House of Commons Hansard #202 of the 36th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was grain.
Peter Mancini NDP Sydney—Victoria, NS
Mr. Chairman, I have a supplementary for the president. I know it is late and he might have forgotten my first question.
What are the living conditions based on? How are they measured? What is used as the yardstick say between Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Toronto and Ontario?
Marcel Massé Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Mr. Chairman, when the initial rates were negotiated I was told there were studies of living conditions, cost of living and so on. These are arguments that are brought up by the union in order to determine the rates for each location.
Lee Morrison Reform Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Mr. Chairman, the President of the Treasury Board has indicated to us, as I understand it, that the government has an agreement but it really does not have an agreement. There are some initials on it but they really do not have to abide by anything.
Does this great announcement he made a few hours ago have any meaning whatsoever or are we in exactly the same position, from a purely practical point of view, as we were in yesterday?
Marcel Massé Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Mr. Chairman, the process works in such a way that these negotiations take place between the negotiators of the government and the negotiators of the union. They reach a tentative agreement, as they call it, and initial it. However, this agreement does not have the force of a collective agreement until it is ratified by a majority of the members.
This agreement does not have force of law. It is not a collective agreement and it cannot be applied. However, now that we have a tentative agreement it means that since we prefer to have a negotiated settlement rather than a legislated one we will introduce amendments in the law that will permit us, if this initial agreement is ratified, to put it as the collective agreement that will serve as the instrument of relationships within the parties.
Lee Morrison Reform Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the President of the Treasury Board what good is a tentative agreement or a preliminary without a no strike commitment. It is just a piece of paper.
Marcel Massé Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Mr. Chairman, once the agreement is ratified and becomes the agreement between the parties at that point there is a no strike agreement. There is a contract between the two parties, but until that agreement has been ratified it does not have the force of law and therefore the employees can strike.
Derrek Konrad Reform Prince Albert, SK
Mr. Chairman, the President of the Treasury Board earlier said it was a glitch that allowed prison guards to strike. My understanding was an administrative error by this department.
Since PSAC does not seem to have been doing too good a job representing correctional service workers according to newspapers, they have been organized under a more militant union.
It appears to me that the government is using grain transportation and tax returns as a cynical cover to play one group against another and it is really the correctional service that is the point of this legislation.
If that is really the minister's intention would he have introduced this legislation if it were only about shipping prairie grain?
Marcel Massé Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Mr. Chairman, we would have had to introduce the act purely for the CXs, for the correctional officers, given that in this case they should not have the right to strike. They are designated as essential and there was that possibility of a strike.
However, in the case of the blue collar workers, we believe, and I think a lot of the people in the Reform Party agree with us, that there was a state of emergency. The communications from the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, the communications from the Canadian Wheat Board, the communications from the Saskatchewan government were quite clear that there were conditions there that were threatening the livelihood of farmers and that is in good part why we are bringing in back to work legislation.
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Mr. Chairman, it is impossible to have a legislative collective agreement. What we have is a legislated forced settlement. There is nothing collective about it.
The minister and his department knew years ago that a day was coming up when 600 or 800 so-called CX workers, prison guard workers, would have a legal right to strike. He gives the perception to the House that it was a surprise and they were caught off guard that they would have this legal right to strike.
Why did they not bring in special legislation strictly for that purpose instead of trying to hide it through the back door and call it legislation as he is trying to do?
Marcel Massé Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Mr. Chairman, if we had been able to solve that question through a negotiated settlement there would have been no need for legislation because the situation would have rectified itself through common agreement. In this case, because there was no agreement, we have to legislate.
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Mr. Chairman, the President of the Treasury Board has not answered the question.
The question is quite simple. His department knew months ago that these workers had a legal date to strike. Why did he make it a perception in the House that it is a surprise to him? Why is he including it in this massive 534 page document and calling it back to work legislation when in essence what he should be doing is introducing special legislation specifically for those workers?
Marcel Massé Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Mr. Chairman, I do not think so because these workers are all designated essential. In this case when new positions were created they had to be defined and then registered. When people move into existing positions they have to be reconfirmed as essential workers. That unfortunately was not done. I could say it is not the fault of Treasury Board, but this does not matter. In this case it was not done and the result is that there is a risk of a strike and that is why we have to introduce legislation.
Jason Kenney Reform Calgary Southeast, AB
Mr. Chairman, the President of the Treasury Board caused much unnecessary controversy and skepticism last evening when he stood as the first speaker on second reading of the bill before us to present his statement regarding the tentative agreement.
