Someone did say that. The member at the other end of the House said exactly that. I would ask him how he can judge what my conscience is or whether I am voting for my constituents.
On the other hand, a couple of days ago the member who sits opposite, the member who is running off at the mouth over there, during a very emotional vote in this House was crying her eyes out simply because her party and her leader had threatened her and coerced her into voting the party line. The evidence was pretty clear that she was not voting for her constituents, or with her conscience for that matter.
This bill has a lot of flaws and a lot of problems. The robbing of the democratic process is only one of them. There are many other issues about replacement workers and about taking one particular commodity out of the process, such as protecting the right to load grain in the port of Vancouver while not providing that same protection for other commodities and causing all kinds of problems in a strike situation.
This is a bad bill in many ways.
The proposed motions in Group No. 2 include two motions moved by my hon. colleague from Wetaskiwin which would greatly improve the quality of the bill and go a long way in bringing back some democracy, some fairness and effectiveness to the bill.
Before I discuss the motions of my colleague from Wetaskiwin, I want to mention two motions that were moved by the hon. member for Trois-Rivières. Motion No. 6 proposes the removal of clause 6 from the legislation. My colleagues and I are opposed to the removal of that clause. Clause 6 allows the board to decide a matter without having to hold an oral hearing. I think this clause is important to the process of streamlining the CIRB's procedures.
The whole process of scheduling an oral hearing and adhering to the strict oral hearing procedures unnecessarily prolongs many board decisions. Many decisions can simply be made by the board without the need for oral hearings. Such oral hearings are lengthy and expensive and should be reserved only for the most important matters.
This clause increases the speed and efficiency with which minor cases are dealt by bypassing the oral hearing process.
Therefore I am opposed to Motion No. 6 which calls for the removal of clause 6. I am also opposed to Motion No. 8, also moved by the hon. member for Trois-Rivières. This motion removes a phrase in clause 16, amending it to allow the board to revoke the appointment of an employer representative without having to satisfy itself that the employer representative is no longer qualified to act in that capacity.
By removing this part of the clause the government would be removing the employer's right to fair representation. Typically, a group of employers would select one representative and if this representative is arbitrarily removed because as few as one person in the employer's group calls for it, the wishes of the other employers in the group are disregarded. Again, it is a sleight to the democratic process.
It is my position that there should be a vote by which the majority of members of the employer's group have the opportunity to decide what action is taken.
The selection of the clause requiring the board to be satisfied the employer representative is no longer qualified to act in that capacity protects the wishes of the majority. The removal of this part of the clause as proposed in this motion would only serve to weaken the employer's association. Therefore I think in good conscience I could not support this motion.
I certainly can and do support the two motions in this group proposed by my hon. colleague for Wetaskiwin.
Motion No. 7 calls for the inclusion of a clause requiring that the board hold a representational vote on union certification when 35% of the employees sign cards requesting union certification. Of course this is getting into the particular motion that has caused all the controversy this afternoon.
In its current form the Canada Labour Code states that the board may hold such a representational vote but does not bind the board to the vote. This means the board could choose to ignore the wishes of workers in one respect or another.