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.