Mr. Speaker, we again find ourselves, for I think the 40th time, looking at time allocation in the House. We believe this is a very important piece of legislation that should be debated. We have noted that in the past when the Liberals were in opposition they thought it was absolutely deplorable that the Tories would move time allocation as many times as they did. The Liberals wrote the book on time allocation.
I would like to refer members back to the beginning of the 36th Parliament. The first item on the Order Paper was Bill C-19. It languished on the Order Paper until sometime in November when it was given first reading. It remained on the Order Paper and just recently there was a big panic to put through the labour legislation which, I might add, was also an item of business in the 35th Parliament.
Suddenly there is a big panic to get this legislation passed, to the point where the government is only going to allow one further day of debate at report stage and one further day at third reading. I think this is an unprecedented abuse of the power of the government to lord it over the opposition. Our duty is to point out how we think we can improve this legislation and the government, I submit, is really hampering us in doing that.
To speak specifically to Group No. 4, the amendment put forth by my colleague from the Bloc indicates that the parties should agree on who the conciliator or the conciliation board should be at a point when the two parties cannot seem to agree on much of anything. This comes at a point when both labour and management have agreed to disagree basically on everything or negotiations would not have broken off.
I think that if the member's motion had read that both parties would submit names of conciliation officers that they would approve of and if each side happened to recommend a person whom each one agreed on then that would be fine. But to come up with a conciliator, an officer or a board, to make any sort of judgment on this is going to be extremely difficult.
If we are looking at people who are going to come in to assess the situation and render a decision, I think that input from the two groups would be a good idea. If they happen to agree on a person to arbitrate the case, that is fine.
I do not believe, though, that my colleague's amendment has a chance in the world of passing since at committee, on at least one occasion, members of the government made remarks that they certainly were not foolish enough to entertain or to pass any amendments put forth by the opposition. So I would caution my colleague that although his intentions are no doubt honourable and will, in his opinion, improve the legislation, he has about as much chance of having this amendment passed as the proverbial snowball in Hades.
I should not prejudge the hon. member, but I think he may have overlooked one of the decisions the minister can make here. He may appoint a conciliation officer, a conciliation board or advise the parties of his intention to do neither. He may just say “No, I do not think it is appropriate for me to get involved at this time”, and the parties would therefore be forced into a situation where they would have to go back and negotiate and get down to brass tacks rather than just throw their hands up and turn it over to someone else.
There has been a lot said in the House about whether this party or that party supports the collective bargaining process. Certainly the Reform Party does support the right to organize peacefully, to strike and to negotiate through a union.
However, I think the legislation, as I have said before in the House, is patterned after a report by Mr. Andrew Sims, and he named the report “Seeking a Balance”. Certainly that is a noble goal for any labour legislation and indeed for most legislation, that it be balanced. Page after page of the report concerns the empowerment of the union organizers, the union bosses, and not necessarily the rank and file people who pay membership dues to the union, and certainly not the people who provide jobs for those union members.