House of Commons Hansard #104 of the 36th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was workers.

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Division No. 137Government Orders

10:55 a.m.

The Deputy Speaker

I declare the motion carried.

The House resumed from May 8 consideration of 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, as reported (with amendment) from the committee; and of Motions Nos. 9 and 28.

Division No. 137Government Orders

11 a.m.

Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-19.

This debate has not been shut down. The proof that it has not been shut down is that a moment ago the opposition concluded that there was nothing further to say about the issue because it was not putting up more speakers.

The point I am getting to, as the House will easily recognize, is that we are not shutting the debate down. While I am speaking I am actually extending the debate and giving further opportunity for hon. members to participate.

I am sure the Chair has recognized this fully. We will be able to participate constructively, explaining all the good reasons why the amendments proposed by some hon. members in the opposition are unnecessary and superfluous in some cases. The bill as presented by my hon. colleague, the Minister of Labour, is the appropriate one.

Just so the House fully understands this bill and the amendments that are proposed, this bill actually made its way through the House of Commons in the last parliament. It then went on to the other place. Unfortunately the consideration of the bill was not completed at the time of the last election and because of that the bill must start back anew.

The bill was started again, was fully considered, went through second reading and then went to committee. In committee the bill was unfortunately stalled by the opposition. As a matter of fact, opposition members filibustered the bill and we had to obtain the good services of many members of the government who stayed in the committee hours and hours listening to speeches from members.

Division No. 137Government Orders

11 a.m.

Reform

Jay Hill Reform Prince George—Peace River, BC

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If I am not mistaken, I believe right now we are supposed to be debating Group No. 3 amendments at report stage of this very important bill, not talking about what happened in the last parliament.

Division No. 137Government Orders

11 a.m.

The Deputy Speaker

The hon. member is absolutely correct but I assumed the government House leader was trying to draw a parallel between what happened in the last parliament and this bill, which I assume he will do very promptly in order to avoid a repeat of this point of order.

Division No. 137Government Orders

11 a.m.

Liberal

Don Boudria Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Mr. Speaker, I think I have just demonstrated how the opposition again is not listening. In fact, I was describing the events in committee two weeks ago on this bill. It was not in the last parliament but two weeks ago that his own colleagues were filibustering on this bill.

The strange thing about it is that the amendments which are deemed to be necessary by the opposition at this point were not even introduced in committee after all the debate.

Division No. 137Government Orders

11 a.m.

Progressive Conservative

Jean Dubé Progressive Conservative Madawaska—Restigouche, NB

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think if the hon. member wants to make a speech he should not have cut off debate. We should be debating this in the proper manner.

Division No. 137Government Orders

11 a.m.

The Deputy Speaker

I am afraid that is not a point of order.

Division No. 137Government Orders

11 a.m.

Liberal

Don Boudria Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Mr. Speaker, I notice that the hon. member is not too familiar with the bill, and that is okay. He is also not very familiar with the standing orders because he rose on a point of order which was not one. But that is okay.

The point I am making is that the government is fully interested in constructive debate. We are going to have two more full days of debate on this bill. We are going to be considering it at report stage today. We can remain on the same grouping, move on to the next grouping and so on all day, which we will gladly do. At the end of the day today we will be voting on all the amendments, then we will have a full day again at third reading stage. Finally, the bill will go to the other place where it will receive full consideration by the hon. members of the other place who are going to give it all the usual good work—

Division No. 137Government Orders

11:05 a.m.

Reform

Randy White Reform Langley—Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have been sitting here trying to understand what the government House leader is really talking about in Group No. 3 of the bill, which deals with successor rights and not what the Liberal government wanted to do or did do.

We on this side would like to debate the bill. If the government House leader has nothing further to say that is useful, maybe he should sit down.

Division No. 137Government Orders

11:05 a.m.

The Deputy Speaker

I am sure the government House leader is making efforts to come to the point of the amendments before the House in Group No. 3, as all hon. members strive to do in their remarks on any bill.

The Chair is trying to be lenient to ensure that members are relevant in their remarks. I know we are looking forward to the government House leader's specific comments on these clauses.

Division No. 137Government Orders

11:05 a.m.

