Madam Speaker, I will pick up my speech where I left off. I was saying that this bill is a betrayal of workers since it seeks to amend the law that ensures that their jobs remain in the locations indicated in that law.
However, this is not just about job losses. Although the job losses that will occur as a result of this bill are very worrisome, the instability of the jobs in this sector is also a cause for concern. That is perhaps an unintended consequence, and it makes us wonder how much the government really thought about the consequences of its bill. Let me explain.
According to the bill, it would be deemed appropriate to outsource these jobs if that allowed Air Canada to maintain its competitive advantage. After the bill is passed, jobs may stay in Montreal, Winnipeg, and Mississauga. However, we do not know how long that situation will last and we will have to deal with the fact that these jobs will become unstable. Air Canada may justify outsourcing jobs by saying that it wants to avoid raising prices for consumers. That is a problem.
As I said before question period, we have high-quality, well-paying jobs here. It will be counter-productive if those jobs become unstable. We are not just talking about job losses, but about job quality as well.
Since this debate began, Liberal government members have been arguing that Air Canada has to remain competitive in an ever-changing industry. The problem is that we not only have to stand up for the workers affected by this bill, but we also have to think about the precedent that this bill sets.
Imagine a world where every time something like this comes up, the government claims that the company's legal requirements prevent it from remaining competitive and will cause rates to increase and all kinds of problems.
If, every time, the government decides to change the law and make legal something that used to be illegal, namely the loss of good-quality jobs, what will prevent the government from doing the same thing again for another company that has similar legal obligations, under the pretext that the industry is competitive?
How many jobs would be in jeopardy and would become precarious? How many jobs are we prepared to outsource to keep our companies competitive? That is not what a free market is. By intervening to favour a company on a legal level, the government is going against the idea of a free market. This is not the role of a responsible government.
A government, especially this one, which was elected on its claim of wanting to stand up for the middle class, is responsible for standing up for the workers who are protected by law.
I want to reiterate that this is a betrayal. During the last Parliament, in 2012, the Liberal Party was outraged about the Conservative government's refusal to step up and enforce the law. However, the Liberals are now saying that they will absolutely enforce the law, because they are going to change it.
Changing the law makes the Liberals even worse than the Conservatives. The Conservatives did not enforce the law, but the Liberals have simply decided to change the law at the expense of workers.
I am thinking about all those members from Montreal.
The same goes for members from Winnipeg or Mississauga, members who are from cities that have workers who rely on these jobs which are protected by Air Canada's legal obligations. Today we see a betrayal of those workers, those workers who now are now seeing the Liberal government change the law after saying that the previous Conservative government should apply the law. The changes to that law are not only creating a situation where those workers will lose their jobs, but those who manage to hang on to their jobs will no longer be guaranteed the same high-quality long-term jobs and the long-term guarantees which the law affords them today.
Therefore, Canadians should remember this the next time the Liberals tell them how they set bar so much higher than the previous Conservative government. It is rare that I will take the side of the Conservatives in an argument. The Liberals are doing worse than what the Conservatives did. They propose to change the law, and that is a slap in the face for the workers who are protected by the legislation.
We also need to consider the situation at Bombardier. I will have to say more about that later because I did not have enough time to delve into the subject as much as I wanted to during my initial remarks on this subject. We need to consider the fact that Bombardier is going through a tough time across Canada, but especially in Quebec. That has major repercussions on the entire aerospace and aeronautics sector. The problem today is that people are trying to take shortcuts.
I will admit this is speculation, but we have the right to ask certain questions in this debate, and we have to ask them. This bill was introduced before an announcement about the decision on whether to provide, or not provide, assistance to Bombardier.
The answer is clear to the NDP: yes, we should help Bombardier, but there should be strings attached. We should have a solid agreement with provisions to ensure utmost respect for taxpayer dollars throughout the process. We certainly do not want to give Bombardier a blank cheque.
The problem is that there was no mention whatsoever of Bombardier, and no mention of the entire aeronautics and aerospace industry in this budget. Today we are debating Bill C-10, which will have a serious impact on the aeronautics and aerospace industry and on all related decisions, even though we have no idea what direction the government plans to take.
This is quite problematic because, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, it really seems like this is about returning a favour, after Air Canada committed to purchasing the C Series planes from Bombardier. Every time we ask the minister any questions about this file, he simply gets up and says that it does not matter, that we have good news from Air Canada. Of course we have some concerns about this. We will continue to stand up for workers.
That is why we will be voting against this bill and why I am pleased to move, seconded by my colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith, the following amendment:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:
the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures, because it:
(a) threatens the livelihoods of thousands of Canadian workers in the aerospace industry by failing to protect the long-term stability of the Canadian aerospace sector from seeing jobs outsourced to foreign markets;
(b) forces Canadian manufacturers to accept greater risks and to incur greater upfront costs in conducting their business;
(c) provides no guarantee that the terms and conditions of employment in the Canadian aeronautics sector will not deteriorate under increased and unfettered competition; and
(d) does not fulfill the commitments made by the Prime Minister when he attended demonstrations alongside workers in the past.
