Debates of April 23rd, 2002

The House resumed from April 22 consideration of the motion that Bill C-15B, an act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment, and of the amendment to the amendment.

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act

[The Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment of the hon. member for Selkirk--Interlake to the amendment to the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-15B. The question is on the subamendment.

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think you would find consent in the House that those who voted on the immediately previous motion be recorded as voting on the motion now before the House with Liberal members voting no.

[The Speaker]

Is there unanimous consent to proceed in this way?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Dale Johnston, Canadian Alliance, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Alliance members will vote yea to the subamendment.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the Bloc Quebecois vote yes on this subamendment.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the New Democratic Party vote no to the subamendment.

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the Progressive Conservative Party vote yes to this subamendment.

[Jean Guy Carignan, Liberal, Québec East, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I vote no to the subamendment.

[Grant McNally, Canadian Alliance, Dewdney—Alouette, BC]

I will be supporting the subamendment, Mr. Speaker.

[The Speaker]

I wish to clarify with all the whips that we assume that the votes applied were the votes on the privilege motion, that is the members who voted on that are applying by party. Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(The House divided on the amendment to the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

[The Speaker]

I declare the amendment to the amendment lost.

It being 6.32 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

Shorter Work Week

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the federal government should take all public policy and legislative steps necessary to encourage the adoption of a shorter work week and reduced work time in the public sector, federally regulated industries, and the private sector as a whole.

Mr. Speaker, my private member's motion finds its origins in the simple fact that for many Canadians, working harder is not working. In spite of views to the contrary, in 2002 we find ourselves in the situation where rather than working shorter hours and enjoying more leisure time, people are working harder to try and maintain the same standard of living. Canadians are not just working harder, they are working longer and longer hours.

The motion I put forward that the federal government should take public policy steps and legislative steps to encourage the adoption of a shorter work week is really a very pluralistic concept. By no means do I want to trivialize the argument by asking that government simply to intervene and dictate this. I hope to have time to put forward realistic solutions that would lead us over time to a reduced work week, which is in fact a sharing in the nation's wealth and prosperity that we have seen develop in recent years.

This issue is at the very top of the minds of many Canadians. I bring it forward because there is a growing realization that a person's workplace situation can become a major stressor for them. With the changing workplace environment and with the changing pressures Canadians face, it becomes a health issue for many Canadians and disproportionately for many women who are struggling work longer. Women are traditionally lower paid and may find themselves in the situation of working two or three part time jobs to pull together a reasonable living. They also face a disproportionate burden in terms of being the primary caregiver in the home, be they single parents or married with children. It is increasingly the case that they are part of the sandwich generation where they are caring for youth at home and for elders in their home, be they their own parents, their in-laws or other family members.

Back in the 1950s and the 1960s all the futurists and experts were predicting that with the technological revolution we would not know what to do with all our free time. Most of us thought the future would be something like the Jetsons on TV. George Jetson would pretty much have his feet up most of the time, when he was not flying around in his neat little space car.

Our biggest problem was going to be how we would fill our day, what we would do with all of our leisure time. Recreation and leisure were to become growth industries. As we all know, the truth is anything but. In spite of huge gains in productivity and technological change, Canadians find they are working harder and more hours than ever and they are wondering what went wrong with this dream of an idea, with this concept. For many of them working harder is not working for them.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, a one income family with one person working 40 hours a week afforded a reasonably good middle class standard of living. Something went terribly wrong.

The fact is that 40 years after this promise of a utopian dream of a land of milk and honey, Canadians are working longer hours, not less. Instead of one good job supporting a family, most Canadian families have two wage earners. Often three or more part time jobs are pieced together to earn a living.

Canadian workers are not sharing in the incredible advances made in corporate profits and increased productivity. If working people enjoyed the same gains in the last 15 years as have CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, a carpenter would be making $250 an hour and the minimum wage would be $50 an hour. Obviously that is not the way the system works.

Going further back in history, before the turn of the century the average work week was six days of ten or even twelve hours a day. It is hard to imagine, but in a picture of squalor out of Dickens, workers went from the day's drudgery to the evening's despair often without ever seeing the light of day. They would go to work before the sun came up and return home in the darkness as well.

