Mr. Speaker, it is with a sense of deep sadness and anger that I rise in this House this evening to oppose this motion and this unjust and unfair legislation.
The government knows full well that the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois would never let such an anti-democratic bill be passed without putting up quite a fight. Therefore the Liberals used their majority in the House to limit debate. Make no mistake: this is an affront to democracy.
Usually back to work legislation contains a clause providing for binding arbitration as a way to settle disputes. But in this case, instead of arbitration, the legislation imposes on workers a collective agreement of the government's making. It also applies to federal prison guards, who are not even on strike. This is incredible and truly unfair.
This bill undermines the democratic rights of Canadian workers. We in the NDP oppose this unjust legislation.
I turned on the television news last night and witnessed with absolute astonishment in a rare moment of joy the Reform member who has just spoken in the House, the member for Cyprus Hills—Grasslands, saying that the Reform Party would stand up for workers and would oppose this Liberal legislation. He was huffing and puffing and saying that the Reform Party is here to speak on behalf of public servants.
I did my best. I could not believe it. This is the same Reform Party that has been so blatantly anti-worker from the time it first came to Parliament Hill. This is the Reform Party that spoke out in favour of right to work legislation, that slammed the labour movement and so on. Suddenly that articulate, loud mouthed little member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands is defending workers. It was incredible. It was too good to be true. Guess what happened today. We found that the Reform Party was in bed with the Liberal Party once again.
I say shame on the Reform Party. Shame on the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands. When Reformers had a chance to stand up for workers they caved in. Who will they vote with tonight? They will vote with the Liberals. They will vote against workers. They will vote against farmers. They are voting against some of the poorest paid public servants in the country.
Let us look at Canada's obligations under international law. Canada has signed a number of major international conventions with the International Labour Organization, the ILO, that oblige us to bargain collectively.
We have signed conventions that oblige us to respect the rights of Canadian and Quebec workers.
Last year Canada commemorated the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights. This legislation and this motion make an absolute mockery of Canada's international obligations under the ILO and under United Nations conventions.
Let us be clear. This is not the first time the Liberal government has shown contempt for our international obligations. Just a few months ago the United Nations committee on economic social and cultural rights pointed out in very harsh language, strong language, powerful language, that the government was not respecting the rights of poor people, homeless people and jobless people in Canada, and that the international covenant we signed on economic, social and cultural rights was being ignored by the government.
The government is ignoring our international obligations as it has done on more than one occasion under the International Labour Organization. It is not just doing that. We in Canada have a charter of rights that Canadians collectively adopted. I had the privilege of being a member of the committee which drafted that charter of rights and passed it with great fanfare. One of its basic rights is freedom of association. Those freedoms, those basic rights, those fundamental freedoms that all Canadians take for granted have once again been totally overridden in legislation.
We look at war veterans who fought hard for these rights and these freedoms. We look at merchant seamen who fought long and hard for these freedoms, who worked long and hard for these freedoms under very difficult circumstances. The legislation makes a mockery both of our international obligations under the ILO and of our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
A number of my colleagues have spoken very eloquently in opposition not only to this draconian closure motion but to the legislation itself. Again I pay tribute to my colleague from Winnipeg Centre who has led the fight on the legislation from the beginning. He is out of the labour movement himself. He knows firsthand the importance of respect for not only collective bargaining but for the basic freedom of association.
My colleague from Winnipeg Centre; my other colleague, the member for Churchill, who will be speaking to the legislation; and others have pointed out many of its very serious flaws. One of its most outrageous flaws is the fact that we have back to work legislation applying to correctional officers who have not even walked off the job, who are not even on strike yet. They are being sent back to work without any terms in writing. It is absolutely unbelievable and unprecedented.
Let me be very clear. For almost 10 years I had the privilege of sitting on the justice committee of the House of Commons. I travelled to many prisons in the country and met personally with correctional officers and prison guards. The working conditions of these prison guards are disgraceful. In many cases they are overworked and underpaid. The value of their work is not recognized through decent pensions. In many cases they face very dangerous and intolerable working conditions.
The government is treating these dedicated and hard working employees with absolute contempt. We in the New Democratic Party say shame on the Liberal government for its treatment of correctional officers.
Let us look at the working conditions of those who have been on strike. We are talking about some 14,500 members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. In my own province of British Columbia how many are we talking about? The largest group of these employees is at Esquimalt in Victoria. In Vancouver the largest group is at the grain commission. A significant number of these workers in British Columbia are those who work at Rogers Pass, at Glacier and at Mount Revelstoke National Park mainly doing highway maintenance. They also have folks who work in stores at Revenue Canada and other departments.
These are not fat cats. These are not people who are being paid excessive wages. These are hard working blue collar workers whose wages have been frozen for seven long years and who have not had a negotiated collective agreement for some fifteen years. All they are asking for is fairness, justice and collective bargaining, and the government says no to all of that.
