Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the House for its co-operative spirit in allowing me time to have the last seven minutes of debate on third reading.
We have just gone through a very arduous and painful exercise in the House and I do not think any of us are looking forward to repeating this any time soon, but the truth of the matter is that we are destined to repeat it. As my colleague from Selkirk—Interlake pointed out, it might not be all that long until we do have to repeat this. With the record we have seen since we came here in 1993, this is a recurring dream. It is like the summer reruns. They happen over and over again.
Time and time again we have to face the unpalatable and drastic task of legislating some group back to work. I am totally at a loss as to know who is the winner in a situation like this. It is certainly not the members of this House. It is certainly not the government as the employer and certainly it is not the employees. There are no winners.
Why do we continue to put ourselves through this sort of task when it is not necessary? Some third party always suffers in these instances. A party that has absolutely nothing to do with the conflict that is taking place, the labour strife, suffers just the same.
My colleague from Selkirk talked about agriculture. This is about more than the farmers. The economy of Canada is quite dependent upon agriculture. Agriculture is still one of the largest employers in the Canadian economy. The spin-off effect from agriculture is huge.
We have all talked about the importance of our good name and reputation as a dependable supplier of goods in the world market. Yet we find miraculously on the last day at the eleventh hour the minister comes into the House and says that wonder of wonders, they have reached a tentative deal.
It makes us wonder just how far apart the parties were in the first place. It makes us wonder whether or not we were misled. It makes us wonder whether there was a deal in the offing as we were gathering to consider this legislation. It makes us wonder whether both parties were utilizing the grain. We cannot say that labour knows that grain is a flash point, that it is a hot button. The government is certainly aware of that as well. It knows that we cannot hold up the grain shipments. We know that it is going to create action, action that none of us are going to enjoy.
The reason I say there is no reason to go through this is that we have a method available to us, if only the government would choose to implement it. I am speaking specifically to the President of the Treasury Board and to the Minister of Labour. We need to implement final offer selection arbitration so that these matters can be settled amicably. We have all talked about how a negotiated settlement is far better than an imposed settlement. I think we all agree with that.
In the spirit of final offer selection arbitration, I would like to move the following motion. I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following therefor:
“Bill C-76, an act to provide for the resumption and continuation of government services, be not now read a third time but be referred back to committee of the whole for the purpose of reconsidering all of the clauses with the view to provide final offer arbitration as an alternative to legislating agreements or workers back to work.