It was one of the labour movement's great struggles to gradually chip away at those inhumane hours of work. The Knights of Labour started a campaign as early as the 1860s in North America.

In the 1880s Samuel Gompers of the united cigar rollers union and Peter J. McGuire of the carpenters union became the founders and first leaders of the American Federation of Labour. McGuire became known as the father of the eight hour day. The popular theme of the campaign was “As long as there is one person who wants work and cannot find it, the hours of work are too long”. It was as simple as that.

Many of the courageous women in the textile mills of Lawrence and Lowell, Massachusetts were of Acadian background and came from New Brunswick and Cape Breton. Many also came from the rural Quebec countryside. In the 1890s these women took up the struggle for the eight hour day in the famous bread and roses strike. They eloquently made the case that some semblance of quality of life had to go with the bread on the table they earned in their daily work. The famous hymn they sang to commemorate the strike included the lines “our lives will not be sweated”, ”ten that toil while one reposes”, and “give us bread, but give us roses”.

Eight hours a day for work, eight hours for sleep and eight hours for rest, relaxation or to cultivate one's mind by whatever hobby or leisure pursuit one saw fit became the rallying cry of the labour movement. After 40 years of strikes, battles and bloody riots like the Haymarket riots in Chicago where workers were gunned down by hired company goons, labour finally won the eight hour day.

However even then the average working week consisted of six rather than five eight hour days, so it was a gradual and slow process. It was only after great struggle and perseverance that Saturday became half a work day. At noon on Saturday beer wagons began going by job sites and dropping off wooden kegs of beer. This is where the song Roll Out the Barrel came from. After more years of sacrifice and struggle the work week of five eight hour days finally became a reality. I used to have a bumper sticker that read “Unions: the folks that gave us the weekend”.

Members should have heard the objections from industry as this progress was being made. Business leaders howled, shrieked, gnashed their teeth and rent their garments. They said we could not have this. They said idle hands did the devil's work. They said factories and businesses could never survive an eight hour work day. They said the economic stability of the country would collapse. Exactly the same refrain was heard when people tried to stamp out child labour around the same time.

The eight hour work day finally became a reality. Working people made many advances and gains in their working lives that ultimately created the most important element of the North American economy: a healthy middle class of consumers, our most stable feature on which we rely for the economic prosperity we enjoy today.

I should note in our history lesson that in 1933 the U.S. senate proposed a bill that would have gone beyond the 40 hour work week. It would have made 30 hours the official American work week. Anything more would have been overtime. The bill failed by only a few votes. President Roosevelt opposed it by arguing that his New Deal job creation program was a better way to battle unemployment than a 30 hour work week.

However the plan was seriously contemplated to the point that in the same year cereal magnate A.K. Kellogg, although known as a capitalist who ran his company with an iron fist, proved to be a pioneer with a radical idea. He introduced the Kellogg six hour day, believing that leisure time and not economic growth without end represented the true crowning achievement of capitalism. Kellogg offered his workers 35 hours of pay for a 30 hour work week. He also built parks, summer camps, nature centres et cetera.

The plan ultimately created 400 new jobs in Battle Creek, Michigan where his plants were located. It was an unexpected byproduct of his altruism that productivity spiked so rapidly that within two years, instead of having his workers put in 30 hours a week for 35 hours of pay he raised it to 30 hours a week for 40 hours of pay. His workers were quoted as saying they were not worn out when they left work and had energy to do other things.

The last thing I would point out is that what got us to where we are today is that in the post war era we made a labour compact with capital. Labour and capital sat down at the table and said that to put an end to the wildcat strikes and the labour unrest that typified the labour movement as we fought for these historic gains, they would make a deal that when profits and productivity went up workers wages would go up in a corresponding way. It was more than a handshake; it was an official labour accord in the post war era.

That compact has been broken as we can plainly see. Even though the standard of living has gone up since the post war era, we surely have not shared in the enormous prosperity and wealth that the business community has enjoyed in that same period of time.

