Debates of March 23rd, 1999

Division No. 354

[Peter Mancini, NDP, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Madam Speaker, we are debating an important issue today, one which my party has concerns about. Back to work legislation, particularly in regard to the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the current strike, is an issue we take most seriously, especially considering that mechanisms are in place whereby the government could have resolved the matter.

My understanding is that the difficulties have been under negotiation for some two years. The fact that no resolution has come forward is almost an indictment of the government and its lack of effort to bring this matter to some kind of closure.

I am particularly concerned about my part of the country because one of the fundamental issues in this strike is the regional rates of pay. The government has refused to acknowledge and negotiate that. Regional rates of pay means that people who are doing exactly the same work are paid less in one part of the country than people in another part of the country. Not surprisingly a bulk of those people who are paid less reside in Atlantic Canada, one part of the country that can least afford low wages.

I will address that particular issue because it affects my region. It affects other regions. It is interesting to note, and the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre raised this yesterday, that in the back to work legislation there is some reference to those particular regional rates of pay. The government is suggesting that it will reduce the number of regions from 10 to 7. It is talking about combining Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, and I suppose we will have Nova-Saskatchewan. It is another way of saying that people in western Canada and eastern Canada will receive less pay than people in other parts of the country. And the government wonders why there is western and eastern alienation.

How long has this been going on? I believe regional rates of pay were imposed in 1922. There have been some changes since 1922.

[An hon. member]

Not in the NDP though.

[Peter Mancini, NDP, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

A member opposite says not in the NDP. In some ways we have held true to our principles, unlike the government party which we have seen slide to the right as pressure from the Reform Party mounts.

The hon. member is right. There are some things we in the NDP have not given in on, unlike members of the Liberal Party. They have have given in on things like labour legislation. They have given in on things like the right to strike. They have given in on the fundamental democratic right to debate issues in this House. That is why there is closure today.

The hon. member wants to heckle and call out where the NDP stands on certain issues. I welcome those suggestions.

Going back to when this legislation was introduced, it was in 1922, three years after the Winnipeg general strike and about six years before the great strikes in Cape Breton which led to the death of William Davis, one of the great labour leaders in my province. I had the pleasure and the honour of being in Winnipeg recently. I got to see where that great strike happened, where the workers of this country stood together to fight for fair labour standards. I come from a part of the country where people have shed blood for the right to strike for fair labour standards. Yet today, many years later, we stand in this House with back to work legislation being imposed with closure by the government so we cannot even have a full debate.

It was introduced in 1922, before the second world war, and the government still justifies regional rates of pay. Think about it. In Vancouver, British Columbia and all across the country there have been all kinds of developments. Back then people were still taking trains to get from one end of the country to the other but since then, the Liberal and Conservative governments have seen to dismantling the train lines. Now people fly, those who can afford to. It is a measure of how out of touch the government is when it still defends a policy that was in place before Mackenzie King. It is archaic.

What does it mean to the workers in my part of the country? I have some statistics. It means that in Nova Scotia a private sector carpenter will earn on average $20.49 per hour. Someone who works for the people of Canada through the government will receive $13.92 an hour. What it means in Nova Scotia is that a private sector electrician will earn $22.53 while a PSAC worker will earn $15.38. A private sector labourer will earn $17.79 while a PSAC worker will earn $12 on average. A private sector plumber will earn $23.50 while a PSAC plumber will earn $16.89.

Not only are there regional rates of pay which discriminate against workers in different parts of the country, but when we compare what the PSAC blue collar workers are receiving in comparison to the private sector, we see the need for amendments and changes.

We understand and I ask Canadians who are watching the debate to understand the frustration of workers in one part of the country who are being told they cannot be paid the same as their brothers and sisters in other parts of the country and who are facing that huge wage gap between the public and the private sector. Why are they so frustrated? Why have they taken to strike? It is not because they wanted to but because of those very issues.

These are the people who have borne the price of the deficit fight on their backs. There is no question that the gap between the rich and the poor in this country has increased steadily. We know that over the last eight or nine years—and I think it has been seven years since these people have had a raise—wages have been frozen and clawed back for the public sector employees.

The Minister of Finance and the members of the Liberal government stand and applaud themselves for fighting the deficit. The reality is that it has been fought on the backs of the very people who today are standing outside and asking why they are being denied a marginal increase in pay.

The government will answer that in many ways. Yesterday in answer to questions one of the members of the government said that it would be inequitable to have the same rates of pay across the country, that somehow that is unfair.

The interesting thing about that is the people who are receiving the regional rates of pay represent 3% of the entire public service. If I were one of the other 97%, I might be a little concerned that the government's notion of fairness was going to find its way into the rest of the public service. If the government thinks it is unfair to give people who do the same work across the country the same pay, then those who are receiving the same amount of pay whether they are in Halifax, Sydney, Vancouver, Regina, or Toronto had better watch very carefully.

I dare say if the government were to suggest that members of parliament were to receive a change in their take home pay based on where they lived and what part of the country they represented, we might very well see a different debate in this House.

The government has some concerns about the movement of grain. It is important. No one should diminish the importance of the movement of grain to the farmers. Farmers themselves understand the difficulties faced by these labour unions.

Let us not forget that the mightiest combination that has moved us toward significant progress has been the alliance between labour and farmers. That was the foundation of the beginning of progressive movements in this country.

In my own province the labour movement and the farmers of Nova Scotia joined together and formed a political party and nearly captured the government. This was a very brief period in Nova Scotia history. Only by doing that did Nova Scotia begin to move progressive legislation forward in the areas of minimum wage, the right to organize and the right to strike.

I think the farmers who are being hurt by this legislation understand how important it is to join forces. That being said, the blame as to why farmers are suffering lies squarely at the feet of the government.

As I said in my opening remarks, this new labour situation did not fall like rain from heaven, unknown and not forecast by the weatherman. This dispute has been simmering for a long time. Regional rates of pay, cuts and clawbacks to the civil service are not brand new, or they should not be brand new to the government. Anyone who works and operates in any city or county of this country knows the terrible price the public service has paid to balance the books for this government.

This should have come as no surprise. Realistically, anyone with any foresight could have seen that without some settlement there was going to be strike action. And if there was strike action, it was going to end up hurting the shipment of grain across the country. It was going to end up shutting down public service buildings. It was going to end up hurting people who receive unemployment insurance cheques. It was going to end up hurting people waiting for income tax returns. It was going to hurt most Canadians. Surely be to God, the government, which represents and is supposed to act in the best interests of Canadians, should have seen that coming and should have done something about it.

The farmers are frustrated because the grain cannot move. Elderly people are waiting for cheques from the government. Many thousands of people who are without work are waiting for unemployment cheques, those who are entitled to unemployment under this government's legislation, those few who still qualify. People are waiting for other cheques from this government or for government services and are not receiving them because of this strike. Those people need not look far to determine where to point the finger. Point the finger at the government and its failure to act and its failure to take into account what was going to happen.

There is plenty of evidence. The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance report “Retention and Compensation Issues in the Public Service” implied that it would be in the public's interest to settle the labour dispute in a fair manner. That is a report that comes from the Liberals and the Conservatives in the Senate. Nevertheless, it is something I am sure that was brought to the attention of the government in its own caucus meetings.

Let us look at the cost to the government to settle this dispute. My understanding is that to settle this dispute would have cost the government perhaps $8 million. It is worth noting that the wheat board costed the loss of one contract at $9 million, slightly more than the cost to the government of reaching an agreement.

We are here today facing closure in the people's House on a fundamental piece of legislation that forces people back to work, that does not respect the right to negotiate, that will not look at arbitration in terms of a settlement. We are here debating that when it was foreseeable, when it was coming at us like the Titanic . There is nowhere for this blame to rest except at the feet of the government.

That being said, members of my party will continue to fight against the kind of tactics which have been used. Yesterday morning the opposition parties were given a piece of legislation that I think is 150 pages in length. We were given a piece of legislation in which the actual imposition of the back to work legislation was not highlighted. We were given a piece of legislation in which the figures were not costed. We had to rely on doing that ourselves, in a short period of time. We do not mind doing it ourselves, but when we are given that kind of document less than 24 hours before this government tries to impose a settlement, it is absolutely unfair. It is absolutely undemocratic. It takes away from what Canadians want in the House, which is reasoned debate on real issues that matter to Canadians.

We play political games with the lives of thousands of workers who are on strike and the thousands of farmers who are depending on grain shipments. That is the approach that the government uses.

It is no wonder that people get cynical about politics. They say “Why is the debate ongoing and taking so long?” It is ongoing because there has not been a proper process followed by the government. That has not been followed simply because the government did not want to admit that it did not see this coming.

We end up taking up a huge amount of time in this Chamber dealing with what could be dealt with in a more rational way. While we are doing that other important legislation has been moved aside. One has to wonder about the subtle implications of that.

It was only yesterday that we began debating the Minister of Justice's new young offender legislation. That has all been moved now, that important legislation, because this government has not followed the proper process. Other areas of important debate get deferred while we continue to try to deal with this back to work legislation.

It is regrettable that we are here today in this situation. It is unnecessary that members of the House of Commons find themselves in this situation. It is unfair to those whose livelihoods are being affected and who are waiting for the outcome of this legislation.

It is poorly drafted legislation. It was pointed out by the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre yesterday that the clauses are written in French and English, and one clause has been modernized while the other has not. It has been mentioned that the government forgot our newest territory when determining what the regional rates of pay would be. The government forgot to include Nunavut.

Perhaps the government should have taken its time to craft in a better way the legislation that comes before the House and given the opposition members appropriate time to review that legislation, instead of playing politics with the lives of people in this country, with the lives of the workers in this country, with the lives of the farmers in this country and with the lives of the taxpayers in this country, those who can least afford to have politics play with their lives.

It is with regret that I stand here seeing democracy eroded, seeing workers' rights eroded, seeing the things that Canadians have fought so hard and so long for eroded, to keep in place regional rates of pay from 1922 and to keep in place unfair worker discrimination from an era long gone.

This may have worked at a time when there was not the kind of information and communication that there is today. Today a worker in Sydney, Nova Scotia knows what his brother, a carpenter, is making in Vancouver, British Columbia. Today someone who is a plumber in Toronto knows what someone in Winnipeg is making. The government can not hide that from them. It does not have a rationale. We all keep waiting for a rationale from the other side to tell us how regional rates of pay can be justified. There is no logic. The answer is deafening in its silence. That silence is what the people who are in the public service alliance will remember in the next election.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues in the Bloc and the NDP for giving me this spot. As I sat and listened to the speech of my colleague from Wetaskiwin, I felt that as a farmer I wanted to fair. I felt it was another opposition member who probably should speak. I did not know that I was in line. But thanks to their kindness, they gave me my spot back.

There was a lot of truth in what we heard from the hon. member of the NDP. When I got into my office this morning the first thing I was told was that there were four PSAC strikers in my constituency office in Portage La Prairie. I dreaded the thought of talking to these people because I had always been given the impression by certain factions that they were probably very harsh and probably very unreasonable. The way government members explained it is that they could not deal with these people because they were asking far too much. I found exactly the opposite.

