Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the report stage debate on Bill C-257, commonly known as the replacement worker bill.
The last time the federal labour code was dealt with, between 1995 and 1999, a comprehensive and exhaustive review took place with all stakeholders. It resulted in some important changes and developments to provide a balance between management and labour and, of course, mutual respect for the collective bargaining process, which is very important to many industries and businesses within Canada.
Members of Parliament have also been approached, lobbied, if you will, by many stakeholder groups on all sides. This bill has resurrected many of the arguments that were raised back in 1995. It is becoming very clear that the instrument of a private member's bill, which receives two hours of debate at second reading, and a very short period for review at committee, and only two hours for report stage and third reading, provides a relatively modest amount of time for a bill that is seeking to make very substantive changes to the federal labour code.
I wanted to raise this point because this is a very serious issue. Members are taking it very seriously. There are legitimate disagreements among members within this place, as was seen by the vote at the second reading stage of the bill.
One of the key elements of the debate has to do with the concept of essential services. The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat website in describing what is an essential service refers to the Public Service Labour Relations Act and its definition of an essential service and states as follows:
Subsection 4(1) of the PSLRA defines an "essential service" as "a service, facility or activity of the Government of Canada that is or will be, at any time, necessary for the safety or security of the public or a segment of the public". Services should be identified as essential where there are reasonable grounds for accepting the probability, or even the possibility, that human life or public safety would suffer if a work stoppage interrupted the duties of these employees. It should be noted that positions where occupants are to be available during their off-duty hours to report to work without delay to perform the essential services are also included.
It lists some examples, which include border safety and security, correctional services, food inspection, health care, accident safety, investigations, income and social security, marine safety, national security, law enforcement, and search and rescue.
I think from the standpoint of the Treasury Board and from the Public Service Labour Relations Act the concept of essential services is well defined for the purposes of the Government of Canada.
The federal labour code does not include a definition of what constitutes essential services. In fact, it refers to public health and safety. Amendments that were proposed at committee were trying to incorporate into Bill C-257 the concept of essential services and to have them linked into the federal labour code.
The Speaker, looking at the process and the rules and the procedures that we must follow, was of the view that a couple of the amendments which would establish the concept of essential services within Bill C-257 were beyond the scope of the bill and were out of order. We find ourselves ostensibly with the original bill unamended. A minor amendment was permitted, but the bill is unamended for the most part.
That covers the government side, but there also was the business side, and members also received an intervention from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. Its communication states:
It is the Canadian Chamber's opinion that any change to the Canada Labour Code, especially an amendment that alters the relationship between employers and employees, deserves extensive study in order to fully understand the impacts on Canadian society and the economy. As stated in section 2.4 of Bill C-257, the bill would prevent uninterrupted provision of services that affect seniors, families, small businesses and the Canadian economy--services such as 911; health and emergency services; transportation services (air, rail, marine, and road) and news and weather warnings in the event of a storm or tragedy.
The chamber has launched its campaign to engage members of Parliament on this.
As we can see, the business sector is talking about essential services in the context of the implications to Canadians at large. I know that in our history of postal strikes there has been some argument that the postal service represents an essential service. That is not public health and safety, but--