With that bit of history, I would like to point out that elsewhere in the world people are catching on to the idea of reduced work time as a positive, not a negative, and as a way to boost productivity not just the redistribution of wealth and benefits to employees.

With reunification, Germany was faced with enormous unemployment challenges as East Germany and West Germany joined forces. Volkswagen and BMW adopted a 30 hour work week with no loss in pay. Their experience was that productivity spiked again and for obvious reasons. With a 30 hour work week, not only were employees given more leisure time but they were given more time to do personal things. They did not have to take a day off to go to the dentist during the work week. They did not have to take a day off for child care issues and so on. All those things led to the expansion and enhancement of the productivity of the company to the point where there was a net gain.

As time becomes an issue, I should talk about France. In 1998 France moved to the 35 hour work week in a very gradual and negotiated way. It was not a heavy-handed imposition by the state. Through meetings with business, labour and government in a tripartite way, it introduced a 35 hour work week with the immediate creation of 280,000 jobs. In the statistics I have, from the year 2000 another 250,000 jobs have been created by reducing the work week from 37.5 hours to 35 hours. I call that a success not just for all the personal reasons of working people who wanted more family time or wanted their hectic schedule to be less stressful, but also for the creation of many hundreds of thousands of jobs.

In more local examples, Bell Canada in Ontario and Quebec adopted the 36 hours over a four day work week and saved 2,000 jobs. OPEU, Office and Professional Employees' International Union, which represented the workers in my office for the many years while I was running the carpenters union, over a period of five years negotiated itself down from a 37 hour work week to a 30 hour work week with no loss in pay. Instead of negotiating a 3% raise in pay, it took 1% in cash and 2% in reduced time. Gradually over years these people, mostly women on the technical staff in my office, were working a 30 hour work week. This was a very civilized thing. Many who had children could stay at home to see their children off to school and then be at work. Later in the day they could be home again at night in time for their children to arrive back from school. I am not saying that was the only reason, but it certainly was one of the benefits that the women in my office enjoyed.

The only example I can find across the country that is going in the opposite direction is the Liberal government in British Columbia. I want to take this opportunity to condemn it in the strongest possible terms. It has introduced a bill which says that overtime kicks in only after 160 hours a month. In other words, an employer can work an employee for two weeks at 80 hours a week without paying any overtime, then hire another person to work another two weeks at 80 hours a week to fill out the other 160 hours. I condemn that. That is wrong-headed, backwards and stupid, if that is a parliamentary term.

There are so many more things I want to share but with the one minute that I have left I would like to look at some ideas that governments could consider in terms of working toward a reduced work week. Governments have the opportunity to influence policy regarding taxation.

I see I have to wrap up. Many of the issues have to do with the penalties currently in place regarding payroll taxes et cetera. Maybe at the end of the hour I will be able to explain some of them.

[Gurbax Malhi, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to the motion introduced by the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre.

The government shares the hon. member's concern for our nation's workers. We recognize that many Canadians face significant challenges as they try to balance work and family responsibilities in a busy world. More flexible hours of work are one way of dealing with the challenges.

The Minister of Labour has often spoken of the need to encourage a better balance between work and family responsibilities in Canada. She is committed to working closely with her colleagues in government and the private sector toward that end. An example of this was the last meeting of federal, provincial and territorial ministers of labour in Halifax where all the ministers agreed to work co-operatively on work-life balance issues in Canada.

The hon. member's proposal to reduce hours of work is a timely one, especially in the context of growing interest in work-life balance issues throughout the country. However while the minister and the government share the concern of the member opposite and welcome his positive interest in this important area of labour policy, we do not agree that Motion No. 34 is the right way to proceed at the present time.

The motion calls on the federal government to encourage the adoption of a shorter work week in the public sector, the private sector and federally regulated industries. The motion appears to be simple but its implementation would be anything but. For example, there is the complex issue of shared labour law jurisdiction in Canada. As members of the House know, responsibility for labour matters in our country is shared. The federal, provincial and territorial governments are responsible for labour legislation and workplace standards within their own jurisdictions.

At the federal level the kinds of changes called for by the motion would require amendments to Part III of the Canada Labour Code. At other levels of government other legislative changes would be required. Thus a shorter work week for Canadians is not something the Government of Canada can unilaterally decide upon by amending the Canada Labour Code.

