Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on this day, May 1. I join with my colleagues who offered their best wishes to the workers in their ridings, and I too offer my best wishes to the workers in Champlain.
Today, my thoughts are especially for workers who have lost their job, for instance, because of the softwood lumber dispute, a dispute that has still not been settled by the government, which is just standing by and sitting on its hands.
Earlier I heard a speech that shocked me, I am talking about the last Liberal member who spoke. He says he is the son of a unionist, but I must say it has been a very long time since I heard such a depressing speech for the working class and workers, and such contempt for workers. I do not know how to say it otherwise, but it makes me seethe to hear, in 2003, speeches it would have been difficult to accept in 1975. These speeches are 30 years behind the times.
I was a member of the Quebec National Assembly when René Lévesque asked his labour minister, Pierre-Marc Johnson, to introduce anti-scab legislation. There is a reason we passed it. There is a reason it helped the situation in Quebec.
We have the numbers to prove it. My colleague from Joliette mentioned them at length since, in an earlier life, he worked in the labour movement. The situation in Quebec as far as strikes are concerned has improved greatly since 1977. It is not true that it has been detrimental to businesses. It has actually helped businesses. Days of work lost to strikes and violence on job sites have never benefited anybody. It is of no benefit for the evolution of society.
When Mr. Lévesque asked us to pass an anti-scab bill in Quebec, I had the pleasure of hearing great speeches. I also had the displeasure of hearing speeches from those who opposed it. Those speeches were similar to the one we just heard from the Liberal member. This bill brings to my mind good memories, but also bad memories linked to people who are against workers and the evolution of work and who despise the working class.
It does not surprise me to see that people like those opposite have stolen $45 billion from the employment insurance fund. That does not surprise me at all. This money is now paying society's debts. But it was not the workers who got the society into debt. With that kind of attitude, we wonder how Quebeckers would be defended if all we had were Liberal members. We can ask the workers how well protected they would be in Quebec if all we had was this kind of member of Parliament.
Fortunately, the Bloc Quebecois is on the job. This is the eleventh time we are presenting a bill asking the government to show some conscience with respect to the workers and help redress the balance of power in labour disputes.
I still hope that the government will do it, because I know the hon. members opposite. In the corridors we sometimes meet members who cannot object to a motion or a bill. I know this law has improved things in Quebec. We have said so.
In 1976, before the Quebec law was passed, the average strike lasted 39 days. In 2002, strikes lasted 15 days. And is someone going to say that this is not good for all people, including the bosses? The workers are not the only ones who lose out in a strike: bosses do too.
And then there are all the problems generated by these disputes which, after the strike is over, take months to solve. And that is because scabs upset the balance of power and prevented the strike from being settled properly.
I would like to commend the hon. member for Laurentides for raising this issue today. I hope we will debate it as often as possible, so that the hon. members across the way will one day realize that they should pass such a law. It is rather curious that, when they were in opposition, they vsupported an anti-strikebreaking law. Now they are in power and the minister tells us today that everything she has done has had the blessing of the workers and the unions.