Debates of Nov. 5th, 1999

Municipal Grants Act

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the hon. member from Oakville for suggesting that there was wide consultation, because there was. We all know that. It took a little better than four and a half years to go through the whole process.

The hon. member insisted that people at the FCM were thoroughly briefed on the bill two weeks ago, and that may very well be true. In fact, my consultation with people at the FCM corroborates that indeed they were briefed.

The interesting thing is what happened between the time the FCM people were briefed and the actual presentation of the bill. Clearly the FCM people then had to be advised that there were certain recommendations that were originally proposed to be included in the bill, but were in fact not in the bill. The addition of certain corporations to schedule 4, for example, was deleted.

The other issue is that the panel should have some teeth and that everything should not be at the discretion of the minister.

These recommendations were included in the report of the joint technical committee and the consultations which took place.

If the hon. member is so absolutely convinced that everything is hunky-dory with regard to the FCM and with regard to the briefing, why is it that not all of those things, which apparently he thought they understood, they apparently did not agree with?

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Oak Ridges, ON]

Mr. Speaker, although I come from the fastest growing community in Canada, Richmond Hill, the riding is Oak Ridges. We have not expanded to Oakville yet, although we are probably working on it, but I do thank the member for that.

The president of the FCM was on Parliament Hill two weeks ago. At that time—

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Kelowna, BC]

Nobody is denying that.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Oak Ridges, ON]

I appreciate the fact that the hon. member collaborated what I said with regard to the fact that it was consulted.

I do not remember saying that absolutely everything that every municipal government or the FCM wanted was in the bill.

On the one hand we are saying that it took four and a half years to get here. I guess the inference is that the process has been slow. It was deliberately done in a way that got all of the parties to the table, and that concluded in the agreement of 1997. If there was not a federal election in April 1997, the legislation may have been before the House at that time. To reinforce that we were getting it right, we held consultations during the summer of last year.

What we have here is, in general, without question, what the FCM wanted to see. When the bill goes to committee, I am sure that anything that needs to be clarified or added will be dealt with.

[Inky Mark, Reform, Dauphin—Swan River, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Chair to ensure that I get my full 20 minutes.

Bill C-10, an act to amend the Municipal Grants Act, does not go far enough to ensure that municipalities will be treated fairly and equally by the federal government and crown corporations on the issue of property taxes.

There is no doubt that the minister and crown corporations still retain too much discretionary power. If federal governments, both past and present, really understood and did the right thing, why would we need any kind of legislation regarding the whole issue of the federal government paying taxes?

Canadians all pay taxes. We know what happens if we do not. None of us want to encounter Revenue Canada.

The issue of grants in lieu of taxes goes back many years. Whenever municipal leaders get together, grants in lieu of taxes seems to be a favourite topic.

Despite federal constitutional powers for tax exemption, as we approach the new millennium why does the federal government not operate under the principle of equal and fair treatment when it comes to paying its taxes on federal buildings located in municipal jurisdictions?

I want to say a few words about municipalities. They have been around for a long time in the country, a lot longer than the Canadian federation. Like many of my colleagues in the House, such as the member for Oak Ridges, I was a former municipal mayor before coming to Ottawa. At least 10% of the members of parliament in this House came from a municipality, and there is no doubt that we all know the effects of both federal and provincial downloading on the municipalities, as well as governments not paying their taxes to municipalities.

The federal government needs to pay all of its taxes, period. The federal government should not expect special treatment from the taxpayers. The federal government uses the same services as everyone else. It uses roads, sewage systems, water services, garbage collection and other services.

Municipal governments are the backbone of the country's economy. There are currently a couple of high cost items that municipal governments across the land have to deal with. Those are water and sewage.

It is unbelievable that in a country like ours there are many municipalities and communities that do not have full water treatment facilities. These communities basically rely on chlorination. Giardia is commonplace in many of the communities. Over the last couple of years we have heard in the press about large communities, such as those close to Toronto and Victoria, having cases of giardia.

Even deadlier bacteria, like cryptospiridium, cannot be treated effectively with chlorine. These water treatment plants require a huge capital investment and obviously the source of the capital comes from taxation.

Mr. Speaker, I believe you are signalling me to end my remarks.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member. He has utilized about four minutes and will have approximately sixteen minutes in which to speak when this bill comes before the House again.

It being 1.30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's order paper.

Canada Post Corporation Act

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

moved that Bill C-238, an act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act (mail contractors), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to have the bill come forward. I felt very fortunate when my name was drawn in the lottery and then very grateful when the standing committee chose to make the bill votable.

I believe it is an issue of broad public interest and something that is long overdue. I will argue, and I hope that I can prove to the House, that we have an opportunity to correct a longstanding injustice. We have an opportunity to right a longstanding wrong.

My bill, Bill C-238, is probably one of the shortest. It is certainly the shortest that I have ever seen. I think it might be the smallest bill on record. It is one line exactly. It calls for one simple thing, to repeal subsection 13(5) of the Canada Post Corporation Act.

Subsection 13(5) is a very small subsection that bars rural route mail contractors from the right to collective bargaining. They do not have the right to form a union. They do not have the right to join a union. They do not have the right to bargain collectively.