Liberal

Don Boudria Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Mr. Speaker, I know there are only a couple of minutes left so I will attempt to summarize very briefly my comments on the bill and on the amendments. I recognize the amendments have to do with successor rights.

The point I was making to the House is that the opposition has consumed all this time and—

Division No. 137Government Orders

11:05 a.m.

An hon. member

Get back to the amendments.

Division No. 137Government Orders

11:05 a.m.

Liberal

Don Boudria Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

That is what I am going to say right now if the hon. member will pay attention.

The opposition is pretending that we did not give this enough time for debate. There are two things wrong with that argument. One, the amendment in question that he is now describing was never put before the committee. It should have been put before the committee and there was lots of time for—

Division No. 137Government Orders

11:05 a.m.

Reform

Ken Epp Reform Elk Island, AB

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. This member is far away from debating Group No. 3. He is talking about the vote that was held 15 minutes ago. He is talking about time allocation. He should be talking about Group No. 3, specifically successor rights, which is what is of interest. We resent the fact that he, having invoked closure, prevents us from speaking to the—

Division No. 137Government Orders

11:05 a.m.

The Deputy Speaker

Hon. members are raising points of order in respect of relevance. Sitting here for a large part of this debate I have heard a good deal of it.

We are on report stage amendments. Particularly after a time allocation motion has been put it is not uncommon to have a fair bit of discussion on time allocation. I am reluctant to rule that out of order. I did hear the House leader refer to successor rights earlier in his remarks and I know he has a great interest in the subject and in the bill. Obviously his interest is so profound he has chosen to speak on the bill, which he is now doing.

I hope hon. members would want to hear his remarks because I am sure that at some point they are going to be pithy in relation to Group No. 3 amendments.

Division No. 137Government Orders

11:05 a.m.

Liberal

Don Boudria Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Mr. Speaker, I conclude my remarks by congratulating the Minister of Labour for the excellent work he has done in piloting the legislation.

I am sure I speak on behalf of all hon. members in also congratulating the parliamentary secretary who has done such a fantastic job of piloting the bill through the House and in committee in the face of the filibuster put up almost exclusively by the Reform Party, which does not want to see labour legislation advance in parliament.

We in the government and all Liberal MPs are very much interested in good labour legislation and it is unfortunate that the hon. members across do not share the enthusiasm that we in the government have demonstrated.

With that, I support everything that has been done by the Minister of Labour. I do not support the Reform amendments. After all, we are generally reasonable people around here and we cannot support the Reform amendments which have not even been subjected to the scrutiny of the committee. Reform MPs were only interested in filibustering. They did not even make the case in committee for what they are proposing now.

Division No. 137Government Orders

11:10 a.m.

Reform

Diane Ablonczy Reform Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The government has cut off time on this debate. I can understand why the government House leader would want to make an apology for the government, but can we not spend time on this bill? This is what—

Division No. 137Government Orders

11:10 a.m.

The Deputy Speaker

I am sorry, but with great respect to hon. members there seem to be a lot of points of order that are really points for debate. The government House leader was addressing the amendments and indicating his opposition to the amendments. I think he was on topic.

Division No. 137Government Orders

11:10 a.m.

Reform

Chuck Strahl Reform Fraser Valley, BC

Mr. Speaker, I will talk about successor rights as that is what we are debating today. It is unfortunate that we are now facing time allocation which means there will only be a few more speeches on this topic. Ten minutes of it just went down the drain due to some kind of diatribe from the House leader which I will not describe in further detail.

It is the 40th occasion the Liberal government has introduced time allocation to restrict people's ability to debate things. It is ironic that in our own rules of the House, Beauchesne's describes that is the job of opposition and it is within the realm of the tactics of opposition to talk at length on a bill it opposes. It is part of what an opposition party does in order to draw attention to the weakness of government legislation.

This is a weak bill although it depends on which you want to look at it. It is a very strong bill in that it is unbalanced. There is too much emphasis on cabinet rights and union rights and not enough emphasis on general worker rights, which may not necessarily be union, and the rights of parliament.

