Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Verchères—Les Patriotes.
Bill C-55 is a step in the right direction and the Bloc Québécois supports it. An increasing number of workers can be protected and this bill sets out to do just that, but it can go even further. Allow me to explain.
The bill addresses the matter of wages, but it could also address severance pay, which is money set aside by workers under the conditions of a collective agreement for them to recover should the company they work for shut down. For example, under the usual provisions of a collective agreement an employee gets one week's wages for every year of service. Thus, the $3,000 in wages that workers could lose if the company goes bankrupt, is paid by the government. That is good. It is great. However, more should be done.
Workers are often last on the list. The companies and everyone else are put first and the workers come last. However, they are the economic drivers of the country. Although there are 100,000 industries, if there is no one to work in them, the economic market fails. These workers are important for our society.
In my opinion, severance pay should be an integral part of the bill. I heard the minister say that $30 million was not a lot of money. If not, then we could include the severance pay these workers are entitled to since they contributed to it. This is something that could be discussed in committee.
Workers are becoming the poorest in our society. Take for example the price of gas, which has increased significantly. When workers negotiate their collective agreement they usually get a wage increase of 2% or 3% and the employer already finds that to be a lot. However, a 2% increase on weekly earnings of $400 is an increase of $8 a week. To fill a tank of gas to go to work at the factory currently costs $10 or $15 more a week. The worker is, in effect, already losing ground. In other words, he is already poorer than he was before getting a raise.
This goes beyond the price of gas. We must also look at the price of oil. When it comes time to heat our homes, the price will have increased, which will further cut into our purchasing power.
The minister was saying yesterday, in the first five minutes of his speech, that this money could be put towards the mortgage, the car or consumer goods. We all know that the price of consumer goods will go up again because of the price of gas. Ultimately, the consumer is the one who will be footing the bill. It is not the industry that will suffer the consequences of rising gas prices, but the consumer. Once again, workers are the ones who end up paying.
I will paint a picture of the workers' situation, because it is important. We often talk about businesses, but workers are always caught in a vicious circle where they always have to pay.
For example, in terms of taxes, if a worker owes taxes to the government, the tax authorities will come after him. They are the first ones to try to recover their money. If the worker owes $100 or $200, the tax authorities will certainly harass him until they recover the whole amount. At the end of the year, when the worker files his income tax return, the government will definitely take what is owed to it before giving anything back to the worker. The worker always has to pay.
Let us draw a parallel with Mr. Coffin, who took $1.5 million from the government. He gave back $1 million, which means that he still owes $500,000. I do not think that the government will try to recover that money.
But when a worker owes even a small amount of money, they go after him right away. He gets one letter after another, and repeated phone calls. He is basically harassed.
We have a two-tier justice system, where workers are treated one way and wealthier people are treated differently, with the workers consistently being exploited.
With respect to bankruptcies, $3,000 is nice. But, when a company goes bankrupt, some of the workers who lose their jobs are older; they are over 55. They did not expect the company to go bankrupt; they thought they could work there until retirement, but things turned out differently. The workers are usually the last to know, of course. Employers tend to keep their financial difficulties and the prospect of bankruptcy to themselves. They do not share that kind of information with the workers. Very often, employers fail to pay their employees, and they help themselves to the employees' pension fund to continue their operations. If there is any money left, the workers might get a few dollars, but that is not likely, because the workers always come last.
We are asking that workers over 55 whose company goes bankrupt have access to the Program for older worker adjustment, or POWA. For those affected by plant closures, by reason of bankruptcy or any other reason, this program would bridge the gap until they reach the age of 65. At least, these workers would be protected. We must never forget that they are the country's economic engine. We tend to forget that. There is much talk about companies, but without workers, there are no companies.
As I said earlier, I am using parallels because what matters to me is the workers. I am committed to worker protection. The CBC is a fine example. Over the past six years, there has not been a single year when there was not some problem with collective bargaining at the CBC: there has been three lockouts and three strikes.
Those who negotiate these collective agreements never manage to reach agreement with the workers. This year, it is a matter of job security. That is what the CBC workers are fighting for. Job security is important these days. Workers need it to pay their mortgages, pay for their cars and provide for their families. It is hard to work without that security. A person gets up and goes to work every day, but never knows what day they may be told their services are no longer needed. With some degree of job security, people can live decently and make plans for the future. They cannot do that when there is no security.
Why would an employer have temporary workers rather than permanent ones? The answer to that is simple. Then it can assign its workers exactly as it pleases, any way at all. We are told that is the best way to run a company. Perhaps it is, from the company's point of view, but it is bad management as far as workers are concerned. They attach a great deal of importance to having a permanent job.
Perhaps this program should have another name, something like “protection of workers' money”. It ought to cover all the money workers stand to lose if a plant closes because of bankruptcy. That is important. These people need all that money in order to continue to live decently.
When some plants close down, their workers start off on EI, then move to welfare, and finally end up selling their homes and having nothing, although they may have worked for 30 years.
This is, therefore, a valuable and good bill. I feel that $3,000 is a step in the right direction, but I do think that the government could do more for workers who are, as I have said, the ones who drive the economy.