Debates of March 22nd, 1999

Government Services Act, 1999

[Jason Kenney, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is very exciting. It sounds like the red flag is about to be waved. I am ready to strike into a chorus of the Internationale.

I would like to comment on the hon. member's remarks. I have a great deal of respect for the member. I understand his frustration as a man with considerable background in the trade union movement.

I would like to correct a couple of comments he made at the beginning of his remarks. He said, “The Reform Party would like to wipe unions off the face of the earth” and that it was almost fraudulent to claim that we had any support for unions.

I think the hon. member perhaps got a little carried away in hyperbole. He may doubt the degree of commitment of my party to trade unions and collective bargaining, but in all sincerity, I would point out to the member that one of our basic principles as a party and as defined in our policy statement is that the Reform Party supports the right of workers to organize democratically, to bargain collectively and to strike peacefully. We also support the harmonization of labour-management relations and reject the view that labour and management must constitute warring camps.

Personally, many of my own economic views are influenced by the social teachings of the Catholic church. I have been heavily influenced by the encyclical letter Rerum Novarum on the dignity of human labour. I understand and appreciate the right of workers to work together, to bargain collectively and the freedom to associate and the freedom to strike peacefully.

That is why we have had difficulty with the approach of the government on this issue. We would prefer to see final offer binding arbitration to the kind of destructive game we see being played here between the union and the government.

Could the hon. member comment on whether he sees that kind of final offer binding arbitration as a possible constructive alternative to the kind of adversarial relationship that is destructive to the interests of both the workers and, in this case, the farmers whose product is being held up?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question because the issue of final offer selection has been raised as a possible solution for this impasse and others.

I have quite a bit of close personal knowledge of final offer selection. I have actually used it in my own negotiations. It was law in the province of Manitoba for a number of years. It was chucked out by the Tories when they got in. They thought it was weighted too much in favour of the union, which was not really true.

The thing one really needs to know about final offer selection is that it is not very effective unless both parties stipulate themselves to it, that both parties are willing participants. In other words we cannot legislate final offer selection by telling them they are going to settle their impasse by final offer. That puts a disadvantage.

It is also very difficult to use final offer selection for complicated matters other than strictly monetary issues. For instance, if rules of work or the organization of the workplace have some part in the impasse or the strike which is taking place, then it is very difficult because we cannot weigh apples to apples. When one party is asking for a 5% raise and the other one wants the washroom moved closer to the lunch room, how do we compare those two and how does the arbitrator make a selection?

Suppose it is Roger Maris dealing with his baseball team. Final offer selection originated with pro ball. If it is only about money and the company is offering $1 million and the player wants a $1.5 million, the arbitrator does not have that difficult a time. Both parties then try to temper their demands with reason, one would hope, and get closer to the centre until they are not that far part so that there are no real losers.

Those are my comments on final offer selection. It has its place. There is nothing precluding people from using it now if both parties stipulate themselves to it.

[Yves Rocheleau, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when the government leader says that it saddens him to have to act as he is acting today, I believe that there is also an element of shame involved.

I would like to know what my NDP colleague thinks of the attitude of the government leader in this respect. How does he feel about the introduction of this bill?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure I fully understand the question. The translation was a little questionable.

Our party's position is that it is fundamentally wrong. We are always opposed to back to work legislation. We are fundamentally opposed to taking away the rights of workers to withhold their services. I believe the comments of my leader have been consistent with that party policy.

One of the issues my leader, representing the riding of Halifax, was most concerned with was the regional pay issue. Some public servants are paid differently based on where they live.

It seems fundamentally wrong that skilled trades people doing exactly the same job but in two different parts of the country are paid differently. Members of parliament are not paid differently based on where they come from. Neither are members of the RCMP nor most civil servants.

It is only that group, the 14,500 blue collar workers, that suffers this inconsistency. It can be as much as $3 an hour from one coast to the other. We are not talking high wages to begin with but we are talking about a spread of $3 or $4 an hour for the same job. It is a pay equity issue, not dealing with gender this time but with geography. It is fundamentally wrong.

