Debates of June 23rd, 2011

Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act

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

Mr. Speaker, this is pretty much the end of the night shift, and we will all be glad of that. Certainly I will be, that is for sure, but I hope I am able to make as coherent an intervention as my colleague just did.

I want to talk about three things over the ten minutes I have. Hopefully I can do that. I will talk a bit about democracy, as it relates to Bill C-6. I want to talk about the next generation. And if I get to it, and hopefully I will, I want to talk a little bit about postal worker wages and pensions and corporate profits and the salaries of CEOs.

I will start by telling all members of the House how thrilled I am to be here, how thrilled I am to be part of this caucus, part of the official opposition and able to participate in such an important debate, in such an important attack on workers' rights. I am so grateful to the people of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, who supported me in the recent election and sent me here and gave me, frankly, this wonderful opportunity to work and to speak at some length on an issue that is so important.

I have a bit of experience in parliamentary procedure and in the legislature. I was in the Nova Scotia Legislature for 12 years. I was there as a member of a two-person caucus, of a three-person caucus and of the official opposition, and here we are as the official opposition, but I want members to understand how I have approached each and every single day as an elected official. I approached it with the sense of responsibility to speak up on behalf of my constituents and on behalf of those people who too often go without a voice in places like this.

Again, whether it was in a two-person caucus or whether it was in the official opposition, I took every single opportunity I had to make sure I raised any concerns I had or any concerns my constituents might have had or any concerns I had about people being affected by the actions of any particular government.

I did not worry, and I still do not worry, that I am somehow inconveniencing the government, that I am somehow inconveniencing any other party within the chamber I am in at any given time, because I have a responsibility as an elected official, in this case as an MP, to be as articulate as I possibly can be, to work hard to point out the flaws, the weaknesses and the things that can be done to make a piece of legislation better. That is why I was elected. I take that very seriously, and I thank the people of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour for giving me this opportunity.

Also, I want it to be known that I come here with not only the experience I gained but also the experience of having been raised by a man and woman who were big Conservatives. I should say that out front because somebody from Nova Scotia is going to tell us. I grew up in a big Conservative family, but the most important thing about these people, I want it to be known, is that they were small business people.

My dad was a World War II ace. He fought in North Africa. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Bar. My mum worked in the insurance business. She was also active in meals on wheels before she died and, in fact, provided hospice services for the first self-identified AIDS patient in Nova Scotia.

I am very proud of my parents and what they did and the values they left with me. The values they left with me are about fairness, about justice, about speaking up when we see things are wrong, about making sure we do not take no for an answer, that we stand up against tyranny and injustice.

My father did that in the war and that is what many of our veterans did, those who came back from and those who died in the second world war. That is why it is very important that I take every opportunity in this place when I see a piece of legislation come to the floor that has the kinds of implications as this one does on working people in this country. I commit to members opposite and the third party that I will do that with every breath in my body.

The second thing I want to talk about is the next generation. My daughter Jessie is 23 years of age. Hopefully she will be out of university some day and will be looking for a job, other than the one she has as a lifeguard, which does not pay very well. She will be out in the workforce, as are many other young people today, and I feel I have a responsibility to ensure that she can find jobs that pay a decent wage, that have good benefits and a pension, that she can work in a safe and healthy workplace and not suffer from discrimination or other human rights violations in the workplace. That is the responsibility I have.

With my history as a trade unionist, I know why we have public pensions, employment insurance, universal medicare and why we have all the rights and benefits we do. It is because of my father and mother, and the pioneers in the trade union movement, in the small business community, in legislatures and in this country. It is because of what they have been able to do to ensure that people in the workplace are able to enjoy those kinds of benefits.

While I have had the opportunity to enjoy the hard work they have done, my responsibility is to ensure that I protect the benefits and working conditions that they were able to fight for to ensure people are safe and healthy. My responsibility is to make them better and stronger and to ensure that my daughter and her generation are able to work and contribute to their families and communities. That is my responsibility and, I would suggest, the responsibility of every member of the House.

