Mr. Speaker, it is a fundamental cornerstone of any western democracy to have a free and active trade union movement that recognizes and enshrines the right to organize; the right to free collective bargaining; and in the event of an impasse in the process of free collective bargaining, the right to withhold services as an economic lever to command a fair living wage in the labour free marketplace that we recognize and respect.
There is something about this piece of legislation that is being rammed through in one day, without hearing witnesses at committee, with only a few hours of debate, that is so corrosive to everything we stand for, to every right and freedom by which we define ourselves as Canadians. This is the kind of corrosive erosion of those fundamental rights and freedoms that we on this side of the House are dedicated and committed to opposing with every possible tool we have.
What is the definition of the contempt of Parliament? It is enshrined in this document right here, as the Conservatives try to undermine the collective rights of people to free collective bargaining with a piece of legislation that in the same process offends the sensibilities of any person with a democratic fibre in their body, by ramming through this legislation in the dark of night, under the shroud of secrecy, hoping the general public will not catch up to the fact of the sheer brute force and ignorance associated with this piece of legislation. It is the very epitome of contempt.
Where I come from we have an expression that fair wages benefit the whole community. The Conservatives talk about trying to protect the economy by undermining these workers' rights to try to achieve a fair wage from their employer. What about the economy when the whole working class is driven down to wages that cannot sustain their families? That is what happened in the United States. The American dream has been lost because the neo-conservative right wingers in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s smashed the trade union movement.
It was the trade union movement in the United States that created its greatest asset, a consuming middle class, families that had money in their pockets that they could buy things with and provide a decent standard of living. When the Reaganomics of the right wing neo-conservatives drove the unionized workforce down from 30% to 6%, with that went jobs that paid a family a living wage. Now everyone is scrambling at $8 and $9 an hour in these crappy jobs, with no pensions and no benefits. Is that the vision the Conservatives want for Canada, to follow the Americans to a place where there are no decent paying jobs?