Réal Ménard

[Criminal Code, April 21st, 1997]

Mr. Chairman, I have a question and a comment. Earlier, I was relieved when I heard the hon. member for Calgary-Centre, because I was afraid we were getting into something close to a filibuster. That would have been disappointing, I must admit. But the hon. member was most reassuring, and I know his reputation for style and fair play. I really had the feeling that the three parties had reached an agreement to ensure that the bill would be passed as soon as possible.

I am grateful to the minister for recalling what happened in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. The minister knows how concerned I am about the whole issue of organized crime. I have two comments, since I will not speak again on this bill because I really want us to proceed as quickly as possible.

I had an opportunity, for which I thank the minister and his officials, to ask some questions during a briefing session. I imagine the same opportunity was offered to our Reform Party colleagues. During this session I was able to discuss technical aspects of the bill.

So I would appeal to all members of the House to let us proceed as quickly as possible. I also want to explain to my Reform Party colleagues who are very close to the police community that three major demands made by police associations across the country have been documented in a report.

I would be delighted to table this report which is about the management of the proceeds of crime in Canada, if the House were to give its unanimous consent. One of the document's main recommendations is that there should be aggravating circumstances when an offence is committed in relation to organized crime. I understand why this provision found its way into the bill, and the minister can confirm my statement.

My question to the minister is as follows: Could he ask his officials to make a list of the offences covered by this bill, so that we have a better understanding of the legislation? I do not know whether departmental employees have already done so. I do know that there is a reference to all offences punishable by more than five years imprisonment, and these are mainly offences already included in the Criminal Code. However, to give all members of this House a better understanding of the legislation, it might be useful if the Department of Justice promised to distribute this list before we finish our business or by the end of this week. I think it would be very interesting for all members to have this list.

Finally, I want to make one last appeal to have this bill passed with all due dispatch, and I can assure the minister he will have our full co-operation.

[Immigration, April 18th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, what is not a matter of course is our treating these people as if they were criminals, when they are not. This family is being treated like criminals. The parents and the three children have been thrown into prison.

Until the situation is clarified, could the minister arrange to release these people who are accused of nothing so that we can at least stop aggravating the situation these innocent people are facing?

[Immigration, April 18th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, we now know this is a government delaying tactic. If I were the leader, I would not be too worried about our return.

My question is for the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

As we speak, a family from Belgium seeking to immigrate to Quebec is in prison. The father, the mother and the three children aged 9, 13 and 14 are at the Laval detention centre. The entire situation is based on a bureaucratic mess arising from misunderstanding, and false and erroneous information.

It appears that Mr. Truzewicz is being held on account of a robbery committed 18 years ago in Belgium. He however has shown that it was not he who committed the robbery, but someone using his car.

Is the minister prepared to examine this matter immediately so that Mr. Truzewicz and his family are accorded fairer treatment? A little understanding, please.

[Linguistic School Boards, April 17th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Prime Minister told us he was proud to have unilaterally patriated the Constitution.

How can the Prime Minister be proud of continually going over the head of the national assembly? Does he not, in fact, take pride in showing contempt for Quebec's institutions?

[Linguistic School Boards, April 17th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister or anyone who aspires to take his place.

Yesterday, as I listened to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs answer questions, I could almost hear Pierre Elliott Trudeau back in 1982. Once again, the government was busy denying the Quebec National Assembly's legitimacy and thumbing its nose at the people of Quebec by interfering directly in matters that come under the exclusive jurisdiction of Quebec.

Does the Prime Minister not realize that, through the arrogant attitude of his Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, his government is setting itself up as the judge of democratic decisions reached by the national assembly?

[Justice, March 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, by postponing the case in this way, the minister must be aware that there is a risk of abuse of process.

Does the Minister of Justice realize that his department is creating conditions that will make it impossible to extradite Jacques Émond, thus protecting a criminal?