As in so many areas of federal-provincial jurisdiction we deal with in the House, the broad adoption of a shorter work week throughout the public and private sectors in Canada would require action well beyond the authority of the federal government under the existing Canada Labour Code.

Moreover, there is the practical matter of the application of federal labour legislation. We need to remember that the Canada Labour Code covers about 10% of the nation's workforce. It applies only to industries and workplaces subject to federal authority such as the transportation, telecommunications and broadcasting industries.

Part III of the code does not apply to public sector workplaces either federally, provincially or municipally. It does not apply to private sector workplaces outside federal jurisdiction. Thus even if the federal government were to act within its own jurisdiction, as a practical reality it would only cover about 10% of the nation's workforce. The obvious question is how effective it would be if the federal government were to go it alone with a shorter work week for federally regulated industries.

Another key question we must ask is what the economic consequences would be. Aside from the constitutional issue of federal-provincial-territorial jurisdiction the Government of Canada must also consider the national economic consequences of introducing a shorter work week, especially in federally regulated industries whose operations impact the rest of the national economy.

While it is true that the Canada Labour Code applies only to about 10% of Canadian workers, many of those workers are in sectors whose operations are vital to the success of the remainder of the economy, and the transportation sector is a good example.

Because federally regulated industries tend to be those with significant national and international business activities, it is important that the broad economic implications of a shorter workweek in the federal jurisdiction be studied in terms of its impact in other sectors as well. For example, we know there are sectors of the Canadian economy that are experiencing worker shortages now. What would be the impact of reduced workweeks on those sectors?

These are just some of the questions the motion raises. It appears to be a simple motion but the issues it carries are quite complex.

The government recognizes there are many strong advocates of a shorter workweek and that there are good arguments in favour of reducing the existing standards regarding hours of work. An obvious one is that it would enable more employees to spend more time with their families. However we need to know more about the costs as well as the benefits, and that requires further study.

That is why we believe that any changes to hours of work under the Canada Labour Code should not be made through a motion such as this one. However it is an issue that may more appropriately be discussed in the context of a future review of part III of the code.

Thus, we will not support the motion at this time. Nevertheless, we are pleased the member has raised this very important topic for further study and discussion.

[Reed Elley, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to join in today's debate on the motion that the hon. member has brought forward, which states:

That, in the opinion of this House, the federal government should take all public policy and legislative steps necessary to encourage the adoption of a shorter work week and reduced work time in the public sector, federally regulated industries, and the private sector as a whole.

While I am certain that the member has put the motion forward in all good faith, I have not found convincing evidence that justifies the need for such an action. He has put forward some of the standard points on the issue where I am afraid that the numbers simply do not add up.

The most common work week bantered around over the past two decades has been 30, 32 and 35 hours of work per week. Perhaps the hon. member does not realize that research by Statistics Canada in the year 2000 showed that across all industries the average weekly hours for employees paid by the hour already averaged 31.6 hours per week.

When all work hours are averaged, last year the Christian Science Monitor reported that Canadians worked 42.2 hours, in the 29th position behind countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, China and the United States. The global average is 44.6 hours per week. This clearly has an effect on our overall competitiveness and productivity as a nation. When we are not competitive and our productivity drops, we surely suffer economically as a nation.

Let us clearly recognize that there have been atrocious records in the past of 12 hour days and six day work weeks. While I do not currently believe in the need for a shorter work week, neither do I believe that we should endorse the 72 hour work week that Charles Dickens so eloquently wrote about in the 19th century.

There are some very negative effects of the shortened work week that I want to put on the record. In the March 14, 1994 issue of Maclean's magazine, it was reported that most Canadians now working reduced hours are also earning less as a result. This cannot be helpful to those families who are struggling financially.

While the shortened work week has been touted as the solution for those companies that are in financial crisis, it would also appear to have been short term at best. Furthermore, many of the efforts to have a shortened work week have been controversial. One of the results has actually been a division among workers themselves pitting those with jobs against those without, leading to a potential social upheaval.