We talked on the phone with these people for about half an hour. I asked them what they wanted me to do. I said that a large percentage of my constituents were farmers. I also said that I have a lot of PSAC workers in the department of defence and in the prisons. I asked which side I was supposed to represent. I said that I knew the farmers were in dire straits and that they have to have cash flow to put in their crop this spring. I also said that I knew they had not had an increase for six years. He said “Mr. Hoeppner, you are wrong. We have not had an increase for eight years”.

When I see people who have waited for eight years to get a wage increase from this government, and I see this government that has in the last year and half given a 10% increase to the other place, followed by another 6% increase in wages, I know that something is wrong. That is simply negligence. I would call it even worse than that, and maybe say words that I should not use in the House, when an ordinary person who puts bread on their table cannot get an increase in eight years. We know what the cost of living has been. We know how taxes have increased in eight years. How are these people supposed to live?

I said to these people that I wanted them to support me in this back to work legislation, but I would make very sure that this government would get fire under its rear end so that it finally recognizes that their members are not the only ones who want an increase. The ordinary blue collar workers also want an increase. They deserve it and they have to have it.

How much does this government care about farmers? How much does it care about the ordinary individual? A prime example is what we experienced last year. The Ontario farmers voted 92% in favour of a voluntary wheat board so they could market some of their grain for a better price. What did this government do? It, along with the Ontario government, legislated against it. It listened to the manufacturers who said that if the farmers could sell their grain into the U.S. they may have to pay a higher price because they would not have the product.

There is a very simple solution to this issue of striking dock workers or railway men. Give farmers the choice to market their grain. They will take it across the border where there is no problem in moving that grain. They will probably have to pay a few cents a bushel extra for freight, but they will have a cash flow.

I want to read some statistics which show why I am so determined that this problem could be easily resolved. Morris Dorosh writes in the Financial Post :

Export shipments of the grains (wheat and barley) over which the Wheat Board has a legislated monopoly so far in the 1998-99 crop year are down 41% from the year-ago rate, and down 30% from the five-year average.

Do not tell me that these few days of rotating strikes have decreased that kind of movement of grain.

He further states that exports of non-durum wheat are down 44%, that durum is only down 18% because of the pasta plants in North Dakota, and that barley is down 64%.

He goes on to say:

Exports of leading Western Canadian crops that the Wheat Board does not handle are up 39%. Canola exports are 63% higher than a year ago and a record for the period. Flax export shipments of half a million tonnes are 13% higher than a year ago and the highest to this date in at last 15 years. Exports of Canadian oats are an all-time record for the first 31 weeks...

There is a problem, but it is not the workers at the ports. The problem is with the management and with the selling of these products. Management does not have to be accountable or efficient. They just have to sit and watch things go on as usual, while drawing high salaries, which has been the fact in the past.

This gentleman says:

So what happened to those advantages of the export monopoly? Where is the power and the glory of single-desk selling now? If this is orderly marketing, give me chaos.

That is exactly how the farmers feel.

It is not the workers at the ports. We have seen that with all the non-board grains. It is not that the railways are ineffective in moving this stuff. It is the monopoly that controls the management of these sales.

I would say that is negligence by a government when we have a decrease of 600 million to 700 million bushels of board grains that are being shipped when there is an increase in population in the world of at least 80 million. No one can tell me that these people are eating that much less food that they do not need these bread wheats or grains.

Reform opposed back to work legislation five years ago and suggested that we should have the final offer selection agreement. Today the unions are telling me they are tired of striking. They are tired of using the defenceless farmers as a lever. They do not want to do that. They are human and know that people have to live. However, they feel that is the only lever they seem to be able to use to make government react.

These people have been in a legal strike position for 90 days. As we heard my hon. colleague from Wetaskiwin say, some of the agreements are not finished yet and they were ordered back to work a year and a half ago or two years ago. This is not the way to run a country. This is what a heavy-handed government delivers when it will not listen or react to what needs to be done.

The PSAC workers, and I hope the facts they gave me are correct, were telling me that their gross paycheque was $24,000 a year. How many people today can have a decent livelihood with $24,000 a year? They still have to pay taxes on that. They still have to feed their families. They still have to clothe their children. It is ridiculous. It is a crime. That is the way I call it.

This is what farmers are fighting for. They want a decent return. They do not care about becoming millionaires. They want a decent return for their product, and they are willing to share. We can see that with the food grains bank. No matter how tough it is, farmers donate thousands of tonnes to the Canadian food grains bank. They see suffering and they want to help.

After talking to the PSAC workers this morning for half an hour or so I really felt sorry for them. They are in a position where they have very little clout and they have to use the food line to force government to a settlement. That should never happen in a democracy. That should never be the fact in the House of Commons, but it is.

If we do not change the system to give fairness, to give the opportunity to provide for families, we will some day experience what we are seeing in Kosovo and those areas today. Eventually people will revolt where they are kept handicapped or where they are imprisoned with government legislation that does not give them opportunities other people have.

How much has this country lost because of these strikes? I can bet my farm on that and I am not that big a gambler. If farmers got back all the money that was lost by them on work stoppages, they could probably all retire right now and have a nice bank account.

The worst of that situation is that the money they lost did not stay in this country. The money they lost went to foreign shipping companies and for demurrage. The money they lost went to pay penalties for non-deliverance of the grain they shipped. The money they lost in grain sales is foreign dollars that should have come into this economy. It is not just the losses that the farmers have been asked to bear, it is the whole economy that has lost these dollars.

When we look at statistics and some of the big private analysts telling us that every dollar that agriculture makes has a multiplier effect of $5 or $6 to the economy, we have a bit of an idea of what it could have done for this country. It could probably have provided for all our social costs. But no, we will not listen. We will not take the bull by the horns, as we say on the farm, and wrestle the critter down.

This critter that has allowed these types of work stoppages is not due only to the Liberal government. Work stoppages went on the whole nine years of the Conservative regime. This is a grave disease that nobody seems to be able to cure. What will it take for this country to realize this? What will it take for the government to realize this? Opposition parties realize it and have blasted the government for the last five or six years that I have been here.

Government members do not know how to listen. I do not know whether they all need hearing aids or what they need to finally listen to some good input from this side of the House. To me it sounds like they have silencers that we use on heavy machinery over their ears. The problem with that is if there is a problem with the machine and there is some kind of bearing squealing, they cannot hear it. There are 100 and some bearings squealing over here but that machine out there cannot hear it. They will let the whole thing break down before they will fix it. Then they will blame us and ask why we did not pull those lousy earmuffs off their ears so they could hear.

We are not allowed to do that in the House. We are supposed to be very gentle but sometimes I feel like walking over to the other side and screaming “there's a problem, are you listening?” People are not working. They cannot get a paycheque. Farmers cannot ship their grain. There is a problem.

[An hon. member]

We are trying to fix it.

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

They are fixing it, all right. What they are doing is draining the bit of grease out of the bearing that is still there so it will seize completely. That is what the government is liable to do.

The first John Deere combines that came out were all fixed with Japanese bearings. They had tried to build a good combine with cheap bearings. It was not very many months before farmers found out these suckers would not run. They had to replace all the bearings.

Probably the opposition is starting to realize that until we replace the machines on that side the bearings will be squealing all the time, or seized. There is no way that the machine of government can run. This is a problem we have been dealing with for five years and there is no fix in sight.

This is the example PSAC workers are telling us. It is broken. It is dilapidated and it is getting rusty. Very soon we will not even see the red colour on it. It will be just rust. It will look like the metal has been eaten through and there is some dirty dust underneath it.

[An hon. member]

What about the Reform?

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

The Reform over there would not do any good anymore because the machine has to be replaced. It is completely shot. It has to be replaced.

How we will do it we do not know but I know they are helping us by reacting to people like these PSAC workers. They will not forget at the next election that they were promised certain things and they never happened.

I tried to warn the government about the Manitoba flood area. It was out very gallantly during the flood with its chequebook and $5,000 cheques were written to anybody who had seen water in that area. It said it would set the guidelines later on so that people would have a good thing out of the flood.

Lo and behold all of a sudden the guidelines have changed. It wants the money back. The poor people who went through that flood will not forget that by the time the next election rolls around. They will not forget that at all and I can guarantee that the riding of Provencher will be sitting with the government on that side. That is where it is now but it will be under a different name.

[An hon. member]

It will be NDP.

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

We will see about that. I know there is a change coming. Everybody knows that. Nobody has to gaze into a crystal ball because when the unions are against you, when the farmers are against you, when the doctors are against you, when the nurses are against you, who is left? The only ones supporting the government are in that other place and they do not have too much clout anymore.

It is very sad but it is true that under circumstances where we could have saved money for a rainy day, when we had a tremendous economy, we blew it. Now with an economy that is stretched to the hilt we are trying to rectify some of that. We are trying to rebuild a health system. We are trying to rebuild a railway system. We are trying to rebuild a road system. We are trying to rebuild everything. That will not fly well in the next election, that we have allowed the system to deteriorate to a point where everything needs fixing.

When there is one segment of an industry that is suffering or in trouble it is not that big a job. It is to fix everything. In Saskatchewan the roads are out of shape. The elevators are closing down. Everything is going against the economy. How in heaven can it continue? I do not think it can.

That is why I am trying to tell this government today that instead of taking a band-aid approach to this labour problem it should fix it properly. Give these people a chance to bargain in good faith with government. That is all they are asking for.

They told me they were so close to an agreement that it was not even worth mentioning the difference between what they would accept and what they were offered, and then the government had to order back to work legislation. It should not be necessary. Those people would go back to work if the government would sit down in good faith and bargain with them. That is all they want and that is all farmers want. Farmers want those people to work and to have a decent livelihood. When a farmer sees they are getting $24,000 a year and they have not had a raise in the last eight years, how can the government call them irresponsible?

[Maurice Dumas, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak this morning to Bill C-76. However, 76 reminds me of other things. It rings another bell. It was the year the Parti Quebecois took office under René Lévesque.

I would quickly like to relate a bit of history before speaking to this debate. In 1966, the sovereignists received 8% of the vote; in 1970, 23%; and in 1973, 30%. Finally, in 1976, we came to power.

I will now move on to Bill C-76, which is anti-union and discriminatory legislation. I will quote two newspaper headlines “Treasury Board President imposes special legislation”, and “Ottawa forces blue collar workers back to work”. The same article had this to say about the government House leader “The Leader of the Government in the House, one of the Liberal members who sided with PSAC workers in 1991, when Brian Mulroney's Conservative government had imposed wage freezes—”

It is pretty surprising that these people are now singing a different tune. Back then, the Leader of the Government in the House was one of the so-called rat pack, which also included the present Minister of Canadian Heritage, the maverick Liberal MP for York South—Weston, a former candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party and a former candidate for the position of Speaker of the House of Commons, whom the Liberal Party finally kicked out of its ranks. The member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell backed the alliance in those days. These members were dubbed the rat pack, and were known for giving the Progressive Conservative Party a hard time.

