Madam Speaker, it would be a lie for me to say that I am happy to be standing here in this early morning light trying to convince this Liberal government from riding roughshod again over the backs of Canadian workers.
Why is it that it always seems to be the Liberal government that has the most difficulty with the working people of this country organizing and standing up for their rights as equal citizens of this great country? The Liberals, despite their lofty rhetoric, have always been the first to turn their guns, in some cases quite literally, on Canadian workers.
I look to my own island of Cape Breton and talk to people of my grandparents' generation. They remember the strikes of the twenties, thirties and forties. They remember a Liberal government that sent in soldiers to guard the property of British mine owners against the men who had worked and died in the pits, and that ordered Canadian soldiers to shoot Canadian workers on June 11, 1925.
It is a transforming experience for any community to have the army that is sworn to protect you ride down your city streets with guns drawn and blazing. Because you are a worker, because you refuse to stand the gaff of a government and society that treats you as a slave to foreign capitalists, you are now an enemy of the country you love.
Perhaps this is why Cape Bretoners have maintained a long and honourable tradition of union activism and have always been quick to speak out against oppression and exploitation.
It is that constituents from my riding support the Public Service Alliance of Canada members, the men and women who have in their hands the fragile structure of our public service; our health care system, our parks and national monuments and the agencies that connect Canadians to their government.
Over the past seven years these people have been on the front line as the Liberals here in Ottawa sold off the family silver to pay off the deficit. Not that that fight was not an important or necessary one. But why is it that the Liberal Party always seems to think that crises must be solved by attacking the middle class and working people? Why is that when they are presented with any dilemma they feel that they, the members of the private gentlemen's clubs of Ottawa, should create policies which the working people from coast to coast to coast are forced to pay for?
It is not the members of the government who have had to endure the cuts to health care. They have not had to endure the effects of their cuts to government departments where regular Canadians must often wait weeks before their case is dealt with by a stressed and overworked PSAC member. They have not been forced to see the effects of their cuts on their children in the schools. Not so for most children who endure leaking roofs, old books, and teachers whose class sizes go up and up as their colleagues are fired or pushed into early retirement.
No, it is a remarkable thing about the Liberal Party, this ability to hurt regular citizens and then to tell us that it is all for our own good. When banks pay not one penny in income tax, a single mom with a low paying job pays thousands. But that is for her own good. Telling a senior citizen that because of cutbacks his drug plan will not be processed on time, that is for his own good.
It is strange that the Liberal Party is viewed as the party of the centre in this country because when I look at its history I see a party that, when necessary, takes good ideas from wherever it can find them. I see a party that on its own has never had a good idea, that has never had any ideas beyond the absolute necessity of winning election after election, principles, policies and decency be damned.
I come from Nova Scotia where we have been cursed by a system of political patronage that could compete with the southern United States. We are used to having our roads paved if we vote the right way and having them torn up if we vote the wrong way. We are used to seeing the graveyards send ringing endorsements of Liberal candidates. For Liberals in my province, short term jobs with a Liberal contractor, just enough to qualify for EI, are the Liberals' ideas of good social programs.
That is why I have a tough time stomaching this government's endless speeches about how it is helping Canadians do this and that, how it has made life so much better for all of us, and how we should be grateful for the stewardship it has provided us.
Should my constituent who was refused federal housing assistance be happy for the piece of plastic sheeting that she uses as a roof for her trailer? Or the man who needs to decide between paying the rent that keeps him off the streets or paying for the drugs that keep him alive, should he be happy for that?
No doubt many people are happy with this government, the people that are in the top 1% income bracket who run the corporations and own the banks that give such huge donations to the Liberal Party every year. Those people who think Brian Mulroney was too progressive and too tough on business are thrilled with this government. Of course they are.
Instead of government of the people by the people for the people, we have a government of the people by the Liberals for the Liberals. They just cannot stand it when we the people say that we are fed up with that kind of government, when we want something that is for all the people, not just those fortunate enough to inherit fortunes from the shipping industry, an example that just happens to spring to mind.
Then the Liberals start to do the only thing they know how to do, they lash out. Just as they did on June 11, 1925 in Cape Breton when the troops ran down women and children in the streets. Just as they did in 1997 in Vancouver when Canadian students became the enemies because they were angered that their government supported and defended brutal dictatorships. They too have learned what it is like to have the Liberals decide they are the enemies of their government.
Now we have the strike by the PSAC workers who are upset that they are paid one wage while their contemporaries are paid more or less depending on where they live. What is so bad about that? It is a case of one rule for one and another for the other. While lower ranked staff are paid differential rates, their managers are not.
Here is a challenge for the Liberal members. If they are so supportive of regional discrimination as the President of the Treasury Board says he is, how about they volunteer here and now to have their salaries decided based on where they live. When I look across the way, it is no surprise that I do not see any takers. Maybe they are too tired to jump on board, or maybe deep down they see the obvious, that this issue is not what the government says it is about.
It is not about workers trying to sabotage Canada's public service. It is not about radical trade unionists trying to pull down the government. All this is is a group of Canadians supposedly protected under Canadian law and the Canada Labour Code. They exercised their rights to free and fair collective bargaining and they waited year after year for their employer to sit at the table with them and discuss demands that seemed obvious in their validity to most people. Equal pay, equal standards. What is so hard to deal with in those four words?
Equality has gone out of favour in this country. Now this government, not happy with making the rich richer and the poor poorer, has decided to create artificial divisions from province to province, territory to territory. No, this is not a surprise. We expect nothing different from this government.
That is why I am proud to sit on these benches, a member of the party that introduced universal health care and pensions to Canada, the party that believes in those things because they are right and not because it was electorally convenient to adopt them a few years ago. It is a party of conviction and principles and most important, a party that supports Canadian workers.