My question for the minister is very simple. He told us last night that he had learned about this tentative agreement at 10.10 p.m. and presented it to the House in vague terms after the vote was taken on the motion to expedite the passage of Bill C-76.
Why did he not bring the information before the House before the vote so that members such as myself could consider all relevant material that was germane to the bill? Why did he not bring it to the House before the vote instead of after the vote?
Marcel Massé Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Mr. Chairman, I thought that had been solved when the question of privilege was argued. The right argument is that this fact was not one that would affect the motion to expedite debate but this fact was a force essential for the discussion of the bill. I learned about it at 10.10 p.m. and I was here at about 10.40 p.m.
I barely had time to change my speech in order to be able to make my first statement on that news. During that first statement, as the member may recall, I indicated what had happened. I also indicated that because of the CXs and because of the time period before ratification for blue collar workers we still needed the type of legislation that was in front of us. I do not want to resurrect that but that is how it happened.
Jason Kenney Reform Calgary Southeast, AB
Mr. Chairman, I raised the matter because I am in principle supportive of the need for this kind of legislation, but my support and that of many other members for the legislation has become very tenuous because of the sequence.
It did appear to us that back to work legislation might be necessary on an emergency basis. For that reason many of us voted to expedite it. Then we discovered all of a sudden that a tentative agreement had been reached and the predicate of an emergency seemed to suddenly disappear.
I have a second question for the minister. For how long has the President of the Treasury Board known that his negotiating team was close to reaching a tentative agreement with the PSAC union? How long did he know that they were closing in on an agreement and how long did he withhold that information from the House?
Marcel Massé Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Mr. Chairman, I do not agree with the term withhold, but I will go with the reason for the legislation. Unfortunately the way that negotiations take place means that we still need the back to work legislation in terms of emergency for the CXs. That is clear. That is half the legislation.
The other part of the legislation deals with table two blue collar workers. The fact that there is a period of time when strikes can take place before ratification and the fact that ratification is not assured indicate that the requirement for back to work legislation continues to exist.
In terms of the emergency itself, we had an emergency debate. We dealt with that question and we came to the conclusion that there was an emergency.
Negotiations take place all the time more or less seriously. There was a meeting between our chief negotiator and the head of PSAC between 8 and 10 this evening. I was told after the final meeting between the two of them that they had reached an agreement.
Dale Johnston Reform Wetaskiwin, AB
Mr. Chairman, I am sure it is no secret to the President of the Treasury Board that the Reform Party very much supports the use of final offer selection arbitration.
Does he favour the use of final offer selection to settle cases like that of the grain weighers?
Marcel Massé Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Mr. Chairman, these are options that could be considered. One of the reasons we have taken away arbitration was that we were in the process of introducing universal classification systems where all kinds of salary adjustments had to be made. This is why at present we do not have them, but arbitration in a number of cases is a very useful way of dealing with these problems.
Dale Johnston Reform Wetaskiwin, AB
Mr. Chairman, I heard the President of the Treasury Board talk about arbitration, but I was talking specifically about the use of final offer selection arbitration in which both parties are required to submit their final offer and the arbitrator takes all of one position or all of the other. Could he comment on that for me, please?
Marcel Massé Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Mr. Chairman, the member probably has more knowledge of that specific type of arbitration than I do. I will just indicate that there are various types of arbitration. They all have pros and cons. If one of them is more efficient obviously we should give it more weight.
Howard Hilstrom Reform Selkirk—Interlake, MB
Mr. Chairman, my question for the treasury board minister has to do with some of the costs that came out of this strike.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada and the government botched these negotiations to the point where serious financial harm happened to farmers, in particular, along with many other suppliers and service industries. Those costs deal with added on farm storage of grains, lost sales overseas and the loss of Canada's reliability as an exporter. That will cost farmers into the future.
I would guess that the fault is about 75% on the government and 25% on the Public Service Alliance of Canada in botching these negotiations. Is there anything in that agreement to pay farmers, the innocent third parties, the moneys they have lost in this strike action?
Howard Hilstrom Reform Selkirk—Interlake, MB
Mr. Chairman, could I get a commitment from the treasury board minister to begin an investigation to determine the exact costs to farmers and to take action through legislation to compensate them?
Keith Martin Reform Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Mr. Chairman, in my riding many of PSAC members, in particular workers on the base at Esquimalt, were working at levels just slightly above welfare levels but were acting out of a sense of duty to the military for which they worked as civilian members.
I want to know whether or not the raise these workers obtained was equal to, greater than or less than the raise we as members of parliament voted for ourselves last year.