There have been some suggestions and comments by members opposite that the people who work for Canada Post have it good, that they make all kinds of money, have a pension and they should be happy and go away. I will share some numbers with members. An entry-level CUPW worker makes about $23 an hour. An average pension enjoyed by a CUPW worker, who has worked his or her entire life with Canada Post and contributed actively to his or her pension plan, is about $24,000 a year.

Let us compare that with some of the CEOs of Canada's big banks who have realized salary increases of well over 10% in 2009. The Bank of Nova Scotia's CEO makes $7.45 million, the president of the Bank of Montreal made $9.7 million in 2009, the CEO of TD Bank made $15.2 million, the CEO of the Royal Bank made $12.1 million and the CEO of CIBC made $6.2 million. The oil companies made $16 billion in profits last year and yet they are receiving billions of dollars in tax breaks.

My point is simple. Why is it that the government wants to hand over billions of dollars to profitable corporations at the same time as it wants to put the boots to hard-working women and men who toil at Canada Post?

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification)]

Mr. Speaker, I am assuming the member's constituents probably knew his father who was a small businessperson who worked really hard. I wonder if they actually thought that he would represent small business in this chamber when he came to Ottawa and not represent the union bosses. I want to know what the member's dad would say now.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague mentioning my dad. He has been dead about five years now. He was a Conservative all of his life but, ever since I got into politics in 1991, I know he supported me and the New Democratic Party because he understood what fairness and working for ordinary people was all about. My constituents also understand because I have a history of 12 years in the provincial legislature and 25 years in the trade union movement, which I did not hide. I spoke proudly of that to my constituents. They know all about the person they voted for and I appreciate their support.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome my colleague to the House of Commons.

I would like to get his comments on the following. As I observe what is going on today, it appears to me that the lockout is a symptom. It is a symptom of this disease that I see has permeated Canada Post and other organizations. I say that because I have talked with workers with Canada Post and the two unions that represent Canada Post. It appears that since their former CEO came into power, who has now been unleashed to destroy the system in the United Kingdom I understand, that labour relations have deteriorated in Canada Post. We had a period of time that it was okay.

Could this not be a golden opportunity for the government to work with Canada Post and the union to iron out some of those difficulties, to get a just contract and lay the groundwork for future good labour relations not only for Canada Post but for other crown corporations and government departments?

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

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that this is an opportunity. The union has made a clear commitment to the government and to Canada Post that if the government were to pull this legislation back and tell Canada Post to rip those padlocks off the doors, they would go back to work and deliver the mail and then work toward rebuilding labour relations that, frankly, have been damaged already by this situation.

I want to go back to the point made about the troubling sign about this attack on public services and the public sector. It confuses me to some considerable degree that a government that says it is so focused on the economy would want to get rid of all the middle-class jobs, secure pensions and benefits for people who are spending their money in our communities and making our economy strong. I do not understand what that is all about.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard the statement by the member opposite and I must say that I am quite concerned. This Conservative government is committed to passing Bill C-6, the restoring mail delivery for Canadians act to ensure that mail delivery resumes.

I have heard from many of my constituents, including workers from Canada Post, who are outraged that the opposition continues to stop passage of this very important piece of legislation. By stalling passage of this bill, the opposition is saying no to seniors who are asking for their pension cheques, no to parents asking for their child tax credit benefits, no to disabled Canadians asking for their disability cheques, and no to small businesses who want to pay their bills and mail cheques to employees.

I stand in this House today listening to the member opposite who spoke about fairness in his speech. Will my NDP colleague join the members on this side of the House by passing this bill quickly and saying yes to the many Canadians who are pleading for mail service to continue.

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

Mr. Speaker, I hope you will allow me at least the same amount of time that the question took.

What I am hearing from my constituents is a concern that this attack at this point on postal workers is just the beginning, and that that whole list of groups that the member indicated may be next. People who represent the disabled community are concerned that the disabled community will be next, that their rights will be next.