How sloppily crafted was this back to work legislation? Looking at the zones, the government left out Nunavut. How could we forget about Nunavut? It is in the papers. April 1 is the big day. The legislation must have been thrown together at midnight in a coal mine or something with no lights on because there are glaring omissions.

One of the omissions is in the translation. In the definition of common law spouse, the English language version talks about a relationship existing for a continuous period with the employee. It contemplates same sex. In the French translation it says that the common law situation shall be a relationship between a man and a woman who have lived together for a certain length of time.

The government forgot to update its own bill which we are being asked to pass. On the basis of that omission alone, we should vote down this legislation because it is not consistent with the government's own policy to recognize same sex relationships when it comes to benefits.

[Jake Hoeppner, Reform, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite interested in the comments by the hon. NDP member.

The member knows that in western Canada the grain issue and work stoppages have been going on for the last 30 years. I also run into a number of problems where workers are migrating from one part of the country to another.

If I am right, unemployment insurance is also discriminatory for some people who have worked in higher workfare areas such as B.C. and then have come to Manitoba and are unemployed. They are paid at a lower scale. There are a lot of inequities.

I liked his comment on final offer selection arbitration. We have talked to quite a few shippers in the last couple of years on transportation reform. This type of arbitration works quite well in some instances in other sectors such as the coal industry. There is some good in this. There should be enough common ground so that we can work toward the legislation and not have these interruptions any more. That is what western farmers want.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have had this matter raised.

As we went through the amendments to Bill C-19, we did put in place some protection to make sure the grain would go through. Let us remember that is the Canada Labour Code. The workers who are at an impasse today are under the Public Service Staff Relations Act and therefore are not affected by that.

If the government were really sincere about never having the flow of grain interrupted again by anybody, the simple solution would be to let those public servants be covered by the Canada Labour Code, not the Public Service Staff Relations Act. This is exactly what they have been asking for for decades. The Public Service Alliance of Canada wants to be under the Canada Labour Code. We would not have any more grain problems because this would be covered under Bill C-19.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, APEC inquiry; the hon. member for Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, Public Service; the hon member for Mississauga South, Poverty.

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, what I am about to say is very important. It has a lot of importance in reference to western Canada, particularly in the grain industry. We will deal with that.

I want to emphatically say that the blame here and this debate is happening today because of inactivity and inaction on behalf of the government of this country. Treasury Board has had two years to resolve this issue. Because of the inaction of Treasury Board and this government, members of PSAC table two were required to go on strike in order to get their message across to the President of the Treasury Board. It is inexcusable that labour-management relations have dropped so low that in two years they could not get to the bargaining table and come up with a resolution to a labour issue.

I speak from experience. I have had ample experience in dealing with numerous unions in a previous life. I can also stand here today in front of the House and say that in all of the negotiated settlements we had, not once did we require a strike mandate to get a settlement. Not once did we have our unions hit the bricks in order to get what they felt was a reasonable negotiated settlement from the corporation. That speaks to good, honest, equitable, in good faith negotiations between labour and management. That is something this government and the President of the Treasury Board do not understand, open honest negotiation, an honest negotiated settlement with their unions, in this case PSAC table two.

Let me talk about PSAC. I stood in the House not that long ago when PSAC was still on strike. It is still on strike today but perhaps not in the next couple of days. I said in a statement that it is unconscionable to have a unionized group of individuals who have not had a wage increase for seven years. Not to give a wage increase to any labour organization for seven years speaks to disaster.

Since 1991 we have all gone through some very tough economic times over the last seven years. There was a thing called the recession. I am sure most members will remember the recession of 1991-92. It is pointed out to us regularly when we talk about how after 1992 the economy got spurred along by a number of very major initiatives that the government of the day put into place. However, I digress just a bit. From that point on when those initiatives of that government were put into place, the economy did turn around. We are seeing the fruits of our labour today because of those initiatives taken in 1991-92.

Let us go back to PSAC's position. Since 1991 it has not had an increase.

