Nobody really listens. Some people do, unfortunately, in the west where I come from. It is kind of frightening.
The whole rise of the right wing is worrisome to working people.
We were here the other night speaking to a private member's bill about the Mac-Paps, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. I could not help but think there were parallels here. We heard about that courageous bunch of people in the 1930s who went to Europe to fight fascism, to fight right wing extremism. It took a lot of courage to do that. The right wing extremism was born out of a period of economic recession, much like we saw with high interest rates and the slowing of the economy. That kind of depression spawns right wing extremism.
Just as it took a lot of courage for those people in the 1930s to go to Spain to fight fascism there, it also takes a lot of courage for people to stand now to fight right wing extremism in our own country. I really saw a parallel there because there are people who think there is too much democracy in the world. I keep hearing the word misused. The right wing seems to have stumbled on the word democracy and finds that it likes it too.
However, the people who are promoting the MAI, the actual people who are pushing the MAI, are saying that there is a surplus of democracy in the world today that is interfering with the free movement of capital and investment. Is that not a frightening thing? Some people actually believe there is a surplus of democracy. This is the same right wing that would like to keep the labour movement down. That is typical. Right wing zealots always go after the trade unions first when they start to repress rights. They lock up the trade unionists. They outlaw unions. It is a real trend and a real theme. It is a pattern that we see developing in the Reform Party. It is interesting to watch, but it is also frightening to watch when we see these parallels.
Time and time again we hear the Reform Party standing to defend the interests of capital. It is a good thing that some of us are looking at legislation that will defend the rights of working people to move forward the advantage of working people. That is exactly what Bill C-19 does.
The good thing about Bill C-19, without commenting on the changes to the labour code that Bill C-19 will introduce, is the process that took place. A spirit of co-operation resulted in what we know as Bill C-19. It was almost an unprecedented consultation process where government, labour and management sat down in a tripartite fashion and decided on things that would make the system work better. That is the kind of model we would like to see used in a number of other areas. In countries that are moving forward socially as well as economically, that is what we see. It is a truly tripartite model where business, labour and government sit down together to chart out the future.
The extreme right wing wants to deny the existence of labour. It wants to keep labour away from the table. It wants to stamp labour out. That kind of adversarial attitude is what is going to hold us back as a nation. The right wing might think it is progress. It is not progress. It holds us back. We all move forward when we move forward together. We are not trying to wipe out the right wing, so it should not be trying to wipe out labour.
One of the real contradictions about this whole debate has been the Reform Party trying to stall and block Bill C-19 when it claims to represent the interests of the prairie agricultural industry. There are 130,000 prairie farmers who are dying to see Bill C-19 go through so they can be confident their grain shipments will not be interrupted at the ports. What a contradiction. These champions of the western agricultural industry are doing everything they can to stall, delay and block Bill C-19 when 130,000 farmers want it. We do not only see an anti-worker sentiment, we see an anti-farmer sentiment. It seems like a real contradiction to me. I do not understand it.
It was awkward to watch some of the debate at the committee stage because, frankly, the Reform Party was handicapped by its complete naivety about industrial relations. We heard some things at committee stage that would make people roll their eyes. If people knew the level of debate that went on in Ottawa about this complicated issue they would be horrified. They would be horrified because it was mean-spirited, it was narrow-minded, it was parochial and it was self-interested. It did not have the interests of labour relations in Canada at heart. It only considered the narrow, political self-interest of the very narrow population that it is serving.
I will use the bit of time I have left to talk about the four items that are most positive about Bill C-19 and why our caucus is proud to support it.
First, the restructuring of the labour relations board into a truly representational board is one of the most important things that came out of the Sims task force, Bill C-66 and Bill C-19. It was something that all parties could agree on. Labour had always complained. It was always frustrated that there was a lack of consultation in the process of making appointments to the board. With the new changes and the new Canada Industrial Relations Board we will see the representation which we felt was necessary.
There are other changes which we think are very positive. The single neutral chair will be able to hear certain cases to try to fix the backlog. There is a terrible backlog, especially in applications for certification. Some 90 applications for certification are currently pending. We are hoping with the speedy passage of Bill C-19 that some of that backlog will be alleviated.
We are critical in one respect. One of the recommendations that labour was making was that there should be consultation with labour and management when making appointments. The actual bill says that there should be consultation with members who represent employees, not necessarily the legitimate labour union. We are very concerned that some of the rat unions, the non-unions, for instance in western Canada, will claim they deserve to make appointments. I am referring to the Christian Labour Association of Canada and other employer-dominated unions that are not legitimate representatives of working people.
The General Workers Union, CLAC, all those unions are not real unions and they should not be consulted. It should be the legitimate labour unions that are consulted because they represent the working people.
The one place where we did part paths in terms of our support for this bill was with respect to replacement workers. We do not believe that the replacement workers' clause is nearly strong enough. We supported the amendment put forward by the member for Trois-Rivières to try to make that clause more powerful and actually prevent strikes and lockouts by banning replacement workers, period.
I was surprised that there was not more support from the other side of the House because in 1995 the House of Commons voted on a private member's bill, Bill C-317, introduced by a Bloc Quebecois MP which had very strong anti-scab provisions in it.
Even though the bill was voted down, there were 104 MPs, including 49 from the government, who voted in favour of that bill. We were hoping to see those same 49 people vote in favour of anti-scab provisions this time, but hope springs eternal.