People are worried that it will be other groups in the community, such as women, foreign sector workers or any number of groups that the government does not like and that their rights will then be attacked by the government.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this labour dispute, and I have heard it called various things, is something with which I have some familiarity as I was a union leader for many years. One of the things taught to me was that we never ever start something we cannot finish. We do not let workers go out unless we know how to get them back.

Canada Post apparently knew how to get them back. It locked them out because it knew full well that it had allies on the other side of the House who would legislate them back to work immediately. Mere hours after the labour dispute, the lockout, got started, the minister notified this august body that she would be legislating them back to work, and that is unfair.

We in Canada have developed a labour relations system that is the envy of the world, because we have predictable, regular, understandable timeframes for labour disputes. In other parts of the world, the labour disputes can start whenever the union wants them to start, but here in Canada, we know there is a clock. When that clock comes around, we know it is when we are collectively bargaining that we are in a legal labour dispute position, and we in Canada have set up mechanisms that force the parties to talk to one another, that force the parties to sit down and negotiate. That is not happening here. Why is it not happening here? Because some signals apparently were sent from the other side of this legislature to the mandarins at Canada Post that they did not have to worry about a labour dispute, because they would find legislation in their favour as soon as a labour dispute got going in earnest, as soon as they locked people out.

We need to figure out how to resolve it ourselves. That is why we are having this conversation, because the parties are unable to do it. The parties are unable to do it, because one side knows full well it does not have to do so. It does not have to have that conversation, because that conversation will be shortened by the government.

The other side in this dispute, the company side, does not have to actually bargain in good faith. It does not have to sit down and actually talk about what it needs and what the employees need and see if it can find a way to make those needs meet. All it has to do is sit with its hands crossed and say no, and here we are.

We have a number of examples in Canada of protracted labour disputes. I do not think there has ever been a protracted labour dispute at Canada Post, but I have been involved in some. I had a 17-month strike at one of my employers over pay equity, over women being paid the same as men. Women were being paid $8.99 each hour for their work, and they had to go on strike for 17 months. In that case, really nobody won.

I have been involved in a four-month strike. It was a Crown corporation, and it took that long for the employer to get its instructions from the government about what it was supposed to do. I have been involved in a two-week lockout that the employer kept calling a strike, publicly. Eventually the Canada Industrial Relations Board had to rule that in fact it was a lockout, that the thing the employer was calling a strike was a lockout because it had locked the doors.

How do we get out of this? One way to get out of it is to let the labour dispute take place and wait for one side or the other to say that enough is enough and we have to settle this thing. Let us get to the table and talk about it. That will not happen here, quite clearly, since Canada Post has been told it does not have to actually sit down and bargain.

Another way we could do it is with a declaration. There are two kinds of declarations, one in the Public Service Staff Relations Act and one in the Canada Industrial Relations Board, that this is an essential service, that this service is something that cannot have a strike or lockout.

That seems to be what the current government is arguing, that there cannot be a postal disruption in Canada, even for a day. It was on the day the lockout started that the government announced Canada Post workers would be legislated back to work.

The definition of an “essential service” in the Canada Labour Code is that the employer or the trade union and the employees in the bargaining unit must,

continue the supply of services, operation of facilities or production of goods to the extent necessary to prevent an immediate and serious danger to the safety or health of the public.

Since the members opposite have not argued this, I guess this is not an immediate and serious danger to the safety or health of the public. It is an inconvenience, and it means Canada Post is losing money. We agree that it certainly causes some very serious consequences not for everybody but for certain individuals, for pensioners and people in receipt of other government cheques. The postal workers' union has agreed to deliver those things. They will deliver the things they deem essential and that people in this House seem to agree are essential.

Somebody locked the doors. It was not the NDP and it was not the postal workers. It was the government and its Crown corporation that decided to lock the doors and prevent the delivery of what might be argued is essential stuff, though it has not yet been. We have agreed that it is stuff that it is pretty darned important to have delivered to people. Pension cheques, social security, and family allowances are the kinds of things that need to be delivered. We argue that they should be delivered, and Canada Post workers are willing to deliver them, but the government is preventing them from doing so.