Internationally, Business Week reports that France, and the hon. member has already mentioned the French experiment, has found that the shortened work week has resulted in higher expenses for the more highly skilled workers. Furthermore, the move to a shortened work week has also resulted in a discouraging investment in research and development in high tech industries.

The very basis on which we can grow and develop new business opportunities is limited because of a move to shorter work weeks. I certain that irony does not escape members of the public.

Finally, the International Monetary Fund working paper states that under a shorter work week a reduction in the legal work week may induce a degree of downward wage flexibility and that a decline in output cannot be ruled out. This is now what the member wants as a result of such a motion.

In April 1994 the Canadian Federation of Independent Business conducted a ballot with its 100,000 members on the question. It asked if the work week should be shortened as part of a national job creation strategy. In framing this question, the CFIB summarized the issue this way.

As industrialized countries struggle with stubbornly high unemployment rates, some countries, including Canada, are looking at shortening the work week as part of their job creation strategy. Some current discussions focus on a four day work week. Supporters say that at a time when governments and large firms are downsizing, it makes sense to redistribute existing employment to get more people working. Reducing the work week would mean fewer people would be on welfare; that is reducing welfare costs and cutting government spending. A shorter work week with more people working would lead to increased productivity.

On the other hand, opponents say it would only redistribute existing work and not create new jobs. Existing employees would be reluctant to agree to take less pay. There would be an increase in total payroll costs for employers, further deterring real job creation. While large firms could reallocate jobs, this is not often feasible for small firms. It would need new legislation and entail major compliance problems.

The CFIB membership answered the question “Should the work week be shortened?” as part of a national job creation strategy as follows: 16% were in favour; an overwhelming majority of 75% were opposed; and the remaining 9% were either undecided or had no interest in the issue at all.

These are the people who would have struggle to make it work from the employer's perspective. Granted this may be different than the view of the employees. However, if the employer struggles to see how the shorter work week would work for them, any such proposed changes are doomed to be unsuccessful.

I find also that the member's motion is somewhat disrespectful of the role that the private sector has separate from the federal government. I know that this member has been involved in the trade union movement in the past. It surprises me that his motion would call for the involvement of the federal government in areas where it has no real jurisdiction. I am certain that this member would be up in arms if a motion were being debated that called for some form of interference in the role of unions.

I believe that the hours of work are best left to be negotiated between employees and employers. At times the representatives of the employees will be the unions. At other times employees will represent themselves, through professional associations and the like. Employers will sometimes be the government and other times will be the private sector. I believe that we must recognize that each situation will be different.

Currently there are many professions that work extended hours for shorter work weeks, such as the police, firemen and ambulance attendants. Many other industries are subject to change due to fluctuations in the market. Softwood lumber employees in my own riding of Nanaimo--Cowichan are unfortunately very familiar with that.

In the long term the Canadian Alliance wants to create an economic climate in which businesses can thrive and grow and with their success create quality job opportunities for Canadians. We would do so by providing deep, broad-based tax relief and ensuring a stable monetary policy.

The Canadian Alliance would also encourage the entrepreneurial sector by eliminating unnecessary regulations and minimizing government interference in the labour market. We also would foster a healthy economic environment for the benefit of consumers by pursuing free and open trade at home and abroad and eliminating the interprovincial trade barriers that plague our country.

We would withdraw government from areas of the economy where the private could deliver the same services more efficiently and would end the unfair practice of providing subsidies to industry, businesses and special interest groups.

Having said all that, I certainly want to thank the member for bringing the issue forward for debate. However I would encourage employers and employees alike to work toward a balancing of the personal needs of employees with the corporate needs of the employer.

If a business does not make a profit, the business will ultimately close, throwing employees out of work and reducing the tax base for various levels of government. Conversely, if employees are not satisfied in their work and feel that they are not earning a reasonable wage or salary as well as not being treated fairly, they will leave to find employment elsewhere. In my view, neither option is acceptable. The relationship between employees and employers must be symbiotic. They must rely on each other and live together in a relationship that they can jointly build.

