Mr. Speaker, I know the member for Timmins—James Bay experiences first-hand what happens when the rails go wrong. It is not often that some of these noxious substances go barrelling through the middle of Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. They tend to travel on other routes to market. They tend to go through smaller communities to get there. It is just how the rail was set up.
That is all well and good, except when people no longer have confidence in the train coming through town. It is not just a noise disturbance people are worried about. They are worried about being able to drink the water after the train is gone and the cleanup. When the ability for people to live where they have always lived is jeopardized by the simple passing of a train, one wonders what is next.
We have been hammering away on this so Canadians can understand. If we measured this company's success by the pay packet it offers its CEO, we would think the company is doing fantastically well. The externality, as they say in business, is what is being applied. These trains have jumped tracks and spilled toxic substances into rivers, as they did in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. I wonder if we can start a list of provinces which have not had a toxic spill happen within the last year or two. It would be a very select club. Perhaps Yukon or the Northwest Territories have been safe so far, but they should not hang on to that too long.
I would love to see an amendment to the bill, and maybe we can work on one in the next couple of hours, that would direct the negotiators to ensure that the CEO's pay packet was tied to the company's safety record. I am sure they will decide what reasons to give him more and more dividends and share value, but if every time another train left the tracks, he would be docked a little pay. It would be a fascinating approach. I am sure it is one the government will advocate for because clearly safety is important to the government. It has said it time and time again.
If it were so important to this company, which has left in a sense any semblance of control from within this national interest that we proclaim to hold in this place, it would not sign on to any such contract. The record is so terrible right now that the investors are clearly worried about the next quarter. When only fixated on the next quarter, the value of shares are able to move around so quickly in our marketplace that the longer term investments in safety and the investments in the rail grade itself are no longer seen as worth it, so they are not being made. The audit conducted by the federal Government of Canada showed us that.
Lo and behold, the workers come forward and say that they are not sure it is safe to go on the rail any more, and I will speak to one example in my riding recently. I will not mention the fellow's name, although knowing him I am sure he might appreciate it.
A train left the rail in February in the course of the strike. Prior to that the Liberal government had slipped a small amendment into the Labour Code which did not allow rail workers to not cross the picket line. It forced them to cross the line, unless they were under threat. There had been a strike in a northern town, a legal and perfectly well conducted strike. A man got to work that morning and said that, as a fellow unionist, he would not cross the picket line. Immediately the company was there with a copy of the legislation, as signed by the Liberals and endorsed by the Conservatives. It said that he had to cross the line. In response he said that he would not, that it was against his convictions.
The only way an individual is able not to cross is if that person makes an accusation that he or she has been threatened by one of the people on strike. The RCMP will then be called in to arrest that striking person. That was the condition he was given. At some point this moves from the absurd to the ridiculous.
The notion is that people can have an unsafe working environment under laws that were constructed by Parliament and legislatures across the country, present evidence that their workplace is unsafe. MPs would not even sit in these chairs if they were not sure the legs were solid. They would refuse and demand another chair, never mind going to work, getting on a rail not being sure if it will stay on the rail by the end of the shift and then being asked to work beyond safe hours that have also been proven unsafe. Suddenly the government says that is an infringement upon the rights of others in the country.
We in the NDP will defend the rights of workers across the country for safe working environments. We really thought we were already there. We thought the legislation was in place, that the codes had been worked out and signs posted on the wall in all work environments, which allowed people to work safe and enjoy income and receive it in a safe way.
Lo and behold we see, when push comes to shove, the government falls over with the effort. It cannot stand up. By invoking this and knowing this was always in the back pocket, it has skewed the negotiations, it has crippled them and has made it impossible for the union and the company to come to a fair and reasonable resolution. This was always waiting, and the company knew it. That, therefore, made the lowest class of negotiations come forward, which is what the government advocated for and is now accepting, pushed by the Liberals and supported by the Bloc.