I know that support for giving these people these rights is spreading broadly. I know that the hon. member from Kamloops strongly supports the concept because in his rural setting there are rural route mail couriers who have probably sought him out to lobby and to explain the problems they run into.

Why is this particular group of workers barred from collective bargaining? The Canada Labour Code, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, international conventions and covenants all guarantee the right to free collective bargaining for employees. The reason is that subsection 13(5) makes the argument that these are not to be considered employees. They are to be considered independent contractors.

Faced with that problem, this group of workers went to the Canada Labour Relations Board and asked, “Are we employees or are we independent contractors?” They brought that question to the only avenue of recourse that they really could bring it to. The Canada Labour Relations Board ruled unanimously that these are not independent contractors and that their relationship with Canada Post is that of an employer and employee. At best, it is a wholly dependent contractor. Under the Canada Labour Code, a dependent contractor is, in fact, an employee.

One would wonder, then, what the problem is. This group of workers went and got the ruling they were seeking. The problem is that the government went to the Federal Court of Appeal and had the CLRB ruling overturned, not on the basis of merits. Frankly, the federal court did agree that these people are in fact employees. It came to the same conclusions that the labour board came to. It was strictly on jurisdiction. The Federal Court of Appeal ruled that the Canada Labour Relations Board does not have the jurisdiction to overrule a section in the Canada Post Corporation Act. That is something that only parliament can do and that is the reason we are here today, at the request of the many rural route mail couriers who feel strongly about this issue.

Who are they? There are roughly 5,000 rural route mail couriers. They are the people who deliver mail anywhere other than in an urban setting. They drive over the country roads delivering mail to farms, homes and businesses all over rural Canada. They get their work by tendering and contracting the work. The contract is given to them and they keep it for a period of five years. They then have to renew it after that period of time.

The difference is that if they are truly independent contractors there are a number of tests that they go through and look at to say what the difference is between an independent contractor and a dependent contractor or an employee. I would like to go through some of the things that the Canada Labour Relations Board looked at in making its ruling.

First, the concept of economic independence is one of the key issues. Are they being directed and controlled by someone else, or do they truly have control of their own job and workplace? In this case, the Canada Labour Relations Board found that they were economically dependent and not independent.

As far as the control over the day to day operations of their job, the Canada Post Corporation still dictates exactly how these workers must do their job, how they have to sort the mail, what route they have to take and when they have to drive it. It dictates virtually every aspect of the person's working day. If they were truly independent contractors they could make up their own mind as to how and when they would get the job done, as long as the job did get done.

When the Federal Court of Appeal reversed the decision, it left the rural route mail couriers with no option but to seek recourse in the House of Commons today. I am very proud to take the issue forward as a private member's bill. I believe, as I began in my comments, this is a historic injustice and it is fundamentally wrong.

This is the only group of workers in the country who are specifically barred from collective bargaining strictly for financial reasons. There are other groups that are not allowed to form a union. CSIS is not allowed to form a union for obvious reasons of national security. Even the Parliament Hill staff are not allowed to form a union, although I disagree with that. At least we could make some argument that there are reasons why we would not want some issues showing up on the bargaining table. In the case of rural route mail couriers, they are really delivering mail. It is not an issue of any kind of risk to our national security.

Not allowing the rural route mail couriers to have collective bargaining rights is a denial of their basic rights, the rights that all working Canadians enjoy. I firmly believe it is a violation of the principles conveyed and promoted in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is certainly a violation of our international commitments to the ILO convention regarding the freedom of association and the protection of the right to organize. It is in violation of the international covenant on civil and political rights. It is a violation of the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights. These are all international covenants that Canada willingly enters into.

I have been to the ILO with the Minister of Labour and have heard wonderful, grand, eloquent speeches that the Minister of Labour has given at the ILO, saying that this country supports the right to free collective bargaining so that workers can elevate their standards of wages and working conditions. I believe him. I do not accuse the Liberal government of being anti-union in any way.

I am looking at an anomaly in subsection 13(5). When subsection 13(5) was put in, it was just at the time when the Canada Post Corporation Act was created in 1981. It was a time when the Canada Post Corporation was showing a huge deficit. There was a real money crunch. The lawyers involved obviously realized that when the employees went from being under the Public Service Staff Relations Act to being under the Canada Labour Code when the corporation was created and that the Canada Labour Code recognizes dependent contractors as employees, that they would have a problem with the rural route mail couriers. So they deliberately and specifically contemplated this with subsection 13(5). So that no application to have these workers considered employees could succeed, they would be specifically barred.

It was strictly financial. I have quotes from Andre Ouellet, the postmaster general at the time, admitting the same. He said that it would be cost factor if these employees were allowed to bargain collectively.

The tendering process, if it ever did serve the couriers well, certainly does not serve them well now. Never before have they needed to have the right to elevate their conditions somewhat. I will give an example.