I would encourage all employees and employers to discuss issues such as shorter work weeks and other important issues in an open and forthright manner during whatever negotiations take place. I believe this is the more appropriate venue rather than through government interference.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Laurentides, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will read the motion again. It reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, the federal government should take all public policy and legislative steps necessary to encourage the adoption of a shorter work week and reduced work time in the public sector, federally regulated industries, and the private sector as a whole.

First, I would like to say that this is a very good initiative by my colleague from Winnipeg North Centre and that we support this motion. It is unfortunate that it is not votable. This would have been nice, but maybe some other time. In any case, we are given the opportunity to debate it, and I think that this debate is needed in the House.

That being said, if I understand my colleague's motion correctly, there is no number of hours, so it is negotiable and up for discussion. I think that the purpose of this motion is to allow for a discussion on reducing the hours of work.

Today in most households, both parents work; when one works 10 hours and the other works 12, if there are no regulations, it makes family life difficult, children are always in daycare, and the quality of family life is virtually non-existent. Latch-key kids come home from school to do their homework without help from the family. This creates problems and difficult situations. Divorce and family problems ensue.

Obviously, if we can improve the quality of life by reducing the number of hours worked, we can find solutions, maybe not to all of these problems, but to the vast majority of them.

Here in the House, initiatives such as this one always come from this side. It is as though we are the only ones who want to innovate in the Canadian parliament, and I will explain why.

Members know that I am committed to a number of issues, including modernizing certain situations. I am referring specifically to the withdrawal of pregnant or nursing women from a hazardous workplace, an issue that I have worked on for ten years now. This problem was solved a long time ago in Quebec, where pregnant and nursing women have a special program allowing them to withdraw from work. However, here in Ottawa, women are still not able to benefit from preventive withdrawal. This is completely unacceptable.

It has been exactly ten years since we raised this problem in the House. The leader of my party put forward a motion. I suggested major changes to part II of the Canada Labour Code, section 132, to this end. Here in the House, I introduced a private member's bill, which obviously was not approved by the government. The entire issue is a hot one.

There is parental leave. In Quebec, we are currently fighting for fair parental leave. The federal government is still blocking our way. Again recently, the Quebec minister opened the door to the federal government and said “Listen, we are willing to sit down and find a solution. We are willing to sit down with you. Do something. A solution must be found”. All to no avail.

As for pay equity, a tiny bit of progress has been made but, once again, the problem has not been resolved. Men and women, everyone should receive the same pay for work of equal value. We need only look at the current situation at Radio-Canada. Female journalists are not being paid the same as their male colleagues. It is unacceptable that this is still going on in 2002. These are very important issues.

As for employment equity, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour, who is here in the House, can speak to this. We have been hearing from witnesses in committee for two months. Much still remains to be done. The law is not being properly applied and it has been around since 1986, in other words, for more than 15 years. There are problems of application. The government has not even managed to get around to all the industries affected by the Employment Equity Act to check whether they are doing their job, whether they are applying the legislation as they should. After 15 years, the government has not even finished taking a look at all departments to ensure that those who should practise what they preach are applying the legislation as they should.

Many people filed complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission to say that the government was not doing its job. A complaint was filed about Radio-Canada not doing its job with respect to employment equity. When one is a crown corporation, one must practise what one preaches.

I trust that there will be very close follow-up. The law must be changed in this connection. A report is to be tabled within two or three weeks and I trust that it will at least address all the concerns of the visible minorities, the disabled, women and aboriginal people who are not well served by this law. This situation must therefore be improved.

Then there are the House of Commons staff, who are not protected. This makes no sense whatsoever. These people must be able to benefit from the same working conditions as the public servants working within departments. This is a huge flaw that must remedied and the solution is really a very simple one. If there is a true desire to get it done, it can be done in a very short time.

Then there is the anti-scab legislation, another very important bill. It has been discussed again and again.

There are the orphan clauses, which keep a young worker starting out in a company from benefiting from the same opportunities as a worker with more seniority. Being a newcomer, he or she cannot have the same opportunities for advancement as existing staff.

These are all bills that have often come up in the form of private members' motions or bills. Each time we in the House have had the opportunity to move the government ahead, to advance the situation of the population of Canada and of Quebec, it has not happened because the government is not able to get its act together.

