Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today to address Bill C-19, an act to amend the Canada Labour Code. This bill has been hanging around for quite a while. I imagine the government is getting tired of hearing about it in the House of Commons and would like to have it moving forward.
Frankly the legislation is flawed. I think parties on all sides of the House have huge problems with it that I doubt very much it is going to get the speedy passage the government wants it to have.
We are addressing Group No. 2. There are a couple of specific motions I would like to address. They deal with the issue of democracy, as my friends have pointed out earlier.
Obviously in the House of Commons of all places we should be concerned about an issue like democracy. It is very ironic that we would be dealing with an issue of democracy in the wake of the hepatitis C vote here in the House of Commons.
Colleagues across the way had the chance to stand up for their constituents and exercise their democratic right in the House of Commons and actually support an opposition motion that would have provided compensation for the victims of hepatitis C who received hepatitis C because of negligence on the government's behalf. But they did not do that. They did not stand up when they could have despite the fact that many of them said they were going to do that and many of them said that they could make a difference in this place. They could have. They had the chance but they dropped the ball.
Now we see that same tenuous commitment to democracy in Bill C-19. I think that is a powerful reason to reject it.
Our party is trying to make some amendments. One of the motions we are moving is that under the current legislation the Canada Labour Code states that the board may order a representational vote on union certification to satisfy itself that the workers want the union. Our amendment calls for the board to hold a representational vote when at least 35% of the employees sign cards calling for union certification. That is what we are proposing.
We do not want this left up to the board to make those types of decisions. We want to make sure that workers have a voice in all of this. We believe that democracy if it stands for anything should be reflected in legislation like this in a very clear way, where we state clearly that we do believe in democracy and in this particular case we want a vote on an issue of union certification.
I point out that there is no guarantee under this legislation that people will be allowed a secret ballot which I find amazing. I find it amazing that we are proposing legislation that does not guarantee people the right to a secret ballot.
In this place when we elect the Speaker we do it by secret ballot. When we are chosen as legislators we are chosen by secret ballot. There are a thousand reasons for that, not the least of which is that people have the right to decide in private so that they do not have to appear before the scrutinizing eyes of their neighbours who in some cases may try to browbeat them to vote another way, or they do not want to fear consequences from people who have power over them if they do not vote in a particular way.
That applies when we are talking about labour unions as well. To me it is a fundamental right. I cannot understand it in a country where in the charter of rights and freedoms we go to great lengths to lay out fundamental freedoms including the right to democracy. Sadly somewhere in the charter I guess we were not specific enough and did not suggest that we needed to have democracy apply at every level including when it comes to votes for labour unions.
Now we are stuck with a piece of legislation like this which is reprehensible. I am disgusted with the Liberals across the way for not fighting for workers who in some cases will be coerced into voting a particular way because if they do not vote that way they will feel pressure from people who have sway over them.
That is wrong but it is not inconsistent with the Liberals' actions on the hepatitis C vote. We heard them say over and over again “we are going to stand up to the government, we are going to vote with the victims of hepatitis C”. But when it came to the crunch did they bail out in a hurry, did they cast their principles over the side in a hurry—