Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-19 and the second group of amendments.
I would like to congratulate my colleague from Wetaskiwin for all the work that he has put into this matter before and during the committee debates that have been carrying on.
Today we are looking at different groups of amendments and we are now debating Group No. 2. The one I would like to dwell on is the democratic aspects of our amendment.
We need to make sure that democracy in this country can go through all aspects of our society. This bill states that the Canada Industrial Relations Board may order a representational vote on union certification. That is just not good enough. We would like to have our amendment brought forward which says that 35% of the employees need to sign a card indicating they want union certification.
There was a recent case in Ontario. A similar provision in the Ontario labour relations act imposes stricter requirements on automatic certification. Even under a stricter provision the Ontario Labour Relations Board in the recent Wal-Mart decision certified the steelworkers union as the bargaining agent for a group in a Wal-Mart store in Windsor despite the fact that 70% of the employees voted against the union. The board based its decision on membership evidence submitted by the steelworkers union which showed it had support of 44% of the employees in the bargaining unit.
It just goes to point out that if this bill is not treated properly, it can open up all kinds of strange parameters and undemocratic proceedings. The fact we would like to see 35% of employees cards signed would go a long way to stopping some of the problems that exist.
This bill and its predecessor, Bill C-66, are basically flawed for some of the reasons we are stating today. Stable labour relations are absolutely essential for this country to grow and to thrive, for people to invest in Canada and to reinvest. Companies that are looking to expand and to offer new services across Canada want stable labour relations so that they can count on their businesses being open and being able to supply Canadians with the services that they want.
With this whole entrepreneurial aspect of our country where a person can come up with a good idea, promote it, develop it and put it in place to service Canadians, it is necessary to have in place the labour to fulfil these aspirations. We would like to see amendments to the bill to allow that to happen.
The democratic aspect of what we are promoting in the Group No. 2 amendments is part of what we believe in. We know that the rest of the members of the House will develop their opinions and support us as well.
The Bloc has a motion that allows one or more employees in a group to appoint a new representative. That does not follow with what we would like to see done so we will be opposing that motion.
There are other items my colleague from Wetaskiwin has brought forward to show the weakness of this bill. One of them is access to offsite workers. We will be handling that at a later date.
We saw a couple of years ago during the winter that we could not for various reasons get our products to port, and once they got to port we could not get them out. This bill is to help relieve that situation. It guarantees that once a product or grain gets to port, it will be shipped. We have a whole lot of things to address in the labour act to enable those products to get from the farm gate or from the manufacturer's gate to the port.
As we go through the scenario of looking into the problems that existed two years ago that helped to almost bankrupt our agricultural community on the prairies, we have to make sure that we go back through every aspect of the labour act and put forth changes that will make it more acceptable and make it more friendly to the people who are shipping goods. That is why we have brought forward our amendments. We have to make sure that what happened in Windsor, Ontario cannot happen elsewhere.
The Canada Industrial Relations Board has also made some changes to how it is going to structure its chairs and the length of service. Many aspects here need to be looked at considerably. If we can start with our amendment that will keep this bill democratic and allow members of a union to have a representational vote of 35%, this will help alleviate one of the major obstacles and will fall into place with some of the other amendments we are proposing in the other groups.
This bill is going to have far reaching effects for years to come in Canada. It is important that it be democratic. It is important that it address the issues that are of concern in the labour industry. It is important to supply an atmosphere in Canada in which people will be confident in investing. It is important to the producers and manufacturers that when they have made a commitment to somebody offshore to deliver a product in a timely fashion that they are able to do it. If that cannot be done, our reputation is harmed. It is seriously affected and we lose that trust we have throughout the world.
I hope the rest of the House will support our amendments.