The same circumstance faced us and we gave increases to our unions. They may very well have been small increases. They were half of 1%, three-quarters of 1% on an annual basis. The reason we did that as an employer is so we would not have to worry seven years later about trying to catch up. We did not have to worry seven years later about having a very disappointed and unhappy union that would go on strike. We never had that because we were logical in the way we faced labour-management relationships.

PSAC table two has not had an increase for seven years. Of course those workers frustrated. We would be frustrated if we had not had a wage increase for seven years. Members of the House gave raises to themselves. Mr. Speaker, you, me and members in the House got salary increases. We did it ourselves.

By the way, members of this party said we would rather see wage increases go to the RCMP, to PSAC and to those government employees who have not had salary increases for seven years. When we ran for office we knew what we were going to be paid. Those people have families like we do and they have to make sure they keep pace with inflation. They have not had it, but they should have a wage increase.

PSAC went back to the table for 14 days. On the last day the government decided that it would try to negotiate in good faith. Those negotiations lasted for three hours. Then the government walked away from the table. That is why we are here today, with a PSAC strike that is still ongoing and a government that is not prepared to negotiate honourably and fairly.

As I said, two years is a long time. Fourteen days of negotiations with nothing happening is a long time. The frustrations of PSAC came to a boiling point and it went on strike.

Unions have certain rights in negotiated agreements. PSAC has the right to strike. PSAC has the right to remove its services from the government, the employer that is paying its members. The PSAC membership has taken that strike vote and it has taken that strike to the streets. That is the right of PSAC and the unions.

I had the opportunity to meet quite a number of PSAC members in my office over the weekend when I was in my riding. They are like the rest of us. They have families, they have jobs, they have lives, they have mortgages and they want to go back to work. They actually want to go back to work. They would rather be working than not working and on strike. However, they want a settlement which is fair and equitable. I mention the strike vote because they have the right under their union agreement to take their services away from government.

Last week when the grain weighers went on strike they impacted another industry, an industry that is very important to me and my constituency in western Canada, and to Canada in general. In my opinion they crossed the line. They went too far. When I met with these people I mentioned that. I told them that I spoke on their behalf, that I believed the government and the President of the Treasury Board had not done what they were elected to do and that they had been negligent in their duties. But when these people took their services away and impacted the agricultural industry, they stepped over the line.

As members are well aware, the agricultural industry is in difficult straits. We have problems in trade relations with our major trading partners, the United States and Japan. We have problems with commodity prices worldwide. Western Canadian producers are getting the lowest commodity price they have had in generations. There is difficulty in the farming economy to the point where the government has put together the AIDA program, an aid program to give farmers the opportunity to plant their crops again this year.

We recognize that there are serious implications when the trade of that agricultural commodity is impacted. I told the PSAC members that, unfortunately, this could not happen.

I was very fortunate last month to travel with the agriculture committee to Washington. I was very fortunate this month to travel with the minister of agriculture to Japan. Two issues were always being put on the table by our major partners. The United States of America is our major trading partner and Japan is our second largest trading partner in agriculture. In both cases our trading partners told us that they would trade with us if and only if we could guarantee delivery of our product in a reliable fashion.

Remember what I just said. There are problems in the world with commodity prices. There are problems in the world with a number of other countries producing the product that we would like to sell to the open market. There is a lot of competition out there. We have good customers who depend on us. They depend on the delivery of that product. The delivery of that product has been impacted by the PSAC strike. That cannot be tolerated.

The best solution is not back to work legislation. The best solution is not to force people to do something they do not want to do. The best solution is to get the President of the Treasury Board back to the bargaining table, to sit down and negotiate a fair settlement with that organization, which in fact should be dealt with in a similar fashion as other members of that organization were dealt with previously.

They are not asking for anything totally out of the ordinary. They are asking for fair compensation. That is all they are asking for.

I said that they should not to be forced back to work. We will debate this legislation that is before us right now, the back to work legislation. However, I cannot in good conscience suggest that farmers in western Canada will be able to take this on the chin, a third party which has absolutely no opportunity of getting its grain moved without PSAC going back to work.

