Mr. Speaker, the Employees' Voting Rights Act was a common sense bill.
I will be sharing my time with the member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa.
The main principle of the bill was that all federally regulated workers should have the right to a free secret ballot vote when deciding to certify or decertify a union.
The card check system that had apparently been in place for federally regulated industries required 50% plus one of workers' union membership cards for union certification. This system was open to co-workers and other interested parties potentially pressuring employees into signing union cards. Rather than an automatic certification of a union process, the previous bill required a 50% plus one majority of votes cast in a secret ballot to support certification at a meeting for certification or decertification.
The principle behind this is similar to what we all undergo here in a general election.
Just as the secret ballot of a general election represents the voice of each elector, a secret ballot on certification would allow employees to freely express their wishes.
Many Canadians do not want to reveal who they voted for in a general election. I am sure that members experienced that as often as I did when they were going door to door in the last federal election. Some people are quite free in expressing how they are going to vote, but many would rather keep that to themselves.
Workers should be provided that same level of comfort in expressing their views, choosing to either express them publicly or to have the privacy of a secret ballot vote in the workplace, a place where they spend by far the majority of their time. They should be made to feel welcome and comfortable, no matter what their choice, in all circumstances.
The bill ensured that there was a framework in place to allow those workers to express their personal position.
One other change in the previous bill was the proposal to set the threshold of employee support required to trigger certification or decertification at 40%. It was amended to 40% so that the trigger was the same either way, which it had not been prior to this legislation. It would be the same for certification or decertification, the same to get in and the same to get out.
This number is more reflective of international conventions and the majority of provincial statutes. In fact, five provinces currently have this threshold or higher. I believe this approach is fair and creates a level playing field for both supporters and opponents in situations where the question of certification or decertification is at stake.
As I said before, the creation of the new legislation was about making sure that workers are able to express themselves as they deem fit in their workplaces, allowing both those who are opponents or partisans supporting accreditation or decreditation to express their views.
As I have said, it makes sense to me that we use a system for the democratic rights of workers, but it apparently also makes eminent sense to workers. Polling data on unionized and non-unionized employees across the country shows overwhelming support for a secret ballot vote on questions of certification and decertification. This seems fair to me.
Poll after poll indicates that, since 2003, support across Canada for secret ballot voting has rated between 83% and 89%, with some of the highest results coming from unionized or formerly unionized employees.
Clearly, Canadians believe that we should take important steps to secure this fundamental right for employees in federally regulated workplaces.
As Canadians, we have taken great pride in our democratic processes. The secret ballot is the hallmark of our modern democracy here in Canada. It is a system we support so strongly that Canadians have not only shed blood for our country to maintain its democracy but have actually spent significant amounts of time in other countries to help them achieve that same degree of freedom and democracy.
I ask how it could be undemocratic, as has been mentioned in the House by other members, to provide workers with a secret ballot vote. We know that PSAC has stated at committee that it uses a secret ballot vote itself for internal elections as well as for collective bargaining agreement ratification. Every member in the House was elected by a secret ballot vote.
As Justice Richards' stated in his ruling in the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, “The secret ballot, after all, is a hallmark of modern democracy”.
Due to this basic principle, this basic value that I think all Canadians hold dear, I would encourage all members in the House to vote against the current bill being considered and maintain the bill of the MP from Red Deer—Lacombe. It is a common sense bill that makes the certification and decertification process for unions a democratic one in which all workers have a voice and can express that voice in the way they deem appropriate, in a comfortable manner, in their own workplaces.