Madam Speaker, given that display of unanimity one would hope that we would be able to get actual bills through the House that would deal with credit card gouging, gas price gouging and all the things the government has not been willing to take action on. We are always willing to work with the government when it actually works in the interests of ordinary people.
I would like to start by saying a few words to our Quebec colleagues, Canadians who live in the province of Quebec.
I would like to wish a happy Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day to all Quebeckers. As hon. members know, this day will be celebrated tomorrow all across Quebec.
I was a manual labourer in a previous life. I worked in a number of factories and went back to school eventually. I have never been a member of a labour union. Following my university education I went on to work as a negotiator from the management side on a number of collective agreements. I have been a long-time member of the New Westminster Chamber of Commerce and a proud member of the Burnaby Board of Trade. I have won a number of business excellence awards.
I am going to take a slightly different tack from a number of my colleagues in this wonderfully diverse caucus, which is the new official opposition, the NDP caucus of 103 members of Parliament, people who come from a variety of backgrounds. Some have been involved in the labour movement. Some have been involved in the business community. Some have been involved as professionals. Some have been involved in the trades. All of them have the interests of Canada at heart, and we are excited to take on our new role as official opposition and to bring a lot to Parliament because of our diversity.
In the case of every single member of Parliament in the NDP caucus, our focus is on the community. That is why we are very concerned about what the government has done in this particular case.
We saw this first with Air Canada and even more of increasing concern around the Canada Post negotiations. I would like to briefly go back a few steps to talk about the process because this is what is so profoundly worrying about how the government has reacted in this case.
There have been broad concerns about how the management of Canada Post has managed the negotiations in the collective agreement. What we have had is a very broad base of support from postal workers, 50,000 strong across the country who contribute enormously to our communities and to the strength of Canada. What we have found is, because of certain intransigence from Canada Post management, there was a series of very limited, rotating work stoppages in various parts of the county. There was some mild impact on mail generally.
We had postal workers playing the role that they do, going through rain, sleet and snow, making sure that the mail gets delivered, ensuring that cheques are delivered for seniors, ensuring that those most vulnerable in our society are taken care of. The workers took a very responsible and principled approach to what was clear intransigence from Canada Post management.
When we talk about Canada Post management, in the case of the CEO we are talking about an individual who receives $650,000 a year and has seen the salary for his position double over the last few years. There has been a massive increase in management salaries. It is a profitable corporation because of the hard work of the employees who, as usual, never receive the credit for the work they do for Canada. It is a very profitable corporation with extremely high executive salaries and intransigence from the management side.
In the midst of this, instead of reacting in a moderate way, which is what the government could have chosen to do, it reacted in a very immoderate way. We all know that as we came through the end of the month of April and to the May 2 election what we heard from the Prime Minister was repeated assurances that he would be moderate in government.
We have not seen many examples of that since May 2. Certainly we could talk about the appointments of failed Conservative candidates to the Senate. We could talk about this bill. We could talk about a number of other measures that have shown those commitments that were made to Canadians to have a moderate government, a government that would be balanced in its approach, have proven to be vain promises. In my riding I have met a number of people who voted for the Conservative Party who feel that they have been betrayed by the immoderate actions of the government.
What did the government do in this case? Management reacted by locking out the workers. The letter carriers across the country, in a very moderate, reserved way had limited, rotating work stoppages in various parts of the country that slowed down only slightly the overall delivery of mail.
Management reacted by shutting down the entire system. Far from reacting in a moderate way, what the government has done is twofold. It has taken the side of management. It has decided that it will aid management in its intransigence in negotiating what should be a collective agreement that would be relatively easy to negotiate given how moderate the requests have been from the workers working for the company.
It did much more. The government imposed what would be a collective agreement. I cannot call it a collective agreement when it is imposed by the government. In a free and democratic society, collective bargaining is one way where more of the resources and more of the profits that a company has actually remain in the community. It allows for a much more balanced approach in family income. It means that, in a very clear way, more of the profits that a company may have may actually remain in the community in which those profits are earned and benefit other businesses as well.
When I talk about my community, I know how hard hit the small businesses have been by many of the policies of the government. I just have to name the HST as one example. The idea of collective bargaining is to ensure there is moderation and balance. When there is a $200 million profitable corporation, the workers should receive money that at least meets the inflation rate. That is something that is a reasonable request.
The government imposed a wage settlement and, more important, it imposed what is very clearly a pension structure and framework that will be of enormous disadvantage to anyone else who works for Canada Post in the future. It means that younger workers will be treated as second class within the Canada Post system.
This is an important issue. When we look at the middle class and what has happened over the last five years under the present government and what happened under the previous government in the previous five years, we have seen a dramatic erosion in middle class earning power. For most families, their real income has declined somewhat dramatically, particularly among the poorest of Canadians. We have seen problems with pensions and seniors living under the poverty line. We have seen the debt load of the average family in Canada double over this period as well.
We have seen a dramatic restructuring of how families in Canada cope economically. Far from us being economically prosperous, as the government likes to pretend, the middle class is struggling. One of the ways that struggle can be addressed is through free, collective bargaining, which is the hallmark of any democratic system.
What the government has done by imposing this legislation is ensuring that bad management is helped, management that is stubborn and unwilling to sit down and negotiate an effective agreement. Having been on the management side in collective agreement negotiations, I can say that it is not rocket science.
In negotiating a collective agreement, parties need to be transparent, honest, sincere and willing to work for a solution. When parties do that, they get a collective agreement renewed. There are collective agreement negotiations. When collective agreement negotiations are approached in a meanspirited way, in a non-transparent way, in a way where the people who are working to actually build that firm or build that organization are being pushed back, then the parties will not get the same results.
What has happened here is that the government has helped bad management try to impose a bad agreement that is bad for Canadian communities.