The process is something we would like to talk about. As I said earlier, this motion should never have been introduced. This should never have been an issue. It should never have been a problem. I again must repeat myself and say that I hold this government totally to blame for not solving this problem before it got here. The government had two years to solve the problem. It should never have come to the floor of this House. Now it is here. We will have to make sure that grain exports, grain handling and grain transportation are not impacted by this group of individuals in PSAC.

In my closing remarks to the union people whom I met with this weekend I told them quite emphatically that we cannot stand for what they are doing and how they are impacting grain. We will have to consider supporting back to work legislation if they are not able to get back to the bargaining table or back to work.

I am very disappointed that we have to be here today to speak on this issue. I will hopefully have an opportunity when we debate the legislation within the next day or two to explain why it is totally unfair that this government has not been able to come up with a negotiated settlement with this particular table of PSAC.

I would be more than happy to answer questions. I wish the motion would come forward quickly so that we could debate it.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with intent to my colleague from the Conservative Party. It almost sounds like he wants to have it both ways. However, I do agree with him on the fact that the government of the day is responsible for the current impasse. He is absolutely correct when he says that.

The only reason we are having this debate today is that when the back to work legislation was presented by the minister the NDP and the Bloc stood to force it. The Conservatives, Reform members and the Liberals all sat down. That is the reason we are having this debate. But that is another story and in my speech I will talk about it.

My question for the member from Manitoba is this. I am sure the hon. member is fully aware of the Liberal broken promise on regional rates of pay. He is sitting next to the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough who has briefed him on the regional rates of pay issue and the fact that the Liberals broke their promise on it. If they broke the promise they made in 1993, what makes him or his party think that this government has any credibility when it comes to fair bargaining with PSAC workers?

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is my understanding that my colleague is not in fact the member for all of Manitoba. Although I understand that he has aspirations in that direction, he is actually the member for Brandon—Souris.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

I am sure the hon. member for Brandon—Souris is very disappointed to hear of his new abridged responsibilities, but we will give him a chance to work up to them.

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for, I suspect, some ambitions that I may have, although I was not aware of them. Maybe he could tell me where he has been getting these particular pieces of information. However, things are strange in this world of politics, so one never knows.

I am the member for Brandon—Souris and I accept that there are members from Manitoba who represent other ridings, perhaps not as well as Conservative members in Manitoba, but they do represent them all the same.

I will try to answer the question from the hon. member of the NDP. As he is probably aware, with respect to zones or regional rates of pay, an offer was placed on the table by Treasury Board. As I understand it, PSAC table two has even agreed to a massaging of the zones at the present time from ten zones to seven zones.

As to his other comments about breaking our promises, I would suspect that we have not broken as many promises as the Liberals have broken. We can talk about the GST, the NAFTA, the EH-101, Pearson airport and a lot of other things, but we do not break our promises. We negotiate honourably and sensibly and try to make it as best we can for labour-management relations.

[Lee Morrison, Reform, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the hon. member for Brandon—Souris has seen through some of the Machiavellian aspects of this piece of legislation.

I have never, since I came to parliament, encountered a situation like this, where we have a national emergency of 70 people tying up the entire western agricultural economy. Everyone on this side wants to see that ended, as I am sure even hon. members from the party to my right would like to see that particular disruption ended.

What does this government do? It brings in this bloody piece of garbage that is going to take away the right to bargain by all—

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We have spoken about this with respect to the Reform Party before. Intemperate language is not appropriate. There are children watching this program. I heard words from that member's mouth. I think this is the third time in a week that the Reform Party has been using language of this type and it is not appropriate when across the country children are watching.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The point of the government House leader is certainly well made. I will invite the hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands to continue his dissertation.

[Lee Morrison, Reform, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I thought I was being rather temperate under the circumstances.

The government has brought in a bill which is going to directly affect thousands of workers who have absolutely nothing to do with the emergency at hand and nothing to do with the problem which we are going to have to resolve. In effect, it is probably going to force a lot of people who would not otherwise want to do so to vote to relieve people of their bargaining rights to solve a problem in one corner of the labour movement.

