Debates of June 23rd, 2011

Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that is a relevant question when we look at the situation. The NDP just had its national convention. There was an opportunity for the NDP to cut its ties with organized labour but it chose not to, which is fine as that is part of being a democracy.

However, it shows Canadians which party in this House is beholden to which stakeholder and, obviously, the NDP are beholden to organized labour, which is obviously involved in this dispute.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister's concern for the economy but the reality is that it is not only about the economy. This is about democracy. It is about how the checks and balances in our society function. We have to ask if there is such a thing as a right to strike when governments can make a simple call and lock out workers.

I will paint a picture. The government wants to privatize Canada Post so it creates a crisis, blames everything on union labour and prepares the ground to proceed to privatization.

Could the minister confirm that this is what the government actually wants to do?

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I really want to see the member's artistic ability because I think the painting that he would draw would have a lot of black helicopters circling around our country. I have no idea how the member could come up with such a preposterous notion.

Again I go back to my previous comment that crown corporations are arm's-length from government. The government represents the stakeholders in Canada who are the people of Canada. The people of Canada have recently elected a strong, stable, majority government.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, a quick letter from a constituent tonight. It reads:

We operate an art business in the Yukon that ships art to over 50 galleries in North America. With the current postal strike, our shipping costs have become insane. Our business is not viable without Canada Post.

With most of our business occurring in the summer, we will soon be realizing significant financial losses that we will not be able to recover from.

Could the minister please assure Shadow Lynx Artworks that the Conservative government is standing up for all Canadians and small business across this country?

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member for Yukon on his arrival here in the House of Commons.

I think it is very apropos that a member from Yukon asks a question on this issue, because it is people in the north and in rural communities who will feel the work stoppage acutely because Canada Post is the only entity that can provide the service of mail delivery.

The sentiment of the business, if we take that and multiply it by a million times, we would have a sense of the magnitude of the situation.

The answer to the business and to all Canadians is that the government is absolutely committed to ensuring that mail service is provided so that businesses and individuals can get their mail and reach their full potential, be it as businesses or as individuals.

The Conservative government stands behind the people of Canada.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We have one minute for a brief question and a brief answer.

The hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I find it quite astounding that the Conservative government is claiming to stand behind Canadians and ordinary people who want to receive their mail, their letters, as well as behind SMEs that do not have access to all their mail. I would like to remind the Conservatives that they are the ones who caused this crisis. The Conservatives are the ones who imposed the lockout on workers.

Will the Conservatives lift the lockout and solve the problem?

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Minister of State (Transport)]

Mr. Speaker, again I am astounded by the lack of understanding of the relationship between the government and a crown corporation. The government cannot do what the member has suggested because the government does not play a role in the day to day operations of any crown corporation. It is an arm's-length organization.

What the government can do is help bring parties together. The labour minister has tried to do that over an eight-month period but t parties have not done so. There were rotating strikes that were causing huge problems for the corporation and costing hundreds of millions of dollars.

We are at the brink here. We need to bring forth back to work legislation, otherwise there will be a very difficult economic situation and a very difficult personal situation for millions of Canadians. There is no choice but to pass the back to work legislation. I wish the opposition parties would do this in a timely manner and save a whole lot of people a lot of grief.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to ask the minister any questions, and therefore I will ask questions that will go unanswered. The minister just said that it is not the role of the government to meddle in the affairs of a crown corporation, and that we should have a better understanding of that. In my speech, I have one question that will go unanswered: In the bill, why is the Conservative government's offer lower than that of the employer, which is a crown corporation? The minister is trying to make Canadians believe that he is not interfering in the affairs of the crown corporation, and that such is not his role. And yet, he wants to pass a bill where he would impose a wage settlement.

