Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the remarks of my colleagues from the Bloc Quebecois, the Reform Party and the New Democratic Party. If we were to follow the policy described by my hon. colleague from the NDP, unemployment and poverty would be much higher in Canada, because I can assure you that many more industries would be closing down.
I also listened to the comments made by the hon. member from the Bloc Quebecois, who addressed the rights of workers. We in the Conservative Party believe in the rights of workers and we have shown it.
We want to make sure these workers do not lose their jobs. We believe in dialogue rather than in steamrolling people.
One of the big problems in what we are dealing with today is the replacement workers part of it. This issue is one of the few on which the authors of the Sims report could not agree.
One of its authors argued in favour of a complete ban on the use of replacement workers as is the case in labour legislation in Quebec and British Columbia. The majority of the Sims report argued against a general ban on the use of replacement workers. It states where the use of replacement workers is in dispute and is demonstrated to be for the purpose of undermining the union's representative capacity rather than pursuing a legitimate bargaining objective it should be declared an unfair labour practice. There was a lot of confusion when it came to this part and I believe there still is.
Many motions are before us today and we will probably be here late tonight voting on them. When there are many motions on a piece of legislation it means there are many questions about the proposed legislation. We have not dealt with this legislation in approximately 25 years and all of a sudden it is being put through the House.
Let me explain what is happening. Let me take a bit of time to explain to our viewing audience and the people in the gallery what has happened today and what the government has imposed on this piece of legislation, on the House of Commons and on the public.
Once again the government is in a rush to get it out of here. It has invoked time allocation on the bill. That means it has cut off debate.
It was in committee. I agree; I was there. A lot of consultation went on and we heard from a lot of witnesses. We now have a chance to debate the legislation in front of Canadians. When it comes to that the government cuts us off. It is unfortunate but is what happened today.
The government mentions consultation. Yes, it did that but it certainly did not listen. There are probably 50 amendments today and I do not believe very many of them will pass. These are the concerns of Canadians but they do not seem to be what the government thinks.
Before Bill C-19 there was Bill C-66 which contained provisions that were deemed to tilt the balance toward the unions. The bill did not stipulate clearly that there was no ban on the use of replacement workers. Instead it stated that no employer or person shall use the services of a replacement worker for the purpose of undermining a trade unions replacement representational capacity.
During Senate hearings no one seemed to know how the terms of the bill would be interpreted. That is still a problem today. We do not seem to know what the interpretation will be.