I could draw an analogy with France in the year 500 when Saint Rémi, while baptizing King Clovis of France, told the king to burn what he had worshipped. This is exactly what the present Leader of the Government in the House is doing. Having once defended the alliance, he is now going after it with special legislation.

The purpose of Bill C-76 is to force striking public servants of bargaining table 2 back to work. The bill also gives the government considerable leeway to impose whatever working conditions and salaries it wishes, including for correctional officers who have a strike mandate.

The federal government is pointing to the lost revenues of Prairie farmers and the backlog of tax returns due to picketing as justification for its bulldozer tactics.

I will give a brief historical background on public service negotiations.

Employer-employee relations between the federal government and public servants are governed by the Public Service Staff Relations Act, which came into effect in 1967. Placing public servants under this negotiating framework took them out of the broader framework of the Canada Labour Code.

At the time, the government justified this particular arrangement by committing to be a good employer as far as pay and working conditions are concerned, and by not taking advantage of its size and power to control the market.

Since then, particularly since the Liberals took office in 1993, these principles have been betrayed in every possible way. Using its legislative power, the government has falsified, undermined and subordinated the process of negotiation as no other employer could do. It has done so with its series of cutbacks, which have impacted heavily on public servants, and with its attempts to manipulate the taxpayers with demagoguery and the government's sizeable communication resources, as well as to abuse the House of Commons system, by giving MPs insufficient time and information to debate the matter thoroughly, as is the case now.

The federal government has abrogated the right to negotiate 8 times in the past 15 years. For 11 of those years, shipboard and hospital personnel have worked under a non-negotiated regime imposed by the federal government by legislative means, each time under the pretext that it was for the good of Canadians.

Those who work for the federal government have had to endure a whole series of unilaterally imposed laws. To name but a few, in August 1982, Bill C-124 froze the salaries of some 500,000 public servants. In December 1989, there was the back to work legislation, Bill C-49. With Bill C-29 in October 1991, the employer threatened unilateral imposition of its offer if it were not accepted.

The Labour Relations Board characterized this approach as unethical. The International Labour Organization noted that the federal government's action imposed serious restrictions on bargaining and urged the government to return to unrestricted bargaining.

Later, Bill C-113 imposed, in April 1992, a two year freeze and the unilateral extension of the collective agreement. The ILO lambasted the government for its lack of support of union rights.

In June 1993, Bill C-101 accorded the government the right to impose a vote on its final offers in any negotiations.

Now we come to the government currently in office, the Liberal Party. Bill C-17, in June 1994, continued the freeze for another two years and extended the collective agreement—six consecutive years of salary freeze. Once again, the ILO criticized the process.

With Bill C-31, still with the Liberals in office, in 1996, the federal government took up contracting out. In 1992, it closed the Pay Research Bureau, thus getting around having to take into account the facts and figures that disproved its assertions.

Bill C-26, on public service reform in 1993, gave the employer a significant advantage, judge and jury once again, on issues in the workplace.

As members know, up to now, the governments that have held office each in turn, be they Conservative or Liberal, have always been anti-union.

Bill C-76 is intended to bring about the return to work of public service employees currently on strike.

The bill also gives the government a lot of power to impose working conditions and salaries, including on correctional officers, who have a strike mandate.

Negotiations with correctional services employees, at table 4, led to a majority conciliation report, which was unanimously approved by union members. The employer tabled a minority report and the government should simply take into account the majority report that was submitted by a third party.

Negotiations at table 2, which concern general labour and trades, ships' crews, hospital services, general service and firefighters, did not lead to a majority conciliation report, since the chair of the conciliation board, the employer and the union tabled three different proposals. The gap between the offers from the employer and the union are not insurmountable, provided the government acts in good faith, something it is not doing right now.

Here is what is included in the bill. The government's offer for table 2 is lower than its previous proposal, and it is not the first time this happens. Sometimes, groups negotiate and when they are subjected to back to work legislation, the offers are invariably lower than those made previously.

The federal government was originally offering 2.75%, but has now lowered its proposed increase to 2.50%. As I said earlier, the government is obviously trying to take advantage of a situation where it is both judge and jury. It is to be noted that the salaries for workers represented at table 2 have been frozen for six years.

In addition to the pay increase, the other stumbling block is the regional rates of pay. It seems the government's offers are negligible in this regard. The government's offer for table 4 is unknown. There is a majority conciliation report, but the government seems to be ignoring it. The bill would allow the government to impose its own conditions, without taking into account the conciliation report that was unanimously approved by the union.

Here is the position of the Bloc Quebecois on Bill C-76. With this special legislation, the government is attempting to impose a collective agreement on table 2 and 4 employers, under the pretext of serving the taxpayers' interests. Quite some feat, when what the government really wants is to make use of them to violate the rights of workers.

In fact, the picketing could come to an end today, if the government wanted that to happen. It would merely have to accept the majority conciliation report for table 2 and binding arbitration for table 4.

Generally speaking, we are opposed to the use of special legislation, which would have the effect of denying the fundamental right to strike, particularly in the case of workers who have had to put up with this same treatment on numerous occasions already. On the other hand, we regret the inconvenience that the picketing by public servants has caused to Quebeckers and Canadians.

What we in the Bloc Quebecois want, is for an agreement to be reached between the government and the workers of tables 2 and 4, and for the services to which the public is entitled to be restored. There is a way of doing this: the government finally sits down at the bargaining table and negotiates in good faith, once and for all.

At table 4, a majority conciliation report accepted unanimously by the union is not taken into consideration by the bill. One wonders why, since this is a worthwhile agreement, one proposed by an independent conciliator, which the union finds acceptable and which would make it possible to avoid a strike. All of the fundamental principles of labour relations would be respected.

At table 2, the union says it is fully prepared to go to arbitration. It therefore agrees to bow to the judgment of an independent adjudicator, and the picketing would thus cease immediately. The problems cited by the government in order to impose the bulldozer legislation would cease to exist.

And what does the government have to say? That the union demands are unreasonable. If the union demands are so unreasonable, why refuse arbitration? What has this government got to lose?

In fact, this bill is nothing more than a show of strength in order to impose a collective agreement and avoid the usual process.

Our position is clear: the freedom to organize supposedly exists in Canada, and when they have good reason to do so, workers go on strike. That is part of a fair balance of power, except when the employer is the government and abuses its legislative power. Special legislation should be kept as a last resort, until the government returns to the bargaining table with an offer that is acceptable to the workers and resolves the problem democratically, in a civilized manner, through negotiations.

As a former trade unionist with the CEQ and the CSN, I cannot agree with Bill C-76. Like my Bloc Quebecois colleagues and my colleague from Trois-Rivières, I will oppose this bill.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today actually in disappointment as this is the 50th time in the Liberals' reign that they have invoked closure. We talk about a democracy in this country. It is actually a capitulated democracy.

I preface my remarks around something that farmers would understand. Bill C-76 is legislation that looks like it came out of the south end of a northbound cow. It is absolutely disgusting that this 530 page piece of trash is not even properly done. It ignores Nunavut. It ignores other aspects. The French and English translation of this bill is not even proper and there are many other errors in it, but unfortunately we will not have the opportunity to go through it word for word because the government is ramming it down our throats and the throats of the Canadian people.

A news release by Treasury Board states “The government wishes to impose a collective agreement”. I know that when the government changed unemployment insurance to employment insurance it had a new thesaurus. It changed the English language. Now it is changing it to imposing a collective agreement. For those listening, for those in the House today and for the 300 PSAC workers outside the House of Commons right now in protest who will be joined by thousands of others across the country, we cannot impose a collective agreement.

The word collective means together, labour and management come together with their own imperatives of what they would like to see for the next two or three years, the length of the collective agreement, and then they agree.

In all my years of labour negotiations when they cannot agree, that is when they get a third party, either a conciliator or an arbitrator. That person's ruling would be binding on both parties for the length of the collective agreement.

The government does not even want to go that route. It wants to impose a collective agreement. I have never heard that in my life. I have only been on this planet for 43 years. It wants to impose a collective agreement. That is absolutely ridiculous.

While we are talking about the Liberal government, last night in the late show I asked the Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board a question on regional rates of pay. This is his response, as reported in Hansard , on ending regional rates of pay:

That would make it inequitable for many people in the process. It would mean excessive income for some in certain areas [of the country].

Can we imagine it being excessive when a person making $11 an hour now has his or her salary bumped over a three to four year period to $15 an hour? I do not know a place in the country where $15 an hour would be considered excessive. That is right from the lips of the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board.

It is absolutely unbelievable that the President of the Treasury Board said in the House that members of parliament were paid differently depending on where they lived. That is absolutely not true. Some ministers may get an extra stipend, but the basic rate of pay for parliamentarians is exactly the same no matter where they live in the country. Whether we live in my beautiful riding of Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley, in Malpeque, P.E.I. or in Vancouver we get paid the same. That is a basic fact.

The truth is that 97% of all people attached to the public service receive the same base pay. Guess what? Only the lowest paid in the country do not, which is what we on this side of the House find so offensive.

Here is another statement from Hansard during last night's late show. The Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board said:

If the government were to pay Vancouver rates to blue collar workers in Halifax, imagine the outcry.

These are the crocodile tears we get. He continued:

Small business would be competing for needed workers, not just the federal government but the corporations rich enough to match the higher rates. That would disrupt the local labour market.

We have letters from the official opposition, the New Democratic Party, and the Progressive Conservatives of Nova Scotia. Not one business person has ever called me up and said that the government was right. What they are saying is that the government is absolutely wrong. Imagine anyone saying that. It is unbelievable. I could go on with what he said, but I would be so upset I would want to go over there and scream in their faces.

This morning I had a wonderful breakfast with some doctors and some legislators to discuss tomorrow, World Tuberculosis Day or World TB Day. There is another epidemic, a plague going across the country, the plague of arrogance coming from Treasury Board. It is absolutely unbelievable that the arrogance coming from the minister and the parliamentary secretary goes right through the entire backbenches. I have great respect for some backbenchers. I can actually call them friends. However, the arrogance being displayed to backbenchers which is coming forth on the picket lines is unbelievable.

I cannot believe that in 1991 the Liberals sat shoulder to shoulder with PSAC workers. We have the evidence. We spoke to the workers. The Liberal members who were fighting in opposition at that time against the Mulroney Conservatives were telling PSAC workers to elect them in the next federal election and they would end regional rates of pay.

It is now 1999 and guess what? They misled them on that one. They will break their promise just as they did on GST, day care and free trade. It goes on and on. It was just a power grab and they misled some very wonderful people. I am absolutely disgusted.

I will now deal for a moment with members of the Reform Party. They are discussing the issues. Some of them have spoken very well on behalf of people in their ridings. The member for Wetaskiwin said they believed in fair collective bargaining and that these workers were decent and honest people. He is absolutely correct, but I wish he would talk to his member for Saskatoon—Humboldt who called these same workers hooligans. That was an absolute disgrace.