This is absurd. It is wrong. It is mean and it is Machiavellian. That is the only way I can describe it. I hope the hon. member for Brandon—Souris really had that in mind. I think that is what I got out of his speech. I would like him to confirm that.

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is true to a point. There is no question that this is a huge hammer to use to try to resolve a problem that could be resolved in a better and more honourable fashion if the assurances were there that the grain would be moved.

The problem is that farmers are being used as the badminton bird in this game between management and labour. Do not use my farmers as that badminton bird or that pawn. If we make sure that the grain can be moved, then I would be very happy to continue with the negotiating process that has now been put on the table by treasury and the union. It is a terrible sledgehammer to use back to work legislation right now in order to resolve this problem.

When the union took the grain handlers out and used this particular gambit, it also knew it would get the government's attention because it was affecting an $18 billion industry, most of western Canada and probably all of Canada. The union knew when it did it that it would get the government's attention and that this would be the result.

Nobody has total right on his side. The hon. gentleman is right. It would be very nice to be able to resolve the situation without this piece of legislation, get them back to work and make sure there are no strikes on the grain handling side of it.

Bill C-19 should have spoken to a situation where we would not have any more tie-ups with Canadian grain moving to the marketplace.

[Allan Kerpan, Reform, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to what sounds like the government using a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito. It is too little too late in many cases.

I have in my riding a number of PSAC union members who work at the base in Dundurn for the Department of National Defence. They are actually situated in the same grouping as the grain workers. I have been in contact with them over the last few days. They are very upset that they will be taken out of the bargaining process for no reason other than the government wanting to wholesale everybody back to work. They think it is ridiculous. I feel for them. In fact, they have many concerns that I would personally support as a Reform Party member.

What are the thoughts of the member for Brandon—Souris on why the government would not have brought in final offer selection long ago to prevent these strikes or lockouts from ever happening in the first place?

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. To try to understand the logic of the government is impossible. To ask me how I think the government thinks, it is impossible for me to get to that level. I am sorry but I cannot answer that question. At some point in time when a member of the government stands to speak perhaps the question would be better directed to him or her.

I still go back to my original comment. I cannot believe that a negotiated settlement could not be achieved in two years of negotiating. That shot my wildest dreams. I do not know why the Liberals would not go to binding arbitration. I know that the union has put that on the table before and they have not taken binding arbitration. I do not know why it was not extended in Bill C-19 so that grain would not be affected.

We recognize this is the pawn. We recognize the unions will use it. Let us be fair about it. They will use anything they possibly can to get the attention of a government that is not prepared to sit down and negotiate.

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to debate the motion introduced by the government.

The heavy handedness of the government goes beyond the pale in the way it thinks it can use its majority to impose its will not only in the House but right across the land. The motion introduced reads in part:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of this House, the bill standing in the name of the President of the Treasury Board, entitled an act to provide for the resumption and continuation of government services, shall be disposed of as follows:

1. Commencing when the said bill is read a first time and concluding when the said bill is read a third time, the House shall not adjourn—

They wanted us to give our consent, even before they had tabled the legislation, to rush the bill through first reading, second reading, third reading, hold our nose and presumably vote for it too without even having the courtesy of giving us the bill to tell us what they intended to do with the legislation. That type of attitude in this place cannot be tolerated and that is why the Reform Party says the government is very heavy handed.

We can think of other types of legislation that have been brought into the House.

I think of the hepatitis C debate we have had in the House wherein we talked about providing compassion and compensation for people who were infected with tainted blood. I have some people in my own riding, whom I know personally, that were tainted with hepatitis C. The member for Macleod is a physician and critic for the Reform Party on health matters. He has stated in the House many times that the government has an obligation to compensate these people because the Red Cross and those administering blood products were quite aware of the dangers in blood back in 1984 and before then. They had the capacity to test it and did nothing.