He says that Canada Post's last offer for 2011 was a 1.9% increase. Instead, the Conservative government is offering 1.57%. For 2012, the employer, the crown corporation—and the government is boasting that it is not interfering in the operations of the latter—had offered 1.9%. The Conservative government, which does not interfere in the affairs of the crown corporation, is offering 1.5% in the bill. For 2013, Canada Post made a final offer of 1.9%. Again, the government is changing managements's offer to 2% for 2013 and 2% for 2014. The wage increases offered to Canada Post employees were 3.3%, well below the rate of inflation. There will be no response from the minister, but I would have liked one. Let us not forget that the government does not interfere in the affairs of the crown corporation.

In addition, the minister said that the government's role was to implement a mechanism to bring the parties to the negotiating table. According to the mechanism I am familiar with, when we bring the employees and employer to the negotiating table, we also bring an arbitrator and we do not tell the arbitrator what to do, other than to try to strike a balance between the two and come to an agreement. If the two parties cannot reach an agreement, it is up to the arbitrator to make the final decision.

Again, the minister, who says he does not interfere with a crown corporation's operations and that we should understand that, says that the arbitrator must select the final offer put on the table. Let us consider that. I do not know whether the minister responsible for Canada Post, who just spoke this evening, knows what is involved in the bargaining process. However, I do know. I am a former negotiator and I have negotiated countless collective agreements. If a bill, which will become law, includes a provision for an eight-week mediation period—one of the proposals that has been made—and the arbitrator must then proceed with the final offer, what will the employer do? It will not pursue the mediation process. It will not reach an agreement with the employees because the arbitrator is supposed to make the final offer. However, in the past, every time an arbitrator went into the arbitration process with a final offer, the arbitrator has always sided with the employer, as the Conservative Government is now doing. That is what always happens.

So, if the government does not want to interfere with the negotiations, why does it not accept standard procedure: making amendments to the bill?

The leader of the NDP has said that we were open and prepared to make amendments that would give power to the arbitrator and, if the mediation process does not lead to an agreement, a collective agreement would be presented and the parties would have to accept it. The union proposed that part.

As we understand it, mediation involves an arbitrator and, at the end of the day, the final offer put forward by both parties must be accepted. That will prevent the employer from making an agreement because it knows that the other one is better. That is the same thing that the minister should understand: by bringing wages lower than what was previously offered by the employer, the crown corporation, how can we expect the crown corporation to return to the bargaining table to work out a collective agreement when it knows that the government will protect it?

In 2009, Canada Post made a $281 million profit. How much profit did it make in 2010? I would like to know, because Canada Post is taking a long time to provide us with that figure; the information is already two months late. How many millions of dollars in profits did it make? Where does the money go in the case of a surplus? Canada Post has made a profit every year for the past 12 or 13 years.

Does Canada Post have several billion dollars in the bank, or has the money been transferred instead to the Government of Canada? And if the money has been turned over to the Government of Canada, that would explain why it is interfering in the collective bargaining process of a crown corporation. It wants this money. It is denying workers their vested rights. In its budget, the government boasted that it was cutting the taxes on workers, but at the same time, it is cutting their wages and in the process, offsetting any tax breaks awarded. That is unacceptable.

In his speech, the minister spoke of the elderly woman waiting to receive her lovely card, of persons needing their mail and of a small business needing postal services. At no time, however, did he mention the worker who needs his pension plan, or the worker who needs a decent salary or who cannot work if he is not paid the same salary as his colleagues. The minister never mentioned occupational health and safety for the workers. He never said anything about the letter carriers who deliver the mail during the winter in rural areas, under the incredibly harsh conditions that we regularly experience here in Canada. He never once spoke up for workers—never!

However, he stated that the NDP could have resolved the matter in Vancouver by turning its back on workers, as the Conservative did. That will not happen. We are talking about the men and women who get up each morning and who work to build this country. Small and medium-sized businesses are also made up of workers and we respect them just as we do any employer.

I have always had respect for Noranda, the company that I worked for. It is a major employer. The only thing I told Noranda was that if it made money, it should share it with its employees. Is there anything wrong with that? I do not have a problem with a company making money. I want it to make money, but it should share it with the workers who helped it turn a profit. The president of the company was not the one who went underground to mine the earth and break the rocks and put his life in danger. The miners were the ones who did that.

