Mr. Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak to this special bill.
Nine months ago, I was giving my second speech in the House of Commons to defend a fundamental right in Canada—the right to discuss a collective agreement. We are hearing the same arguments this evening. This is the second time that we have had to oppose the government all night, into the early morning hours, in order to protect basic rights in Canada, rights that all Canadians should be able to enjoy.
Air Canada employees have not negotiated a collective agreement for 10 years. They have been making concessions for 10 years. Meanwhile, Robert Milton, the former CEO of Air Canada, earned $80 million. The current CEO will soon collect a $5 million bonus, and management will receive a pay increase. Understandably, Air Canada employees want a collective agreement and better working conditions. They want to discuss these matters, but they are being prevented from doing so because there could be a strike.
The right to negotiate a collective agreement is a fundamental right here, and the Conservatives are trampling on it yet again. Moreover, during this debate, the Conservatives have shown contempt for Canadians by telling them all kinds of tales. Earlier in today's debates, the Conservatives repeatedly gave the impression that they were talking about an essential service. My Liberal colleague just pointed out what may well be the crux of this debate: Air Canada is not an essential service.
The Canadian Industrial Relations Board never ruled that travelling by plane is an essential service. We all agree that it is important and that we want to be able to travel from place to place in Canada, but it is not an essential service. We have to think about whether respecting the right to a collective agreement, respecting that workers who have made concessions for 10 years have the right to negotiate, is more important than people wanting to travel. The Conservatives keep bringing up the economy. Of course the airline industry brings money into Canada, but so do many other things that the Conservatives have not meddled with.
On the Champlain Bridge issue, it took forever to get an announcement, and Montreal lost a lot of money as a result. We need to get our priorities straight. It is crucial that the two sides be able to bargain before the essential service card is played.
The Conservatives tried to mislead Canadians for the second time today when the Minister of Labour said that places like Bathurst would be deprived of all air service. That is not true, because Bathurst is not served by Air Canada, but rather by Jazz. I wish the labour minister would do her homework and know which regions are served only by Air Canada.
It is not true to say that the people of Bathurst—and we noted which riding she chose as an example—will not be able to get on a plane. That is not true. They are served by Jazz, which is not on strike, because its employees had the right to negotiate their collective agreement.
Currently in Canada, 94% of collective agreements are resolved without a problem. The remaining 6% are a bit more tumultuous. However, for those cases, we have a government that imposes special back-to-work legislation. Our country is quite lucky that only 6% of our collective agreements are not resolved easily. The government wants to impose special back-to-work legislation and prevent those collective agreements from being negotiated. It is denying those people their fundamental right. Again, coming together to discuss the future of those employees is a fundamental right.
It is not up to us to talk about their bargaining demands, but it is up to us to defend them, to stand up and say that these people have waited for 10 years and have been talking for one year. Of course we would like things to go well and for both parties to agree, but that is no reason to pass special back-to-work legislation.
The Conservative majority opposite is using the power of a majority that it obtained from less than 40% of voters to muzzle Canadians. The Conservatives are muzzling scientists. We have seen it on several occasions. Now, they are going to tell workers that they do not have the right to talk, that they do not have the right to discuss. That is unacceptable in Canada. We go and fight in other countries so that their citizens have access to democracy. However, here we have a democratic system that works—we have seen it in 94% of cases—and a government that says it is going to pass special legislation to impose a return to work. The government is going to prevent workers from discussing, from using a democratic process to achieve their goals.
We have seen on a number of occasions that the Conservatives are afraid of debate. They cut the time for debate short. It has happened often—19 times, according to my colleague. In the same way, in this case, they are eliminating bargaining rights. This government does not want debate. Even today when we were reviewing their bill, the Conservatives said, at every step of the process, that we should only have one speaker and that he would not have the right to ask questions. It is not healthy. We are talking about a bill that affects all Canadians, and all my colleagues who want to speak on the subject cannot because the Conservatives are preventing them from doing so.
Monday morning, I was in my riding. I was heading for Ottawa and I knew that the Air Canada employees were holding a lively protest. It was not yet a strike but nevertheless they were gathered at the Dorval airport. I went to see them to find out what was going on and to listen to their concerns. I discovered that there was more at stake than just their demands. They told me that they were afraid that the department would impose this special legislation. They were afraid of not being able to negotiate in good faith with their employer. This is intolerable.
I am disappointed because soon I will have been a member of Parliament for one year and the first subject that I spoke about in the House was democracy. I came here full of hope intending to work with a government that said that it wanted to work on behalf of Canadians. Now that my first year is coming to an end, I realize that we have not moved forward since we have a government that says it will not allow workers to negotiate collective agreements with their employers.