Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague from Red Deer for raising the points that he did. I would like to expand on what he said.
He was talking about the importance of the bill to international relations. I would like to take that from a more local perspective and to pose a question. How will passage of the bill help the average Canadian? Is the average Canadian even aware of it?
In order to do that we have to examine who the legislation affects directly. It affects about 10% of Canada's workforce, those people who work in federally regulated industries like transportation, communication and all workers in the Northwest Territories; in other words, about 700,000 of the Canadian workforce.
We must ask ourselves what is the impact of the bill on the average person in Canada. Specifically, will it improve things for the average person in Canada? Does the passage of the bill mean that there will be an improvement in for instance the mail service? No, it does not. It does not preclude any work stoppages such as the one we saw in mail service last winter. It has not improved those situations at all.
If we are to open up the industrial relations portion of the Canada Labour Code, why not address some of these problems that mean something to the average person in Canada? Every person in Canada at one point or another mails a letter or receives a letter. First class mail is a monopoly of the post office. How has the legislation improved mail service in Canada? The short answer is that it has not improved mail service in Canada.
Perhaps it has improved Canada's ability to be a reliable exporter of goods. Let us look at that. Canada has ports on both ends of the country, a huge country that has reliable salt water ports both on the west coast and east coast of the country. They are extremely important outlets to world markets.
Let us hope that the industrial relations portion of the bill has made some improvement here. As we examine the bill we have to ask ourselves what those improvements could possibly be. Would it mean that as a result of changes to the bill that Canadians can more easily get products to port, loaded on ships, out through the port and off to customers? No. As my colleague has pointed out, we still have the bottleneck problem of trying to get our goods through ports which with great regularity have some sort of work stoppages.
To be fair, it is not always a strike. Oftentimes it is a lockout. What difference does it make to the average person on the street who is affected by the overall economy of Canada, the impact of not being able to get our goods to port and on to world markets? I do not think we have improved that at all.
Why have we not? The only thing that I can see is that the government is unwilling to address the fact that we need to have some sort of dispute settlement mechanism if collective bargaining fails, and it has been failing; otherwise we would not have these work stoppages. It works in some cases but it seems like when things get critical the work stoppages occur right at the time when we need ports the most.
The work stoppages in the post office never occur during summer holidays. They always seem to occur around Christmas-time when the demand for the services of the post office is the greatest.
As well, work stoppages at the ports do not seem to happen in the spring when the farmers are busy seeding. They always seem to happen in the wintertime when the farmers are cleaning out their granaries, trying to market their crops. It affects a lot more people than just simply the farmers. It affects the people on the railways. It affects the people of Canada, in general, because lost sales have to be recovered somehow.
Canada is not the only producer of these products. Whether they are agricultural products, dehydrated alfalfa or potash, it does not matter. These are products that we have to get to market in order to maintain our businesses. As we are often told, and we concur, this is a great, prosperous country in which to live, but we have to pay attention to business. We simply cannot be in a position where we can lose market after market and maintain a buoyant position in the world.
When I say that this bill does not do anything to help the average Canadian, it could be asked: Why is the average Canadian not saying something? Why are they not up in arms? Why are they not telling us to make some improvements?
As I pointed out, this only affects about 10% of the Canadian workforce. The average Canadian is so busy trying to make a living and paying their taxes that they do not have time to worry about problems like this. That is the reason we are raising these problems today and trying to make some improvements to this bill.
We would like very much to see products, regardless of whether they originate at the farmgate, at the lumber mill, or at the mine, to be able to reach port through a dependable transportation system, to be loaded onto ships and to be carried to market.
This has a huge impact on the Canadian economy. Anything that has a large impact on the Canadian economy has a large impact on individual people who, at first glance, would say “That is the Canada Labour Code. That is industrial relations. I do not work for the federal government. It has no effect on me”. But it does. It affects every person in Canada.
There are provisions in this bill which we consider to be less than democratic. There are provisions which would enable the Canada Industrial Labour Board to certify a union without a majority indicating they would like to belong to the union.
Of course we will hear from the NDP, and we have heard from the government, that it can only do that provided there is clear evidence before the board that the employer has used some sort of unfair labour tactics, as if implying that it is only the employer who can use pressure tactics on a group of people.
I submit that this is undemocratic. Certification of a union should take place by secret ballot. When a person goes into the polling booth to cast a ballot nobody can put pressure on that person. They have the security and the confidentiality of the secret ballot. That is how unions should be certified.
We have heard many times about how this legislation seeks a balance. I would submit that if it is fair to certify a union without a majority, it should be fine to de-certify a union without a majority.
Furthermore, I submit that the Canada Industrial Relations Board will have tremendous pressure put on it by union bosses to see every case brought before it as undermining the unions. Every case will be pled on that basis.