If I understand correctly, the minister would like the NDP to forget about the workers. His approach is to single out certain workers.

This time there are just 45,000 workers and 33 million Canadians. But those 45,000 workers were shown the door and told that they would receive no protection because the other 33 million people need to be taken care of. Next it will be the men and women who work at Radio-Canada. Then it will be those working at the CBC. Everyone will be subject to the Conservative government's tactics.

And that is why I asked the Minister of Labour and even the Prime Minister what the workers did to make them hate workers so much? If they believe in free bargaining for a collective agreement, why, after the parties were not able to come to an agreement, did they intervene and offer a lower salary than the one on the table? What did these people, who work and build our country, do to deserve this? All of these people work hard. People leave Caraquet, Shippagan, Bathurst, Tracadie-Sheila, Lamèque, Miscou, Grande-Anse and Maisonnette; they leave their families to work hard out west. Yes, they make good money, but think about the cost of being separated from family. What did these people do to the Conservative government? The NDP has chosen to respect the working men and women of our country.

The Conservatives and the Liberals are the same in this regard. I was in the House in 1997 when the Liberals legislated the postal workers back to work. They did the same thing. In the bill, they offered lower wages than what had been offered at the negotiating table. They do not have anything to brag about today. They do not have to come and tell us that things were different with them because the employees had been on strike for two weeks. The only thing they did in 1997 was legislate people back to work. Was it right to punish people and cut their salaries because they went on strike for two weeks? The Liberals should think about what they are saying. They should think twice about it because they did the same thing that the Conservatives are doing today. What are the Conservatives saying? They are saying that they are not doing anything different than the others; that the Liberals did it in 1997. Now, the Liberals are standing up and making a big fuss, like the member for Bourassa did this afternoon, and saying that what the government is doing is terrible.

It would be funny to go back through Hansard and read the member for Bourassa's speech. I would like to read what he said. I was here at that time. The hon. member for Bourassa and I can both speak rather loudly. Everyone in Quebec knows how the member for Bourassa can talk. That is what he did in 1997. When he rose, he did not speak in defence of the workers; he talked about just how selfish they were to have gone on strike.

I am telling the people at home and elsewhere in Canada that we are sympathetic to small and medium-sized businesses. We understand what they are going through. We understand the elderly woman who would like to receive her birthday card. If we let the Conservative government attack everyone the way it wants to, one small group after another, what kind of country will we create?

If I understood correctly, the Minister of Labour said that it is unacceptable for people not to receive their mail. She is saying that postal workers are second-class citizens who do not have the right to have a union, to negotiate a collective agreement and to go on strike like other people; she is saying that there has to be a lockout.

The government is going even further than that. It is saying that anyone who goes on strike is a second-class citizen because it is wrong. That person is bad because there are 33 million people who disagree.

Strikes are difficult. Things are not easy when there is a lockout. I know, I have been involved in a number of strikes. We went on strike many times. But today the miners have a pension fund and are able to retire because we took to the streets to fight the company for a share of the big bucks it was making.

In its bill, why does the government not ask Canada Post directors to take a pay cut as well? Why does the government not cut the salaries and pensions of the friends it has appointed as directors? It should also cut their salaries and pensions because they are well paid. Furthermore, the president of Canada Post gets a bonus. The leader of the NDP clearly made that point this evening.The greater the profit at Canada Post, the greater the bonuses for directors. This corporation wants to cut workers' wages after making a $281 million profit last year.

The NDP leader spoke eloquently about the respect we should have for these workers. Each one of us should think about that. When letter carriers come to our homes, are they not courteous? Are we not happy to receive our mail? When this is over, they will continue to go to our homes, and we will have to look them in the eye. Are we going to be among those who tell them that we did not support their fight to keep their drug plan and long-term disability plan? We are talking about people who work for the crown corporation and who serve the public. Is this the 1940s? Are we headed back to the 1930s with the Conservative government?