One example that I am aware of concerns a courier named Mavis Wiebe who has been a rural route mail courier just outside of Surrey, B.C. since 1978. It is Rural Route Number 8 in Cloverdale. When she started she had 326 calls to make and she was paid $1,000 a month to do her 26 kilometre route. Some 21 years later, Mavis Wiebe's route is now 1,000 points of call and she is now paid $1,900 per month. Out of this, she has to pay for her car, gas, repairs and insurance. She gets no benefits whatsoever, like a normal employee does. There is no UIC, no CPP and no workers' compensation. She has no sick days. If she gets sick she has to hire somebody to take her place. Ironically, the minister responsible for Canada Post uses this as an example of why these people really are independent entrepreneurs. He says that they hire people. Well they only hire people if they are sick and they have an obligation and a duty to do their route. It is a fact that they do not have sick days.

Mavis Wiebe puts her operating costs at $1,000 a month, leaving her with $900 a month for days that can go as long as 12 to 14 hours during the busy season. She takes home an average of $6.84 an hour. If I was an independent contractor, I would not structure my lifestyle to make $6.84 an hour.

She has an interesting quote. She says “My granddaughter at 14 just started working at McDonald's and she earns $7.15 an hour, the minimum wage in B.C. She said to me, `Nana are you nuts? I make more than you do”'. There is clearly something fundamentally wrong here when a woman who has been doing this job faithfully for 21 years finds herself in a position where she is making less than minimum wage.

Further on in the article, many of the rural route couriers talk about the tendering process and how it has been bastardized. It is not a fair tendering system. When it is time to renew their contract they are often told that there is a lot of competition and that they had better bring their numbers down or they will not likely get their contract. That is interfering with the fair tendering process, yet there is case after case of this happening. Rather than having their salaries go up with the cost of living, they are actually being manoeuvred down and are getting less money now in many cases than they did from previous contracts.

I am very aware of the whole concept of independent contractors. I worked in the building industry where this has been a problem for quite some time. Contractors, who used to keep maybe 20 drywallers on their staff, would say to them “I am paying you guys $20 an hour. I will give you $25 an hour and you just be your own man. You are your own independent contractor now. You still have to be at work at 8 and go home at 4.30. You still have to take your lunch at noon. I am still going to provide everything else to do your job but for the purposes of the law, I am going to call you an independent contractor”. We could go into a place with 20 drywallers working in a big area and each one of them would consider themselves to be independent business. They have no workers' compensation, no UIC and no CPP. It is really trying to avoid payroll burden and payroll costs. It is a net gain to the employer.

That is the game that the Canada Post Corporation has been playing since 1981. I think it is wrong. It is wrong in the building industry and it is wrong in the mail delivery business.

The supervision aspect alone is enough to win the argument in terms of whether these individuals are dependent or independent, but we do not have to do that.

I would urge all members who plan on speaking to the bill or even when they get the opportunity to vote, to please read the labour board ruling, decision 626 from April 29, 1987. It is a very easy document to read. Canada Post Corporation is the applicant and various unions are the respondents. It is a very clear-cut decision. This is actually an area of labour law that has been very well studied. There is a lot of good jurisprudence that very clearly sets out the tests as to whether someone is independent or dependent.

For the sake of the 5,000 rural route mail couriers in Canada, I would urge all members to please have a good look at these rulings and see for themselves if it is not fair.

I would remind members that this is really a rural-urban issue. These people are being disadvantaged because they live in rural Canada. A disproportionate number of them are women. Some of them are working off the farm trying to get some supplementary income for their family. The going rate for a mail delivery person living within the city limits of Winnipeg or Toronto is $17 or $18 an hour, plus benefits. Because these rural route couriers live outside the perimeter highway they are at $6.86, lower than minimum wage with absolutely no benefits.

How do we defend that in this day and age? There is no justification whatsoever, certainly not for financial reasons. If we were going to conduct ourselves in that manner then why would we not put kids back in the mines? They would be cheaper than putting miners down there. We have to pay miners $25 an hour. Maybe we could get some 12 year old to crawl through the cracks with a fuse between his teeth like they did in the old days. That is obviously taking examples to a ridiculous end.

Money is not justification for denying people basic civil rights. Organizing a union or bargaining collectively is a basic right in this country. It is the only way we have managed to elevate our standards for working people over the last many years. Everyone agrees, our government agrees and states publicly that it is in favour of free collective bargaining. Here is the opportunity. This is our chance to demonstrate that we really do care about the freedom of workers to join and to form unions.

One of the reservations I have and the only reason I can give as to why this matter was not resolved years ago is the terrible hostility between the government and the union representing postal workers. We should not let this group of workers suffer just because of management's inability to get along with its own workforce. That is clearly a poisonous environment.

Nothing in my bill would automatically tie the rural route mail couriers to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. Who is to say they will join that union? Who is to say they will join a union at all? They would just have the right to bargain collectively and they would have recourse to the Canada Labour Code like all other Canadian workers enjoy.

This issue has gained broad public interest and broad public support. There was a one hour special on one of the TV news magazine programs. There have been numerous articles in newspapers and magazines.

This group of rural route couriers has been very active politically. I would think that virtually everybody in this House has received some communication from the RRMCs trying to explain the basic fairness of their issue. It has been a long lobbying effort, 10 years long. These people have waited long enough to exercise the same rights that all other working people enjoy.

I would hope that there is broad support from other members in the House. I have canvassed most of the opposition parties and they seem interested in extending this kind of right. There is nothing more noble that we can do as parliamentarians than to extend rights and to expand the rights of Canadians so that we all enjoy and benefit equally from the protections in this case of the Canada Labour Code for employees.