The government absolved itself of the responsibility. How did it do that? The Prime Minister cracked the whip and told everybody to get in line and support the legislation. Now it has taken it one step further. Now it is asking us to support the legislation before we even see the legislation. Surely that is too much.

[An hon. member]

Do you know about grain handling?

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

The government member is asking if we know about grain handlers on this side. Maybe they do not over there, but we know that farmers are hurting.

We commend the minister of agriculture because he brought in a package to help farmers in serious trouble. As we know, commodity prices have gone through the floor. When it comes to hog production, the faster farmers produce hogs the faster they lose money because the price of a hog is below the cost of production. Farmers are absolutely suffering a great deal.

Seventy people on the west coast who, because of the job they do weighing grain as it ends up at the coast, have been able to put a strangle hold on the prairie farm economy by stopping the movement of grain.

It is late March. A month from now farmers on the prairies will be wanting to be out in their fields to get this year's crop in. If last year's crop does not work, there is always next year. Farmers are always hoping for next year, and next year is just around the corner. They will have to pay for more grain, fertilizer, fuel and soon thereafter the cost of spraying that grain crop. These things are just over the horizon for farmers, and 70 people on the west coast have put a strangle hold on the entire farming economy on the prairies at the very time they need it most.

The cash is no good for them in late May. They need it to buy the seed that has to go in the ground in the springtime, not later. The seed cannot be put in any later. It has to be planted in the spring or it does not grow. It is that simple. We all know that.

It is the most opportune time to put the squeeze on the government. That is one of the reasons we as Reformers feel the motion deserves serious consideration. There is an emergency and that is why we feel the motion deserves serious consideration.

That does not mean to say that we like it. That does not mean to say that we like the way the government has introduced it. It has had opportunities to negotiate in good faith. It knows these contracts expire. There are five different tables of ongoing negotiations with PSAC. There are these different unions and they all expire at different times. The governments knows that ahead of time.

I think of computer specialists. They have a contract that expires at the end of April. That is only six weeks from now. This year we have the Y2K problem coming up. If we do not get the Y2K problem fixed before January 1, 2000, we will have a problem. The government knew that years ago. Yet it negotiated a contract with computer technicians that will expire on April 30, 1999, knowing full well that they have the potential to move into a strike position if they cannot get what they want before the year 2000.

I can see a few months from now standing here again talking about back to work legislation for computer programmers because government negotiated a contract that expired on April 30, 1999 rather than on April 30, 2000. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that we have given computer technicians a stranglehold on government operations by saying that if they go on strike the government will not be ready for January 1, 2000. If it is not ready by January 1, 2000, it is all going to shut down. That is incompetence by the government.

That is what we are talking about when we debate back to work legislation. If the government were to negotiate in good faith as an employer being able to offer a proper compensation package and the union had an understanding of its obligation to society, I am sure they could have come to an agreement before now.

Let look at the labour relations with the government. First it legislates no pay increases for six years. Then when it says they can have a pay increase it is only what it is prepared to give because they will not have the right to binding arbitration. It wonders why they are concerned when treated as something that can be legislated out of existence or legislated back to work any time the government wants.

Today Bill C-76 was introduced. We are only talking about 70 grain weighers in Vancouver, but the legislation wraps up the 14,000 people in the general labour and trade services, hospital services, fire fighters, heating and power, ship crews, lighthouse keepers, general services and grain weighers. I do not think these other people are on strike, but they will get wrapped up in the back to work legislation before they even go on strike.

The heavy handed government is not bothering to wait for them to go on strike. It expects they will because the relationship is so bad. Therefore it will not wait. It does it now by wrapping it up in one piece of legislation to get the job done. That is not right. It cannot be.

If the government wants a good relationship with its employees, how can it justify legislating 14,000 people back to work before they go on strike, before they even say they are going on strike, before they have even indicated they are going on strike?

As I explained there are 70 people and we feel 70 people should not have the right and the responsibility to hold up the entire farm economy on the prairies.

