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.