[Justice, March 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, since 1993 the American legal system has been asking Canadian authorities to extradite the Jacques Émond, of the Hell's Angels. Mr. Émond, who is now living in British Columbia, is accused of conspiring to traffic in large quantities of hashish and cocaine and of having been a full time member of a criminal organization between January 1976 and February 1990.

How can the Minister of Justice explain that after three and a half years the case to request extradition has been postponed eight times at the request of the crown and that Jacques Émond is still in Canada?

[Canada Labour Code, March 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted. Ten minutes is far more than I need.

I would also like to bring to your attention what the Sims report said. Although a number of provisions in the bill have been improved, the fact remains that this bill is, in some respects, quite paternalistic.

Think of the power that the minister has to impose, to demand that the parties hold a secret strike vote. This is a very paternalistic element, because what the unions told us is that they do not need the minister telling them to hold a secret ballot, that this is already union practice. This authoritarian, paternalistic, backward-looking, outdated, old-fashioned power is not granted to the minister. However, in collective agreements, in union practices, it is recognized that, such an important decision, a decision as strategic, as binding on the parties as the decision to strike, must be voted on by the workers. This power that the minister is claiming for himself is simply in bad taste. We, of course, had to put forward an amendment to limit this power.

The Canada Labour Code contains some shameful remnants from a paternalistic era. Indeed, the Sims report suggested that eight powers presently exercised by the minister be transferred to the federal conciliation and mediation service.

I am speaking, of course, about section 57.5, which makes reference to the power to appoint the arbitrators and arbitration boards; the power conferred by section 59 concerning the possibility of receiving, first and foremost, in a privileged way, copies of arbitral awards; the power conferred by section 71 concerning notices of dispute; the power conferred by section 72 to appoint conciliation commissioners and conciliators; the power conferred by section 105 to appoint mediators; the power, which is probably the most outrageous, conferred by section 108.1 to order a vote on the employer's last offers; and section 97(3), which provides that the minister can authorize one of the parties, the union, to file a complaint with the Canada Industrial Relations Board concerning allegations of bad faith.

It is crystal clear; according to the Sims report, all these powers had to be transferred to the federal mediation and conciliation service.

Again, these are amendments that would have been in the best interests of the government and that would have allowed it to comply with the requests of the official opposition and to co-operate with it.

To summarize, I must once again say this: we recognize that the bill has been improved because of a number of clauses that allow the Canada Labour Relations Board to act more expeditiously. We recognize that the Canada Labour Relations Board, which will become the Canada Industrial Relations Board, will be more representative of the stakeholders, and we welcome this change.

But we think that the minister could and should have shown more leadership and courage by including in the code some very clear clauses designating the use of replacement workers as an unfair practice, as the Quebec government did.

We also believe that the Canada Labour Code should deal with the inevitable technological changes and that it would have been profitable, innovative and visionary for the government to let the unions not only participate in the implementation of technological changes, but also, in case of disagreement, to give them the opportunity to re-open collective agreements.

We also think that we should have taken this opportunity to extend Part I of the Canada Labour Code to the members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, as they have been asking for almost ten years now.

But the government will suffer even more disgrace when the Canadian people realize how it keeps discriminating against RCMP employees by refusing them the same access to collective bargaining as all the other police forces in Canada.

Is it acceptable that, in the RCMP, a grievance from an employee must be heard by the RCMP commissioner, which makes him both judge and jury? This goes against one of the most basic principles of natural justice.

So the reform did not go far enough and, I think it must be said, lacked vision and breath, but we were vigilant and we moved amendments. Everybody must know that the government did not

pay due consideration to our amendment proposals. They were rejected offhandedly, yet they would have greatly improved the bill.

I want to tell you-and I will conclude on this-that if the same bill were to come up for study once again, we as people of principle would not hesitate to move exactly the same amendments.

[Canada Labour Code, March 11th, 1997]

I am grateful to them for sharing a sorrow as deep as it is obvious, when all is said and done.

The parliamentary secretary is laughing, but he did go along the government. He said nothing. He remained silent, close-mouthed. He did not let on anything, when he should have come to the defence of civil servants on this issue.

