Mr. Speaker, I put forward Bill C-281 because there are 10,000 bankruptcies a year in this country and more often than not, or all too frequently at least, workers are left owed back wages, benefits and, most important, pension contributions from underfunded pensions.
Hearing the debate today and even in the first hour of debate, I have to remind my colleagues that we are in the House of Commons. This is the place where we are supposed to be advocating on behalf of ordinary Canadians, the common folk, and what I hear are apologists for the banks more than anything else, frankly.
Those who are opposed to the idea of bankruptcy protection for ordinary Canadians are acting like corporate shills for the banks by saying that we need a tag day for them and we need to ensure they get everything that is owed to them in order of priority over and above the needs of the working people. Something is terribly backwards with this tone and this attitude.
In actual fact, there is money in most bankruptcies to pay the employees. My bill seeks to put workers first on the list of priority when we are distributing the assets or the proceeds from a bankruptcy instead of dead last where they are now. I do not see what is so revolutionary about that concept. Were we not all sent here by ordinary Canadians to advocate on their behalf?
Somehow things got so screwed up in Ottawa. Big money has been running things here for so long that all of the legislation seems crafted in such a way as to serve the interests of big money. Here we have an opportunity to do what is right for ordinary grassroots Canadians and put them first and we hear people saying that it might interfere with the banks' ability to be secure, blah, blah, blah. Honestly, I could spit with anger. It really makes me angry.
We have recent concrete examples. My colleague from Acadie—Bathurst was explaining perhaps the most egregious example of what is wrong with the bankruptcy legislation in the country. He spoke about the Nackawic pulp mill where people with 35 years' service were getting zero of their pension contributions, while $100 million of assets were being distributed among the creditors. Workers are not viewed as creditors.
The interesting thing is if the company has been operating for the last few months of its existence by ripping money out of the pension plan that makes workers creditors. They are investors in the company but unwillingly and unwittingly. They deserve a super priority, in my view, for that very reason.
There is a trust relationship between the employer-employee that is ancient and, I argue, is sacrosanct and should not be tampered with. That trust relationship is, “I will come to work every day and I will lay down my life to dedicate it to your financial enterprise and you pay me x amount of dollars”. That is the trust relationship that exists. However in the event of bankruptcy that gets tossed out the window and everybody gets their share before that employee gets a single cent and more often than not there is nothing left for them.
When I hear people acting as apologists for the banks over the interests of ordinary Canadians, it makes me wonder which side they are on in this very simple debate.
I will tell members where Canadians stand. In a recent Vector poll, 87% of Canadians said that the current bankruptcy laws were unfair, needed to be changed and were overdue to be changed. We have had commissions and studies for 30 years saying that our bankruptcies laws are unfair and do not represent the interests of workers.
The NDP for the last three Parliaments has submitted virtually the same bill. It came within four votes when my colleague from Churchill put it forward as a motion two Parliaments ago; that is, two people voting the other way and we could have had some satisfaction. The workers at the Nackawic mill would not have been screwed if we had listened to the member for Churchill back then.
Year after year, decade after decade goes by with no protection for employees in the event of bankruptcy. The number of bankruptcies is not going down and the protection of employees certainly is not changing.
I cannot believe anyone who was sent here by ordinary Canadians to advocate on their behalf would be a shill for Bay Street and an apologist for the banks, instead of an advocate for ordinary working Canadians. It is a shame.