I wish members of the Reform Party, especially the leader of the Reform Party, would take the member for Saskatoon—Humboldt by the scruff of the neck and stop him from abusing his parliamentary privileges by calling PSAC workers on strike hooligans, thugs and thieves. It is absolutely unbelievable that member would stand in the House and abuse his privileges in that way.

I reiterate that we cannot legislate a collective agreement. The Reform Party likes to call it a contract but it is not a contract. It is a collective agreement. It is a living, breathing document between two agreeable parties for the duration of the contract. It is unbelievable the government would ignore that and try to legislate them back.

We had this same discussion, deja vu I would call it, back in December 1997 when the government did the same to postal workers. As of today postal workers do not have a collective agreement. The government is still delaying and stalling its efforts for a proper agreement. Darrell Tingley of CUPW, Daryl Bean of PSAC and all those hardworking people who strive hard to maintain the morale of their membership are trying to say that they will deal with and talk with the government, but the government is not playing ball.

Speaking about ball, the government turned around and ignored the pay equity rulings from the courts. It said that it could not do that, that it would be unfair to give people, especially women, fair compensation for fair value of work. It will not do that. The pay equity issue was strike one.

Regional rates of pay is strike two. The government will ignore that because it is a pet personal project of the treasury board minister so that is the way it will be.

Strike three is exactly what is going on outside right now, the government's grab on the superannuation surplus of workers of the public service, those who are retired and those who are currently working. Where I come from three strikes in baseball and you are out. This is exactly what will happen to the government come the next federal election.

If the government is so sure of its legislation, if it is so sure of its policies and if it believes its polls, it should prorogue the House and call an election. I challenge the government to do that. It should go back to the people of Canada if it is so confident of this piece of legislation. I can assure the House that the Liberals will be in for quite a shock. We know they will not do that because they do not have the courage to do that.

I reiterate that the government is refusing to listen. It has absolutely forgotten to listen to people. I do not think it really knows how.

We should all try to help government members. I will try to help them get re-elected, especially the member for Malpeque who is looking at me right now. I can assure him his re-election. All he has to do is rip up Bill C-76, throw it away, recycle it. I do not know if any recycler would ever want to take it because it is so contaminated with such useless language. He can rip it up and tell the treasury board minister, with whom I am sure he has close contact, to go back to the bargaining table and bargain in good faith. That would do it.

That is common sense. It is called conversation. It is called talking. It is called dealing fairly or dealing equitably or equity. There is that word again which the government does not understand. It has its new dictionary, its new thesaurus and its spin doctors. It will turn around tomorrow and ram the bill through the Senate. As my colleague from Portage—Lisgar said, the only people supporting the government now are members of the Senate. If it cannot be reformed, eventually I hope we will abolish that other place. That is for another time and another story.

It is incredible that the government can ignore the hopes, aspirations and dreams especially of those in Atlantic Canada. There are two people working for PSAC literally 24 hours a day on behalf of their membership and on behalf of their communities, Mr. Howie West and Ms. Cathy Murphy. They have done yeoman's work in trying to get the information out to the membership on exactly what all this means.

Nova Scotians will not stand for it any more. They did not stand for it in the last election when they elected six NDPers and five Conservatives. If the government is thinking of trying to get re-elected, that is not how to do it.

I hope the member for Malpeque is listening because I am trying to teach him and show him how he can get re-elected if he desires that. The member for Portage—Lisgar is correct. These people will not forget. This is the straw that broke the camel's back, more or less. The Liberals just cannot keep this arrogant way of governing. They cannot do that any more.

The last time I checked we lived in a democracy. My father and mother were rescued by the Canadians in 1945 during the liberation of southern Holland. My father always said “If they have a military like that, can you imagine what kind of country they have?” I was a young child in 1956 when we came to this country because of the democratic beliefs of Canadians. When I spoke with my father the other day he said that he could not believe the government that in the sixties had some very good progressive and co-operative ideas had completely abandoned them.

It will legislate the lowest of the lowest workers in terms of salary back to work. If government members think that moving the picket line from outside to inside the workplace will make everyone happy, they are sadly mistaken. In the long run it will cost the Canadian taxpayer a whole lot more money.

It is unbelievable that the government would stall and delay and then all of a sudden use the hammer of legislation to get them back to work. It will not work. These people will not abide by the legislation. They will go back to the office because they are law-abiding people, but let us imagine what will happen to the morale of those people. It is unbelievable. When will the next time be? We did it with the postal workers. Now we are doing it with the PSAC workers. Who is next? I wish the government would tell us who is next.

When the Bronfmanns sent $2 billion out of the country a couple of years ago without paying any money to the federal government, did the government have an emergency debate? Did the government bring in legislation to order them to pay that money back to the Canadian coffers? No, it did not. It just said “Oops, it is the Bronfmanns. We cannot say anything. We will not say anything because they are big donators to our party. We will just ignore that and let it slide”.

Employees earning $11 and $12 an hour are exercising their democratic right to strike and the government legislates them back to work. The government's argument is that it is costing the Canadian economy money. If that is true, why did it not legislate the Bronfmanns to pay back the money they owed the Canadian government and the Canadian people?

Another example occurred a few years ago. The Irving Corporation decided to move its mobile home manufacturing plant from New Brunswick to Nova Scotia. In fact it went to the town of Debert and asked for applications from people to join the company. Irving told the people of New Brunswick that if they did not abide by its standards, rules and a reduction of pay they would lose their jobs.

Did the government step in and say “You cannot do that. You cannot threaten the livelihood of communities in New Brunswick?” Absolutely not. It stood by and let the market decide. It let the corporation decide what was best for business. However, what happens when ordinary working people exercise their basic rights? The government turns around and says that they cannot have them. There cannot not be too much democracy in the country.

The government is one sided when it comes to negotiations of any kind. It does not know how to negotiate. It negotiated a terrible NAFTA deal. It negotiated bad environmental laws. Now it cannot even negotiate with the lowest paid workers, its own employees. That is an absolute disgrace.

I have been in the House for about two years. Like my colleague from Winnipeg said, we did not come to the House to vote away the rights of workers. We did not come to the House to have high taxes placed on small businesses and families. We did not come to the House to destroy the hopes and aspirations of people infected with hepatitis C. We did not come to the House to make all those people live in misery.

We came to the House to make it better for people. We came to the House, especially me, to work with other opposition members and to work with the government to come up with solutions that would benefit all of us in the long term no matter where we lived in the country.

I have had the opportunity to live in Vancouver, Yukon and now in beautiful Nova Scotia. I have an understanding of what Canadians think and what they say. The anger that people across the country are starting to feel toward the government is incredible. The government will stand up and say it had to been done for farmers, for this and for that. It is all hyperbole. If it really wanted to negotiate in fairness, it would rip up Bill C-76 and go back to the bargaining table. It will not do that because it has an agenda that does meet the needs of all Canadians.

If government members think for one second that they can move the picket line from outside to inside the workplace they are sadly mistaken. The arrogance of the President of the Treasury Board must stop. Otherwise there will be chaos and a lot of trouble out there in the very near future.

Many PSAC workers and their families in communities across the country have contacted our party and me saying we have to do something to get the government to listen to them. I have heard members from the Reform Party, members from the Bloc. I will be waiting for members of the Conservative Party to speak out as well. They are all speaking with the same voice. We cannot do this. We have to stop legislating collective agreements because it is impossible.

It is not a collective agreement anymore. It is a legislative term. It is certainly not agreeable. It is not agreeable to us or the other opposition members and it is certainly not agreeable to the workers. This is a slim majority of Liberals, who have only 38% of the popular vote, legislating their agenda.

Daily we listen to the rhetoric of the Liberals. We listen to the changes. They go with the flow. They change every day. There is no question they have a one sided agenda. Their corporate friends, their very powerful friends, have no problems. They will do whatever they want with legislation and whatever concerns they have.

The government ignores the working people in this country, their families and their communities. It will divide and conquer. Farmers will be put against workers, coal miners against other people. Destroy them all. That is completely unacceptable.

I thank members for the opportunity to speak on behalf of all PSAC workers, their families and their communities across the country.

[Charlie Power, Progressive Conservative, St. John's West, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague for Kings—Hants.

I agree with almost every thing the member for Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore said. What the government has done today in the House is absolutely unforgivable, unconscionable and should not be allowed to happen in a democracy.

It is a pleasure, in one way, to be here today to see the government acknowledge it has failed miserably on two fronts. It has failed in managing the House of Commons, the Parliament of Canada. The government House leader has come in today with a bill that basically shuts down the rights of all of us as parliamentarians. This does not give us the right to have adequate debate. It does not give us a chance to reasonably explain to each other and the people of Canada why we are for or against any given piece of legislation.

When the government brings in closure it is acknowledging that it cannot run this place properly, it has failed to manage the affairs of the House of Commons. As a result the government takes away the rights of individual members in order to ram through legislation which obviously is only favoured by the government, not by any of the opposition members and not by the majority of Canadians.

The other area in which the Liberal government has failed is how it manages public relations, relations with its employees and how it runs its collective agreements. In effect what the President of the Treasury Board is saying today is he has failed. He was not able to negotiate a reasonable and fair settlement with the lowest paid of the Canadian public servants. To have the minister come in here today and acknowledge that is at least something to say that the Liberals know when they have done something wrong.

Unfortunately what we are seeing here today is a government, its slim majority achieved with only 38% of Canadian public support, using its bullying power to pass legislation whether Canadians like it or not.

We should not be here today just to do the government's dirty business. We should be here to discuss the problems facing Canada. One of those is the PSAC strike. What we are really doing here is getting the government off the hook because it is incompetent, uncaring and unaware of how to reach a reasonable settlement with its employees.

We should take some brief moments today, with the small amount of time we are allocated under this closure motion, to talk about what collective bargaining is supposed to be in Canada. Government is not supposed to be in the House of Commons today changing a rule to suit itself. It is here for the good of the people.

When it suspends collective bargaining, which in effect is what Bill C-76 does, it says that people do not have a right to go on strike. This PSAC strike, as far as I understand it, is a legal strike. They as employees, part of a collective bargaining unit, have every right to strike. They pay their union dues. They use negotiating teams to negotiate a good agreement for themselves. If those things do not work then obviously they have the provision to strike.

The employer, on the other hand, has the provision to lock out any employee who does not have a collective agreement. In this case these workers, the lowest paid in the Canadian public service, who have not had a wage increase for seven years, have chosen to go on strike. To my way of thinking they have every legal right to do so. For us to be here today to vote to suspend that right, to take away their collective bargaining right, is simply not proper.

We are doing it for a reason, there supposedly being a real crisis in western Canada. My thought process is if we have employees who are deemed essential, the minute they go on strike everyone knows the collective bargaining process. Some respect it and some do not. Basically in a collective bargaining process employees will choose to go on strike at a time that is most opportune for them, where they can exert more influence, where they can put more pressure on the employer to reach an acceptable agreement. Obviously that has happened in western Canada.

