Mr. Speaker, I listened to the speech on the bill by my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, and I would disagree with him profoundly in virtually everything. Virtually every aspect that he raised about the bill I find great fault with.
I would like to begin by finding great fault with not just the content of the bill but the whole process by which the Conservatives are abusing our system of parliamentary democracy. Under the guise of the budget implementation act, they are introducing what is tantamount to a neo-Conservative wish list, like a catalogue for the Tea Party Republican Party. It is everything they would ever like to do rolled up into one big ball, free from scrutiny and oversight from the opposition parties and from the people of Canada.
As the representatives who represent the majority of Canadians, we will never be able to do justice to a massive tome like this. The Conservatives have stuffed 60 and 70 pieces of legislation into one. They are pieces of legislation that are not even related, things that are fiscal and non-fiscal, things that have to do with the Labour Relations Act, things that have to do with a new Mackenzie gas project.
The scope and the scale of this thing makes it so unwieldy that we simply cannot do a detailed analysis on these pieces of legislation, even though many are broad and sweeping social policy changes that we will have to live with for many years until such time as the New Democratic Party forms the government and we can restore some semblance of order and balance to the nation.
The Conservatives do not have to pack a lunch, because it is sneaking up on them. The more they abuse, undermine, and try to cut a swathe through everything that is good and decent about our parliamentary democracy, the more motivated the general public will be to show these people the door.
I do not have time—and this is the whole point, that none of us have time—to deal in any kind of detail with any of these pieces of legislation rolled up into one. However, I will mention one, just because it offends me so profoundly, and that is the fact that the Conservatives have seen fit, under the guise of a budget implementation bill, to amend the Canada Labour Code to change the definition of what is dangerous work. You tell me, Mr. Speaker, what undermining the health and safety provisions within the Canada Labour Code has to do with the budget implementation act.
I do not know if people have had time to think this through. I can guarantee they have not, because not only are the Conservatives ramming through 70 pieces of legislation at once, but they move closure at every stage of these bills. As a result, we cannot call a sufficient number of witnesses, we cannot give it the debate it deserves in the House of Commons, we cannot test the merits of their argument with informed exchange and information to see that we are passing good laws and good legislation, as per the prayer that the Speaker reads when we open Parliament every day. That is by the wayside.
The Conservatives should explain to me what it has to do with the economy, with jobs, or with good governance generally to gut the Labour Code under that particular definition of what constitutes dangerous work, specifically as it pertains to maternal care. It is doubly offensive to me that an individual no longer has the right to refuse unsafe work if she is a pregnant mother working in circumstances that she believes may be harmful to the unborn child. That reference has been entirely deleted.
The Conservatives not only amend 60 or 70 pieces of legislation at once, they create whole brand new ones within the context of their budget implementation act. They sometimes delete whole pieces of legislation. In their last omnibus bill, they deleted a piece of legislation called the Fair Wages Act. For some reason, the Conservative government is opposed to the concept of fair wages, opposed to setting minimum wages in the construction industry on federally regulated projects.
In whose interest is it to drive down the wages of middle-class Canadian workers? We do not need our government to do that for us. There are enough economic forces out there that can affect our income. We really do not elect a government to drive down our wages, yet the Conservatives saw fit to do so, singing to some tune.
I presume it was the merit shop guy, Terrance Oakey, who seems to have a revolving door to the PMO to dictate what he seems to need in his particular industry sector.
By what pretzel logic could it possibly be argued that it is in the best interests of Canadians to gut the safety provisions of the Canada Labour Code? It is simply beyond me. Regarding the changes to EI, again, if a budget implementation act is about enabling the implementation of the budget, why does it not deal with relevant issues that may in fact stimulate the economy?
I heard my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, talking about enabling small businesses to create more jobs. If the government really believed that, we would be debating legislation that would reduce the business tax for small businesses. The Conservatives argue that they would reduce it from 12% to 11%, but in the socialist paradise of Manitoba, when we were elected, the Conservatives had the small business tax at 11%, and every year thereafter the NDP lowered it by 1%, and another per cent, and another per cent to where—