Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise on behalf of the residents of Kelowna—Lake Country. I rise today to speak to Bill C-58, an act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Canada Industrial Relations Board regulations. This legislation passed at second reading with support of the Conservatives and was recently scrutinized at the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, termed the human resources committee, where I am proud to serve as vice-chair on behalf of the Conservative caucus.
I would like to thank all Conservative members, but in particular I would like to thank the Conservative member for Dufferin—Caledon for his work on this legislation and for attending our committee meetings on this. The human resources committee heard from a wide variety of relevant witnesses to this legislation and to the issue of replacement workers at large. The committee heard from many labour representatives and business industry stakeholders.
We heard testimony from the Canada Industrial Relations Board, whose work will be affected by this legislation. From my observations, there seemed to be a lot of interest from all parties to ask questions and to delve into the work it does and how this legislation could potentially affect its workload and operations. I had a much better understanding of its internal processes once its representative had answered all of our questions.
Many witnesses at committee spoke of the importance of the board. The federal government is responsible for the national Canada Industrial Relations Board. While the legislation before us intends to encourage faster decision-making at the board, ultimately it is on the Liberal government to ensure it is properly operating to resolve labour conflicts that come before it and to meet the needs of those involved. Representatives of both employers and labour said that the Canada Industrial Relations Board needs to be operating faster now and moving forward. In fact, an amendment at committee, which is now in the legislation, would reduce the number of days required for the Canada Industrial Relations Board to render decisions.
One other point I will note in this legislation is that there was an amendment at committee, supported by all members, to move up the coming into force date for this legislation. I would like to bring to the House some of the important feedback we heard from various stakeholder witnesses on Bill C-58. Several points were raised during the committee's study of this legislation. While the Liberals may trumpet this legislation as focusing on replacement workers, they themselves have been replacing workers in government workplaces with Liberal-friendly external contractors.
It is a fact that the government has spent more on expensive external outsourced contractors than ever before. We know this affects workers in many ways. For example, the president of the Customs and Immigration Union appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. He said, when it came to the role of the disastrous $60-million ArriveCAN app, “we believe the goal of the app is to replace officers”.
He spoke to how he believes that, had his workers been listened to during the ArriveCAN process, instead of being replaced by a two-person IT firm at the cost of $60 million to taxpayers, then, “a great deal of what happened would not have happened.”
At the human resources committee's study of Bill C-58, we heard from labour representatives how outsourced contractors and consultants were a concern for their workers. The Liberal government says it stands on the side of labour, yet it actively sidelines its hard-working public service workers and, worse yet, replaces their work with expensive, outside, outsourced consultants and contractors at the cost of billions to taxpayers. We also heard from labour representatives that outside consultants and contractors can be demoralizing for their workers when someone has been hired from outside as an external contractor to oversee these duties or do the same duties.
The Liberals have hired a lot of public sector workers during their time in government. These workers surely have the needed experience and expertise, but then, behind closed doors, the Liberals choose to not trust them with major government initiatives. Instead, they replace their work with that of high-priced, Liberal-friendly contractors and consultants, at the cost of billions of dollars to Canadian taxpayers.
One of the things Bill C-58 would do would be to amend the maintenance of activities process to “encourage employers and trade unions to reach an earlier agreement respecting activities to be maintained in the event of a legal strike or lockout”.
Our committee heard from many stakeholders on the types of implementations that typically arise when identifying these essential activities. One of the challenges identified was what qualifies as work that is in the national interest, public safety or critical infrastructure. While these may be easy to identify as essential activities in some workplaces, we heard of some challenges of identifying essential activities in often limited windows of time.
Lastly, while I spoke earlier about the concerning trend of the Liberal government endorsing replacement work through outside contractors and consultants inside the government, I would also like to speak to the government's record of replacing Canadian workers with international workers as part of multi-billion dollar agreements with major corporations.
When the Liberals signed agreements that provided $44 billion in taxpayer money to massively profitable corporations in exchange for building electric battery plants in Ontario, they promised that that would create Canadian jobs. When Conservatives pointed out that these plants would be built with international labour instead of Canadian labour, both the Liberal employment minister and Liberal industry minister tried to downplay the number, saying it would only be a small handful.
Conservatives did not believe the Liberals, and neither did Canada's building trades unions. Union members wrote a letter to the Prime Minister outlining how foreign workers are displacing Canadian labourers at the NextStar construction site, all while 180 local millwrights and ironworkers were unemployed and available to perform the necessary work.
The Canada's Building Trades Union president wrote a letter to the Prime Minister. He said, “Canadian workers are now being replaced by international workers at an increasing pace, on work that was previously assigned to Canadian workers”. He used the word “replaced”.
The Liberal ministers were also not truthful when they said this was only a short-term issue that required foreign replacement workers who had “specialized knowledge”.
As the letter from Canada's Building Trades Union points out, “This is the brazen displacement of Canadian workers in favour of international workers, by major international corporations thumbing their noses at both the Government of Canada, taxpayers, and our skilled trades workers.” The Liberals say that they want to ban replacement workers, yet they have allowed Canadian workers to be replaced in favour of the demands of internationally profitable organizations.
During the labour minister's appearance at committee on Bill C-58, we asked him why he had not demanded a memorandum as part of the deal to guarantee hiring Canadian contractors for the Stellantis plant. The minister said he did not view this as his role, and that it was a matter of provincial jurisdiction, even though potential foreign workers coming to Canada is a federal responsibility.
Workers cannot trust these words or the promises of more jobs supposedly outlined in these agreements with Stellantis or other deals. If the Liberals wanted to regain workers' trust, they should simply make the commitment for Canadian jobs outlined in these agreements public, but they refuse to do so.
At other committees, Conservative members tried to get access to the contracts. However, Liberal and NDP members filibustered to protect the government and prevent workers from hearing the truth.
In addition, Conservatives were pushing the Liberal government to release details of its agreement with Honda Canada on building its electric vehicle operations in Ontario. Such disclosure is necessary to ensure Canadians get all the jobs in this multi-billion dollar project. Yes, the NDP, the party that calls itself a friend of workers, is joining with the Liberals in hiding contracts from Canadian workers and the Canadian public.
Another thing I will bring up with respect to workers is the just transition legislation, which has been renamed. An internal government document disclosed that 2.7 million workers would be affected by the legislation. There is a lot of uncertainty with this. There is concern as to what this means, and it is creating stress for workers in the country, particularly those in the energy sector. This lengthy government document outlines some other potential jobs. However, they are nowhere near the same level for pay and benefits. There is concern among workers in this country, and legislation such as this certainly does not put people's minds at ease.
It is one of the great privileges of my role as the shadow minister for employment, future workforce development and disability inclusion to travel this country and speak to many workers. The input I have received from them has really been very meaningful. I appreciate those conversations and hearing what a lot of their issues and suggestions are.
Conservatives have been supporting the proposed legislation along the way and continue to do so. However, it is clear the legislation before us today alone will not resolve all the issues with respect to workers being replaced in many different ways.