The laws I have referred to, and the motion my colleague has just introduced, are not million dollar affairs. It is just a matter of changing attitudes. We are not asking this to be done in a day, but attitudes have to be changed.

There must be work done in the labour sector. I do not come from a union background in the least. I am a business woman from the private sector, but I agree with having policies that will allow women and men to have more normal family lives.

Today, people need to work almost twice as much to get what they had ten years ago. We need to be able to strike a balance, and we have yet to manage that.

So I agree with the fact that we need to have policies and work with the unions, because they are there, they exist, they protect rights and they must continue to exist in the future. We must work with employers, because we want businesses to be profitable and that is possible; we are capable of sitting down to negotiate and discuss. And finally, we must work with our governments, who have a whole lot of work cut out for them, which they are not getting to right now.

We need to raise everyone's awareness. It is possible to respect jurisdiction, because earlier my colleague spoke of jurisdiction. We can easily apply this motion to businesses under federal jurisdiction, as is done when a law is applied in Quebec for provincial jurisdictions. There is nothing preventing this.

There needs to be a major debate in the House on all of the legislation regarding the protection of employees and employment insurance. When it comes to EI, the doors must be opened, we need to discuss withdrawal from a hazardous workplace and parental leave. We need to talk about real measures. Finally, we need to stop accumulating $30 billion surpluses on the backs of the unemployed and invest this money to improve the quality of life for all employees in Canada.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I really am undergoing a transition in my life right now because my new duties have me away from the House so much. I have duties of organization in our party and I do not get to participate as much as I would like to in committees and in the House. It is a pleasure to be here at 7.15 in the evening participating in and listening to the debate.

Again when I saw the private member's motion I noted that it is one of my interests so I thought I would listen to the debate and see what it was all about. At the end of the debate, lo and behold I have some ideas I want to share.

This motion is quite specific. I will not read all of it because it has been read into the record. It states that:

...the federal government should take all the public policy and legislative steps necessary to encourage the adoption of a shorter work week--

That sounds wonderful, especially, I think, for a member of parliament.

I had a habit of keeping track of my hours of work for a number of years even though I have not been paid by the hour for many years. I used to work in a job that was a union job. We were required to be there 36 and a quarter hours a week. One day when I got a nasty and unwarranted reprimand from my boss for leaving 10 minutes early, because he did not know I had been there since 6 o'clock in the morning, I decided to keep track of my time

I discovered that my average time on that job as an instructor at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology was 55 hours per week. That is what it took in order for me to do a good, professional job for my students. There were many days when after I did some voluntary work in the evening I did not get to see my family at all.

I think the intent of the bill is a good one. In our society we should be able to work fewer hours. However, I think we need to look at a very fundamental economic fact here, that is, it is not sufficient to simply pass a law that states we will all work fewer hours. That is not sufficient because of the fact that none of us are willing to give up more of our standard of living.

I will give members an example. When I was a youngster, which was many years ago, I remember my father building a house. We could not afford to hire people to build the house, so my father did most of the work. He started by digging the basement. Nowadays in order to dig a basement, a person picks up the phone and tells the guy with the backhoe to come over and dig the hole that will be the basement of the house, that the specifications will be there. When my father built this house he hooked a device called a beegee behind a horse, and by hand, with the help of the horse, he dug the basement. It took an awful lot of work. I do not remember how long it took him, but I would think that he probably worked a week on digging a basement that now could probably be done in an hour.

We could pass a law that says my dad should work fewer hours, but the fact of the matter is that economically it takes either a lot of labour or the inclusion of machinery and equipment to make the work more efficient. That is what has happened. It is the induction of capital and capital equipment that have provided us with the ability to still have the same and even a higher standard of living with fewer hours of work.

Therefore it is an economic thing that we need to take into account, much more than it is the simple passing of a law that states we will work fewer hours, as desirable as that may seem.