The successor rights clause is part of another one of these bills that give cabinet an awful lot of power to determine successor rights. This is almost exclusively in the area of airport prescreening security measures. There is a selection for us. The government of the day picks a particular occupation, not just transport but in this case airlines. Then it narrows it down further to just one part of the airline industry, the security industry. Then it narrows it down further to one part of security, airport prescreening. There is a special category in the bill that applies to those in airport prescreening and allows successor rights even when contracted out.

Although there may be a contract with an airport facility that involves prescreening security measures, this activity is the only one covered under this labour code that has the special provisions allocated to it. It does not talk about maintenance of airports, it does not talk about air traffic controllers, it does not talk about a lot of things. It talks about one thing. Who knows why that industry has been singled out as something that deserves successor rights. We do not think that part should be singled out. We think good labour practices apply equally to all people on both sides of the equation, workers and employers.

A good part of our airport facilities are contracted out.

That was a decision of the Liberal government. I fully supported it. Why they have decided that this thing should have successor rights nobody knows. I cannot understand why.

When people put in a bid for a job they should come in as bona fide employers in a jurisdiction and say they have experience, personnel and training. They may be unionized; they may not be unionized. That is a decision for the workers in the company to decide. They make a bid in all good faith for a particular service. They should be allowed to bid on an equal basis.

What happened in British Columbia? Perhaps I can use an example not just of successor rights but of when there is not balanced labour legislation. B.C. has an NDP government which is a lot like the Liberal government. It decides that only unions can apply for particular road building contracts on Vancouver Island.

A paid up, law abiding tax paying corporation of some sort with a long track record can be building roads to beat the band in British Columbia. It could bid on a highway project and say that it will fulfil not just this labour code because it is provincial but all labour code requirements and that its workers will decide what union they belong to or whether they belong to a union at all. They will decide what wages they work for because they have the power to withdraw their services as does every worker, and the corporation will be bid on the project accordingly.

The NDP Government of British Columbia said that they do not have that right. If it does not like the union, if they are part of the Christian labour union movement, for example, it is too bad. It cannot bid on the project because they are not part of the unions the government likes.

The highway goes ahead. It is ironic that the biggest construction companies do not mind the law. It gives them a chance to bid against a smaller number of bidders. They are all in the same unions together, the biggest outfits, the ones with thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars of work.

However, if a smaller outfit is just starting out or does not have a union that is affiliated, it is too bad. Tough toe nails; it does not get to bid. It does not even get to bid on the job.

Successor rights do a similar sort of thing. They say to employers or maybe to a co-operative that wants to bid on a project, whatever it might be, that cabinet will have the power to determine these successor rights and that is just the way it is.

In other words, they come in and say they want to bid on a project, that their workers want to work for it, want to belong to a particular union or do not want to belong to a union, or whatever it might be. Workers should have that right one way or the other. They should have the right to bid on the job.

It singles out a very small part of the industry. Unfortunately it says that part of the industry must have successor rights. Cabinet decides and that is the way it goes. If the job is worth $15 an hour or $12 an hour, it does not matter because once it is bid on it will pay the same as the last guy regardless. The workers will put up with it one way or the other, and that is just the way it goes. In other words, there is no choice. There is no balance.

We will hear a lot during the very limited amount of debate left about the necessity to have balance in labour legislation. This group of motions shows that there is no balance.

I would like to conclude by saying how unfortunate it is that again for the 40th time the government has brought in time allocation. There is no crisis looming. There is no work stoppage that has shut down the country. It is not like the economy has been brought to its knees. It is not like there is no current labour law in place.

They have decided for their own political reasons to bring in time allocation to stifle debate in a democratic institution. That is the only reason. There is no other crisis out there in the country. There is no other crisis in parliament. It is for one reason only. They have decided that they do not want to debate it any more.

That is too bad. Things like successor rights, final offer binding arbitration and the rights of workers to vote by secret ballot on their union certification deserve full debate in the House.

The government says too bad but it is tired of the debate. There is no crisis or no other issue. It is just tired of it and does not want to listen to the opposition. It just shuts it down.

This is the 40th time. Unfortunately members on the Liberal side seem to think it is all right to shut down democratic debate. Just so the folks at home know, they will push through the bill this week. There is nothing we can do to stop it. It does not matter whether or not we want to talk on it. Many members on this side of the House will be denied an opportunity to ever speak a word on the bill. That is undemocratic and very unfortunate. It shows a trend on the government side, the government that previously criticized Brian Mulroney's government.