The government is showing itself for the kind of government it is. That is fairly clear tonight. It has talked about the senior citizen, the person with a disability and the small businessperson waiting for the mail, but it has said nothing about the worker. I want the people listening tonight to hear that. I listened to the minister, and he talked about everybody except the workers. I am not ashamed to be fighting for the workers. Our parents and our grandparents were workers.

My father went out to cut down trees in the forest. He cut the wood. That was not the finest job, but it was respectable. The wood he cut was made into 2x4s, and rich people built themselves fine buildings with those planks. The miner who goes underground, the fisher who goes out to sea to fish, does the government not support them? I would like the Conservatives to think about that.

We could settle this tonight by amending the bill. We know the government wants to get its bill passed. Whether we like it or not, it has a majority. It says it has a strong, stable majority, but 40% of the people voted for them, of the 61% of the population who voted. That is not a large majority, but because of the system it has a majority in Parliament. The bill is going to pass, but that does not make it a good bill. Is the government using its bill to attack workers? Yes. Is the government putting a mechanism in place for signing a collective agreement with Canada Post workers? Maybe there will be one, but it will have been forced on them by the government. Does that make for good labour relations in future? No. I know that, because I have seen it.

When people are forced to do something, it does not work. If you force your child to do something, the child will not be happy. Would it not be better to help the child understand the reason for doing something? We call that bullying. That is what the government is doing.

It is bullying the worker and that is wrong. You are separating the workers. You are making a fight between the workers and the rest of society and that is wrong. I recommend to the government to think. We are going to be here all weekend and you have all weekend to think about it.

As a miner, I have done lots of night shifts and my first shift tonight is midnight to six and I even came in before to do my work. I will be here tomorrow morning at six. I will be here tomorrow. I will be here Saturday. I will be here Sunday to fight for the workers and we will do what we can to get respect for the men and women who built this country. That is what we will do.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. I remind members to direct their comments and speeches toward the Chair.

The hon. Minister of State for Transport has the floor.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Minister of State (Transport)]

Mr. Speaker, I learned something tonight. The member and I were both involved in the mining industry before we entered politics, so we have something in common.

I am going to answer some questions that the member raised in his speech.

The wages are simply a reflection of what was already agreed to with the public service. That is where those numbers came from.

We are dealing with this in a very transparent manner and this is demonstrated by the fact that we are having this debate on the floor of the House of Commons. The legislation has been put forward so all Canadians can see what is going on.

The member talked about respect. These two parties have had eight months to come to an agreement and they have not done so. It is time for the government to demonstrate that it respects the people of Canada. Members in the House need to demonstrate that they respect small business, families, individuals, the stakeholders and the people of Canada. The best way to demonstrate this respect is through action and that is back to work legislation.

Would the member and his party demonstrate respect by supporting the government's legislation?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I was happy to hear that the minister worked in the mines and I hope the union negotiated a good contract for him. I hope he was happy to get his wages and that he was not on minimum wage. Miners in Mexico work for minimum wage. Miners in Africa work for minimum wage. I was hoping that he was getting that.

He said that the government had to get involved and do what it has done. Why did the government not come in with a bill giving workers 3% instead of 1.9% that the crown corporation was going to give them? That would tell Canada Post that it had better start to negotiate. Why did the government punish the workers? I think I answered the member's question.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have received a number of comments by email. For example, I have received comments from people who are waiting for cheques by mail.

I visited the picket line back home in Kingston and talked to the president of the local. Workers there say they want to work but they are locked out.

Everyone finds Bill C-6 unbelievable and believes it is a bad bill. I think a lot of Canadians agree with both points. They have heard what we have said tonight, but they are waiting.

They are waiting and they are starting to hear the same things over and over again.

What more can we do for them tonight, or even this morning?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, we can continue to call on the government to make amendments to the bill. Then we can vote, everyone can go home, the lockout will end and Canada Post employees will go back to work.

