Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in the debate today. I will begin by complimenting my Bloc Québécois colleague from Louis-Hébert on introducing Bill C-263.
As my colleague and whip from Acadie—Bathurst has said, our caucus is four-square behind this. It was not a good sign to hear from the Liberals, but I want to say to the hon. member that the NDP will be there this time, next time and every time it takes until this becomes the law of the land.
I was very fortunate to have served for a number of years in the Ontario legislature. One of my proudest moments as an MPP was to stand in my place and cast my very precious vote in favour of bill 40, which then made scabs illegal in the Province of Ontario, just as they are illegal in Quebec and B.C. Unfortunately, as a result of the 1995 election, Premier Mike Harris was elected and the law was eliminated.
I can tell the House that it is the intent of the Ontario NDP to continue that struggle to ensure that the day returns when scabs are not to be found anywhere in the Province of Ontario. However, today's debate is about Canada.
Federally, this caucus has a proud history and tradition of supporting many progressive pieces of labour legislation and, in particular, this bill when it was introduced by the member's colleague a couple of years ago.
In fact, our leader, the member for Toronto—Danforth, joined with the Bloc Québécois in welcoming the Videotron workers to Parliament Hill. He was there to represent our caucus and ensure that the strong feelings we have about workers' rights federally as well as provincially were understood.
I will not repeat all the good reasons why the legislation should pass because there is not enough time, but I do want tackle head on the issue that we heard from the Liberals and the Conservatives. I have to say that I would have been pleasantly shocked had the Conservatives taken any other position. I am very disappointed in the Liberals. Their main argument, as I heard it, was that if it is not broken, do not fix it. That is not sufficient. It is not even accurate.
First, it was pointed out by the sponsor of the bill that right now, in two jurisdictions in Canada, Quebec and B.C., two workers could be doing very similar work but one has the protection that when he or she goes on strike it will be a fair fight and scabs will not be allowed in, while the other worker does not have that right and faces the possibility of taking on an employer that has much deeper pockets than ordinary working people and their families and, therefore, that worker does not have a fair fight. That is what this is about. It is not trying to tip the balance one way or another. It is trying to ensure that there is a balance and that it is a real balance.
Let me say to the hon. members that when they think about this they should think about it on the individual level on that picket line. We are talking now about situations, which have existed in this country, unfortunately, far too often, where workers are on a legal strike but they do not have the protection of a law like this. After workers have been out for days and weeks and months it does not take long before every morning they see those buses going in, with the scabs inside, and the windows covered over with newspaper, or even painted, going in and taking their job, their ability to earn a living, pay the bills and put food on the table and provide for their children. Somebody is crossing that line every day. Even the most law-abiding citizens in the world can only take that for so long.
I have been on strikes. The Christmas season is coming and, regardless of one's religion, it is usually a time for exchanging gifts and it is certainly about children. I will tell members that it is really hard to look into the eyes of workers who have been on a picket line for so long that they do not know how they will provide Christmas presents for their kids. So, when that bus comes on that cold morning, it does not take much for somebody to snap. That is when we get violence.
I want to repeat something that is important, vis-à-vis what happened in Ontario. When Mike Harris looked at repealing the NDP law that banned scabs, the police associations, the union of the police, the ones out in uniform, urged Harris not to change the law. That might surprise some people if they were to think about the politics of it and some stereotypical analysis.
Think about it this way. Police officers are just working people too. They go to work every day. They do work for us. They want to go home at the end of the day and be with their families, just like the steelworkers at Stelco and Dofasco in my riding of Hamilton Centre. They know that when scabs are involved in a strike there is the potential for violence. The one thing that a police chief dislikes to do almost above anything else is to put officers in harm's way. We are allowing a situation to be created that history shows causes violence to very innocent people.
All we are trying to do with this law is to ensure that it is a fair fight. No one can tell me that it is a fair fight when a corporation or company can bring in replacement workers. The argument usually is that the workers can withhold their labour, so the company should have a right to bring someone else in to work and then it becomes a fair fight. There is no fair fight there. The corporation does not have to go home and face kids who want and need new shoes. The worker does.
If we want to make this a fair fight, then let us ensure that the corporation, the company or the government for that matter, has no more ability to generate revenue than those workers. Now we are a little closer to a fair fight. Now police do not have to move frightened, scared and angry strikers out of the way so that scabs can be brought in to do their jobs and keep them out on the picket lines even longer. We eliminate all of that and put the emphasis on negotiations and settlements.
I do not for a second believe that every single person inside that bus is what I would consider, based on my value system, to be a bad or evil person. Some of them are. They do not care about anybody else, they will take the job and too bad for everyone else. A lot of the scabs are new Canadians who do not know all of the cultures.