Oh, indeed I do because filibustering is something that has been used by opposition parties since the beginning of parliament. It is one of the few tools that we actually have to be able to change government legislation.
As a result of the Reform filibuster, Bill C-19 was changed so that people who were offsite workers, contract workers would not be forced to have their names given over to union organizers. That way their home addresses would not be violated by union organizers along the lines of ding-dong, knock knock, the unions calling at their home addresses.
The opposition was able to get some amendments to Bill C-19 as a result of our filibuster in committee. However there are things that have not changed. Successor rights is indeed one of the things the government has not changed.
There are reasons we were enacting a filibuster and I am going to speak to this today. I would not have done so otherwise but I think it is important that people know why the opposition was doing that type of thing.
This is the way it works in this setting for the information of the folks at home. The opposition puts forward amendments, much like we are doing today, substantive, real amendments like successor rights, but the government most often turns them down and does not give them fair and due consideration. If the amendments are put forward in cabinet or if they are put forward by members of the government, whether they be in committee or privately to cabinet members or however that process may work, they are more likely to be considered and implemented.
We were given good information that there were people on the government side who had problems with successor rights as they stand in Bill C-19 and there were people who had problems with privacy concerns and there were people who had problems with the violation of the secret ballot as proposed in Bill C-19, along with a few other things. We were giving those members time to bring those concerns forward in committee and they failed to do so. Those members who said they had a backbone in the government caucus and said they had a backbone in the cabinet failed to have one and failed to bring forward those changes to Bill C-19.
To the Minister of Labour who said that he did not have the resources in his own office to fight his own departmental officials on those aspects of Bill C-19 that he thought were over the top, shame on him. To the Minister of National Revenue who had concerns yet did not bring forward these things in committee and did not actually get a change when push came to shove, shame on him. Shame on them. To the Liberal caucus members who sat in HRD committee and argued along with the Reform Party on some of these substantive changes that we wanted early on when we were questioning witnesses in testimony, shame on them for not having put forward those amendments.
We wanted to see those things brought forward. We will be speaking about them today at report stage and we will be speaking about them at third reading. Shame on the government for not having brought those things forward. We know that is the only way those things would have been given proper and due consideration. The fact that the government put the 40th time allocation since it has been in office shows that government members have had little will or little backbone to stand up to the department.
Bill C-19 basically amounts to a departmental official being shuffled off for many years into a sideline of the labour department. Mike McDermott finally had his glowing chance and I talked with him many times in committee. To him I say, I guess you finally have your chance to leave your glowing mark on Canadian labour legislation by going ahead and embedding successor rights, going ahead and violating the secret ballots in workplace democracy, going ahead and not allowing final offer selection arbitration, but shoving through instead more cabinet power.
Rather than trying to achieve peace in the workplace, they are going ahead and giving the power more thumbs down control over the worksites which does not promote labour peace.