There appears to be no way to stop this from dragging on, so what is another option? The only option that has been presented to us is the sledgehammer option in which, mere hours after a labour dispute starts, the government indicates it will not let that happen and forces workers back to work with less than was offered before. The government will force workers back to work with a bad faith position.

I say “bad faith position” because in my many years of bargaining if any employer brought an offer to the table and then reduced it for no good reason, not because there had been a sudden change in the economic conditions of the employer or there was legislation, in order to provoke the other side, that was considered to be bad-faith bargaining. That is not what the NDP is about here. We are about good faith. We are about fairness and we are about trying to get things done. We are about trying to get people back to work. That is really what we want to do.

The sledgehammer approach was brought about after the Minister of Labour claimed to have used everything in her power to bring these parties to an agreement. She talked at length about the number of months they had met. Of course if one side is just sitting there with their arms folded, the meeting does not really mean anything. The minister talked at length about the number of months that were involved in conciliation.

She did not appoint a conciliation commissioner. The difference, for those who do not know labour relations parlance in this country, is that a conciliation officer meets in private with the parties and never publishes a report, except to the Minister of Labour. The minister gets to know, but the conciliation officer's deliberations and decisions and ideas and proposals are all private.

However, a conciliation commissioner is public and that person actually reports to the public on what he or she thinks the outcome should be on a resolution to the dispute. That was not allowed to happen here. That was not allowed to take place, so we are faced with a situation that just got worse.

With regard to one other small piece, one of the members opposite keeps referring to the fact that they should let them vote. In fact, that is another thing the minister did not do. She has the power to force a vote, and she did not exercise it. I suspect we all know why.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, I take a bit of issue with the member's comment about this not being a serious and essential need for Canadians. This is a serious and essential need for Canadians. Canadians need their mail delivered and mail delivery must be restored.

Small businesses in this country make up 1.5 million of the 10.6 million people who are employed. Therefore, I would like to ask the member why he and the NDP will not stop their filibuster and allow mail delivery to be restored so those small businesses that rely so much on cheques coming through the mail to employ people do not have to start laying people off because they cannot meet their expenses.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

We absolutely agree that this should end and do so in a way that is fair to everybody. However, it is not this piece of legislation that is fair. The Canada Post workers have offered to go back to work if Canada Post will just cut the locks off the doors and let them go back.

The member opposite suggested that I was not agreeing that this was essential. I did not say that. I said the government and Canada Post have the opportunity to declare this an essential service. If they do that and they believe that an immediate and serious danger to the safety or the health of the public is at risk, then they can declare it an essential service and the Canada Industrial Relations Board will decide how to arbitrate a collective agreement in a fair and impartial way. The Canada Industrial Relations Board will not actually legislate one side or the other to win.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development is rising on a point of order.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, just with respect to the issue of essential services and what individual Canadians require, a lack of mail delivery in this country means that people who live in the far North or remote areas are not receiving prescriptions or eyeglasses, things that are essential for them.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Indeed I think the member has pointed out part of the debate we are engaged in.

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for you as a Speaker and I think you are doing an excellent job showing some of these new MPs the differences among the various rules in the House of Commons so I want to commend you for your excellent role this morning.

I listened to my hon. colleague's speech with great interest, because during the election I was standing outside the Tim Hortons in South Porcupine, Ontario and a young guy came up to me and he said, “Charlie, if this government gets a majority how long do you think it will be before we see Wisconsin north?”

I said, “Well, you know exactly what will happen if they get a majority”.

If members look at what happened in Wisconsin, it is very similar to the situation here. It was an attack on public-sector workers. It was an attempt to demonize them using the terms “union thugs” and “union bosses”. It was an attack on their pensions. That was the thin edge of the sword. We see now the attack on CUPW, the attack on the pensions, the two-tiered system.

I am getting emails from firefighters, from nurses and from people who work in the public sector all across Canada, who ask why it is that the government would try to impose a wage settlement that would undermine what had already been agreed to. Does the member not think this is an attempt by the government to bring forward the same kind of retrograde actions against workers that happened in Wisconsin?