[Carolyn Parrish, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, before I get into my prepared notes, I would like to do as the member opposite suggested and share with the House a few court decisions on this very subject. The courts have already ruled on the compliance of section 13(5) of the Canada Post Corporation Act with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

On August 3, 1989 the federal court trial division found section 13(5) did not contravene the equality provisions of section 15.1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the basis of occupational status.

On May 29, 1990 the federal court trial division found the allegation that section 13(5) creates discrimination on the basis of gender was frivolous. The court also found there were no grounds for a claim of discrimination on the basis of differential treatment of rural and urban residents.

On February 1, 1999 the U.S. National Administration Office, responding to a NAFTA challenge issued by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers on behalf of rural route contractors, rejected a claim that rural route contractors should become employees.

Both national and international tribunals have found no fault with the independent status of rural route contractors under the Canada Post Corporation Act. The member for Winnipeg Centre should take note of these judgments to fully comprehend the issue.

In 1981 parliament created Canada Post to ensure that all Canadians, wherever they lived, would receive reliable and affordable postal service. In several ways the enduring contribution of independent contractors has helped Canada Post achieve this crucial goal. However, the bill we have before us today could easily compromise the provision of good and affordable postal service to rural Canada. Affordable is the key word.

Canada Post's ability to use contractors for the delivery of mail has made reliable, affordable postal service possible. Nowhere is this more true than in rural Canada. With a sparse population spread over one of the largest countries in the world, providing a postal service to all Canadians has always been quite a challenge. It is thanks to the ingenuity, persistence and resourcefulness of independent mail contractors that the many obstacles to providing universal postal service in Canada have been overcome. We still need their dedicated service if we are to maintain the quality of service rural Canadians deserve.

We have to consider what the proposed amendment of the member for Winnipeg Centre does for Canadians. Does it improve service? Not at all. Will rural Canadians get their mail any faster as a result of this change? No they will not. Independent contractors have always provided excellent service to Canada Post customers and they will continue to do so.

The member's reference to hostility also catches me a little by surprise. Both the minister and I have met with representatives of the rural contractors on four occasions in the last year. The discussions have been very amicable and are producing very good results. Canada Post unions may benefit however from a few thousand more members who would pay dues but there is no benefit to individual Canadians in the hon. member's bill.

The government believes in creating opportunities for all Canadians as does Canada Post. The opportunity to work as a mail contractor has benefited countless generations of rural Canadians who have often needed to supplement their incomes. The member for Winnipeg Centre wants to put an end to all that. I do not think rural Canadians want to see these contracting opportunities simply vanish.

There is a competitive tendering process that gives rural Canadians the opportunity to perform meaningful work at a fair value. In parts of the country with no nearby industrial or urban area, the chance to have a turn at a decent paying job means a great deal. That chance vanishes once a system is created that only benefits a few to the detriment of many. I find it surprising the hon. member supports a proposal that may well translate into real losses for those Canadians who most deserve and need those income opportunities.

The quality of service rural Canadians have enjoyed for generations and continue to expect is a direct outcome of the competitive bidding process which attracts the most motivated and enterprising people.

The member for Winnipeg Centre wants everyone to believe that rural route contractors are all overworked, underpaid and underappreciated. Simple facts reveal the contrary.

The dedicated men and women who deliver mail throughout rural Canada are all compensated at a fair market value. The majority of contractors often need less than six or even four hours to complete their route assignments leaving ample time for other gainful pursuits. This work is mostly part time and that fact is consistently ignored.

Most important, rural mail contractors in Canada Post are appreciated and recognized for the immense value of the service they provide. In wanting to preserve that tradition of good service, Canada Post is introducing meaningful ways to improve the fair and equitable treatment of all contractors. All rural routes will be contracted on an individual basis. Previous experience coupled with good performance will be regularly considered upon renewal. This will promote the sustained quality of service for rural customers while rewarding the hard work of dedicated mail contractors.

Canada Post will rigorously ensure that the tendering process is accepted as fair and competitive by all participants.

Legislation is not the best way to improve Canada Post's relationship with its independent mail contractors. The previously cited examples of Canada Post's efforts demonstrate that immediate improvement is achievable. Moreover, these changes represent a genuine effort to make co-operation a keystone of the relationship between Canada Post and its mail contractors.

When Canada Post Corporation was created in 1981 through a widely supported act of parliament, it was made clear that Canada Post was to operate like a business. To this day the corporation continues to have the important public mandate of providing postal service to millions of addresses while keeping letter mail rate increases below the rate of inflation. To achieve this mandate, it was and continues to be understood that Canada Post needs to manage its expenses just like a business does.

The financially responsible management of Canada Post has meant taxpayers have not had to subsidize their post office since 1988. By recording modest profits over recent years, Canada Post has been able to balance the financing of its operations with the need to invest in the future but it is still a precarious balance. The fact is that 99 cents of every dollar Canada Post earns must be spent on the annual cost of operations. With this little room to explore its new direction such as that proposed by this bill, the arguments for the prudent management of costs ring as true today as they did in 1981.

