Mr. Speaker, I would like to first take a moment to respond to my Liberal colleagues.
Unless the Prime Minister appoints me as labour minister while allowing me to remain a member of the NDP, I am currently only allowed to introduce private members' bills. In this case, the only way for me to amend the Canada Labour Code is through my private member's bill. I am not part of the government, so I cannot introduce a government bill. It makes sense that an opposition bill comes in the form of a private member's bill.
I consulted with various fire services. I telephoned people across the country and I even got formal support from Enbridge, for one, who agreed to support my bill because the company's contingency plans depend on volunteer firefighters. Another employer, the Canadian Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, also supports my bill because it believes it could be useful. Consultations were held, but there could be more if this bill gets enough support to be referred to committee.
I used my office budget to undertake those consultations. My budget is far more limited than a minister's, but I consulted all the same.
As for real-life examples, there are some employers who refused to make their employees available. In some communities, when people want to become volunteer firefighters, the fire station asks them for a letter from their employer indicating that it is willing to allow them to leave in the event of a fire, and sometimes employers refuse. What are those people supposed to do? There is no mechanism for filing a complaint.
At present, employers are fully entitled to refuse to allow employees to leave. Will these people risk losing their jobs for a volunteer position? Unfortunately, the answer is usually no, so they say nothing. They would really like to do something, but their hands are tied. This gets overlooked. It is unfortunate, because this can mean that these people are excluded from the fire services because they are not available to respond to fire calls. It would cost too much to train them and keep them on the service if they cannot respond to fire calls.
Someone else said that my bill will impose an administrative burden. Similar legislation exists in Quebec for employees under provincial jurisdiction. Shortly after that legislation came into effect, two cases were brought before the courts, and in both cases, the volunteer firefighters won. After that, there was no longer any need to go to court, because the law was in place. Not one business in Quebec under provincial jurisdiction has complained that the provincial legislation imposed an administrative burden, and my bill does not require any paperwork whatsoever.
This can be resolved in one minute. Employees can simply say to their employers that they are volunteer firefighters and want to be able to respond to fire calls when they come in. Then the employer replies that legislation exists requiring it to comply, and when the employees receive fire calls, they simply have to inform the secretary when they leave and when they return. It takes 23 seconds to solve the problem. I do not understand how this could impose any administrative burden. It has been tested.
With regard to the specific duties that could be assigned to firefighters, if my colleagues believe that improvements could be made, and if my colleague from Souris—Moose Mountain believes that we should be more specific about certain elements, I urge them to think right away about amendments they could make in committee. I do not believe that I know everything and I recognize that I am not perfect. However, I believe that this is a very good starting point and that, with a few amendments, we could have a very good bill. We need to send it to committee to improve it.
The Conservatives say that only 5% of firefighters will be affected. However, when there is a fire, you have to have an adequate team, a minimum number of firefighters, to respond. If you need 18 firefighters and only 17 arrive, they cannot enter the house. All 18 firefighters have to be there and the 18th might be part of the 5% under federal authority.