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree that this action by the government is just the beginning of what will likely be a Wisconsin-like attack on workers in this country. It will not be just on public-sector workers, but that is where they can start. That attack will demonize anything to do with unions. It will demonize anybody who has a good pension, good wages or a good collective agreement or, even without collective agreements, anyone the government believes is getting too much while the bosses the government represents, the CEOs, are getting too little.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard a lot of people debating on both sides of the House, and it really gives me the impression that what is going on here goes beyond the current debate and even goes beyond the dispute between Canada Post and its employees.

If you look at the record of proceedings of the House, at Hansard, you can see that the members on the other side of the House in particular attack the very notion of unionization and the very concept of the labour relations process. When you hear talk of union bosses trying to rule everything and everyone, I believe that perception is out there. From their perspective, the unions are obviously an easy target. These are people who fight, who stand up for their rights, and it is apparent that the people on the other side of the House ultimately want people who are docile, who are able to comply with their employers' wishes and who want to comply with the wishes of people making the economic decisions in times like this.

The Conservatives rely on that perception in order to divide Canadians. What they are doing in their arguments is very clear and obvious: they are trying to pit Canadians against each other, to polarize. As I said in my speech yesterday, this government is the most polarizing government in Canadian history.

I believe we have to remind the House of some basic concepts here. It must be understood what a union is. In my view, the people from the Conservative Party do not understand what a union is. A union is an organization of ordinary people, the people they claim to defend. These are ordinary people because, in our economy, there are people with economic power, employers, and there are people who individually have no bargaining power to oppose that economic power.

It should be borne in mind that a business executive has power; and I am not talking about small and medium-size enterprises that are often family businesses. I am talking, for example, about publicly listed companies. Those businesses have power. The representatives of a business are generally paid quite well by their business. In addition, if the business closes, they are entitled to compensation and, with their administrative skills, can easily find jobs elsewhere, at another business, so they can continue managing.

The situation is different for employees. They depend on their salary to survive, to feed themselves, to meet their basic, essential needs and perhaps splurge a little, and to have a comfortable standard of living. They need it. An employee who suddenly ends up out of work has very little with which to survive when EI runs out. Consequently, there is no balance of power in bargaining.

Knowing that, we must now determine why people unionize. People unionize in order to acquire some power to offset the economic power of a business. These are ordinary people, people like you and me. Currently, more than 30 or 35 percent of the Canadian population is unionized. These are ordinary people, unless we decide that they are not ordinary people. Not so long ago, even 40 percent of Canadians were unionized. They unionize in order to acquire this collective power against economic power, which is utterly normal. They also bargain for better conditions.

For example, there is a lot of talk about wages. When there is no union or minimum labour standards, it is easy for an employer to favour certain employees over others. It is easy for an employer to tell one employee that he will have five weeks of vacation leave because he likes him, whereas another employee will get only two or three weeks of vacation because he likes him less.

A collective agreement negotiated by ordinary people who join forces to bargain with an employer makes it possible to establish the basic ground rules to ensure that all is fair for everyone.

Do they ultimately secure better conditions? Of course they get better conditions. The ordinary people I represent in Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, like the ones my colleagues represent in their constituencies, secure better working conditions when they are unionized. Why? Because they have acquired this bargaining power.

It seems the Conservative members consider ordinary people as people who refuse to work together, who refuse to acquire power and who will acquiesce much more readily to employer demands.

Another question arises: why do they take labour action? In this case, it will be recalled that there was no general strike at Canada Post, but rather a series of rotating strikes.

Why that kind of labour action, or strikes in other cases? So they can exercise that power. If there is a bargaining exercise in which the employer refuses to bargain in good faith—there are examples in which Canada Post did not bargain in good faith—they must exercise that power. Ordinary people join forces to compel the employer to return to the table to bargain and to establish the ground rules. In this case, it is quite clear that Canada Post was not in good faith. It let the negotiations drag on so the government could introduce special legislation favouring it. I will get back to that point. Much has been made of that during this debate.

