have to be killed. Then they just marched 125,000, or however many there were, into destruction chambers. Nice and clean, no carnage, no destruction of their buildings or anything. And because they had done it in this clean way to soften the impact of the real horrors of war, the war had gone on for 300 years.

Good old Captain Kirk went in and destroyed all the destruction chambers so they could not meet their quota and then the real war started. He said that was what was necessary to solve the war because as long as you keep putting band-aids on something, you are never going to have the real impact of problems and consequently you are not going to deal with the real problems.

In this case it is strikes and lockouts. We cannot keep putting in things that tilt the balance of the real horrors of strikes and lockouts. Let it get to its absolute worst and then maybe finally people will realize we have to find a better way to resolve these things.

For the Reform Party the better way is final offer arbitration. I have spoken to union groups and business groups all over the country on this particularly in my own riding. One of the things I say is if there is something better that does not result in a work disruption, I am all for it. If they would rather do something else as long as it does not end up in a work disruption, then I think that is great. But until such time as someone comes forward with a better idea, and given that I am totally opposed to work disruptions because they are bad for absolutely everybody, then I think this is a viable alternative.

Final offer arbitration is something designed first of all to bring the employer and the employee as close together as possible. Hopefully that 95% becomes 96%, 97%, 98%, as close to 100% as can humanly be brought. There are always going to be some difficulties where employees and employers simply will not settle.

Let us talk about wages. Simplistically put if it is a wage item and all the economic indicators in the marketplace suggest that a rightful raise is $1.50 and the company offers $1 and the union says it wants $5, the union is going to end up getting 50 cents less than it would reasonably be entitled to because it was unreasonable in its demands. Likewise if the union says it wants $2 and the employer says “We do not think you deserve anything and we are not offering anything”, the employees are going to get 50 cents more than they were reasonably entitled to. Each side knows it. And if they want to roll the dice and say `We are going to try for $5 just in case the arbitrator is sleeping and lets this slide through', it is not going to work.

There are suggestions that it is still a roll of the dice. It depends on how the actual mechanism is designed. It can be designed in such a way so that it cannot be an arbitrary decision of either this package or that package. Rather it has to be weighed against a whole number of economic indicators, the cost of living, past raises, the ability of the company to pay, comparability as to what other industries in comparable workplaces are paying, all of these different factors.

That can be designed into it. There can be a requirement that the arbitrator or arbitration panel, if that is the way it is designed, has to make a decision as to which one is closest to meeting all of the requirements. Then when the arbitrator is finished a report has to be prepared justifying the package that has been chosen against each of those indicators.

We can design something that will work. It will work for both sides. It will work for the employer and it will work for the employee, but every bit as important if not more so, it works for everybody else in Canada who is impacted by these strikes.

A small strike that deals with a store and its employees in a small group and there are alternatives for customers and there is no major impact is one thing. However when there are strikes that shut down the industry of this entire country, we have to recognize that we have globally grown to the point where it is no longer feasible to have work disruptions in certain industries.

This bill recognizes that in the grain industry. Why stop there? If it is recognized that the problems in the grain industry are too overwhelming, then why can it not be seen that this needs to be expanded to others as well, to the mining industry, to the forestry industry, to all of the other industries so that Canada can once again have a reputation of being reliable.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a number of points I would like to raise with regard to the speech by the hon. Reform critic.

He started with a comment on what he thought was an unfair aspect of the bill. It had to do with the automatic certification in an organizing drive where the union can demonstrate that there were unfair labour practices, or where the board finds there were unfair labour practices the board may then intervene and grant certification even if the number of union cards signed does not indicate a majority vote.

I challenge the Reform critic's reaction to this. It is very much an issue of basic fairness and natural justice in that where there is interference to the point where the true wishes of the employees cannot be figured out because there has been interference, then it should be the role of the board to intervene just to give them the benefit of the doubt and grant that certification.

The counterbalancing aspect of this is that a year later, after the certification has been granted, if those same employees do not like being represented by a union, they can decertify just as easily as they certified. Many people do not realize that. A group of employees can make application to the board at any time and decertify just as they can certify the union. I really do not think it is an issue and it is one of the fairer aspects of the code.

The member spoke a number of times on how strikes, work lockouts and interruptions are in fact violent figuratively and literally. I would argue that withholding one's services is the most peaceful way of dealing with any kind of an impasse in the bargaining process. In fact it is a form of passive resistance. It is time honoured. All through history groups that have not had access to sources of power traditionally have used the act of withholding their services to add emphasis to their argument.

I do have other things I would like to speak about but lastly, the member and I have had the argument about final offer selection a number of times and I am not going to speak to that at length. In fact I would like to recognize the—

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for West Kootenay—Okanagan.

[Jim Gouk, Reform, West Kootenay—Okanagan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief because I know there is another question.

First, I point out to the hon. member that I am not the labour critic. I just happen to be speaking on this bill on behalf of our labour critic.