The bill has another flaw, another major shortcoming, which concerns the committee. All the hon. members in the House spend a lot of time in committee; come would even say too much time. We wanted the committee to be involved in the appointment process, to be involved in certain strategic decisions regarding the Canada Industrial Relations Board.

We have been extremely supportive of the government's amendments, when these resulted in allowing the Board to act more expeditiously, much more diligently. We believed, and we still do, that one way to improve the labour relations process, as far as appointments, or certain strategic decisions, are concerned, would be to establish a link between this process and the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development, which includes elected members of all political parties. Sadly, we met with nothing but indifference in this regard.

The bill has another flaw, and I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that you will agree with my analysis that the situation is perfectly ridiculous. On a bright sunny day, the CSN appeared before the committee. The very vocal CSN came to see us, and so did workers from Ogilvie Mills, who went through a long, hard and risky work conflict that left very concrete scars, all this because of the lack of antiscab provisions in the federal legislation. But I will get back to this issue later on.

We proposed a seemingly unimportant amendment, which did not ask the government to spend more or to change its philosophy. What did we ask? You will not believe this. We asked that flour mills come under provincial jurisdiction. Believe it or not, our amendment was not taken into consideration. And yet we had made it very clear that mills had to come under provincial jurisdiction.

Could someone in this House, perhaps the parliamentary secretary, tell us for what reason mills were under federal jurisdiction in such unusual circumstances as World War II? We can understand why, in that specific context, mills would come under federal

jurisdiction, but what was the rationale behind this? I am convinced that if we did a little survey and asked people around why, in 1997, flour mills are under federal jurisdiction, no one would be able to provide an explanation.

Everyone knows that it would be much simpler, wiser and smarter to have mills come under provincial jurisdiction.

Believe it or not, the government bluntly rejected our amendment. I made a wager, something I very seldom do, I bet that if there were an amendment from the Bloc Quebecois that had a chance to be well received by the government, it was not the one about replacement workers nor the one about the right to strike, but the one about flour mills. Well, my amendment was defeated. I found myself with both feet in the flour.

I want to quote what the CNTU people told us: "Most people who get involved in our labour relations for the first time are always surprised to find out that mill workers come under the Canada Labour Code. As for us, after having been a union for more than 30 years, we are still wondering about this situation. Why is that? Because before modern laws governing collective labour relations came into effect, the federal government, using its declaratory power-and I know the hon. member for Chambly, being a lawyer, understands the impact of the declaratory power-ruled that flour mills came under its jurisdiction".

The witness went on: "Such an initiative may have been justified in an era of world conflicts and protectionism, but not today, especially since the Americans have gained control over most of this production, and especially since the Crow's Nest rate was abolished and it is easier to move wheat across the U.S. border. The argument no longer holds".

It is not the Bloc saying it, nor the opposition critic for labour relations, it was a witness as neutral as the CNTU. So the CNTU is telling us that there the argument no longer holds. Just like beer production-an example that strikes a chord with about everyone-flour production should fall under provincial jurisdiction.

It was useless. I pleaded, I presented a brief, I asked questions of witnesses, but I got nowhere. That is what happened with the flour production issue.

The government is quite silent on another extremely important change. Unions have been making demands that are eminently sensible in a context of technological change. Everybody is talking about technological change. We all know this is an issue we should be discussing. Chances are that a worker who is 20 years of age today will have five, six or seven different jobs during his or her adult life. Our context today is quite different from the one my father knew.

My father, who must be listening today, worked at the same job for 30 years, and was quite happy with that. His career started in one company where he obviously had successive promotions, but he always worked for the same company doing the same kind of job.

Workers today will have five, six or seven careers. What does that mean? It means that individuals need mobility, and that is why we talk about ongoing training. It also means that production cycles keep changing. Chances are any given product is not manufactured the same way today as it was in 1985 or will be in 2003 or 2004. That is why unions have asked that every technological change implemented led to the reopening of collective agreements.