Brian Mulroney's government on closure was a pillar of virtue compared to what the Liberal government has done since it came to power. It continuously uses this hammer. It is not a matter of negotiation. It is just too bad: “It is my way or the highway”.

It is unfortunate the government has decided to go this way. It is a trend. It does not bode well for this institution that the government has decided this is the way to force through legislation, controversial or not. The government is just doing it.

I will be pleased to speak to further motions if I get a chance, which is unlikely given the time allocation.

Division No. 137Government Orders

May 12th, 1998 / 11:20 a.m.

Liberal

Bryon Wilfert Liberal Oak Ridges, ON

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest and I would indicate as a member of the Standing Committee on Human Resources that the debate we are talking about today should have taken place in committee.

Unfortunately my friends on the other side were more interested in a filibuster and now have all the speakers. They did not have the speakers when we were in committee. To suggest for a moment that somehow the government is stifling debate is ludicrous.

In committee we started at 11 o'clock and went through to 8:30 because we had to go to question period. Again they were going through a filibuster. If the members on the other side wanted to talk about serious amendments, and I would suggest that these are serious amendments, they should have been discussed in committee.

I would like to put on the public record some issues I did not have a chance to do last week. The official opposition suggested that the certification procedures under Bill C-19 were undemocratic and that the bill deprived employees of their right to vote on union certification applications.

I do not agree with these statements particularly because there is nothing undemocratic about certification procedures under the Canada Labour Code. Bill C-19 does not amend these procedures.

The basis of certification would remain majority support. The board would retain its current authority to verify union support by holding a certification vote in any case. Certification procedures under the code are similar to those in a number of provincial jurisdictions. I am sure those jurisdictions do not consider their procedures undemocratic.

We also heard a lot about the remedial certification procedure under Bill C-19. Members of the official opposition keep referring to the Ontario Labour Relations Board decision in the Wal-Mart case, a decision which members should be aware has been upheld by the courts, despite the fact that remedial certification procedures existed in five provincial jurisdictions for many years. The Ontario Wal-Mart case is the only case members of the official opposition can cite to support their position that the provision has been misused.

Contrary to statements made in the House last week, remedial certification in the Ontario statute was not brought in by the Rae government. It was there before the NDP formed the Government of Ontario. Interestingly the provision was modified but not removed when the current government reformed the province's labour laws.

Last week a member referred to the British Columbia Labour Relations Board decision in another Wal-Mart case. It is interesting that contrary to the member's assertion the B.C. board did not use its remedial certification powers to overturn a vote in that case. In fact the B.C. board ordered that a representation vote be held.

The absence of examples of use of remedial certification authority by provincial boards proves what the government has been saying about the provision. It is an effective deterrent to serious employer actions designed to prevent employees from exercising their fundamental right to organize.

It is rarely used and only to remedy the worst cases of employee conduct which make it impossible to measure employee support through the holding of a vote. The certification procedures and remedial certification provisions of Bill C-19 are part of the overall package of task force recommendations which representatives of both labour and management in the federally regulated sector accepted as fair and balanced. They should not be modified or removed from the package in my view.

Division No. 137Government Orders

11:25 a.m.

NDP

Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to speak to the Group No. 3 motions, the recommended amendments to Bill C-19.

We do not find anything in these particular amendments that we feel will move the bill forward or make it better in any way, shape or form. In fact it certainly strikes us in the NDP caucus—

Division No. 137Government Orders

11:25 a.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)

I am just informed that the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre has already spoken to Group No. 3.

Division No. 137Government Orders

11:25 a.m.

NDP

Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, my understanding was that I spoke to Group No. 2. I frankly did not realize that I had spoken to Group No. 3. I could be wrong but—

Division No. 137Government Orders

11:25 a.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)

I will double check. As hon. members know, each time a group comes forward each member has the opportunity to speak once to each group. It will just take us a second.

According to our records the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre spoke last Friday to this specific group. We could go back to Hansard and triple check, and we will do so.