If employees are so essential that we cannot possibly do without them, that their service must be performed at all cost and at all times, then we should change the process. We should do away with collective agreements for some employees and take away the right to strike. Because they are essential, because they are deemed absolutely crucial to the governance of our country, then we should not have collective agreements but a system of binding arbitration where workers give up the right to strike on one hand knowing that a binding arbitration clause or agreement will be struck on the other hand that gives them a fair shake.

Not all governments follow this process exactly. In Newfoundland we have a most unfortunate situation now where we have taken the right to strike away from our policemen and firemen. Why did we take the right to strike away from policemen and firemen? They are deemed to be essential to good governance. They are deemed to be crucial to how our communities handle the affairs that come up on any given day.

Police in Newfoundland went to binding arbitration, so they thought, except they found that the Liberal Government of Newfoundland, with the same heavy hand that the Liberal government in Ottawa uses, would not accept the binding arbitration and in effect put in place an agreement which nobody, including the arbitrators, agreed with. That is government for government sake. It is not government for the people.

This whole situation we are in with PSAC puts farmers on one hand against PSAC members on the other. I again believe that if these workers, the grain handlers in particular, are absolutely essential to the agriculture industry in Canada, they are absolutely essential for our foreign trade purposes, then they could be declared an essential service. Make them eligible for binding arbitration and send them back to work.

If we were here today to discuss legislation which would change the collective bargaining agreement to deem those persons as performing an essential service, to give them binding arbitration, I suspect most of those members in that union would be more than happy to go back to work and do that essential service for the good of Canada.

What we have now is a crisis in the grain handling in the agricultural industry in western Canada and in effect what this government is doing is using the farmers, the producers of the country, as a form of blackmail to force some of their low paid workers not back to the bargaining table but simply back to work. I think that is absolutely shameful of the government. It is shameful to think that we would use our hardworking farmers to force some other low paying Canadians back to work.

I know there is tremendous concern for our international trade reputation. There is the tremendous concern of money loss, of contracts in place, of delivery schedules not being met, but it is the government's fault. Farmers in western Canada may think the Government of Canada is doing them a favour by legislating workers back to their duties. Most farmers will say it is the fault of the Government of Canada and not the low paid PSAC workers who are at fault here.

If the Government of Canada thinks it will curry favour with all the farmers across the country, I certainly hope that does not happen because it does not deserve any credit from the farmers of Canada.

Certainly Treasury Board and the government have known for over two years that these negotiations had to take place. Why were there only 14 days of negotiations with a collective bargaining unit over a 2 year period? Is this good planning and good management by the government? Obviously it is not.

I agree that in certain cases people may have to be legislated back to work because they are essential. If the marine Atlantic ferry workers connecting Newfoundland to the rest of the country were to go on strike it might be that because it was destroying the fishing industry and completely disrupting the tourism industry those people might have to be legislated back to work.

My thought process is again the same as it is with these workers, that they are deemed essential. Give them binding arbitration. They lose their right to strike but it is known that in the end there will at least be a fair agreement and it will not have to be done by blackmailing some other part of society.

One of the very important issues for Atlantic Canada, in particular for Newfoundland, is the regional rates of pay. This is another Liberal policy that allows for a Newfoundlander doing exactly the same work as somebody from Calgary or Vancouver to get a different rate of pay. It is absolutely unconstitutional. It is unfair.

It is not allowed to discriminate based on race, creed or colour but there can be discrimination based on where one happens to live. It is absolutely, totally unfair and PSAC is fighting this battle. It is a battle that needs to be won. It is a policy that needs to be changed by the Government of Canada.

It is silliness to think that the Government of Canada is afraid to disrupt local labour markets because of paying a higher rate of pay in Newfoundland. In Newfoundland we lost 30,000 people in the last three years. We have a 20% unemployment rate and a 35% unemployment rate with young people.

I assure the President of the Treasury Board and the Prime Minister and all his ministers in cabinet that there would be no disruption of the labour market in Newfoundland if the government paid these people a fair wage.

I hope that somewhere in this whole process some of these PSAC members are able to fight this battle on regional rates of pay and come to a logical conclusion which is that everybody in Canada who does the same work for the Government of Canada should get the same rate of pay.

[Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, government has a leadership role to play in human resource management. Let me make it clear. I believe very strongly in the free market system but I also believe that unions play an important role within that free market system in defending the rights of workers.

Those people who understand the free market system and support it also must understand that without unions to defend the rights of workers it would take a large government department to defend workers. Unions have for a long time played this important role, a role government does not seem to recognize.

I support the rights of workers to organize democratically, to organize collectively and to strike peacefully. It is appalling that the private sector has actually over the last 20 years leapt far ahead of the government in terms of human resource management.

Companies like Chrysler Canada were among the first to appoint union representatives to their board of directors. Companies now, when they are looking at improving processes, improving products and developing better services, are sitting down with their executives and the unions to develop those products and services, to agree on labour standards, to work together to improve the companies and the services for the customer.

The only place where this is not occurring is with the Government of Canada. That is appalling because government should be ahead of the private sector in some of those human resource areas. Instead, the private sector has actually played a more responsible role in human resource management than the government.

The issues PSAC raised are very important. It is important to recognize that we are talking about blue collar workers, people not at the higher end of the wage scales. These are people who I understand have not received a raise in seven years.

One of the issues they raised, as my colleague mentioned earlier, is regional rates of pay. To pay people differently in Atlantic Canada, to pay people based on where they live, creates a ghettoization of our national public service, a ghettoization that is unacceptable. When we are talking of $11 to $12 per hour jobs, I understand that there is a $3 to $4 per hour gap, depending on the region a person lives in. That is a 30% gap depending on where one lives. I think that is unacceptable.

National corporations have reflected this in policy in recent years. They accept that they will pay people the same for the job and people will choose where they live based on their own selection, based on quality of life issues or standard of living issues. To ghettoize the public service geographically, in my opinion, is appalling shortsighted.

We have with our public service now one of the lowest levels of morale that has ever existed. In fact, I feel comfortable in saying that this government has achieved the lowest level of morale in the public service that has ever existed. There was a time when public servants felt good about their jobs, felt good about serving their fellow Canadians and about contributing to the growth and prosperity of our country. Now public servants feel absolutely besieged by a government that has stopped recognizing their worth and contribution to the future of our country.

It is absolutely critical that this issue be dealt with and be dealt with not by a knee-jerk reaction or the crisis management style that this government has chosen to deal with almost every major issue, but in terms of a long term, visionary strategy that addresses the entire issue of the public service from a long term perspective.

Instead of negotiating in good faith over a longer period of time and working with the public service—and based on the meetings I have had over the past several months, I have found that the public service is more than willing to negotiate and discuss long term strategy—the government has let this reach the boiling point. It has allowed it to evolve at a critical time to a point where essentially the interests of western Canadian grain farmers and the western Canadian region are pitted against the interests of blue collar public servants.

I know a lot of farmers. The farmers I know are very fair people. I would argue that no farmer would want his or her interests pitted against those interests of lower income public servants. I think it is appalling that the government has taken, for instance, the interests of western Canadian farmers, who are already facing the lowest commodity prices in generations and are in a very precarious position, and pitting their interests against the interests of low income public servants, trying to somehow use this divide and conquer mentality. It is a bit like how the Canadian electorate was divided and arguably conquered in the last election when this government was elected with 38% of the popular vote, a lower percentage of the popular vote than that which the government of the Right Hon. Joe Clark was elected with in 1979.

Obviously this government is not interested in fair labour practices. It is not interested in sitting down in the same way that corporations do and developing long term strategies with public servants to meet the needs of Canadians and to actually improve the public service. Instead this is a government that, for instance, with the Revenue Canada agency, is going gangbusters to split off 40% of the public service, as opposed to trying to address the holistic issues of the public service within the public service. This government is saying “Let's take a hands-off approach and get rid of the public service”.

This is not necessary. It is possible to work within the public service, as has been done in other countries and as has been proven by the private sector in working with labour to develop long term strategies to what are long term issues.

Every time we get into this kind of situation where we have a long term problem on the horizon, the government ignores it until it reaches a crisis point and then it creates a political solution to pit the interests of one group in crisis against another.

It is not responsible government. It is not responsible human resource management. It is the type of practice that embarrasses me as a parliamentarian to play a role in. It puts members in opposition in a very difficult position. In my opinion, the position of the government in allowing this to happen is an untenable position and an unconscionable position on this very important issue.

We would hope that the government would see the error of its ways and sit down with the public service. It should read the recent, excellent report of a committee co-chaired by Senators Stratton and Cools on the public service. It should develop a long term strategy to address the fundamental issues of the Canadian public service, perhaps as a millennium project. Instead of putting labels on these monumental projects that the government has developed for its own self-glorification, perhaps it should be working toward developing a new relationship with public servants across Canada for the new millennium. Maybe that would be the best millennium project this government could work on.

[Roy H. Bailey, Reform, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. members who have just spoken from this side of the House. I want to invite you, Mr. Speaker, members of this House and members of the listening audience to come on a little journey and meet two people who live right in the middle of my constituency of Souris—Moose Mountain.

Dan and Louise are just past 40. They have one child in high school and two in elementary school. I want to talk about what they know at the present time and the conditions they are living with. Later I will be able to inform them of what this government is doing to them.

In the middle of my constituency is the city of Weyburn. It is the largest inland buying centre in Canada. While we in this House debate the PSAC agreement—and we will probably get into doing something which nobody on this side of the House wants to do—Dan and Louise only know one thing. They do not even know what PSAC stands for, but they do know that sitting in the bins of western Canada is $3 billion worth of wheat. They also know that the shipments were stalled for a few days because of the grain weighers.

What they do not know is why they did this. They do not know the reason this government has deliberately and consciously driven them into that act.

What they do know is that the wheat board's monopolized exports are down not 70% from what they were a year ago, indeed not 60% from what they were a year ago, but 56% from what they were a year ago.

What this young couple on the farm now knows is that with spring around the corner they cannot even turn last year's board grain into cash simply because the grain is not moving.

What this House should know, what this government should know, and what Dan and Louise know, is that at one time when they first started farming Canada's share of the wheat production for sale was 21.5%. What this government should recognize is that Canada's wheat share is going to drop to slightly below 12%.

If this government were at all sensitive to people's needs it would understand that, in the typical style of this government, it pits one group against another, rural against urban and central provinces against outer provinces. It has a mere 38% and that is how it governs.

That is what is before us now. Dan and Louise who live out there are not anti-PSAC. When this country gets to know the full story, it will be anti-government. Make no mistake about that.

Grain sales are down considerably. Farmers have not been paid for last year's crop. Dan and Louise lost $80,000 last year and it is for sure that they will be down $80,000 again this year. They do not really care, but when an opportunity comes along to move their grain they want it to be moved.