Now I am concerned about what is going on here. I am concerned because this debate goes beyond the mere issue of Canada Post and the labour dispute. It is clear that, in its argument, the government, although it claims to be in favour of small business, ordinary people, seniors and retirees, promotes a downward levelling. If the power of unionization and the power of ordinary people to join forces to address an employer collectively are reduced, the conditions they secure will obviously not be as good and will be levelled downwards. Instead, the government should be helping ordinary people improve their lot.

Based on the figures, whether it be those of Statistics Canada or of the research institutes, those commonly called think tanks, the middle class in Canada is gradually disappearing. It is the ordinary people who joined forces to form unions that created the middle class. Before unions came into existence, people who demanded rights were oppressed. There was a have class and a have not class, those who had financial resources and those who lived from one day to the next not knowing what would happen to them the following day. It was when the right to form unions was granted that the middle class emerged. Coincidentally, as attacks continue against unionization in Canada and attempts are made to eliminate bargaining power, we are witnessing the gradual disappearance of the middle class and the emergence of the same economic disparities as existed at the turn of the century.

It is clear from the arguments of members opposite that, if the right to form unions did not exist or was not protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it would be threatened as it is in some states in the USA, including Wisconsin. In that state, unionization is clearly and specifically under attack in both the public and private sectors.

In their arguments, the Conservatives refer to the need to avoid jeopardizing the country’s current economic recovery. That argument can be advanced in virtually all unionization fields and labour disputes. The government said the Air Canada strike had to be terminated and a separate agreement was reached at that time. Today they say the Canada Post dispute has to end. What will it be tomorrow? VIA Rail, Bell, Bombardier?

We have to stop talking about this dispute. We have put forward solutions. The government has chosen to promote a forced back-to-work solution with pre-established wage conditions favouring the employer, while restricting their arbitrator. As a result, management will be very pleased because the conditions will be in its favour.

And yet there were solutions. If the government really wants to use special legislation, with its majority of less than 40 percent of Canadians and less than 20 percent of Quebeckers, it has the power to do so. It could end the lockout and allow the rotating strikes to continue. Canadians would receive their mail. The government could also have introduced special legislation to extend the collective agreement until the bargaining process had been completed. People would have continued receiving their mail. There are options.

I would have liked the government to be able to use those options rather than attack the fundamental principle of unionization.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very closely to what the member said. The member used words like “concerned” and “worried”. Absolutely, everybody in the House is concerned and worried.

We are getting correspondence, hourly, from constituents, as well as from people across the country, who are expressing concern and worry. They are worried about the economy. They are worried about small business. They are worried about our postal workers who are unable to work. They want to work. We have heard from postal workers who want to be back there.

I see it is still June 23, but it seems to me it was only a day before that when we debated an NDP motion that supported small business. What happened to the NDP's support, which it expressed so eloquently? Why is the NDP not now supporting small business?

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question.

We are always on the side of small businesses. I think it is obvious. We said so in our election platform as well as in the motion we moved, which was passed in the House. We are quite happy about that.

We are as concerned as the hon. member about small businesses, pensioners and also the ordinary people I represent in the riding of Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques.

I mentioned that at the end of my speech, and the hon. member heard it. I said that there are ways to get out of this predicament, and one of them is to withdraw this special legislation and bring in new legislation in order to extend the collective agreement until the end of the negotiations.

Mail would be distributed, union members would bargain, and everybody would be happy. Bill C-6 could be withdrawn, and we could have another bill to end the lockout and keep rotating strikes, which allow mail delivery.

If the hon. member is really concerned about small businesses, the Conservatives have to withdraw this legislation and replace it with another bill that would be respectful of the rights of workers and make mail delivery possible.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have just a brief comment and question.

I have been sitting here, thinking about what the word “respect” means. On the Canada Post website, when it talks about the values it has as a corporation, it says that it succeeds by “working together” and that it treats each other with “respect”.

