Madam Speaker, there is not a whole lot I can get in at this point with three minutes, but I will say that I am proud to rise as the labour critic for the NDP and to speak to the bill.
Prior to being elected, I spent 16 years working as the director of legal resources for the Teamsters Local No. 31. In that time period, I did not just walk picket lines, as my hon. colleague, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, said, but I negotiated collective agreements, I made applications to the labour board, I defended the right to strike, I prosecuted unfair labour practices and I did essential services designations. There was probably not a section of the Canada Labour Code that I did not deal with in those 16 years. This is not a theoretical exercise to me or to the millions of workers in this country. It affects their lives.
Here is what I know from that experience: One, collective bargaining is the foundation of union rights in this country. Two, the right of a worker to withdraw their services is a charter-protected strike.
I am surprised to see the Liberals so easily violate charter rights, because they themselves claim proudly that they are the party of the charter. As the party of the charter, eight times in the past two years, they have violated the charter rights as described by the Supreme Court of Canada. That is not an NDP position, but the highest court in the land that said that workers have the right to withdraw their services as a core expression of their right to free assembly and association. Eight times this government has ended that right by sending an email.
Now, my hon. colleague, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, is saying that NDP governments, in the past, have brought in back-to-work legislation. That is the democratic way to do it, after many days of labour action, and then back-to-work legislation is debated in the House. However, that is not what this government has done. The Liberals ended eight strikes by an email. When did they do it? It was 12 hours after the flight attendants at Air Canada went off the job, and 10 hours after the rail workers at CN and CP rail went off the job. They did not even wait a day for these workers to express their charter rights before they were violated. The only power labour has is the power to withdraw their services. That is it. If we interfere with that right, we interfere with the very foundation of collective bargaining.
Collective bargaining is a success in Canada, and 99% of collective agreements are resolved without a strike or lockout. They are resolved at the bargaining table. I have heard repeatedly from the government, and all members of the House, that the best agreements are agreements reached at the bargaining table. Do members know why they are reached at the bargaining table? It is because unions and employers have a tool—