I will make another announcement that this government is insensitive to, and it cannot blame this on PSAC. When Dan and Louise go to fill their fuel tank this spring they will see a 10% increase. It has already happened. To an agricultural industry that is struggling to get by, this government sits idly by and says “We did not get much support out there anyway, so what is it to us?” It is the number one industry in our province and certainly number one in my constituency. Farmers have to enter the field this spring with a double whammy: no money for last year's sale and the prospect of paying more for fuel.

In the next few days farmers will be lining up to pick up their AIDA packages. When they apply for the government aid package they will need to come well equipped. Their wife's purse will not be large enough. It is 40 pages. I took one off the Internet and I phoned an accountant who said that he would not even complete one without a fee of somewhere between $200 and $500.

That is the insensitive part of this government. It is far worse than income tax. It is something that most farmers are simply going to throw in the air in desperation and say that it is typical Liberal style. The Liberals will hire more people to administer and figure this thing out than the farmers will get. I call that a thousand dollar lottery because farmers will not find out until summer if they are even eligible for the package.

Why is this government always part of a problem? Why does it deliberately solve the problem of 500 people who belong to the correctional service, who got through the loopholes, by saying “If somehow we can pass this bill we can cure it”, but the opposition gets mud in its face? It is very good at scheming these things.

I could tell Dan and Louise the hourly wage of the 70 PSAC members who are striking. I could tell them that this government really has not even dealt with them sincerely for 15 years. That is what they need to know. When Dan and Louise know that, they will not be angry at PSAC, they will be angry at this government.

The government exaggerates and personifies total disrespect for people who are marginal in this country. The 70 frustrated members did what they had to do and held up shipments across the west.

Certainly the farmers were angry about that. Certainly they were angry about the fact that they lost $9 million. I know one thing. I will do everything that I can, in any way possible, to make sure my constituents, who are basically farmers, understand the real reason behind that stoppage of grain. That side of the House is the reason. The problem is on that side of the House. It is not PSAC.

Farmers need to sell last year's crop before they can plant this year's crop. The government's control has done so much that farmers simply do not have any money to put their crops in. The people on the government benches do not believe that.

In the last seven land sale packages which were held in my constituency, there was not one bid. There was not one bid in some of the richest land in Saskatchewan. Part of this has to rest right on the government benches opposite. Not only that, when the government offered an aid package to which I alluded earlier, the government has made it so complicated that most of the farmers are simply going to write “return to sender” on it.

The government should listen to what the union is saying about final selection and negotiated settlement. It should listen to what every party on this side of the House is saying. The government should simply go back to binding arbitration. Everybody would be happy. We would not be forced to stand here today faced with a vote later on. We should not have to do this. If it were offered, PSAC would accept binding arbitration today.

What is the matter with the government? The government likes its Bill C-68. It keeps the people unhappy. The people are unhappy and the government can govern and that is all that matters.

Back to work legislation should never be used. It should only be used as a last resort. The government has the power to stop this back to work legislation now, this afternoon. The government has the power to call in the members and privy council and say that it will offer binding arbitration.

People across Canada, including the union, would be happy, but the government does not want it that way. The government wants back to work legislation, but it does not want Canadians to understand it. The government does not want the farmers in my constituency to understand what it is doing. The government does not want the people in Nova Scotia to understand what it is doing. The government just wants the elected few to understand, to manipulate this House and twist this country about.

The government has not bargained in good faith. Let me repeat that the government has not bargained in good faith, and we are now left with this last ditch effort.

What would Dan and Louise say to this government? “If you come west and you are looking at why you have alienated the west, you had better bring some earplugs and be prepared to sit down because the long list of complaints will keep you busy all afternoon”.

What we are about to do today is a disgrace. It is totally unnecessary, totally un-Canadian and totally against every principle of the democratic process. I hope between now and this evening the government can somehow come to its good senses.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member for Perth—Middlesex on a point of order.

[John Richardson, Liberal, Perth—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am on my feet to speak for a short moment.

It was nice to hear the member give the usual knee-jerk reaction to complex problems that we have been getting from the Reform Party for the last five years. Then the Reform Party members go back home and say how badly they have been treated.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member is rising on debate. I understood him to say that he was rising to make a few remarks so I assume he is rising on debate. The hon. member for Perth—Middlesex on debate.

[John Richardson, Liberal, Perth—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, to get this straight, the strike is across Canada. It could put a lot more people in jeopardy if we allow the strike to continue. It could slow down the economy as it has in the hon. member's riding, which is unfortunate.

Simple knee-jerk reactions are running against the grain on this issue. As a consequence, if we come up with some measures that are balanced, well thought out and put into place to get the PSAC union back to work, we will then have a smooth flow across the country.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Beauport—Montmorency—Orléans, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today is a very sad day in the House of Commons.

I did not expect to again go through what took place in the House in 1995 when, for an entire weekend, we debated back to work legislation for Canada's rail workers.

Why do I say that today is a sad day? Because we are looking at a government that is sitting as both judge and jury and literally bludgeoning or, more broadly speaking, bulldozing over the democratic rights of workers.

As I was preparing my speaking notes, various ridiculous but terrible analogies came to mind, such as leaving Dracula in charge of the blood bank, or giving Colonel Saunders the keys to the hen house.

I also thought of the tale of the three little pigs. It is as though the poor wee things had hired the big bad wolf as a real estate agent.

This is the sort of situation we are facing. We are looking at a government that, on the one hand, has the power to make reasonable offers to its workers but, on the other, as soon as negotiations stall, dons a different hat. It dons its lawmaker hat and tramples the most sacred right that workers possess, the right to strike.

There are 177 seats—right now there are perhaps 172—and only five of them are occupied. The Liberal government is using its majority to amend the Canada Labour Code outright and tell Canada's public sector employees that they no longer have the right to strike, that they can forget about that recourse. It is depriving them of that right, and using its majority in the House to deprive them of the right to strike. The issue will be settled: as soon as negotiations fail, the government will put its final offer on the table and it will be all over. That will be it. And yet, the government boasts about the fact that, under the Canada Labour Code, workers have the right to strike.

I find it strange to speak about workers' rights. Before becoming a member of parliament, I spent 16 years working in labour relations, 14 of them in the pulp and paper industry, and two in the food industry. I have always represented the employer. I must confess that, while my training is in industrial relations, I always worked for the employer side.

One thing which I always found extremely important are the respective rights and obligations of the parties. Employers have rights and obligations, and so do workers.

In my role as a member of parliament, and even later on in life, I will never tolerate the violation of fundamental and democratic rights relating to labour relations, which is what this bill is doing.

The member for Chicoutimi thinks it is funny, but he should be very concerned about this issue, and I am looking forward to hearing him later on. I am convinced that the Conservative Party will act as a defender of the workers' interests, like us in the Bloc Quebecois and like our colleagues in the NDP.

We know that the purpose of this bill is to get the striking public servants back to work. For the benefit of those who are listening to us, I should explain that there are two categories of workers affected. This may be a bit technical, but I would like to make it clear whom we are referring to when we speak of the blue collar workers.

In table 2, we have general labour and trades, ships' crews, hospital services, general services and firefighters, while in table 4 we have correctional services workers.

My intention in making this aside to list the categories of workers affected is to make it clear that there are no $100,000 or $150,000 a year earners in this category. We are speaking of those at the bottom of the scale, those who are the least well paid among the public service hierarchy. These are the people who have for some years made efforts and sacrifices, have accepted cuts, have agreed to play along. They were told by their bosses “We are one big family here, and we are having problems with our budget”.

Their managers did not say so in so many words, but the Conservatives left $42 billion per year of deficit behind them, and the Liberals made cuts in a number of areas. Let us think back to the 1995 budget of the Minister of Finance, which called for 45,000 civil service job cuts. We in Quebec have the fine motto of “Je me souviens”, and we certainly do not forget.

What do the managers say to their employees? They say “You have to tighten your belts, do your share and we will get through this. One day, after we have get out of this, it will be worthwhile. You will see, that, together, we will be compensated”.

But no. When these people want to take action in support of their rights, they get their legs chopped off at the knees. This is totally unacceptable.

I was saying earlier that these people are not at the top of the wage scales. They are, however, people who are committed to their work and proud of it and who intend to inform the public the best way possible. They are people whose service to the public has developed their awareness.

Naturally, a number of horror stories on public servants are being circulated. I am not saying that everyone is perfect. What about the members here? Are all 301 MPs perfect? No, we are human beings with attributes and faults.

What I want to say, however, is that we should forget the horror stories that sometimes circulate about incompetent officials, because there are incompetent lawyers, doctors and butchers too. Let us forget these horror stories, and look at the vast majority. They are people whose work is important to them, conscientious people.

For the benefit of this speech, I will read a letter I received from an official in my riding, whose name I will not mention obviously for reasons of confidentiality. This letter was not written by me or a member of my team. You will see this is someone speaking from the heart.

The letter is dated July 17, 1998. It reads as follows:

Dear Sir,

I am a resident of Beauport and have worked for Revenue Canada since 1976. I have 31 years of pensionable service and am close to retirement. I bought back the years I worked for the provincial government and I am writing to tell you about what we are going through at work.

First, our salaries have been frozen since 1991. I can understand that, at the time, everyone had to tighten their belts in order to reduce the government's annual deficit. I did my part willingly, but we had no choice. To my way of thinking, when we were told that our salaries were frozen, that meant everyone, all federal government employees from the top to the bottom of the structure. When you work as a family, everyone is subject to these conditions. It makes sense and is fair for everyone. But the freeze did not apply to all members of the family and that is unfair. (Another federal government injustice.)

I continue with the third:

We have lost 17% of the cost of living since 1991. This came out of my net salary. So, on top of getting no increase, I have lost 17% of my net salary. (How is this fair? Our salaries had to be frozen.) This 17% will affect my pension. Those receiving pensions, by the way, got the cost of living increase because pensions are indexed.

In the fourth paragraph, he says this:

I have read various newspaper and magazine articles and I note that judges will get increases of at least 12%. Soldiers will get over 9% and members of the RCMP 12.85% by the year 2001. The management group will get an astounding 17.4% of the minimum salary. In addition, deputy ministers will get increases of from 10.95% to 19.35%.

The Beauport resident goes on to say, in his letter:

It is an insult to workers who provide front line services to tell them they will get a 1.5% increase at the most. If we are a family, a team, a partnership, as the employer has been claiming in recent years, we should get a corresponding increase, which would be logical and fair. So, I think that you, our members of parliament—

That person is writing to us, members of parliament. Since I am his MP, he sent the letter to me, but it concerns all 301 members who sit here.

He adds:

I think that you, our members of parliament, our elected representatives, should put pressure on those concerned, so that they think not just about themselves as leaders, but also about us, ordinary citizens, and about the fact that it is because of our work that they can give themselves these raises. We are part of the team, the family. When the atmosphere in the family is good, the team does highly positive work. In the business world, when a company makes profits, a portion of these profits trickles down to the workers in recognition of their good work. If we have contributed to eliminating the federal deficit, should we not get the same pay increases as the above-mentioned people? Think about it for a moment. It is time to take action and to do justice to all concerned.