Not content with reopening collective agreements, unions wish to take part in the implementation of the technological change, because for the production processes to be successful, they have to be agreed upon. Employers and management not only have to advise workers, they have to work hand in hand with them. Believe it or not, the supposedly modernized Canada Labour Code remains absolutely quiet on such an important issue as technological change.

Again, we have played our part as the opposition, we have put forward an amendment, we have pleaded with the government, but what did it do? It rejected our amendment out of hand. I want the viewers from every region of Canada to know that the Bloc Quebecois came up with about fifty amendments. Unfortunately, the government did not approve any of them even though we worked very hard on them, attended all the committee's hearings and put questions that helped with the testimonies of witnesses.

Even though we co-operated, even though we took part in all the committee's hearings, believe it or not, the government did not approve any of our amendments. Let that be a lesson for things to come.

The biggest flaw of this bill, the area where the minister was the most overcautious, where he lacked fortitude, where he showed no backbone, if I may say so, is the provisions concerning replacement workers.

I will only say a few words about this issue, because, as you know, two of my colleagues in this House have introduced bills related to this matter.

The hon. member for Bourassa, who himself came from the great central labour body that is the FTQ introduced, soon after taking his seat in this House, a bill to that effect. He has always bee concerned with the issue of replacement workers. We know this is a significant factor for striking a balance in a conflict. I will come back to this point later. I know the hon. member for Bourassa will speak on this issue. If I am not mistaken, our colleague, the hon. member for Manicouagan, also introduced a bill very early on.

When we formed the official opposition, we asked questions to the government, we asked it to step in, we introduced bills. What are we talking about? We talk of the following fact. A strike is the ultimate stage, the last resort the union has to get its point across. Nobody goes on strike deliberately, for the fun of it. When people finally accept a strike, it is really because they feel this is their last resort in making their point.

It is important to know that pursuant to the Canada Labour Code, no strike can be authorized without the consent of the Minister. Therefore, this is not a process marked by anarchy but a controlled process. Steps and deadlines are set out. Conciliation is even possible in one single step, and this is one of the improvements brought in by the bill. What, however, is the use of all these amendments if the employer can still use replacement workers? What does this mean?

This means that when a bargaining unit is on strike, with the Minister's consent, it is possible that workers who are duly authorized to strike see part of their duties done by what we call scabs. This is extremely negative in the workplace, since two categories of workers are thus created. This also breeds hostility.

We would have liked the Canadian government to use what was done in Quebec as a model. In 1977, in Quebec, the then minister of labour, Pierre-Marc Johnson, a member of the Lévesque cabinet, introduced legislation to include in Quebec's labour code a provision declaring it an unfair practice to use replacement workers.

When an employer resorts to replacement workers, this gives the union an automatic right of recourse. It is considered an unfair practice subject to legal action and fines. There is nothing ambiguous about it; it is clear. It is an accepted rule of the game recognized by everyone. It is a final resort, I repeat.

We are not saying that the parties are not first asked to negotiate, or that the possibility of turning to conciliators and mediators does not exist. We are saying that when all avenues have been exhausted and it is impossible to reach agreement, the right to strike ought to be exercised with the assurance that replacement workers will not be used.

The Canadian government has not had the courage of its convictions. When the Liberals were in opposition, they favoured the adoption of policies limiting recourse to replacement workers. Now that they form the government, they have shied away from that position.

Let us be clear. Can there be consensus on this issue in society? Of course not. Pierre-Marc Johnson did not have it when he proposed his legislation in Quebec in 1977. The Conseil du patronat threatened to take the matter to the courts.

Pardon me, Mr. Speaker. I am getting over a cold. However, I would like to reassure the government that I will be there for the next election. I am amazingly resilient. Give me two days and I will be a new man.

Regarding replacement workers, I want to remind members that the argument used by the government, when it says there was no consensus in the Sims report, does not stand up to close scrutiny.

