Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for London—Fanshawe for dealing with the concerns we have with the bill in such a comprehensive way.
I, like other members of our caucus, want to thank our former transport critic, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, for the tremendous amount of work he has done on this bill and for bringing to public exposure the flaws and the concerns that we have on this bill.
I thank the member today for reiterating and emphasizing some very key points that need to be brought forward in this debate and emphasizing why it is that we in the NDP moved this motion for the bill to go back to the committee. We believe that it requires a further examination by the committee and by witnesses who have concerns about the bill.
I have a question for the member for London—Fanshawe on one element of the bill. One of the concerns that we have on this bill is what is called a fatigue risk management system. This is a very big issue because we know in the airline industry, it is basically a 24 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year operation. Collective agreements are in place but the protection of workers from fatigue, measures that need to be prescribed clearly to ensure there is not overtime and overwork in terms of people getting into a position of fatigue, is something that is very important, and I think the travelling public would agree with that.
What we have learned from the bill is that this new fatigue risk management system is actually something that will move us away from the Canada Labour Code dealing with employment standards, which is part III of the Labour Code, and part II, which deals with occupational health and safety.
As people who work in the airline industry, they would be covered by the Canada Labour Code. The code exists for federally regulated employees. However, through this bill we would see a departure from that and we would see a special little system supposedly designed for workers in the aeronautics industry.
I wonder if the member would comment on our concern about moving away from the Canada Labour Code and setting up a boutique kind of proposal that will cover only this sector of workers. To me, that is something we should be concerned about because we are all worried about the amount of overtime people must do now. People are working way too many hours, and particularly in the airline industry this would be a concern, where issues of public safety are so prevalent.