Second, the hon. member talked about interference in the process of certification by giving them the benefit of the doubt. Why not give them the benefit of the doubt the other way? That cuts two ways. If there is no proof that those employees want to join, then why not have it conducted by a separate vote individually for those people and find out. Do not just arbitrarily assume that they were interfered with so they would have joined.

The concept that they can just decertify after a year is an absolute crock. The member knows full well that once a union is in place, if those workers step forward and identify themselves as being opposed to that union, boy, if they do not get it decertified they have a major problem inside that bargaining unit.

The second thing the hon. member talked about was passive resistance, the peacefulness of a strike. He totally missed the point which unfortunately is not really surprising.

Where the problem lies, and I used an analogy to violence, is when families are going hungry, when businessmen in small businesses are losing their jobs, are losing their businesses and perhaps are losing their homes. Entire communities are shut down because the services impacted on them. When that happens, that is my understanding of something which is not peaceful, not violent in the physical sense but certainly violent in terms of disrupting good Canadians' lives.

[Derrek Konrad, Reform, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will speak rather specifically and I do not know whether the member will want to respond.

Over the years a number of things have happened in the transportation industry. The statutory freight rate was dropped and rail line abandonments are taking place. All of this was supposed to help western diversification. People were supposed to begin processing agricultural products inland to reduce some shipping charges or things like that. These kinds of things now take place, but under the current regime the things that are protected at port are the unprocessed agricultural products like grain.

My riding happens to have a number of dehy plants. Their concern is that their products are not protected under legislation like this. They ship their products out to the coast. Grain shipments are protected but we are talking about all farm income, not just the grain portion of it.

This legislation is deficient in this regard. It does not really protect farmers' interests the way it is meant to. It protects the grain industry, but it does not necessarily protect the agricultural industry. Small shippers will be left vulnerable because the government would be under pressure to deal with the strike where grains are concerned but it would not be under any pressure to seek a resolution for the smaller shippers like agricultural dehy plants.

I would like to bring that to the attention of the House. Not everything fits into broad definitions. Consequently we need a mechanism that will protect everybody. I believe that the final offer arbitration selection process is the way to go, aside from having to have an exception or something written into every piece of legislation, such as the grain transportation act and things like that.

I would like to see the House seriously consider what our hon. member is proposing.

[Jim Gouk, Reform, West Kootenay—Okanagan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief in my response. The hon. member raises a good point. I brought it up at length during my speech in debate.

It cannot be said too often that government recognizes the need to intercede in the grain industry, therefore why can it not recognize that need in other agricultural areas, in mining and forestry and in all the other commodities that are shipped? There cannot be special treatment for one.

I want to make it absolutely clear that we are not suggesting that grain be taken out. We think the fact that the government recognizes it is a small baby step in the right direction. What we are asking the government to do now is to recognize that it actually, by accident or otherwise, did something right, and to build on that and to do something right, to protect all industries, all agricultural sectors not just one small part.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, on the subject of FOS, I would like to actually move a little from the arguments that I have had with the previous speaker a number of times on final offer selection. As he is aware, I have used final offer selection in the province of Manitoba and I am well aware of the whole process.

The difference between the legislation in Manitoba and what the hon. member has been putting forward here is that the employees get to vote on whether or not they would use the final offer selection process. Therefore either party, the employer or the employees, can make application in this case to the provincial government to use the process. The labour board would then supervise a vote of all the employees. If the majority of the employees chose to settle the round of bargaining by FOS, so be it. There would be no strike, no lockout and a final selection arbitrator would ultimately choose.

In a situation like that, I have no argument. I think it is a useful tool. We recognize that. I have actually used it in my personal labour relations experience. I will give that.

[Jim Gouk, Reform, West Kootenay—Okanagan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his intervention on this point. I understand how it worked in his home province. It worked well but it worked slightly differently.

I hear objections but I do not hear alternatives. If he thinks final offer arbitration is not the best way to proceed, surely he would not say the only viable alternative is economic mayhem in this country, having people from one end of the country to the other who are not part of the strike, are not part of the bargaining group, impacted sometimes catastrophically.

If he would come up with an alternative which would solve the problem of job disruption, which would deal fairly with the—

[The Speaker]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Mississauga West.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex.

I want to talk a bit about some of the issues the previous speaker touched on. I also want to talk about what is the role of government in the area of labour relations.

I suggest that, very important, the role of government is to try to establish a balanced and level playing field which has some fairness. We see that in provincial governments. We have seen it traditionally in the federal government.

When the hon. member opposite talks about final offer arbitration as being the panacea to labour unrest, I think he misses a number of key points.

I do not believe that responsible labour leaders want to lead their people on strike. They want to negotiate the best deal they can for the men and women in the rank and file. They know the hardship of going out on strike. Many have come up through the rank and file. They know the last thing they want to do is lead their people out on strike.

