Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise once again to recall some of the events of last fall concerning the strike by Canada's postal workers.
I am sure there are a number of members on the government benches who would be happy to forget about those events and what the strike meant for workers' rights in Canada, but we here have not forgotten. In particular, I am following up on a question that had to do with the suspension of short-term disability benefits for Canada Post workers while the rotating strike was happening.
We have had a number of exchanges in the House before, including in late shows like this one, and the government has been very unapologetic for the fact that Canada Post workers who were on short-term disability had their benefits cut off when the postal workers went out—and not for a full strike, but for a rotating strike. Those workers who were receiving short-term disability benefits did not get a rotating termination to their short-term disability benefits: They were off that benefit for the entire time.
What seems to be the subject of some dispute is the role of the government in causing that suspension of benefits to occur for those people who were already vulnerable, who were already living on a reduced income and who did not have a way to make up that income.
I would draw the attention of the House to subsection 22(1) of the Canada Post Corporation Act, which says that “In the exercise of its powers and the performance of its duties, the Corporation shall comply with such directives as the Minister may give to it.”
This establishes a very clear legal authority for the minister responsible for Canada Post to tell Canada Post management that they have the option of suspending those short-term disability benefits but that the minister thinks it is wrong, that they should not do it, and is directing them not to do it and to continue making those payments as if the collective agreement were in force.
Therefore, notwithstanding whatever was happening or not happening at the bargaining table and with the strike, what I am zeroing in on today is that I and many people across the country believe that it was a wrong and mean-spirited decision by Canada Post management to suspend those short-term disability benefit payments and that the government was at the very least complicit in that decision in not exercising its authority under the Canada Post Corporation Act to tell management to cut it out.
I would like somebody from the government side to stand tonight and explain to those workers why it was that the government was willing to stand idly by while they were not getting paid their short-term disability insurance when their co-workers were out on a rotating strike. For virtually every day on that strike, the mail got delivered in most parts of Canada. There were some service interruptions, but these people lost their benefit full time, all the time, while the rotating shrike was occurring.
Why was the government content to stand by and let that happen?