Could the member comment on what kind of respect there is for an organization or corporation that locks out its own employees? The crown corporation's website talks about the values of work and labour relations, yet it has gone to extraordinary lengths to lock out its own workers to prevent them from being at the bargaining table and to prevent the mail from being delivered.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from British Columbia for her question.

Obviously, if a labour relations process is to work well, it takes good relations and good faith on both sides.

In this negotiation, there has been a lack of significant good faith on the part of Canada Post, and that is what led to this conflict. Many government members have emphasized that Canada Post is really a corporation belonging to all Canadians who are represented by this Parliament, but when a crown corporation such as this locks out its employees in the hope of getting special back-to-work legislation, thus effectively putting the power of Parliament on its side, it shows a lack of respect.

This crown corporation should be able to bargain in good faith with its employees to resolve this conflict swiftly. This is not what is happening now.

Various options existed, such as special legislation that would allow quick resumption of operations and would be respectful of employees. This is not what was introduced, and that is why we are still sitting today.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I want to thank you and your colleagues. I know that it is not easy to be here to preside over the debates. Sometimes you have to make rulings that are quite the opposite of what the hon. members want.

Thank you very much. You do extraordinary work and I just wanted to acknowledge that.

Before I continue, a thought came into my head as we were listening to the debates. I represent rural communities, as do many members here, and one of the problems we have is trying to attract young people to stay and work and raise their families in our communities because often we do not have good paying jobs.

I have looked at a contract with Canada Post where it says that people starting work would get less money than those with whom they are working side by side. My concern is that it would discourage people from trying to stay in rural communities. They would then try, for other reasons, to go to large urban centres.

The underlying theme that we sometimes forget when we talk about small business and trying to keep people in our communities is that people who make money stay and support small businesses in our communities. This is something I have discussed on a number of occasions with representatives of the chambers of commerce in my area.

I want to put things into context. We are here today to defend the rights of Canadian workers. We know that on June 3, postal workers started a rotating strike. They were then locked out, as we have already gone over.

As we know, the union has been responsible. It offered to end the strike if Canada Post agreed to uphold the former contract during the negotiations. However, Canada Post refused. Then there was this lockout and support from this government through the introduction of this bill. That is the context.

We are wondering why this government wants to impose a labour contract on the employees. One might say it is not the government's role to do so and that an effort should be made to find solutions by negotiating the conditions of the contract.

Some people have already made the link between what is happening here in Canada and the anti-labour movement in the United States known as the Tea Party. The most draconian example comes out of the State of Wisconsin, a state I am familiar with. Governor Scott Walker abolished the bargaining rights of more than 175,000 public sector employees. The same goes for the right to job security, gender equality and so on.

What is their motive? Clearly this is an issue of maximizing profits for companies on the backs of workers. That is the issue in the bill before us. The employer claims it cannot meet the demands of the employees.

I always try to underscore certain things when I rise to speak. Canada Post earned revenues to the tune of $281 million last year. The funny thing is that I learned from people I talked to at Canada Post that some of those profits apparently go to the federal government. Instead of using this revenue to improve activities, performance and efficiency and to arrive at a fair agreement, some of the money goes to the federal government.

Personally, I think this is akin to stealing money from the workers and from Canada Post. It is like the $50 billion stolen from the employment insurance fund. Today, less than 40% of the unemployed are eligible to receive employment insurance benefits.

We can put this into another context. I have been showing a film in my riding called Poor No More, with Mary Moore from CBC. Many of you have seen it. It outlines what has been happening in our country and in some other countries. Interestingly I shared the film with the executive director at the chamber of commerce in my riding, and at the next meeting--I think it is my turn to buy lunch--I would like to discuss it with her.

We have poverty in this country. We have an increasing disparity between the rich and the poor. We have an agenda that is driven by the Council of Chief Executives.

In the film they point out that 150 of the biggest corporations in Canada are driving the agenda. For those who have not seen the film, there is a worker at the LCBO in Ontario, a casual worker, who has been there for 11 years. She has no benefits and no pension, and when she was suffering she had to take her cancer treatments on her lunch breaks.

