Mr. Speaker, I am pleased and honoured to be a member of the House and to have had the opportunity to duly represent the people of Louis-Saint-Laurent for nearly five and a half or six years now.
Normally, I am always pleased and enthusiastic to rise in the House. However, today, it is quite the opposite. Rising in the House to debate and pass special legislation to force employees back to work is the furthest thing from a victory. It is not a victory for workers, for the employer, or for the business people and companies dealing with the problems resulting from the dispute, and it is certainly not a victory for parliamentarians.
Parliament's job is to pass bills that help society move forward, not to force people back to work. Unfortunately, we are obligated to debate this motion, which will lead to the passage of special legislation forcing Port of Montreal dock workers back to work. Obviously, we have a lot to say about that. We are here because the Liberal government, and particularly the Prime Minister and member for Papineau, a Montreal riding, unfortunately failed to show leadership at the appropriate time.
Let us consider the facts. The Port of Montreal is extremely essential. It is the beating heart of Montreal's economy, Quebec's economy and Canada's economy because goods that go through the port end up everywhere. That is why we have to pass this bill, which will cause port operations that have been stalled for more than a day now to resume.
The Port of Montreal is a crucial economic tool. It is Canada's second-largest port. Some 40 million tonnes of cargo and two billion products go through the Port of Montreal. For that to work, the port has to be efficient and reliable. Unfortunately, it is neither at the moment. This dispute is tarnishing the Port of Montreal's reputation, and now 1,150 dock workers are on strike because of it.
This dispute has deep roots. For nearly two and a half years now, the Port of Montreal's 1,150 dock workers have been without a contract. Anyone working for an organization wants to know what to expect. Disputes may arise occasionally, and contracts have to be renegotiated from time to time, but when it takes almost two and a half years to reach an agreement, that does not fly, and that is when problems come up.
These workers have been without a contract since December 2018.
Members will recall the sad events of last summer, when the Port of Montreal was hit by a 19-day labour dispute. Over those 19 days, $600 million was reportedly lost due to the work stoppage at the port. It took three months for economic activity to return to normal and for the backlog to clear. Since everything was shut down for 19 days, the containers piled up and could not be moved. The total economic impact of the dispute was $600 million.
Given the pressures of last summer, in the middle of a pandemic, we would have expected negotiations to resume civilly so that the parties could quickly find some middle ground. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. Instead, there was a seven-month truce, but it did not last.
There was an attempt at mediation. Experienced mediators were called in to help move things along. We recognize that. More importantly, however, we recognize that it did not work. That is the problem.
The government claims to have goodwill and talks about how terrible this is. I heard the minister talk about her goodwill earlier. Incidentally, I want to congratulate the minister for speaking a few sentences in French. I do not doubt her goodwill, but we need to see some results. There are no results to speak of. That is why the Prime Minister should have shown some leadership. I will come back to the lack of leadership a little later.
Every day this strike continues is costing our economy between $10 million and $20 million, which is huge. This is the second day of the strike, so it is time to move forward. Using special legislation is messy. No one wants that. I used to sit in the National Assembly in Quebec, and I had to vote on special legislation. As an opposition member, I agreed with the government's approach, but I could not applaud the passing of special legislation.
Special legislation undermines confidence in Parliament since it must be adopted quickly. It also causes upheaval in society when the government forces unionized workers who are striking legally to return to work and negotiate with their employers.
From the outset, I will say that we want to keep the economy rolling. We want the workers at thousands of plants, primarily in Quebec and Ontario, to be able to resume work and have access to the goods that flow through the port. We want them to be able to ship their products through the Port of Montreal. For that to happen, the workers need to return to work.
In her speech, the minister said that this dispute would directly affect 250,000 jobs in Quebec and 270,000 in Ontario. As members can see, this conflict is not a local, municipal or provincial issue. It is a Canadian one. Companies in western Canada and in the Maritimes will be directly affected by this as well.
Sadly, we will recall that during last summer's dispute about twenty vessels destined for the Port of Montreal were redirected to other ports such as the Port of Halifax. This has been happening again for the past several weeks. Why? It is because the government did not show leadership at the right time to prevent this dispute. Unfortunately, it was not prevented.
The Quebec government is calling for special legislation to be passed because Quebec's economy is being affected by this situation. Business people also want operations to resume. We completely agree. We also know that the unions think passing special legislation is appalling. That is true. Unfortunately, we believe that this government failed to show leadership. I will explain.
When such serious disputes arise, when positions are irreconcilable and there is no flexibility on certain aspects that could move things forward, that is when political leadership must be shown and unfortunately that did not happen.
I will never understand why the member for Papineau, who is from the Montreal area, the Prime Minister of Canada, who has all the authority to act, did not do anything about a dispute that is happening just a few kilometres from his riding.
The Prime Minister had a fundamental duty to pick up the phone last week and call the union and the Port of Montreal management, to encourage them to work things out and ask them what the issues were. That is a prime minister's job. That is where leadership is needed.
When every effort has been made to resolve a conflict but unfortunately nothing is working, the Prime Minister needs to step up and do something. Instead, this Prime Minister said the parties had to be left to their negotiations to see if that would work. That did not work for two and a half years. In a case like this, it is important to think outside the box. That is where leadership comes in, and that is where leadership was lacking.
The Prime Minister and member for Papineau, from the Montreal region, did not have the courage to do the right thing. That is why we find ourselves in this situation today, the same situation we sadly decried quite a while ago. I say “sadly” because we would have preferred not to do that. More than a month ago, when we felt no progress was being made, we asked questions in the House. The member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord and the member for Mégantic—L'Érable rose in the House to question the government and ensure that it would take action to avoid a dispute. Unfortunately, that is what we are facing now.
We are currently suffering the repercussions of the third wave of the pandemic, which, as members know, were exacerbated by the current government's tardiness in procuring vaccines when it mattered. We are now suffering the consequences of the 10-day gap in January and February.
Business people were hard hit by the lack of access to supplies and equipment during the rail crisis almost two years ago. Then they were hit by the pandemic and eventually the third wave. On top of all that, they are now facing the labour dispute at the Port of Montreal. Thousands of jobs throughout Quebec, Ontario and Canada are at stake. Unfortunately, this government failed by not showing the necessary leadership. Now we have to debate this bill, which has to pass so that operations can resume at the Port of Montreal.