Mr. Speaker, I certainly would like to continue with my remarks and my speech at third reading.
I know that there are members in the House who do not consider this to be an important matter and are making comments, making jokes, but we in the NDP happen to believe that this is a very important process.
We are here in our places because we want to uphold the labour rights in this country. What we have seen the government do in terms of ramming through this legislation has been something that we find very despicable and insulting to the process and the history of what labour rights are about in this country.
It is very curious that once the tentative agreement was rejected, it was less than a week that the government then brought in the back to work legislation. I think we have to ask this question. What was the rush on the government's part? We have heard repeatedly that the economic sky was going to fall in Canada and things would fall apart, but that was certainly not the case.
I think it begs the question that maybe this Conservative government has another agenda and that is that it wants to clear the decks for a possible election. It knows that it needed to get this back to work legislation through the House because once an election is called it would not be able to do that.
I want to put that out there because there was really no reason for the government to move so quickly against these workers who have a legitimate interest and who have a legitimate process that they were abiding by.
I would say again, they were out on a legal strike. They engaged in a legal process. They voted on a tentative agreement which they had a right to approve or to vote down. They chose to vote it down. They also have the right to a process to engage in further rotating strikes, to engage in further negotiations. We believe that is what should have happened instead of this kind of legislation that is being brought forward.
I want to say in speaking to this bill that some of the issues of concern about why this strike happened in the first place have been entirely lost. I want to commend my colleagues in the NDP for standing up one after another today to keep this debate going, to put on the public record what the real issues have been in this strike. I want to say that the main concern that has been put forward by the 2,800 members of the United Transportation Union has been health and safety. These are the men and the women who keep our railways operating. These are the men and women who work sometimes terrible shifts, in terrible working conditions, in unsafe working conditions to keep these trains rolling across the country.
We believe that the issues that they have placed in terms of why they went on strike are issues that have to be resolved. For that reason we are very concerned that the government's bill that includes only a final offer selection will not be an adequate process and will not allow these issues to be fully addressed.
We happen to believe that the health and safety of workers is of paramount importance to all Canadians. That is why we have a Labour Code.
If we cannot address that in a labour agreement, if we cannot address that during a strike, if we cannot get those issues on the table, and we are left with just basically a final offer selection, then we believe that is very undemocratic and very unfair.
We want to say to the government today, because we know that the bill is going to be rammed through tonight and it is going to be approved, that it has a responsibility in terms of ensuring the health and safety of those workers. We want to ensure that those men and women do not experience the kind of derailments that we have seen across the country.
One of my colleagues pointed out earlier that we have seen a doubling of the derailments and the safety incidents that have taken place. Whether it has been in the Fraser Canyon, Pickering, Ontario, or in New Brunswick this has become an all too common occurrence under CN operations. It begs the question as to what is taking place in this company and why is it that health and safety issues and working conditions have fallen so far down the agenda. What is the government doing to address those concerns because it will not be fairly addressed through a final offer selection?
I do want to say as well that in this debate we have brought forward the issues that are of concern to the workers. We have been very dismayed by the debate in this House. It has been completely dismissive of those issues.
My colleagues and I have been on those picket lines. We have spoken to the workers. We know that their decision to go on strike in the first place was not made lightly. People only do this as a last measure when all other resources and processes have failed.
I think we have to come to an acknowledgment in this House that with this legislation that is being rammed through tonight there still will be all kinds of outstanding issues and conflicts that will result for this company and for the workers who work for this company.
As has been pointed out before, this is truly scandalous and obscene for a corporation where the CEO makes $56 million a year in salary and bonuses, which is something like $9,000 an hour. It is truly obscene to see that on the one hand and on the other hand to see that the legitimate interests of workers are not being adequately addressed. Where is the fairness in that process? We have to ask ourselves why this company allowed it to get to this point where we are now in this kind of situation.
The NDP has been very unequivocal in its opposition to this back to work legislation. I remember that when I was first elected in 1997 we had another piece of back to work legislation concerning the postal workers. I remember standing in this House at about 2 a.m. and feeling disgusted that one of the first pieces of business that I had to vote on was sending workers back to work when they had not had a fair negotiating process. I did not think we would see that kind of situation come about again, but here we are again tonight.
I am very dismayed to see that only members of the NDP and members of the Bloc have been opposed to this back to work legislation. It makes me wonder what on earth has happened to members of the Liberal Party, who purport to support labour rights. We saw them vote against the anti-scab legislation. We saw them flip-flop on that. But on something as basic as this back to work legislation, I can tell members that the labour movement is truly dismayed that the Liberal Party has abandoned workers in this country by voting in favour of this back to work legislation. It is something that we expect from the Conservative government, but it is not something that we expected from the Liberal Party.
We stand here proudly, because even when it is unpopular to do so we believe that back to work legislation should not be used. We believe a legitimate process should be allowed to take place.
I am very proud today to rise in my place and to say on behalf of all New Democrats that we categorically oppose this back to work legislation. We believe it is a denial and a violation of the rights of these workers. It is not a democratic process. The elements of this bill will not produce a fair arbitration process and will not address the issues that are still outstanding for the 2,800 members of this union.
We will be voting against this legislation. We do it on principle. We do it on substance. We do it for an understanding of what it means for these workers. We do it on the basis of understanding what it means for workers in this country as a whole. It is a black day for workers when any legislation like this is used by Parliament, legislation that violates our Labour Code and our labour standards and undermines those democratic processes.