What the hon. member did not mention is that these labour leaders are elected. Indeed they are politicians. I know a bit about it because my father was one for 26 years, the national director of the United Steelworkers of America, a vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress and the chairman of the ICFTU in Brussels. He has had a bit of experience in the area of labour relations, as have I.

During my previous incarnation in the Ontario legislature I was the labour critic for the Liberal Party when Mr. Rae was in power. Believe me, there were a number of issues which came forward in that regime. It was a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.

Members have talked about a number of issues. They have talked about replacement workers.

[An hon. member]

What happened to you?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

The member asks what happened to me. Fundamentally, all the labour leaders today, particularly industrial labour leaders, are vice-presidents of the New Democratic Party. That was not the case in the days of Bill Mahoney. That was not the case in the days of Joe Morris. That was not the case in the days of Charlie Mallard. That was because they understood that it was their responsibility to represent the men and women who elected them at every level of government. If they walked into a meeting with John Diefenbaker, Mike Pearson or a Conservative provincial premier they knew that person automatically knew they were a vice-president of the party whose main goal in life was to destroy the government—

[An hon. member]

So they were dishonest.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Excuse me. The member is suggesting my dad and those people were dishonest? I find that to be a repugnant comment from the member of the New Democratic Party.

It was quite the opposite. They were honest, dedicated and faithful to the people they worked for, the men and women who elected them.

I want to tell him something else. I believe it was in 1958. I was a fairly young boy and it was Christmas time. We had a large family. My mom and dad had 10 kids. They were both in labour quite often. There was a strike in district 6 which involved the cities of Hamilton and Sault Ste. Marie. It was a big strike. It was a big issue.

My dad was the national director. I remember my family having some pretty good Christmases, but this one Christmas was particularly lean. My mother explained to me that my father was on strike pay and that it would be a difficult Christmas. Is that not interesting?

The member opposite says he would like to see some solutions that would avoid strikes. How about if the head of the union goes on strike pay when he or she leads their membership out on strike? That might make them change their minds. This is just an alternative idea that I throw out to the member.

The problem with final offer selection is that it works only in financial matters. There is a lot more involved in labour negotiations and labour relations than simply the $1.50 raise the member talked about. There are health and safety issues, conditions in the workplace and the term of the contract. There can be a lot of different issues put forward that simply will not fit in that neat little box that the Reform Party seems to want to wrap up labour relations into.

I heard a member asking if we would expect a police officer to stand by and watch a crime being committed because they were on strike. Everybody knows that the police and firefighters cannot strike. That is a given. That is not what we are talking about.

What we are talking about in this bill is creating a level playing field where labour and management can sit down and negotiate. What are they negotiating? The workers, through their leadership, are negotiating with the only tool they have, their services. Their services are their product. They can go to management and tell it what their services are, that they are underpaid, conditions are bad, they are concerned about its health and safety track record and they want management to improve things.

Some people will say unions were important back in the 1930s and 1940s but they are not important today. I strongly disagree with that. I did not follow in my dad's footsteps in the labour movement. I went into business. I too have concerns when there are irresponsible strikes, which we have all seen. However, I also have concerns when there are companies that refuse to bargain in good faith.

What we are putting forward are a number of amendments that will bring some form of calm to the labour relations movement in this country and bring clarity to the ability to certify a union. What can possibly be wrong with saying to a new organizing union that it must get somewhere between 35% and 50% of the people to join its union and sign a card before a vote is ordered? If the union gets over 50%, which is not just a matter of submitting cards but a clear indication that men and women who have signed these cards want to form a union, then the board can certify a majority of the people who would be in the union or could call for a vote.

In some jurisdictions such as Ontario we have seen where some unions have said that there was going to be a vote no matter what. Even if 90% of the cards are signed, the union does not care because it is an automatic vote and it is a right of democracy. I understand the rationale behind that, but there are also a lot of problems in the federal area when that occurs simply because many of the jurisdictions we are talking about are right across the country.

When we talk about people who work in the airline industry they can come from all across the country. When they land in Montreal are we going to run up and get them to sign a card or cast a ballot as they leave the airplane and come down the ramp? It is very difficult. There must be more structure just because of the 700,000 men and women who work in the private sector regulated under the federal act. That is what this does.

I would also like to talk briefly about what I think is totally a red herring, the issue of giving out names and addresses to people who work off site.

We live in a different economy today. We see what is happening in the union movement. It is now trying to organize McDonald's, taxi companies and other service industries. In the case of the Canadian Auto Workers, only 25% of the membership of the CAW work in the automobile industry.

It is all over the map. Why? The union is a business. It is a thing called dues. When it gets those dues, it has more money. It has more money, it has more members. It has more members, it has more influence in this place and all legislatures. What is wrong with that? That is democracy. It is growing its business. Members would say it ties things up.

Am I out of time already?