I am wondering if the member has received any messages from letter carriers who would like him to speak up on their behalf and ask the government or Canada Post to give them a good collective agreement. I find it odd that the members opposite are all receiving emails from people who work in small businesses. I have yet to hear them say that they had received an email from a letter carrier. I would like to know if in fact they have received any emails from letter carriers. I for one have received some from Canada Post workers.

Tonight, we can continue to press the government to make amendments to the bill. Maybe between now and tomorrow, the government members will see reason. If not tomorrow, then Saturday. If not Saturday, then Sunday. And if not Sunday, then Monday. All we can hope for is that they will be reasonable and make an offer. Then we can go home.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The speaker incorrectly identified the fact that we have not received emails from postal workers. We have. If he had been here previously, he would have heard them read out.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

That is not a point of order and we will move on.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, we are allowed to make comments.

What I said was did they not receive emails saying that the postal workers would like the government to be on their side instead of the employer's side? I was just asking a question.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I think that is still a matter of debate.

The hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, as usual I enjoyed what my colleague had to say. He has a vast amount of experience representing working people and as a member of a trade union himself working hard in the mines.

We heard the minister earlier and the Minister of Labour as well speak with some frustration and impatience about the fact that negotiations have been going on for all of eight months and they have not been concluded. In other words, the government has decided that eight months is too long.

Would the member comment on his experience and what it was like to negotiate a complicated and complex collective agreement between two large parties?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, my experience has been that normally when negotiations last that long, it is because the employer does not show up at the negotiating table. If the employer does not show up at the table, the other party cannot negotiate by itself.

I ask the government to check how many times the union tried to get to the table but the employer refused to go. Maybe that would shed some light for the House of Commons. Maybe then the government would change its mind and tell Canada Post that it is a bad, bad crown corporation and that it needs to change the proposal in the legislation. Instead of a 1.75% increase which punishes the workers, maybe the government would put in a 3% increase to punish the employer because it is a bad, bad crown corporation under the government's wing.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned earlier the 2009 profits of Canada Post. I believe he mentioned $281 million. He implied that the money went back into the coffers of the Government of Canada. If the member had read the annual report from Canada Post for 2009, he would have seen that Canada Post actually did not make a payment to its only shareholder, the Government of Canada. It put the money back into the transformative change and has done so every year since, the changes that are trying to keep a future for the corporation that would keep the union members employed.

The people I would like to ask him about, since it is not normal times, are the people who have been calling my office.

There is the lady who was a victim of crime and has been waiting for her small compensation cheque which has not arrived.

What about the injured workers who are not getting their provincial workers' compensation cheques because they are not being delivered?

What about the beekeeper? He has bees that travel across Canada, courtesy of Canada Post, to his customers who send him money. He is being hurt by this strike.

What about the small businessman who sent out his invoices and is waiting for some $18,000 to come back at a time of economic recovery?

There is 16% unemployment in the Nanaimo. This strike is hurting people locally.

Finally, when the member says that we do not care about postal workers, I want to tell him that my dad was a letter carrier and I was very proud of that. He raised me and I am very proud that--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order. We have to move on as we have little time left.

The hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would say to the member that out of respect for his dad he should vote against this bill. I would not be in the House fighting against my dad who was a woodcutter.

In answer to his question about the woman waiting for her cheque, how many unemployed people lost their EI cheques because the government took it away from them? It was the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party. There was $57 billion stolen from the working people because the government cut EI and they never got their cheques. Men and women who are having a hard time trying to live had their cheques taken away from them by the Conservative government. It should be ashamed. And tonight the government is trying to say that it cares for them.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

The member is a well respected member in this House. I am sure he did not intentionally mislead Canadians by suggesting it was this government that in fact did that with the EI. The member knows full well it was not this government. He should stand and apologize.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It is really not a point of order. It is a matter of debate. Perhaps there will be opportunities for--

Is the member for Acadie--Bathurst is rising on the same point of order?