Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this bill. It does not, however, please me to see the situation our beautiful country has come to. This is not the first time such a thing has happened, either.
First of all, I want to quote from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Which states as follows:
Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
a) freedom of conscience and religion;
b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
d) freedom of association.
Freedom of association implies the freedom to negotiate a collective agreement. The preamble to the Canada Labour Code, as quoted by the supreme court, states the following:
Whereas there is a long tradition in Canada of labour legislation and policy designed for the promotion of the common well-being through the encouragement of free collective bargaining and the constructive settlement of disputes; and whereas Canadian workers, trade unions and employers recognize and support freedom of association and free collective bargaining as the bases of effective industrial relations for the determination of good working conditions and sound labour-management relations; ...and whereas the Parliament of Canada desires to continue and extend its support to labour and management in their cooperative efforts to develop good relations and constructive collective bargaining practices—
Today we have Bill C-76, an act to provide for the resumption and continuation of government services. It is as if people working for the Government of Canada did not have the same status as other workers in the country.
Today reference is being made to different bargaining tables. There is talk of table 2 and table 4. Table 4 is that of the correction service officers, who will be in a legal strike position on March 26. The table 4 negotiating team voted to accept the bargaining committee report and has asked Treasury Board to sign a collective agreement.
In the bill the government wants passed, which is totally undemocratic, and of which it ought to be ashamed, these people are put in the same position. PSAC is in the process of negotiating a collective agreement in which employees in the Atlantic provinces, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, do not have the same salaries as their counterparts in Alberta or British Columbia.
I am certain that Atlantic region MPs are only too pleased to be paid the same as those from the west. When the President of Treasury Board comes and tells us this is not true, that the salaries are not the same, that they get more money in the west because they live in remote areas, this is wrong. Salaries are the same, it is their expenses that are not.
If a person has to take the plane to northern Manitoba, it costs more, but when it comes to salaries, the salary is the same.
What has been said in the House is wrong. We cannot accept the way Canadians are being treated. Whether they come from the east or the west, people doing the same work deserve the same salary. The problem is not the creation of the workers, but of the government, once again.
Once again the government is going after the workers. Once again, it is committing another injustice in our country. That is where the problem lies.
They do not want it discussed in parliament. They do not want it discussed in the House, so they introduce bills. They say “You are the bad guys. You, the workers, are the bad ones. You are not on the job to give people their tax cheques, and so you are the bad ones. You are not moving the farmers' grain”. They take the growers and try to make them like other government workers.
But it is you, Liberals on the other side of the House, who are creating the problem. You should be ashamed. You should be ashamed of the way you are treating your workers. They are not in reality the best paid.
Some of them are being paid $24,000 and $25,000 a year to do the dirty work of the government, which then turns around and wants to legislate to force them back to work and not give them the opportunity to bargain, an opportunity enjoyed by other Canadians under the charter and legislation.
The Liberals are not the only ones to do that. The Conservatives did it in 1989 and 1991. At that time, I was a union member, and the Liberals were in opposition. They boasted, saying “We would never do that. We would never do that if you put us in government. We would not treat our employees like that”. Today, they have an opportunity not to treat their employees like that, but they are treating them exactly like the Conservatives did in 1989 and 1991, when Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister. This is utterly shameful.
Fourteen years after the pay equity legislation was passed, the federal government should be ashamed to still be dragging its feet and trying to make Canadians believe that it will cost them $4 billion for pay equity, when in fact the government will tax back 60% of that money on people's paycheques. Let the government tell the truth.
I am disappointed at how the House is acting toward democracy and at how it is treating the workers who have helped build our country. Correctional officers are still negotiating and this legislation will force them back to work when they have not even gone out on strike, when they have not even had a chance to go ahead with a committee's recommendation. This is unbelievable. What are things coming to? It looks like we are following Mexico's lead. We are not there yet, but we are headed that way. We are losing our democracy.
I am convinced that, during the election campaign, the Liberals did not tell these workers “We will legislate to force you to go back to work. We will not pay you the same salary in New Brunswick as in Alberta, in Newfoundland as in British Columbia. You do not deserve as much as the others”.
I remember when RCMP officers were paid less if they worked in the maritimes than if they worked in western Canada. They asked my predecessor, Doug Young, to go and see his Liberal colleagues and tell them that it was not right that an RCMP officer in the maritimes was paid differently than an officer out west. They did not pass legislation for the RCMP. They turned to their friend, Doug Young, whom I turfed out with the help of the voters in my riding. They went after a collective agreement and a contract with the same rates of pay Canada wide.
If the RCMP can be paid the same throughout the country, Canada's public servants deserve to be paid the same, whether they work in Newfoundland or Vancouver, in Prince Edward Island, Ontario or the Gaspé. They deserve to be paid the same.
Once again, what is going on is unacceptable. They should not be boasting. This is the 50th time they have legislated workers back to work and that they are denying democratic and collective bargaining rights. What is going on is a disgrace. Their attempt to pass a bill such as this without debate in the House is a disgrace.
We have a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms giving us the right of association. We have legislation giving us the right to bargain collectively, and this government says that it has the power to set all that aside.