This debate cannot ignore the mandate imposed on Canada Post by the Canada Post Corporation Act. No other delivery company is legally required to offer affordable uniform service in every corner of the nation while maintaining financial self-sufficiency. Canada Post has been able to meet this challenge. The hon. member wants to tinker with the act but he is not prepared to acknowledge the consequences of his tinkering.

Contractors are naturally independent. They are entrepreneurs and as such, assume a degree of risk in deciding whether or not to engage in a certain commercial activity. Although they depend on contracts to earn revenue, they realize that the source of the revenue is not indefinitely fixed and they certainly have the freedom to seek revenue from other sources. As small business operators they can make full use of tax advantages not available to employees.

To look further at the importance of the independence of rural mail contractors, I am reminded of the explanation offered by one of my hon. colleagues opposite. It may have been the hon. member for Tobique—Mactaquac. If so, he is to be congratulated. If I recall, his words were: “The nature of this change would remove some of the flexibility for both parties to negotiate an arrangement particularly suited to each individual contractor”. An astute observation.

Every mail contractor faces many challenges in providing effective mail delivery within his or her territory. Therefore, each contract must recognize these unique and varying factors. Imagine the burden of negotiating a global agreement that effectively addressed the regional complexities of all the delivery routes. The cost of administering such a process would be considerably higher than those of a competitive bidding process that takes into account the needs of individual contractors.

When we debate the status of mail contractors, we are not only talking about the men and women who deliver mail along Canada's rural routes. Canada Post mail contractors provide air freight services, expedited parcel services, highway transport and many other services that are essential to moving the mail in Canada. All of these contractors fall within the scope of section 13(5). Alarmingly the sponsor of this bill seems to have missed or ignored the fact that eliminating section 13(5) has far greater implications than changing the status of rural route contractors.

Canada Post has over 7,000 contracts for the delivery of mail. It simply cannot afford to take on thousands of new permanent employees as part of some union membership drive. The numbers speak for themselves.

Canada Post has achieved a measure of financial health which is utterly dependent on a very prudent cost management formula. Identically, the formula for Canada Post's long term viability contained in the recently announced financial framework of the corporation depends on sound financial management. We must stay the course if Canada Post is to continue giving Canadians the service they expect at a price they can afford.

Canada Post must preserve a tradition of service that has benefited rural Canadians for so long. At the same time it must ensure that good affordable service to all Canadians remains a priority. To accomplish this, competing interests must be balanced and the Canada Post Corporation Act does that very well.

Let us not interfere with the success of Canada Post. It has had a fulfilling, challenging career. It is doing a very effective job and I think we should leave sleeping dogs lie.

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre has brought this issue to a debate. It is good because it has focused on certain things that ought to have been focused on for quite some time. It is not a new idea. It has been around for a long time. The bill does focus our attention on an issue that is rather significant.

I want to address the contracting procedure that is engaged in by Canada Post. The hon. parliamentary secretary gave a rather well reasoned speech this afternoon but avoided some of the problems that exist within the contracting procedure itself.

I have before me an affidavit sworn before a notary public in Alberta. I want to read part of it. It deals with the very issue I am talking about, the contracting procedure. It reads in part:

In April of 1996, I knew my contract with Canada Post Corporation would be expiring on June 30th. As I had done in the past, I decided to phone Contracting Services in Edmonton to see what they were going to do. I was hoping, as they had done in the past, just extend or renew it again.

I was talking to Lee Alexander. He asked me how long have I had the contract. I told him ten years. He then said they would have to tender out this route as a matter of course to show the public that I did not own it permanently. He told me to bid the exact amount I was being paid at the time and I would get it back for another five years.

After the tendering process was closed, I received a phone call from Lee Alexander. He said there were bids received lower than the one I submitted and would I drop my price to get the contract back?

I asked him how much was the lowest bid. He said they don't release that information. He again asked if I would go down or lose the contract. I said I could if I had to, but by how much would I have to down? Five hundred dollars? He said no, go down much more. I kept dropping and dropping until he finally said “okay, that's enough”. I ended up taking a cut of $5,077.08 per annum to keep my job.

It is scandalous to treat people like that, but that is what happened.

The RRMCs is a reliable, resourceful, friendly and independent group of people. I admire these couriers. Our mail is delivered by a rural route mail courier, a wonderful person. They love freedom. They love enterprise. This lady loves to be independent and I agree. I am an entrepreneur and enjoy that freedom and independence. I believe they have been treated shabbily. In some cases I dare say the treatment has been disgraceful.

The question now before us is: Will eliminating subsection 13(5) of the Canada Postal Corporation Act be the best response to the problem? Can the problem be resolved? Of course it can. I clearly understand the frustration and the anger of the RRMCs. No one should be treated as some of them have been treated. I am not suggesting they have all been treated this way. I do not know, but I know that some of them have been treated very badly.

The contracts were awarded and then negotiated after they were awarded. Mr. Speaker, you have been a businessman for many years. Many of us have been in business. We do not negotiate contracts after they are awarded. We negotiate them before.

The process was secret. In this case the particular mail courier was told there was another bid. He was not told how much that bid was or whether there really was a bid. He does not know to this day whether there really was a bid or how much it was. He was simply told to drop his price. When it was not enough he was told to drop it a little more. It was not an isolated case. I have only the one affidavit, but a number of them have told me that this is the situation.

