Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity--on Thursday afternoon, June 23, 2011, according to the calendar right in front of me--to speak to the House and to Canadians who may be watching.
We do have, I think, an obligation to explain to Canadians why we are here. Why are we here on a Saturday afternoon after two days of debate? The calendar says it is June 23. It is a technicality, because we have been talking since then.
It is important to know why we are still here. We have to understand what this debate is all about. It is called Bill C-6, An Act to provide for the resumption and continuation of postal services. However, it is very much a misnomer. There is no need for legislation to resume and continue postal services. The postal services are run by the government through a crown corporation.
It does not take three days of debate in the House of Commons. It does not take legislation. It does not take the kind of legislation we have here. All it takes is a phone call.
The Prime Minister needs to pick up the phone, phone the CEO of Canada Post Corporation, and say take off the locks. The postal workers want to work and deliver the mail. We do not need to be here to do that.
This legislation must be about something else. What is it about? I think Canadians are wondering what it is about.
It is a Saturday afternoon, and the post is not delivered on Saturdays or Sundays anyway. It will not make a difference if we are here one or two days. We are here trying to solve a problem. However, the government has decided they want to manufacture a crisis for a particular purpose. What is that purpose?
Parts of that purpose can be found in the legislation, but parts of it are coming out in the debate over the last couple of days. We can hear the kind of message that government members and the government itself are trying to send.
The parliamentary secretary for the Prime Minister talks about union bosses and thugs. That is part of their message. Their message is anti-union: oppose the organizations trying to improve the lot of workers. These are “special interests”, supposedly. The Minister of Finance says that is what they are.
Let me speak about some of the special interests of the postal workers. I saw a message from one of our staffers that reminded me that if we think this is just about postal workers, we should think again.
Does anybody in this country think that we should not have maternity leave, for example, or that maternity leave is a bad thing? Where did it come from? The first maternity leave in Canada was negotiated by the postal workers with Canada Post Corporation. It is now the law of the land. Everybody takes it for granted. Where did it come from? It came from workers seeking to improve the rights of women in the workforce through collective bargaining. That is where it came from.
At the time, I am sure members opposite would have voted against it in the House. That was “special interests”: we need legislation to stop this kind of collective bargaining from going on.
That is the kind of attitude we are seeing expressed over here.
I heard a member yesterday get up and read with approval a message from a constituent complaining about how these postal workers are looking for better conditions when they have decent jobs with pensions. She was talking about her grandson, who considered himself lucky to have a job for three days a week.
I feel sorry for a person who believes that. I feel sorry for someone who feels they are lucky to have a job three days a week in a country like Canada, one of the richest countries in the world. I feel sorry for someone who feels that way.
The member opposite is now talking back. The member opposite, instead of saying that he too feels sorry, says that these people, the postal workers, should also feel lucky to have jobs.
I am sorry, but that is not good enough. But that is part of the message the government wants to send to the people of Canada, that they should not expect to improve their lot in life.
The government wants Canada Post Corporation to impose a two-tier system. New hires would be paid less than the people who are already there. New hires would not have the same kind of pension protection as the people who are there. There will then be two groups of workers inside the post office. That is the kind of system that is being encouraged by the government. The minute the post office is closed the government brings in legislation that not only deals with the manufactured crisis like we have but imposes a rate of wages less than what the profitable corporation had on the table.
We have a system of free collective bargaining in this country. We are supposed to have an opportunity for bargaining in good faith by both sides in a collective agreement. Bargaining in good faith means one side puts an offer on the table that it is prepared to abide by and the other side bargains back. It is a democratic process. The postal union has a mandate from 97% of its members to bargain a collective agreement. That is the kind of process that goes on in this particular organization.
A negotiation process was going on. Canada Post Corporation made $280 million in profits last year, which it turned back to taxpayers. It was prepared to put an offer on the table to its employees as part of that process. The government said it would impose a wage less than the one this profitable corporation offered. What is that about? Is that about the resumption of postal services? No. That is about trying to send a message to Canadians telling them not to expect to be part of this country's prosperity, not to seek a wage increase because the government will legislate it down.
One of my colleagues talked about the CEO. The CEO of Canada Post Corporation makes $350,000 a year. Apparently he received a 33% bonus last year. He also has an automatic 4% wage increase every year. There is such a thing as sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander, but what we have instead is the government encouraging an increased wage gap. The wealthy CEOs and the higher ups get their wages increased but the people working at the bottom get their wages decreased. The government will make that gap different in one of the most prosperous countries in the world. That is wrong, but that is the message the government wants to send.
That is what this legislation is about. We are here to fight against it every step of the way.