Mr. Speaker, it is worth opening by saying, for those who may be following along at home, that adjournment proceedings are meant as an opportunity to follow up on brief exchanges that happened in question period about particular issues.
This is the third time in as many months that I am up on my feet to follow up on questions I asked in the fall that had to do with the behaviour of Canada Post management during the rotating strike of postal workers in the fall, particularly the decision made by Canada Post management to stop paying sick and vulnerable workers who were on the short-term disability plan during that strike, as a negotiating tactic.
I have heard a lot of non-answers and unsatisfactory answers about why the government condoned that decision. I have heard, for instance, that really, it was not that mean a thing to do, because even though they were cutting off their short-term disability payments, people could still access EI and could even apply to get the benefits they were entitled to back. Some of them did, but others did not. I do not think that answer passes muster at all. There is nothing compassionate about cutting off a benefit people are entitled to and then allowing them to apply to get it back.
I have heard that the government would not intervene in the management practices of Canada Post, despite the fact that the Canada Post Act clearly gives the minister the authority to issue a directive, and she could have told Canada Post to stop doing that. It is not really a good answer from a government that has shown that it is willing to inappropriately try to influence an auditor general to drop a criminal proceeding when it had no business doing that at all. The question, then, is why the government would not intervene to help workers when a public corporation made a bad decision and it had the lawful authority to do so.
We have heard all sorts of half answers, non-answers and distractions about why the government did not use the tools at its disposal to intervene and say, “There is a rotating strike going on, and it is completely unacceptable for a Crown corporation to be picking on its most sick and vulnerable workers as a negotiating tactic.”
The government could have said that it was something it did not support and then disallowed Canada Post doing it. It would not have affected whatever happened, ultimately, at the bargaining table. This was not a bargaining issue. This was an issue of management practices during a strike. The fact of the matter is that the government decided to be a party to that decision to deliberately target sick and vulnerable workers, because it did nothing to stop it when it could. I still have not heard an answer as to why.
Therefore, for the people who for five weeks did not receive their already limited pay, I want someone from the government to stand up and explain to them why the government thought that was acceptable.