Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise and address the House on what are important issues. There is no doubt we have seen, virtually from day one of this House, a great deal of effort by the Government of Canada to deal with labour-related issues. When I say “this House”, I am also referring to the other House, prior to our coming here, the traditional Parliament building and the House of Commons.
I say that because I can recall offhand talking about some of the first pieces of legislation that we introduced after forming government, which were attempts to recognize the true value of and appreciate the importance of labour and management relationships. That is something we have never taken for granted here on the government benches.
I can recall the days of being the third party in the House, when the Conservatives were successful at changing labour laws. Many members argued, including me, that this was done through the back door, through private members' hour. We had some members virtually taking the Stephen Harper approach to labour relations, which we know were not very successful. In fact, as a whole, organized labour was quite offended by the manner in which the Harper government treated labour relations.
That should not come as any surprise to the members opposite. All one has to do is look at some of the negotiations, or lack thereof, with many of the federal unions. We are talking double digits-plus where agreements were never achieved by the Harper government. Within a couple of years, we were very successful at achieving many different agreements with our national unions. That is something that does need to be noted.
We brought in legislation to reverse some of the wrong-headed legislation that was passed by Stephen Harper in the years prior to our forming government, legislation that made it more difficult to unionize, for example, and called into question the whole issue of democracy within unions, which the Conservatives attempted to paint in a negative light.
Those were the types of things that we were looking at going into the federal election. I am glad to say that as a government we responded very positively to it.
Members across the way talked about labour in general. About a month ago I mentioned the 1919 general strike in Winnipeg. I suspect all members are familiar with that. On I believe May 18, I will be hosting a very special event in the Ukrainian Labour Temple in Winnipeg's north end, on McGregor Street, to recognize that historic building where many of the organizers of the 1919 strike actually met and convened. They talked about the importance of the working person, how important it was that our labour movement, even back then, recognized the value of looking for ideas on how to improve quality of life for Canadians, not just for the workers but much beyond that.
That is something I think we need to recognize. Often when people talk about unions, they think of union representatives sitting at a table negotiating wages, when it goes far beyond that. They could talk about the labour conditions or working conditions of those employees.
We can also go beyond that and talk about many of the social programs we have today. Whether the programs have been put in place by the national government, provincial governments or municipal governments, unions have been at the forefront of advocating strong, healthy programs. All one needs to do, as a good example, is look at the pharmacare issue. I have had the opportunity to meet with union reps in regard to their concerns about a pharmacare program. This is something one of our standing committees, a few years ago, was looking into. I believe now we have had more discussion and a lot of advocacy on that file and a government, in particular a Minister of Health, that has really taken the issue. We are hoping to be able to see some advancement of it.
When we have legislation that affects labour, one of the most natural questions that could be asked, and unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to ask, is to what degree the member across the way has worked with unions, not only in one sector but in other sectors, both inside and outside Quebec. Did the member have any discussions? If so, maybe he could share some of the outcomes of those discussions.
My colleague from Mount Royal emphasized quite passionately one of the concerns brought forward in this legislation. The member for Mount Royal is owed a detailed explanation as to why the Bloc would be moving in that direction. Labour legislation should be something achieved through consensus building. We have to work with the union movement and work with management and look at what is in the best interest of providing harmony. If we are successful in doing that, we will have a healthier economy.
I do not take this lightly at all. In fact, when I was first elected in 1988, we had a controversial issue called final offer selection. It was something the NDP provincial government brought to Manitoba in the 1980s. There was a leader of the New Democratic Party who promised to bring in anti-picket or anti-scab legislation. Once the New Democrats got into government, they backed away from that but then brought another form of arbitration, final offer selection. It was a huge debate. I can remember sitting in committees in the Manitoba legislature until two o'clock in the morning. We attempted to salvage that legislation as the Conservatives and the New Democrats fought, one on the management side or the business side and the other not really taking into consideration what the businesses were saying. We actually brought forward amendments that would have saved the legislation. We would still have some sort of final offer selection in the province of Manitoba had they agreed to what the Liberals were suggesting at the time. However, the real core of the problem, whether they were the New Democrats or the Conservatives, was that they did not work with the stakeholders. As a result, their approaches were flawed on both sides.
I have not had the opportunity to go into great detail on the current legislation that has been proposed by my Bloc friends, but listening to some of the debate this afternoon, I suspect that this is not legislation brought forward with a great deal of consensus building. Whenever we attempt to change legislation that would impact labour relations, we should go out of our way to ensure that there is a sense of fairness on both sides, labour and management.
Our government set the stage virtually from day one when we took office. We recognized the injustices that had been put in place by the Harper regime and we made some changes that were very well received.