Madam Speaker, the President of the Treasury Board has just accused me of being a general waging an old battle. I rise today to say that the right of working people to chart their own destiny through the use of a secret ballot, though an ancient right, will never get old. That is a basic, fundamental freedom upon which this august chamber is based and by which every real democratic decision is ultimately and finally made: the right of the deciders—that is, the people—to go into a secret place and mark their preference free from intimidation or scrutiny by those who have authority over them. The hon. member might consider that to be “regressive”, a word that he chose himself, but it is the methodology that allowed him to be here in the first place.
I do not know if the member is going to rise in the question and comment period to claim that he should not have been elected by those means, but instead should have been allowed to go around his community and ask people to elect him through a petition system, whereby they, standing right in front of him, would be asked to put their name beside his name or the name of his opponent. Imagine if Parliament were chosen in such a truly regressive way. Unfortunately, prior to the later days of the previous government, that is how many federally regulated workers in the private and public sector had the decision of unionization imposed upon them.
Furthermore, this is not yesterday's battle. Currently, the government has legislation before Parliament that would strip away the recently won gain that workers enjoy to vote secretly on whether to unionize their bargaining unit. That legislation is before the Senate and it is not simply one bill. There are two bills related to that right. One broadly speaks to the right of workers in the federal sphere; and the other speaks specifically to the right of RCMP members who, due to a Supreme Court ruling, will soon be granted the right to organize and collectively bargain in their workplace. We know from the unfolding controversies related to the union drive of multiple organizations seeking to represent the Mounties as the bargaining agent that RCMP personnel would benefit from the right to decide that by secret ballot, rather than under the watchful eye of either the employer or a prospective bargaining agent. The reason that a secret ballot is so primordial is not just to protect the worker against intimidation by a prospective bargaining agent or union, but also to protect the employee from intimidation by an employer. On this point, I would like to spend some time.
When I asked the President of the Treasury Board this, he said he wanted to develop a balanced legislative framework between business and unions. He totally forgot the primary stakeholder. The primary stakeholder in labour laws is not business or unions; it is the worker. It is worker that all of our laws and all of our rules should be designed to serve.
This is not a battle for yesteryear. It is a debate that is alive and well today. I would suggest that he, as the President of the Treasury Board, has an opportunity to rethink his position and that of his government and come around to the position that workers should have the right to vote. By the way, that is the policy in five of ten Canadian provinces. Jurisdictions governed by various different political parties give this right to provincially regulated workers in their jurisdiction.
This is not an extreme or exotic concept. It is broadly practised in jurisdictions not only in Canada but around the world. We merely suggest that in the federally regulated sector, that right should continue to exist.
I represent the riding of Carleton. It neighbours on the community of Barrhaven, which was formerly part of my riding. Members will find the headquarters of the RCMP there, an organization that will face union drives as the Supreme Court's ruling permitting its personnel to unionize comes into effect. It is my duty as a member, and the duty of all members in this place who do represent RCMP personnel, to stand up for the right of those who put their lives on the line every day and, through the use of a secret ballot, make their decision free from intimidation.
I will depart ever so temporarily from the subject at hand just to point out that the approach of the government on the secret ballot vote for workers on the question of unionizing workplaces is consistent with its opposition to a referendum on the subject of electoral reform. For some reason, the government seems to be against voting. A government that was put in place by such means opposes those very means. The Liberals seem to have an inherent bias against allowing the people affected by decisions to make the final decision themselves.
On those points, I strongly disagree with the early direction of the current government with respect to labour relations. However, I do have faith that the President of the Treasury Board will change his mind, and perhaps he is changing his mind right now as he listens to these words.
On the subject of sick leave, the President of the Treasury Board has introduced legislation and has committed to the House of Commons that he will work with bargaining agents to come up with an improved sick leave system—and, hopefully, a short-term disability system to augment it—that will serve both taxpayers and public servants. On this point, I think both parties are broadly in agreement. It seems to me that the President of the Treasury Board and the government of the day are trying to work with the bargaining agent to find a solution to the ongoing problem that exists in a whole host of workplaces and to single out the best way to deal with sickness and injury for employees.
One of the problems that I have identified, not only as a member of Parliament and Treasury Board critic but also as a representative of the Ottawa area, is that 60% of public servants do not have enough banked sick days to get them to the full period required for eligibility for short-term disability. For the majority of public servants who fall seriously ill, they cannot cover the span between the day they leave work and the day they become eligible for short-term disability, because they have yet to accumulate enough sick days to fill that gap.
Some 25% of employees have accumulated fewer than 10 days. Many employees, especially the new and the young, have no sick days accumulated at all. Meanwhile, some long-tenured workers, many of them executives, the best paid and compensated workers, have far more banked sick leave days than they will ever use. This is through no fault of their own. It is the result of the fact they have diligently gone to work every day and, as a result, their sick-leave allocation has just accumulated and stacked up year after year. This is a sign of a responsible, diligent employee, but it does not address the problem of roughly 14 million accumulated sick days banked in the system right now, many of which are out of reach of the majority of public servants who are younger and, therefore, have not had such an opportunity.
I know that the President of the Treasury Board shares the objective of the previous government to find ways to get sick and injured public servants well and back to work as quickly as possible. I believe that the negotiating mandate he has with his officials reflects that goal as well.
Therefore, I would encourage him to continue to work toward the mutually supportive goals, first, of protecting taxpayers and, second, of ensuring that public servants have a sick leave and short-term disability system that protects them when they need it and helps them get back to active, productive lives as quickly as possible. That is the sweet spot that we are all attempting to reach and I wish the President of the Treasury Board well in his endeavours to achieve it.