Mr. Speaker, for this debate, I looked to arguments that might possibly offer a rationale for this draconian legislation. For example, at cbc.ca, the president of the Canadian Industrial Transportation Association said:
Shippers serving highly competitive export markets and retailers needing to stock their shelves with seasonal imported merchandise will all be affected.
I thought is that why we were curtailing bargaining rights, to ensure shelves are stocked with seasonal imported merchandise? I thought, no, that could not be the reason we were sacrificing a fundamental right of workers to collective bargaining to negotiate conditions under which they were going to work. Given the safety issues that have been raised during this debate, I thought there must be a more important reason.
I will come back to talk about the safety issues, but I looked further for other reasons. I found a Canadian Press article in which the Conservative labour minister said, “Employers and many groups said they would like to see our government acting”. Clearly, then, is this legislation about taking sides with one party, the employer? How can that be a government that works in the public interest objectively?
We have had a lot of talk recently about the delicate balance between employer and labour. Apparently, that balance is only judged to be fair when employers get to scuttle their way around the right of workers to bargain collectively and fairly, either by using replacement workers or now by having the government do the dirty deed of curtailing the bargaining process and forcing a settlement on workers, a right that has been achieved over a very long time, democratically.
Then I read in the newspaper that the employer welcomed the news that the government would introduce back to work legislation. I do not see the balance in that. I see the government, which is after all supposed to represent the interests of Canadians, working instead on behalf of the interests of corporations, working out of the pocket of the corporate elite, bowing to corporate pressure, now twice in one month, to curtail the rights of workers to bargain collectively and fairly.
If this were sports, we would call it cheating. Since it is real life for workers, real life for Canadians who are exposed to safety risks, it is no sport, and it is not cheating, it is reprehensible.
I thought, surely, there must be an explanation that eluded me. Then I found, again in the Canadian Press article, in which the labour minister said, “The health of our economy is very important”.
The health and safety of Canadians is important. The health and safety of Canadian workers is important. The health of our environment is important. If we pass back to work legislation every time we might lose some dollars in export profits, how do we know that other safety concerns are not overridden? All Canadians workers should be afraid that safety in their workplace will not be overridden. All Canadians should be afraid when airline safety or transport truck safety is overridden because of the economy or because of a few dollars.
I finally found the reason that I think might have motivated the government. Again in the Canadian Press article, the labour minister said, “We saw what happened in February when...about $1 billion of our exports [was] lost. Now it's time to act”. If we only had this “act now” mentality about climate change, or homelessness, or mentality, or poverty, or health care, or student debt, or literacy, or a better course in Afghanistan and all the issues about which the Liberals and the Conservatives pretend to care a lot.
What is the first usage of closure in this Parliament? What is the first time the Conservatives have invoked this legislative measure designed for only the most desperate and emergency situations? It is for seasonal imported merchandise.
We hear all this talk about the social conscience of the members on the other side, the Liberals, but when do the Liberals side with the Conservatives, other than to extend the flawed Afghanistan mission? To tip the delicate balance of labour relations in favour of the employers, twice recently for the replacement worker bill and now for this draconian legislation.
Do the Liberals support an “act now” approach on climate change, homelessness or poverty as well? No, I do not see that. When they do support an “act now” approach, it is for seasonal imported merchandise.
Bill C-46 infringes on fundamental rights to collective bargaining, to negotiate the conditions under which Canadians work, when it is clear that CN is using back to work legislation as a bargaining chip to disregard the very serious concerns that have been expressed by workers.
The Conservatives have invoked this restricted back to work legislation on the pretext that it is impacting the economy.They may as well state they are against collective bargaining because most strikes have an economic impact. That is why two parties work together, work across the table from each other, deliberate and try to find a solution that meets the needs. This has not occurred.
When I get up in the House, I often say that I am speaking on behalf of my constituents. Of course I am speaking on their behalf, on behalf of Canadian constituents who I think are concerned when the rights of one group might be eroded, as they are in this case. However, this evening I am also speaking on behalf of my father, who worked for 25 years for the then Canadian National Railways, which is no longer. My colleague pointed out that name has been shortened. In his years at CN, he worked and fought for workers' rights in his union. He loved the railway and he passed on that love and passion of the railway to me.
In the time that I have been in the House, I saw some opportunities to really make rail and public transportation a centrepiece of our vision for the future of our country. Rail should really be a very central part of the future of Canada.
However, rail service will only be as good as the investments made to ensure the safety of workers, the safety of the infrastructure and the safety of our environment. Yet the government has not seen fit to develop a national transportation strategy. There has been no vision for public transportation and this is an area where the government might think of acting now.
In past decades an increasing corporate culture has led to the privatization of rail lines, to focus on profitability over safety, reduction of the number of workers, disinvestment in railway infrastructure, elimination of some rail lines, no matter that some communities have been abandoned, as long as the large salaries of CEOs continue to be possible.
I want to give an example very close to my heart on Vancouver Island where a freight service was slowly eroded over the years and was finally discontinued. A passenger service was also allowed to degrade. The rail itself became so badly maintained that the service was slow, unreliable and always late, to the point where the rail companies were going to simply abandon it. However, the community came together and said that it did not want to see that right of way abandoned and did not want to see its rail service disappear.
The communities along Vancouver Island formed what is now called the Island Corridor Foundation to protect the integrity of the right of way and renew the passenger and freight rail service. From the document on their plans, they explained some of the reasons that had led us to this point. They said that in recent years a variety of business changes had occurred which created financial challenges, like lack of investment and bad business plans. They said that it simply became apparent that there was a lack of interest to maintain a good rail service. They said that slow or inadequate responses to these changes meant that rail service was not able to maintain its market status and was at risk of failure on numerous occasions.
It is very sad that in Canada, a country that was built on rail and where we see increasingly, given environmental issues, that our future will once again be based on the strength of rail transportation, that we now consider that it is okay to forget about very serious safety issues that have been raised.
In doing a very quick Google search, I found numerous articles citing safety issues: Accident comes day after release of audit finding holes in railways' safety procedures. Again, the safety jumps the track.
Trans-Canada highway in B.C. closed in two spots. Again there was a derailment. There were derailments on March 10, March 4, March 1, February 28, January 14 and January 8, all in 2007. I could go on and on and yet this is a company we are going to reward, act on its behalf to support those interests and, in a way, give it licence to continue with this disastrous safety record.
This will not help industry in the long term. It will not help the safety of our workers. It undermines the atmosphere in a workplace to do good work. It undermines the confidence that Canadians have and that companies have in the rail service. I believe this is a very ill-advised bill that the government is proposing to introduce.
I do not know when government will begin to consider that we do not support the economy at the expense of the environment or at the expense of social rights. We cannot build a three-legged stool that is balanced when we continually tip in favour of the economy at the expense of our environment and erode the rights that workers have to collective bargaining. This, unfortunately, is what the bill does.