This writer from Beauport said the following in closing:

Thank you in advance for your help. I am sure that you will be able to accomplish something very positive, because I think that the people in charge are aware of the situation and will do everything they can to keep all of the family positive and motivated. That is the secret for winning.

If I took the trouble to read this letter as part of my speech, it is because of the distress it expresses. There is much emphasis on the aspect of family.

We must not lose sight of what these people are now experiencing, the federal public servants who gave their unions a mandate, saying “We are sending you to Ottawa to negotiate an agreement. We hope you will bring the best possible one back to us. We hope that you are going to be able to make this government listen to reason”.

The union negotiators came back with their tails between their legs to report “The government is refusing to accept the majority conciliation reports. The government is refusing the proposal of arbitration, of calling upon an adjudicator to determine working conditions, if we are unable to reach agreement”.

The position of the Bloc Quebecois is as follows. We say that, if the point of no return has been reached, if not even another half a centimetre's progress is possible, then why not ask a university professor anywhere in Canada skilled in this area to arbitrate the working conditions? According to the information we have, the union could live with that, but unfortunately the government is saying yet again “bang, pow, out of the question, no, nyet, not one minute”.

We in the Bloc Quebecois think that special legislation should be the last recourse and, we respectfully submit, not all the recourses have been exhausted. Since 1991, the federal government has renewed the master agreement with the public service with laws issued by this Parliament. Today, with this master agreement subdivided into seven bargaining tables, the government must reach an agreement negotiated in good faith.

I would like to close with a short history of bargaining in the public service. Labour relations between the federal government and public servants are governed by the Public Service Staff Relations Act, which came into effect in 1967. The government justified this particular framework at the time by promising to be a good employer, providing proper remuneration and working conditions and not using its size and power to control the market.

Since then, and especially since the Liberals took office in 1993, these principles have been abused in every way possible. Let us look at some examples. Using its legislative power, with its successive cuts, which have fallen heavily on public servants, through its attempts to manipulate taxpayers by demagoguery and by using major government communications resources, the government distorts, undermines and subordinates the bargaining process as no other employer can do.

We must not forget that the Department of Human Resources Development sets the number of public servants to be cut. We revealed a directive from a senior official in Prince Edward Island, which said “There could be 250 jobs threatened if you do not achieve the cuts quota”.

Studies show that some 4% of people defraud employment insurance. But, according to what I have been told, when a person arrives in an employment insurance office, they are assumed to be defrauding the system. As soon as a person walks into the office, he or she is immediately labelled and seen as a cheater, when in fact only 4% of claimants are. We must not tolerate having 4% of claimants cheating the EI system, but it is totally unacceptable to assume the other 96% are cheaters too.

Let us now look at the acts imposed by this government and the previous one. During the 1993 and 1997 election campaigns, the Bloc Quebecois said “To vote for the Liberals or the Conservatives is just the same”. The Conservative government of Brian Mulroney must also share the blame for this unacceptable situation.

In August 1982, under a Liberal government, Bill C-124 froze the salaries of about 500,000 public servants. In December 1989, under the Conservatives, back to work legislation, that is Bill C-49, was passed.

In October 1991, again under the Conservatives, Bill C-29 threatened to unilaterally impose the employer's offers if they were not accepted. I could go on and on, but I only have one minute left.

I began my remarks by saying we cannot trust this government, which is acting as both judge and jury, and I will conclude with two quotes. Americans say “Do not put the rabbit in charge of the lettuce”, while Germans say “Do not ask the cat to look after the cream”. This is what we have with this government.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Reform, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a displeasure to stand here once again. I am not happy that I have to stand up and again speak on behalf of prairie farmers, my constituents, with regard to this issue. We have had this before us now for quite some time. I will again refer to a bombshell that I released last week when we talked about this.

One of the key points that needs to be made is that the government is not sincere in dealing with this issue. It is looking for an excuse to bring in legislation and blame everyone else for the fact that it is in this predicament. With the things I will bring forth it will become quite clear that this is not the case.

When I got back to my riding I started getting phone calls from farmers in my area saying that Reform is to blame for all this. I asked why they said that. Apparently the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food has been spinning out this whole scenario in such a way that the opposition, namely Reform, is responsible for the predicament in which the government finds itself. It is blaming us for the delay and all the concerns that people are raising. That indicates to me quite clearly that the government is not sincere in dealing with this and wants to make political points on it by blaming Reform. This is something the Canadian people must realize. The opposition parties can hardly be blamed for the whole mess that has been created because of the government's lack of action.

Recall last week that the government brought in a motion without informing the opposition as to what that motion was. It brought in a motion and asked for unanimous consent for a bill it would not even show us in advance.

Mr. Speaker, would you buy a pig in a poke? Would you agree to something you knew nothing about? Hardly. That demonstrates clearly the government was not sincere in dealing with this issue of the strike in a manner that was above board and wanted to resolve it. It wanted to be able to blame the opposition in some way for not having action on this more quickly.

About 15 minutes before government introduced that motion, the minister for the Treasury Board, under whose purview this whole thing is, said he would consider all options. We had just put forth the option of final offer selection arbitration, which the government is quite familiar with. If the minister was sincere in his comments that he would look at all options, to have a bill submitted or ask approval for a bill 15 minutes later indicates that the government had in mind all along what it wanted to do. It was clear that it simply wanted to find an excuse to introduce legislation to order the workers back to work.

I referred to a letter last week. I called it my bombshell that I would release. That letter clearly indicates that this did not happen just in this last week. The government received a letter on January 27, 1999. That is more than six weeks ago. It indicates that the strikes were already creating a problem on the west coast, that PSAC had been on strike. The weighers, the 70 people who weigh the grain that is being shipped from the prairies, had already had some rotating strikes and had effectively closed down the Vancouver port operations.

The letter goes on to indicate that the Canadian Grain Commission had provided six supervisory personnel. They were doing their best to cover all the regular contingent in excess of the 70 weighmen who were on strike and if no picketing action is taken by the weighmen, the numbers this small would have effectively closed port operations.

The President of the Treasury Board received this letter. The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Minister of Transport, the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board, and the Minister for International Trade all received a copy of this letter. The government knew well in advance that this problem was developing.

The letter indicates that the results of such work stoppages have stopped the unloading of over 700 rail cars per day, eliminating the loading of approximately 275,000 tonnes of grain. The back-up caused by not unloading the rail cars will cost Canadian grain producers millions of dollars and impact our critical trading relationships with foreign buyers. This was all in that letter.

Let me pause for a moment, because there seems to be a few puzzled looks as to why I am dealing with this when we are talking about a strike by the Public Service Alliance of Canada workers. The point I am making is that a third party is being severely impacted. The economic loss is in the tens of millions of dollars to the farmers in Saskatchewan, the farmers of the prairies because of this strike, because of 70 people being off work. The government has taken the opportunity to order all the PSAC workers back to work because of the concerns that we have expressed about the farmers in my riding.

If a third party is being hurt by a strike of this magnitude, something has to be done. We are holding our noses and voting for this legislation. What else can we do? We have to get the grain moving because of the severe impact this is having on the entire country. Yes, something has to be done.

The letter also went on to say that the Canadian grain industry and in particular western farmers are at the mercy of the weighmen. That is the point I am trying to make. That was included in the letter that I dropped as a bombshell last week.

The letter goes on to explain, “We are asking for the co-operation of all parties including the federal government in ensuring that the impact to western farmers is minimized during this time. To this end, WGEA members are committed to finding appropriate solutions to the present situation”. They are looking for solutions.

For the government to suddenly come up with legislation to order them all back to work when this has been going on for more than six weeks just shows that it had the opportunity to do something and it did nothing.

I will give a bit of an explanation on the proposal we put forward. I am hoping at some point the government will seriously look at this. Then we would not have to be back here every few months dealing with similar legislation to order some other group of workers back to work.

Final offer selection arbitration is a method by which parties on both sides of a dispute that they cannot resolve put in their final offer. Then an arbitrator selects one or the other offer. He cannot take some middle ground between them. He has to select one or the other offer.

The key thing is who the arbitrator is going to be. Both sides have to select an arbitrator from a pool of arbitrators. It is critical that it is an impartial person who reviews the final offers.

Why are we supporting this legislation? We really have no choice. We have to get these people back to work. The government has dilly-dallied. It has not dealt sincerely with this and has put us in this mess. We have to hold our noses, as I say, and vote for it.

Farmers are being adversely affected and have no control over this situation. It is between the government and the PSAC workers.

The government has the power to run roughshod over anyone in society and unfortunately it has used this power. That has been of great concern as I have watched events unfold.

The bill has closure stamped all over it, which means we deal with this issue now. We do not go through the normal process of having first, second and third reading with the bill being sent to committee and so on and having all of those things available to us. The government said this was the way it was going to be and it is ramming it through.

Farmers are being impacted. The Canadian Wheat Board put out a news release saying it lost $9 million in sales in just two days last week. I am hoping the wheat board is not going to use this as an excuse for its poor sales.

The wheat board controls all wheat and barley sales. Farmers do not own their own grain. They have to sell it through the wheat board. I just found out today that export shipments of grains, wheat and barley, over which the wheat board has a legislated monopoly, so far in 1998-99 wheat and barley sales are down 41% from a year ago and are down 30% from the five year average. Exports of non-durum wheat are down 44%. Durum is down 18%. Barley sales are down 64%. Farmers have bins full of wheat and barley which they cannot sell themselves and the wheat board is not moving it.

Canada's share of the world market for wheat could drop to below 12% this season. How does that compare? At one time we were up to 21.5%. The 10 year average of Canada's share of grain sales is 20% and we are down to 12% of our share of the world market. That indicates how serious the situation is for western farmers. They are locked in because they cannot sell their grains, wheat and barley, outside the wheat board.

The exports of leading western Canadian crops that the wheat board does not handle are up 39%. Canola exports are 63% higher. In these other areas that are not handled by the wheat board, the sales are up a great deal.

There is $2 billion to $3 billion of grain sitting in prairie bins that remains unsold. Had these off farm sales of grain been running at the rates of a year ago, there would be $600 million to $700 million more in the pockets of prairie farmers.

Not only are we prevented from shipping out that grain right now, sales have clearly been down through the wheat board already. How is that impacting on my riding? The various elevators in the northern part of my riding are plugged. The grain is there and it cannot be moved because the rail cars are not available to send the grain out to the west coast. It does not get more serious than that, especially if one completely depends on the sale of these grains.

I also want to clearly indicate for all those who are watching this debate on television how much this impacts on prairie farmers. The government has put us in the very awkward position of having to choose between the PSAC workers and the farmers. It has pitted one group against the other because it failed to resolve this situation. An innocent third party is being hurt, and we have to clearly explain to people how much that work stoppage at the Vancouver terminal has hurt.

Way back on January 24 of this year the first stoppage of services occurred. As I have already revealed, the government knew about this. A letter was sent asking the government to do something about it. That was quite some time ago.