I talked about the labour climate when I asked a question to my colleague for Welland yesterday. From his experience as a union leader, I asked who sets the tone. Why do we sometimes have labour disputes that end quickly where there is good morale in the workplace, and other times they drag on and deteriorate, as they have done in Canada Post?

It is because of the direction provided by who is in charge. As a school teacher, I saw it. I worked in schools where there was good morale, and I worked in schools with bad morale, and that depended on the direction of the principal of the school.

We have a deterioration of labour relations between our unionized workers of both unions in Canada Post and the management. My understanding from talking to the workers is that under the former CEO, and continuing under the present one, there are more grievances, decisions being made without consultation, and bizarre decisions.

I would ask you to picture this: I live in the community of Castlegar, which is 600 kilometres from Vancouver. If I mail a letter to my neighbour on Friday, that letter goes to Vancouver for sorting, which is 1,200 kilometres away, and it comes back so my neighbour next door can get the letter. That is because of this so-called efficiency.

Anyway, I will move on. In the film we have a comparison with other countries. We have a worker who works part-time for the liquor control board in Sweden. He is part-time and he has full benefits and free health care. Citizens get free seniors care and free child care. If a couple has a child, they get over 400 days of paternity and maternity leave. That is what we have seen. Sweden used to have strikes. There are no strikes. Everything is done through collective agreements. Why is that? It is because there is a partnership. There is a partnership between corporations, government and unions. Unions, by law, are mandated to sit on the board of directors.

We have been told that our country is somehow leading this economic recovery. Well, among the countries that are leading the economic recovery, one of them is Australia, which ironically seems to have a labour government today. But it is also Sweden. Sweden, the country that many have criticized for being socialist and having high taxes, is leading the economic recovery. Why is it doing that? It is because over 70% of its labour force is unionized. They have no strikes. People work together to come to solutions so they can have and build a just society.

Why can we not do that? What is wrong with us? Why do labour relations deteriorate? Why do we have to have these strikes? Why do we have to have this draconian legislation put in by governments such as this? This is the time we can do something for our country and bring back the kind of relationship we should have between labour and government and corporations. I think it is the responsibility of all of us here to do that today.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, we have seen over the last couple of days a kind of bizarre spectacle in the House of Commons. Prior to the vote last evening just before midnight, we had 27 plus hours of repetitive argument. The result was that the NDP members of Parliament convinced the Liberal members, who had previously been supporting them, to vote against them in the vote that was held on the NDP motion.

Yet they persist, even though a number of their own members did not even bother to show up for that vote. Perhaps that means some NDP members have changed their position on this bill.

When will they end this charade, save taxpayers' dollars, and put Canada Post back to work?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that when we are fighting for something as fundamental as workers' rights, the ability to have fair and just contracts and good labour relations in our country, it is not a charade. Somebody has to nip this in the bud to ensure this kind of Draconian legislation that is happening today is stopped.

We have to speak out on this. We will speak out on this for as long as we must because what is happening is not right. It is not a charade.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was fascinated to listen to the suggestion that the increase in profitability of this corporation is actually theft of the employees. It made me think that what is happening is that by making Canada Post a profit centre for the government it is using the postage system as a form of taxation. In fact the government is forcing small business owners and others to pay more taxes through higher than necessary postal rates in order to conduct their business.

Does the hon. member have a comment on that?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, something is not right here. Other developed countries actually support their post offices in their federal budgets. We have chosen not to do so, and I think that is a good idea.

However, it is one thing to say that it must make a profit, and another thing to say that if it makes big profit the government will grab some of it as general revenue. That is what it did with some or all of the money from employment insurance so it could use it to bring down the national debt and then continue to give corporate tax cuts.

There is something not quite right here. The mandate for Canada Post should be to make a profit and use that money to improve its operations and provide a fair and just working environment for its workers. Then, everybody wins. It is a win-win situation.

However, that is not what is happening today.