The member who just spoke talked about grain commission workers. Grain commission workers were behaving very responsibly for most of the last eight weeks. They were going to work. They were not putting up any picket lines. However, when the elevators started applying for exemptions so that the grain would not have to be weighed they started picketing. By the way, they only picketed those elevators that had applied for exemptions. The ones that did not were not picketed.
I have personally spoken with the president of the Grain Workers Union, Ron Burton, who is one of my constituents. It took a responsible approach and is again treated with absolute contempt by the government.
These workers are particularly upset to hear the President of the Treasury Board saying that their wage demands are excessive. in his words. These workers point out that senior managers got increases of something like 17% to 25%. Members of parliament even got increases greater than what they were demanding.
I say on behalf of these workers that it is absolutely nonsensical to suggest that these increases were in any way excessive. Let us just take a moment to look at what was actually on the table when the talks broke down. When the talks broke down on March 12, about 10 or 11 days ago, the union's position on the table was 2%, 2.75% and 2% with a 30 cent sweetener in the last two years. That is not even catch up money. That does not even catch them up to seven long years with no increase whatsoever.
The government and the union were not that far apart. I think it was a little over 3% or 3.1% that they were apart or around $8 million between the two. Let us take a look at that figure for a minute. Eight million dollars would have ensured that farmers were able to get their grain through. Eight million dollars would have ensured that some of the lowest paid federal public servants would have been treated with dignity and respect.
The government has brought forward the hammer of closure and is imposing a collective agreement all for $8 million. I say shame when in fact one contract alone that was lost for a week was worth over $9 million. It makes no sense whatsoever.
These are hard working employees. I have spoken with a number of them in my constituency office. They have talked about some of the difficulties they face like any Canadian in a situation such as this. They have mortgages to pay, families to look after and kids they are putting through post-secondary education so they will get a decent education in the future. This Liberal government treats them with nothing but disrespect and contempt for the collective bargaining process.
I think it is important to point out as well, as my colleague from Winnipeg Centre noted in his remarks, that with massive cuts that have been taking place in the federal public service with this Liberal agenda, deregulation, privatization, fighting back against any progressive labour education, we have the same number of workers who are being called on to do more and more work. A heavier and heavier burden is being borne by these workers. There is a much greater stress and strain in the current workplace. Yet they are told forget it, and seven years without any decent increase whatsoever.
That is not the only way in which federal public servants are being hammered by the Liberal government. The fact is in a number of different areas the government has shown how little respect it has for its public servants. Women in the federal public service are still waiting for pay equity. The government continues to fight against equal pay for work of equal value.
It is totally unfair that women working in the public service still have to fight today for fundamental rights to justice and pay equity.
We know as well the government is anticipating a major public service pension grab, something like $30 billion in federal public service pensions and the government wants to get its hands on that. Instead of treating its employees with respect, what does it do? It tries to grab public service pension money.
This legislation has been thrown together in such a short time that in many respects there are some very serious drafting flaws in it. The new territory of Nunavut has been left out entirely from the legislation, completely ignored. In defining workers under the terms of the proposed collective agreement I note that the definition of common law spouse in English actually does reflect the collective bargaining position that was achieved through other public service negotiations and recognizes that common law spouse includes gay and lesbian partners.
However, in the French version of the text, “conjoint de fait”, or common law spouse, is defined as follows:
Il existe des liens de conjoint de fait lorsque, pendant une période continue d'au moins une année, un employé a cohabité avec une personne du sexe opposé et l'a présentée publiquement comme son conjoint et continue à vivre avec cette personne comme si elle était son conjoint.
We have a French version that denies the fundamental rights of same sex spouses, while the English version reads as follows:
Common law spouse includes those relationships. Mr. Speaker, I know that you have certainly taken an interest in this issue, recognition of same sex relationships and common law spouses, and I know you will be as concerned as I am with respect to this disparity in the recognition of the two statutes.
Certainly we will be seeking clarification of this issue during the debate in committee of whole. I have spoken already with the President of the Treasury Board and with the government House leader. They have both indicated that it is the intention of the government to recognize same sex relationships for purposes of these collective agreements, but I hope that will be clarified during the course of debate in committee of the whole.
While I am on this subject, it is also important that the relationships of gay and lesbian people be recognized under the public service pension legislation as well. We are still waiting for the government to move forward to amend that legislation which will hopefully come forward in the very near future.
I want to note as well the issue of correctional service members, those I talked about earlier who are covered by this legislation. These are the public service alliance members represented by the table 4 negotiating team. They went into a third party conciliation process.
There was a conciliation board report released on March 19. These workers accepted the recommendation of the conciliation board. They were prepared to accept that and live with that even though it represented a significant compromise on their behalf. They said they were prepared to accept that. Treasury Board walked away from the table and refused to sign that agreement. So much for that. So much for fairness to correctional service workers. It was a very different Liberal Party back in 1991.