Pressure was exerted to lower the bid. Conditions, or whatever else the supervisor wanted, became negotiable items after the contract was signed. Some couriers were coerced into submitting a tender they felt was unreasonable, but due to personal conditions or requirements they went along with it. In some cases whole lifestyles had to be changed.

The playing field was unfair, capricious, unstable and often unreasonable. A question has to be asked in this regard. If it was so bad why did they stay? I think one of the reasons was that for them it was a lifestyle, something the family was used to, a second income or a variety of indications.

The issue is not whether it is a second income or whether it is subsidiary to something else. The question is whether the contract is fair, honest and above board, and does everyone know what are the conditions. That is the principal issue.

They stayed because it gave them flexibility. They did not have to punch a clock. They did not have to do things exactly the way someone else told them to. They could exercise their own initiatives and resourcefulness in applying their own innovations. Many of them, I suggest all of them, liked their neighbours and the social contact as they went from delivery post to delivery post. They were proud and they still are.

They say with pride that the mail must go through no matter what the weather or road conditions. They are proud to live by that. To overcome these problems is a challenge to them and they like that. I commend them for it and have great respect for them.

Repealing subsection 13(5) of the Canada Post Corporation Act would eliminate the quality of independence of the entrepreneur. They would become employees.

It would take away the flexibility these people enjoy today both on the RRMC side and on the Canada Post side. Clearly it would do away with that. It would do away with a way of life. It would become a job. It would take away their sense of personal freedom, flexibility and opportunity to exercise their initiative, their innovativeness and their resourcefulness. It would make them employees, not contractors or entrepreneurs.

What could be proposed as an alternative to eliminating section 13(5)? Clearly it is better to do something else than to eliminate that clause. The hon. parliamentary secretary said that removing that clause would apply to a lot more than just the RRMCs. It would apply to a whole host of other contractors doing business with Canada Post.

What needs to happen is that the contracting procedure must be changed. It has to become fair, open and transparent. Everybody should understand before they bid what they are bidding on. The bidding should be open and then on the day the contracts are to be awarded or opened everybody would know exactly what bids are on the table and what the conditions are. Then they could move ahead. All coercion must be removed. There should be absolutely no way in which the bidding procedure could be interfered with by some kind of a supervisor.

There is some indication there is a movement in that direction. I have a letter from the hon. André Ouellet, chairman of Canada Post, in which he indicates clearly some of the things that have been done. It does not go far enough. He is moving in some directions but not nearly adequately in my opinion.

Unless Canada Post changes and implements a whole new contracting procedure and gets a contract that is fair, open and similar for couriers in a particular region, it will invite continued pressure by the RRMCs to do the kind of thing the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre has presented to us. I do not believe it is the best solution, but I fear that unless Canada Post has a better relationship with its rural route mail couriers and gets into a contracting procedure that is fair and honest, it will simply invite more of this kind of thing.

There appears to be a movement toward solving some of the contractual process problems. Let us not do this now and slam the door shut before they have a chance to improve their relations.

[Ghislain Lebel, Bloc, Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill, which I am interested in because I am my party's postal service and public works critic.

I listened very closely to the remarks of the member who introduced this private bill. I also listened with great interest to the remarks of the government member on the Standing Committee on Public Works and Government Services.

Members on the other side of the House are naturally in favour of any government initiative. I recall that, not that long ago—in the spring, I think, or last fall—our committee considered the renegotiation of the contracts for the small postal outlets that have sprung up everywhere, in drug stores, shopping centres or other small businesses.

When Canada Post Corporation launched this idea, it was hoping to reduce its operating costs, generate additional profits and provide work for the operators of postal outlets, but at the lowest possible cost, so as to generate additional profits, because otherwise Canada Post Corporation would have run these postal outlets itself.

Unfortunately for Canada Post Corporation, and fortunately for the operators of these small postal outlets, the profits generated were higher than those initially estimated by the corporation.

When the contracts came to an end, the Canada Post Corporation negotiated mercilessly with people, putting a gun to their heads and saying “Take it or leave it. Sign here.” and their commissions were cut. This is the cavalier behaviour of the Canada Post Corporation.

Things are no different with rural mail delivery. As the member said, a person buys a small car or truck to deliver mail in the area. They collect their mail in the morning at the central post office; if the person sorting the mail is sick and could not sort the mail the day before, the independent mail delivery person will do it. In winter snow storms, this is the person who takes out his shovel and clears the snow in order to get to people's mailboxes. It is wrong, as the party in power is claiming, to say that these people are independent.

And to hide all the time behind legalistic reasoning like that cited by the representative of the party in power is sad and unfortunate, I find. These people are working for less than the minimum wage in their respective regions, it is a fact. This is abusing people.

I think the charter of rights and freedoms so often cited here in Canada establishes the freedom of association. Freedom of association is the rule. There must be as few exclusions and exceptions to the rule as possible.

But every time the government is involved directly, through a crown corporation or in any way in confrontation with groups that may make a claim, such as the RCMP or the letter carriers at the moment, the people delivering rural mail, it wastes no time breaking the rule of freedom of association.