The workers are on strike. They are picketing all five terminals. Five or six ships are waiting in berth and eleven more waiting outside to pick up grain. Sixteen grain vessels are waiting for a total of 370,000 tonnes of grain. It is a lot of money when we take into account that each tonne of grain may be worth $300. These boats are waiting in berth. Millions of dollars are being lost.

I should also mention that these contracts to sell this grain were made when the grain was at a high price. Now these customers have an excuse to buy this grain at a much lower price because we have not fulfilled our part of the contract in failing to deliver the grain. That is all part of the equation. It indicates that farmers are hurting and another nail is being pounded into their coffins.

The Canadian Pacific Railway will not deliver grain cars to any of the country elevators. It has cancelled all its car allocations for the next week. The Canadian National Railway, one of the two railways that services the prairies, is saying that it will spot only a few cars at a few elevators. That is virtually grinding to a halt as well.

CN has 13 trains waiting in Vancouver as we speak. It cannot move any of them forward. CN has 700 loaded rail cars and CP has 850 loaded rail cars waiting in Vancouver. They cannot do anything with these cars because of the strike. Seventy workers are holding up a huge economy. That is totally unacceptable.

Canada's reputation as a supplier of grain is severely affected. We are going to suffer immensely because of this work stoppage. This reputation affects the entire country. Many people do not realize the economic importance of agricultural products and grain sales on our balance of payments and on the whole economy of Canada. All of this is being severely impacted.

Productivity is declining. We talked a lot last week about the decline in productivity. Canada is now below the state of Mississippi when it comes to the level of productivity. This strike impacts that and further declines that productivity level.

It is unreasonable for 70 employees who are part of a much larger group to be allowed to hold up all of these people. We are asking the government not just to solve this problem today but to solve it for the long term. If there is anything I can say at the conclusion of my speech it is that we must do something to solve this for the long term. This legislation is not the answer to the problem on the west coast. The government should seriously consider implementing legislation that will solve this for the long term.

Let me quickly summarize the essence of what Reformers are saying. A number of stories have been printed and broadcast across the country about the strike by the Public Service Alliance of Canada workers at the grain terminals in Vancouver. There was some misinformation in the stories. I would like to clarify that.

The report stated that the government was ready to introduce back to work legislation and that Reform blocked a motion to get 70 PSAC workers who were stalling shipments of grain on the west coast back to work. That is not true. I will tell the rest of the story.

Reform would like to get the grain flowing immediately at the terminals in Vancouver. We want to get the PSAC workers back to work permanently. We called for an emergency debate on this matter twice last week. The first time it was refused. The debate was then held on the evening of Thursday, March 18. The government neglected to recognize that there was a problem until Reform pushed for an emergency debate in the House of Commons. We had to ask for the debate twice before the Liberals agreed to discuss the issue.

What is even more astonishing is that the Liberals knew six weeks in advance that severe problems were going to occur as a result of this PSAC strike at the west coast terminals. In the emergency debate I revealed that five Liberal ministers were sent a letter on January 27 that specifically stated that the backup of unloaded grain cars could cost Canadians millions of dollars and could severely impact our critical trading relationship with foreign buyers. Reform asked the government to adopt a permanent dispute settlement mechanism rather than to rely on back to work legislation as a method of settling these work stoppages.

Time and again Reform has suggested final offer selection arbitration. It is a dispute settlement mechanism in areas where there are no alternative services and labour disruptions damage the national economy and harm innocent third parties. This procedure would ensure the continuous flow of grain to market.

The Treasury Board minister was even asked if he would support the idea of final offer selection arbitration. He responded by saying that he was looking at all the options. Not even 15 minutes later, without notice or consultation with opposition parties, the government asked for unanimous consent to introduce this legislation without telling us what it was.

The issue of removing someone's collective bargaining rights is quite serious and should be done properly. Let me emphasize that because that point has often been lost in a lot of the discussion. This is a very serious matter we are dealing with and the government has the power to do as it wishes. It is really ridiculous, as I explained previously, to blame the Reform Party for holding this up.

PSAC workers are asking for 3%. The Senate gets 10%. That is basically unfair and it is unfair for us to pit farmers against unions.

[Michel Bellehumeur, Bloc, Berthier—Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that Oral Question Period will still take place at 2 p.m. and that my speech will therefore be interrupted. I will resume after Oral Question Period.

Since this morning, I have been listening to the debate on Bill C-76. I believe Bloc Quebecois members are very well prepared. Our approach to this bill is very well structured. One member I am thinking of is the member for Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Îles-d'Orléans, whose speech was well researched. Government members opposite would do well to reread the member's remarks very carefully.

It is not surprising that we should come to the defence of workers in such a situation. In our 1997 election campaign, we said that the Bloc Quebecois would be there for the workers and constituents of each of our ridings.

The Bloc Quebecois was left with no choice but to defend the interests of workers in the present affair. As others have said before me, we are not talking about workers earning $100,000 or $150,000 a year. These are people with relatively small salaries. The government wants to take advantage of the situation and beat them down with the bill before us today.

What exactly is being proposed this morning? Unfortunately, we are looking at closure. For those not sure what that means, the Liberal government opposite, not wanting to know every little detail of the negotiations, not wanting to know exactly what the opposition thought, not wanting to hear what the experts had to say, has moved closure, a motion I will read for the benefit of those listening. Each word of this motion is very important.

It reads as follows:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of this House, a bill 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:

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 except pursuant to a motion proposed by a Minister of the Crown, and no Private Members' Business shall be taken up;

The said bill may be read twice or thrice in one sitting;

After being read a second time, the said bill shall be referred to a Committee of the Whole; and

During consideration of the said bill, no division shall be deferred.

Mr. Speaker, you know what this means, but the average person might not. What the government wants to do is gag the opposition so that it cannot say too much about this important issue.

This is not a very orthodox procedure, but it does not come as a total surprise, because the government has used it several times. Closure motions on important things such as this are virtually undemocratic, since we are here to represent our constituents and advocate their views.

When an adjournment motion is passed and the opposition is gagged, it is obvious all members of the Bloc cannot stand and support their constituents' views the way they should.

Each time the government uses this kind of motion, closure in this case, I cannot help but remember the nice things they say during election campaigns. In 1993 and 1997, Liberal members came up with nice plans and said they wanted to enhance the work of members of the House. Is this not a good opportunity for the government to enhance the work of members by letting them uphold their views in the House? One of the main roles of members is to make a stand on issues.

Each and every time we have a subject that is in any way controversial or complicated, when members could really score political points and express their views, the government opposite comes in with time allocation or closure. These motions are virtually anti-parliamentary, and above all demeaning to MPs, particularly the government backbenchers who must be getting bored to death with a government like this one, which does not allow them to stand up and defend their views.

I have been listening to this debate since this morning, and I have not seen very many Liberals standing up to defend their views. Is this because they have nothing to say? If they have nothing to say, why did they run in 1997? If they have something to say, this means that closure, the motion to gag the opposition, in a way also gags the Liberal backbenchers, who might have something to say on such an important subject.

I am sure that some of the Liberal MPs from Quebec have something to say. I have not seen one of them rise to defend his point of view, not a single one. I find this extremely strange. With closure, the opposition is being denied the opportunity to consult specialists in this field. They are trying to curtail debate, and thus there will not be time enough for the opposition to set out in any detail the positions they want to bring into the debate.

Fortunately we in the Bloc Quebecois saw this coming, and so we got prepared. We were not caught with our pants down, as they say. We were prepared to intervene in this House and to bring out our point of view, but this may not be the case for all parties.

The government has decided to bring out its heavy artillery. It seems to me, however, that where negotiations on a labour contract are concerned, it is legitimate to allow both parties to defend their points of view, both labour and management. In labour law, there are rules that must be followed. As far as I know, the employees and their union have followed those rules.

Bargaining is a complicated and difficult process. The membership must be properly represented. I believe there is also an obligation for both employees and employer to work for the good of the community, particularly when the employer is the government.

I was a labour lawyer before I became an MP.

Like my colleagues who spoke before me and said they have represented workers or employers in negotiations, during the eight or nine years that I have worked as a lawyer, I have represented employers as well as employees. Therefore, I have no prejudice for one or the other.

However, I have some experience in labour disputes and bargaining. Now, how are things usually done in work contract negotiations? Employees try to negotiate and get as much money—since salaries are at stake—and benefits as possible. Conversely, the employer, who wishes to increase its profits and bottom lines, will try to negotiate lower salaries and fewer benefits. But during all that time, the parties sit at the same table and negotiate in good faith.

When I practised law, I also negotiated out-of-court settlements, which is not an easy task. I negotiated family law agreements, which is not easy either. But if the parties are ready to sit down and negotiate in good faith, they will sooner or later reach an agreement.

During all the years that I practised, the parties had one thing in common: they wanted to negotiate and to reach a negotiated agreement.

While it may not be directly linked to the issue at hand, I am sure you will allow me to mention in passing a similar case relating to collective bargaining. According to this morning's newspapers, an agreement in principle has presumably been reached at the Flamingo slaughterhouses in Berthierville and Joliette. Speaking of negotiations, in that case, the labour dispute had been going on for five months. Apparently the parties found a basis for an agreement because they kept negotiating and the agreement in principle which was reached will be submitted to the approval of the union tonight.

As we can see, through negotiation, agreement in principle can be achieved. This is why—and I will conclude on this and continue after question period—I urge the government to take this time to ponder and, after question period, to listen more carefully to what I say.

[The Speaker]

The member will indeed have the floor following question period, and I am sure we will all ponder his wise comments.

We will now go to Statements by Members.

World Meteorological Day

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, March 23 marks World Meteorological Day. It commemorates the convention on the World Meteorological Organization of 1950. Canada is a founding member of the organization and plays a prominent role in its work.

The theme of this year's day is “Weather, Climate and Health”. This is particularly appropriate when communities around the world are struggling to recover from natural disasters. The prediction of significant changes in climate over the next 100 years has focused attention on the consequences of climate and weather, including health impacts. Environment Canada has contributed to the worldwide body of knowledge on climate change.

World Meteorological Day is also an opportunity to raise public awareness and appreciation for the valuable public weather service Environment Canada staff provides 24 hours a day year round. Weather events like the January storms in Toronto, last year's ice storm and the Manitoba and Saguenay floods remind us of the importance of reliable, accurate weather information in helping Canadians protect themselves and their property.

Happy Birthday, Mom

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, March 18 is a very important day for me. Yes, that is my mother's birthday. If not for my mother I would not be here with you today, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure you are very happy about that.

My mother says I was born with no hair, a problem I have had for most of my life. I do not know whether it is her or me who created the instance. I can say, born in Nova Scotia, raised in Nova Scotia, she has brought family values to our family. She always taught us to pay as we go and live within our means. That is one of the things mothers do very well when they bring up their children. I am very thankful for that.

Some might ask how old she is. I would not dare ask that question. My mom's age is quite irrelevant; it is her knowledge.

On this day I wish my mother a very happy birthday. She is a good friend, and the Liberals will be interested in the fact that she is a good Reformer.