Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I appreciate your intervention.
Professor Doorey weighed in on this highly interventionist federal legislation restricting collective bargaining and the right to strike and lockout in this country. Really, he directed his comments more so at the minister:
[The minister] always tells the media that the government wants a voluntary deal reached by all parties themselves. However, most everyone who knows anything about collective bargaining argues that she is in fact discouraging this from happening by promising employers that the government will step in with back to work legislation designed to prioritize the employers' interests.
We have seen that time and time again.
There has been reference made through the course of the debate here today on legislation that a Liberal government put forward in 1995. I would like to set the record straight on this because several Conservatives have made that point here today and, certainly, the circumstances were completely different. In that case, not just CP but CN and VIA Rail were all involved in various stages of work stoppages.
Rolling strikes had started at CP on March 8, CP locked out employees on March 13, CN employees went on strike on March 18, and VIA got pulled in there, making any kind of rail traffic in this country grind to a halt. Rail service ceased to exist in this country.
So, the minister at the time, Lucienne Robillard, did not tip her hand prior to that. She put together back-to-work legislation, for March 21. The Liberals were in a majority government, but she brought that legislation to the Reform Party--the Bloc was the official opposition at the time--and the Reform Party supported it.
The NDP, at the time, only had nine members in the House. It was not an official party. However, she went to the NDP. Bill Blaikie, who is a respected parliamentarian, I think we can agree on that, came forward with amendments and put forward two reasoned amendments that Madam Robillard agreed to.
Now, that was a majority government that knew that in this place, in order to be successful and in order to serve Canadians, there was an opportunity if parties worked together. Again, this is foreign to the current government.
Bill Blaikie and the NDP supported this back-to-work legislation. Negotiations had gone on late Wednesday. Let me just read a couple of quotes. “Blaikie won from Robillard two concessions” and would end all strikes, not just the CN strike, and “the arbitrators appointed to settle all the issues at nine different bargaining tables would be chosen from the judiciary”.
So, there were two reasoned amendments that Mr. Blaikie put forward and they were accepted.
Mr. Blaikie also recognized that the country-wide dispute certainly had an impact on the economy at that time, and he offered his support, so we saw all-party support on the back-to-work legislation, with the exception of the Bloc.