It thumbs its nose at its own charter in prohibiting collective bargaining just so that the Canada Post Corporation can pay it another $200 million annually in net benefits that it gives back to the government, which claims the corporation owes it money from back when it was not breaking even.

The government did invest money. Now it wants to recover that money but, true to its ways, the government will not take it off the earnings of its senior officials, or that of CPC chairman André Ouellet or his directors and deputy directors, but from those as the lower end of the pay scale, who walk in the snow to deliver parcels and letters to mailboxes. The government is making them pay for the mismanagement that occurred in previous years.

I cannot accept that. It is one thing to be partisan, to do one's utmost to support one's party—and the member opposite is doing a good job at that—but one must still have some moral principles. Regardless of our political allegiance, when people are forced to slave away for less than minimum wage, partisanship is no longer acceptable. This issue has to do with dignity, and we must allow these people to preserve their dignity.

I was floored to hear the Reform Party member, whom I respect, say “We will break the contractual relationship that exists between Canada Post and contract employees'.? That relationship was prescribed by the act. They did not choose it, they did not want it. It was imposed on them by the act.

Today, those who deliver our mail are asking us to help them. I think we have a duty to do so. It would be too simple, as a governing party or a political party, to stay away from society's problems, to not face these problems, to hide behind the rulings of the Federal Court of Appeal or of any other court.

I think the government is missing a prime opportunity to give some dignity back to these contractors who no longer want to remain independent.

I have taken part in such negotiations. Someone will buy a small vehicle in order to get a contract. When the contract is about to expire, the local or regional postmaster says “You know, you have some competition. A few people have called us this year”. That person is still making payments on the vehicle and the contract is coming to an end. If that person does not get the next contract, he or she may get stuck with the truck or car still being paid for. So that person is told to make a reasonable bid.

Year after year, contract after contract, this poor person has to submit lower and lower bids. Such behaviour is unworthy of a representative of the Canada Post Corporation, which claims to be so honest and great. Wanting to make a profit on the backs of poor workers is despicable.

Personally, I will wholeheartedly support, as my party will, the bill introduced by the hon. member. I urge the members opposite to show some mercy, to rise above party politics and to try to imagine what it is like to work hard and still have trouble earning a living. Not everyone earns as much as federal ministers do and gets to travel anywhere in the world whenever he or she feels like it. There are people who are hurting in their ridings.

The Reform Party suggests that the existing contracts be cancelled. This is total nonsense. I remember that the members of the Reform Party opposed a measure limiting to three months of interest the penalty imposed by the lender when someone wants to renegotiate or pay off his or her mortgage before it was up.

They opposed it as though all Western farmers who owed money on machinery, land or farms were so rich that they did not care about paying the big penalties imposed on them when they wanted to renegotiate or pay off mortgages or loans before they were up. Only the Reform Party could oppose such a measure. As if all Western farmers were millionaires.

Then they turn around and describe the hardship suffered by Western farmers, saying how sad it is when grain prices drop. However, when the time came to help the farmers through modest private members' bills like that one, Reform was always the first to oppose them.

I say to the hon. member who introduced the bill that he can count on my support and on the support of my party. I hope that, at some point, the people across will see the light and understand that they cannot act as if their party were the only one on the face of the earth.

[Gilles Bernier, Progressive Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-238, which involves private mail contractors.

I have been involved with this issue almost from the day I was elected two and a half years ago. I have met with and discussed this issue with representatives of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the Organization of Rural Route Mail Couriers and Canada Post Corporation itself. In addition, as a beneficiary of daily rural mail delivery, this is an issue that concerns me personally.

Canada Post became a crown corporation in 1981 by means of the Canada Post Corporation Act, and as such, its labour practices were no longer governed by the Public Service Staff Relations Act but by the Canada Labour Code which allows dependent contractors to unionize, something not provided for by the Public Service Staff Relations Act.

Subsection 13(5) of the Canada Post Corporation Act provides an exemption to subsection 3(1) of the Canada Labour Code that deems mail contractors, including rural route mail couriers, not to be dependent contractors.

In 1981, under the guidance of the former postmaster, and at that time Progressive Conservative postal critic John Fraser, our caucus voted to support subsection 13(5) for a number of reasons.

First, this provision continued the historical relationship that Canada Post has always had with its mail contractors.

Second, it was felt that changing that relationship could potentially increase the operating costs of the corporation substantially with no corresponding improvement in service levels to the public.

Third, the nature of this change would have removed some of the flexibility for both parties to negotiate an arrangement particularly suited for each individual contractor. For example, under the current arrangement, contractors have the ability to subcontract while employees do not. Finally, this arrangement kept Canada Post on a level footing with many private sector companies who also use private contractors for their own deliveries.

For these reasons, our party continues to support subsection 13(5) of the Canada Post Corporation Act, and that is why we cannot support the bill.

That does not mean, however, that we are indifferent to the problems faced by private mail contractors in their dealings with Canada Post. In many conversations I have had with individual contractors, with representatives from the Organization of Rural Route Mail Couriers, CUPW and with some Canada Post employees, I have heard many horror stories about the contracting practices of the post office.