There have been all kinds of debates in the House about the wheat board, how it manipulates farm prices and how it should have and could have provided better incomes to farmers. Finally the government has opened the board a bit but not very much. We need to make sure the board is a lot more accountable to farmers. The government is stonewalling on that. The whole message of the government is stonewall, ignore, disregard. Then when people rise up and say “you are trampling on my democratic rights and I want to push you around”, the government legislates them out of existence.

Therein is the problem. We have 70 people on strike and we want to do something for farmers. We want to ensure that they cannot hold these people to ransom. Yet the government takes 14,000 people and wraps them up in the same argument. We cannot deal with that.

The list goes on and on, whether it concerns hepatitis C, legislating that people cannot have a raise or the farmers. The government does not recognize and respect the democratic rights of very many people. The only thing it respects is the Prime Minister's whip, who says “You will vote the way we tell you”. And when they vote the way they are told, the government gets what it wants.

Therefore, we will debate this issue as much as we can. Our hearts are with the people of this country. Our number one concern is for the people of this country, the taxpayers of this country, the people who built this country, the people who opened up the prairies and who make a livelihood as best they can, sometimes under very difficult conditions. I do not think the hundreds of thousands of people in the prairies deserve to have their livelihoods and their lifestyles held for ransom by 70 people. We oppose that. We are glad the government is doing something about it, but we are mightily upset that it has wrapped the rest of the people in at the same time.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my question is quite simple. The member is correct that this government has faltered quite seriously in its negotiation processes with the unions. However, I should remind the hon. member that it is more than just 70 members on the west coast who are on strike. Blue collar workers on the Atlantic coast are also staging rotating strikes.

The member made mention of these 70 people having a stranglehold on the Canadian economy. He makes it sound as if that is what these 70 members want to do. They want to go out on strike. They want to lose pay. They want to suffer through possible mortgage loss or possible car payment loss. Do people go through school, get educated and get a job so they can go on strike and put a stranglehold on the country?

I should remind the hon. member that this is not what they want to do. What they want to do, and I am sure the hon. member knows this, is to bargain in a fair collective bargaining process. If that fails, then a third party should become involved, an arbitrator, whose ruling would constitute binding arbitration, which would be the law.

This government has legislated away binding arbitration. This government also has not, even with the adjustment of the ten down to seven zones, gotten away with regional rates of pay. The personal love of the President of the Treasury Board is to have different pay scales across the country for the same work.

I hope the hon. member from the Reform Party does not believe that these 70 members on the west coast and the strikers on the east coast love to go on strike. I can assure the member that they do not.

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, obviously the member was not listening to my speech when I went into great lengths about how the government denied them a pay raise for six years and denied them the right to bargain, and that it had the right to impose a settlement rather than binding arbitration. The democratic rights of many people have been taken away, including the people who work for the government.

This government, if it wants to have a good working relationship with its employees, should bargain in good faith, rather than allow the situation to deteriorate to the point where we are now legislating them back to work.

It is not that these 70 people want to have a stranglehold on the economy, but the point is that they do. They do have a stranglehold on the economy. By virtue of the fact that those 70 people have gone on strike hundreds of thousands of people have had their livelihoods affected. Those hundreds of thousands of people have absolutely nothing to do with the dispute. They have no input in the debate. They are the ones who are greatly at risk. That is why we have to think seriously about helping them.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the strangest and oddest things about this back to work legislation has been the fact that the correction officers, who are being lumped into the back to work legislation, are not on strike. They are being ordered back to work even though they are not on strike. When the President of the Treasury Board was asked about that oddity, that strange set of circumstances, his reaction was that corrections officers are designated essential so they cannot strike. We all knew that, but there are 600 or 800 of them who somehow slipped through the cracks. The government is using this back to work legislation to plug that hole, to patch up that anomaly.

What does the hon. member think about trying to use back to work legislation as a vehicle to slide under the table or to sneak in other things which are not even related, which are completely secondary objectives? My personal feeling is, if the government wanted to designate these other workers as being essential, why did it not come in through the front door and do it honestly so we could have an open debate? It should not try to sneak it in under the table. I would ask the member to comment on that.