Mr. Speaker, it is too bad this bill which was brought in by my hon. colleague has come before the presentation of the national budget. I assure the House many people in Canada consider the passage of this bill as being more important than the important budget that is coming down today. The passage of this bill determines how negotiations will take place in the Canadian workplace.
It is tremendously interesting to note that the Privacy Act suddenly takes on a different meaning. When we passed Bill C-4, the wheat board bill, we absolutely had to have it. It is a public company, a government organization, but we will seal it up, we will lock it in, put the zipper on it. It required privacy.
Now we have something where privacy is thrown out the window depending on who you want to benefit. The benefit is if you want to protect the government organization, you want to protect the government business, you invoke the Privacy Act, but if you want to destroy something, you open up the Privacy Act.
I would caution workers, I would caution companies to take a very close look at this bill. Even if it does get passed, which we on this side hope it does not, I hope they will be able to come back to the government and say “You are violating a human public principle that we have had in Canada since 1867. You are about to wipe it out ”. The government pretends it does not see it in this bill.
I note that it says this board will have six permanent members, three from employees, three from employers and the interesting thing, as many part time members as who deems necessary? As the minister deems necessary. And how many are necessary, 20, 25? Let us see what the political decision is.
We have the labour on one side and the employers on the other. Twenty people are brought in from the government to tip the balance. The government will then determine whether it goes in favour of the employer or the employee. And that is fair? I cannot understand this government saying this bill is non-partisan when it opens the doors for more partisanship than we have every had in labour relations.
The unions supported me in the June 2 election. The reason they supported me was they understood that unless there was the type of policy which Reform is trying to introduce, their future was just about nil.
I refer to the clause that the board can end a stoppage if public health and safety are at risk. The largest union in my constituency is the coal workers who supply the coal to the Saskatchewan Power Corporation. They can never go on strike. They could let the 72 hours go by because supplying hydro would be considered in the interest of public safety. The union workers who mine the coal could never be in a strike position and could never be in a strong negotiating position because all the government has to do is declare that it is not in the best interests. We take away the right to strike from the largest union in my constituency. And we say that the bill is designed for modernization?