For example, at one point it was common practice that when a delivery contract was up for renewal, a Canada Post employee would phone up the contractor and tell them that they had received a bid from another source that was thousands of dollars less than what the contractor was currently being paid. Because Canada Post operates a closed bidding system, there was no way for the contractor to verify the claim of the postal representative. The contractor would then be faced with a difficult decision: undercut his or her own price by several thousand dollars or else lose the contract.

These and other bad faith practices by the post office have led others and myself into discussions with Canada Post. As a result of complaints from contractors and others acting on their behalf, the post office has introduced a series of new measures that I hope will alleviate a great number of the difficulties contractors have had in the past.

These include the following: one, rural routes will be contracted on an individual contractor basis; two, contractors who in turn subcontract out their routes at a reduced price, known as master contractors, will no longer be eligible to renew their rural contract; three, if a master contractor previously held the route, the previous employee or the subcontractor actually performing the work will be the first potential supplier offered the contract at renewal; four, rural contracts will be issued for five years with a five year renewal option based on satisfactory performance and tendered after ten years; five, a negotiated adjustment will be included for the five year renewal option to ensure that market conditions, such as inflation, are considered; six, a quality and performance component will be included in the contract renewal and awarding processes to recognize the past performance of incumbent contractors; and seven, the evaluation of tenders will be based on criteria such as experience, service performance, reliability, image and cost.

In addition, when contracts are up for bids, Canada Post will make contractors aware of the specifications of the routes they will be performing, such as the number of points of call, daily kilometres, number of stops for personal contact items and the amount of ad-mail they can expect to deliver. These numbers will be updated annually or more frequently if a significant change occurs and contractors will be compensated for these changes.

The post office has also prepared a handbook or what it calls a delivery reference manual for its mail contractors. The purpose of the manual is to provide assistance and guidance with a reference book and a phone directory of key individuals at Canada Post whom they can call when a problem arises. In conjunction with this, local supervisors and postmasters will be provided with an operator's handbook and support training material to assist them in working with contractors.

These measures probably will not prevent disputes from arising. They probably will not ensure that all contractors will be treated fairly and honestly by Canada Post employees at all times. However, I feel that the changes announced will bring much greater fairness and openness to the relationship between rural mail contractors and the post office.

I continue to work with and listen to rural mail contractors to ensure that they are treated fairly and that Canada Post deals with problems that arise in a timely and equitable manner.

I am a person who has been in the contracting business for over 22 years. I have bid on a lot of contracts for the federal government.

On every contract on which I bid it never meant that I became an employee of the government. I was on my own. I was the employer and the people I hired to help me perform that contract were my employees.

I understand the intent of the rural mail couriers, but when they are under contract they are not employees. They cannot benefit from sick leave, vacations, and all that they would encounter. If they want to become full time employees of Canada Post, they should apply for a job when a job opens up. Until that job becomes available, they are contractors.

When a bid comes up, it is up to them to decide if they want to bid on the contract or not. If they are going to bid on a contract to lose money, that is their own problem. As a contractor myself, I never bid on a contract to lose money.

I sympathize with the rural mail couriers, but they have to understand that they are contractors and not employees of Canada Post. When it comes to the rural routes, if all those people became employees of Canada Post, imagine how much it would cost Canada Post Corporation. We would not be getting better service. For all the money it would cost Canada Post, we would be getting the same service, not better service. This is the taxpayers' money so let us put the money in a good place.

I hope that the rural mail couriers will understand that when we were in power we were the ones who put in section 13(5) to protect them and Canada Post employees at the same time. As I told many people in the mailing industry and even Canada Post itself, I will continue to support section 13(5).

Having said that, it is a good private member's bill and I have the greatest respect for the hon. member from the NDP, but I just cannot support this private member's bill.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Wentworth—Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, very simply, in the time that is left, while I applaud the initiative of the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre, his bill certainly does not work as intended.

The bill proposes to eliminate section 13(5) in order to put the independent mail contractors in the union. However, the essential words of that clause are “a mail contractor is deemed not to be a dependent contractor or an employee”. We can substitute “mail contractor” for “independent contractor is deemed not to be a dependent contractor”.

If we eliminate this section, it will not change anything. It is one of these sections that get into legislation every now and then for political reasons. In fact, Canada Post, whether or not that section exists, will retain the right to hire independent contractors as it does now and as it will in the future. While I applaud the hon. member's good intentions, I assure him that his bill will not achieve what he is setting out to do.

I will say, however, that I am a great supporter of private members' business and I am very glad that the hon. member brought this bill forward. As the member for Kelowna said, there is no doubt there are grave injustices being done in the way contracts are being negotiated with our rural mail carriers.

The real problem is not a matter of whether they are in or out of a union. The real problem is with Canada Post itself. It is a body that is neither fish nor fowl. It is not a business, yet it is an arm of government. If it conducted itself as a business, indeed if we privatized Canada Post, it would have to conduct good business practices in a spirit of transparency that does not exist now. We cannot see how Canada Post operates. We would find that it would have to bend to good market practices and I would expect that it would negotiate contracts with these rural mail carriers in a decent and orderly manner.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The time provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the order paper.

It being 2.30 p.m., the House stands adjourned until Monday, November 15, 1999 at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Orders 28(2) and 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 2.30 p.m.)