I believe the member's motion is well intended. I would certainly support it. I see many families, including the families of my own children, where one or both of the parents are working long hours and it would be very healthy if they could spend more time with their own children and with the rest of us as a family. There would be more time for leisure activities. That is all very desirable, but I think we cannot lose sight of the fact that unless we balance this with the kind of productivity that we should be encouraging in this country, our standard of living is going to drop. I do not think anybody is prepared to pay that price.

I would also like to say that in terms of actually producing income this is another factor which is very important. The labour unions are mostly working on converting labour into cash which then can be used to buy the necessities and the luxuries of life, depending upon how much one earns.

I would like to see the labour unions, the NDP and the socialist philosophy get real. What we must do is start encouraging people to participate not only in the labour market but also in the capital market. Let us get involved. When one buys a share in a piece of equipment, the work that equipment does is also a revenue generator. One can get revenue from the tractor just like one can get revenue from labour. That enhances the value and the standard of living. When we do that individual families can obviously afford to work less if they have income from other sources.

It is a combination, it is not one or the other. I would like to see labour unions in particular help to educate their members on investments so that part of their income, not a large part, can be enhanced so that they could thereby afford to work less and we would move in that direction. We must do this by a process of replacing the necessity of the long hours rather than by passing a law to reduce the long hours of work.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank all those who chose to take part in the debate, especially most recently the hon. member for Elk Island who shared his views with us, as well as the hon. parliamentary secretary and the member from the Bloc.

I am pleased with much of the interest shown. I raised this issue as a policy issue that the government should be addressing. We hope that it would be a long term goal, to work toward a more fair and equitable redistribution of the country's bounty and benefits. That means monetary compensation but it also means sharing in the benefit that I have pointed out, that shorter work time equals a quality of life issue for many Canadians.

There is nothing to stop motivated people from working longer hours if their family life permits or if their job demands but as a policy point of view there is no good reason to be going in the wrong direction in terms of the average work week for Canadians. If anything, Canadians are working longer.

The member from Nanaimo mentioned that it is not really a problem because the average person works only 42.5 hours per week. I challenge those figures. Our figures are closer to 46 or 47 hours per week as the average in Canada. In fact in some households there are two people working, so the average household is actually working 60 to 80 hours a week in order to enjoy the same quality of life that one single bread earner used to provide for an average middle class family living.

The analogy I used and will use again is that if ordinary working people gained in the productivity gains the same way CEO compensation went up, the average carpenter would be making $250 an hour and the minimum wage would be $50 an hour. There is more than one way to reflect that compensation. One is to have more time off for leisure.

The Donner commission, a federal government advisory group, noted that there was a major split between those in the workforce who worked long hours for good pay, and were frankly stressed by that, and Canadians who had too little work or had to work two or three part time jobs pooled together to make one reasonable income. Many places in Europe have negotiated shorter work weeks and implemented a combination of policy legislation and negotiations, and have benefited in terms of job creation and increased productivity, not reduced productivity.

I would like to point out some of the things the government could do in respect of policy. The federal government could, without intruding on any jurisdiction, do away with some of the perverse incentives that lead to long hours and overtime. We can change the way payroll taxes, like employment insurance and CPP, are structured by taking away the cap. In other words, if people were to pay those premiums on every hour worked it seems to me employers would probably think twice about having someone work the longer hours.

That is the same principle as overtime. The reason we implemented overtime was not so workers would earn more money but as a disincentive so that employers would not be compelled to cause their workers to work longer hours and, therefore, open up opportunities for other people.

I know this is something the Alliance would object to but I would suggest a tax on all overtime hours be levied on employers. If it were made a revenue neutral thing this could be combined with lower overall payroll taxes. In fact it would be revenue neutral and the employer would not be paying more tax. The disincentive would be working people longer and the incentive would be providing them with a more reasonable work week.

Exemption on the first $10,000 of annual earnings is another thing we have been told would help. An incentive package to reward firms that create jobs would perhaps motivate them to hire more people to do the same amount of work.

I have enjoyed the debate and the input from all groups, and I appreciate the opportunity. However in actual fact working harder is not working for many Canadians. A shorter work week should be an objective of the government.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

The time provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired. As the motion has not been designated as a votable item, the order is dropped from the order paper.

It being 7.27 p.m., the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 7.27 p.m.)