Of course, there was no consensus. Could one have been reached on such a delicate issue? Do you think that if the Government of Quebec, which was headed by René Lévesque at the time, had waited for a consensus, Quebec would now have legislation like the measure I referred to? Of course not.

There are times in politics when you cannot rely on consensus but rather have to act with courage and have a certain vision. You will understand that the government in front of us has failed miserably, on both these counts.

What impact has the act forbidding the use of replacement workers had in Quebec since 1977? There have been fewer labour disputes. The act did not automatically ensure settlement of disputes, but there have been fewer of them and, most importantly, they have been shorter and less violent.

You will understand that there is less violence because replacement workers are no longer allowed. Should we not consider what happened during the labour dispute at Ogilvie Mills, which was a long, violent and a very bitter dispute? As lawmakers, is it not our duty to remember that it is not only the workers who suffer during a strike, but also their families?

When a worker is on strike for a year and a half or even two years and a half, his family must bear very serious consequences. There is a loss of income and, in a number of cases, discouragement and depression, which are very normal and human reactions, set in.

They could have taken up the defence of workers if they had had the courage of their convictions. Had this government called on us to pass an anti-scab clause, it would have gained the unfailing support of the official opposition. All members of the official opposition, whatever region they come from, their education or their age, would have agreed to such a clause. Unfortunately, the government refused to go ahead.

As I said, the official opposition's arguments about flour mills, scabs and technological change were ignored. The opposition's willingness to co-operate was turned down. It is unfortunate, and we will never forget it. We will not live long enough to forget the contempt we endured as the opposition here. I am not afraid to say so, because I worked very hard on this issue. If we had to start all

over, we would still move the same amendments and make the same arguments, because we have principles.

There is another shortcoming in this bill. The government could have built on Quebec's experience. In Quebec, there is an evergreen clause, when a collective agreement has expired. Which means that until a new collective agreement takes effect and is signed by the parties, there is what is called an evergreen clause.

I would not be able to say it in Latin, although others may be, but the fact remains that, in principle, workers are not deprived of the protection provided to them by their collective agreement because they are engaged in a collective bargaining process.

You can guess what happened. The government disposed of our amendment as it did with everything else. This amendment was defeated. I know this may come as a surprise to my colleagues, but that is the reality.

I am afraid that my time has expired. Mr. Speaker, can you tell me how much time I have left?

[Canada Labour Code, March 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to welcome this bill. We will have the opportunity to come back to it, but I must say this bill needs some significant amendments. We wish the minister had been more courageous as far as replacement workers and technological changes are concerned and he is aware of that, but nonetheless, I am convinced that the minister acted in good faith and gave the committee all the information we asked for and I want to thank him and his associates, Albano Gidaro and Pierre Tremblay, for that. I also want to thank our researcher, Marc-André Veilleux, who worked hard in order to propose some very appropriate amendments.

That being said, we must remind the House that this bill is far more than an ordinary law, more than a simple law, because it deals with the Canada Labour Code. Authorities will be required to make some extremely important rulings based on the wording of the code, as these rulings will impact on labour democracy and on the balance we have the right to expect in labour-management relations.

I wish the government had done much more. I understand that the conditions one must deal with as Minister of Labour in a continental country like Canada, where conservative forces are extremely active, are not the same as in Quebec. We will have the opportunity to come back to this, but, as you know, in Quebec, the whole issue of labour democracy and replacement workers has been settled for at least 10 if not 20 years.

Let us start at the beginning, that is with the positive aspects of the bill. I believe that all the parties mentioned that the Canada Industrial Relations Board, which will replace the present Canada Labour Relations Board, will be much more representative. The concerned parties had asked to be associated with the appointment process and, indeed, the new board will have three permanent members appointed from among the employers and three permanent members from the union movement. That is positive.

There is also in the bill a willingness to give the board more power to avoid what happened a few months ago, when a major crisis almost split the board-those who followed the issue will understand-while at the same time defining the scope of the board and the powers given to the chairperson, and this is positive as well.

We also welcome the possibility for the board to have a panel of one. This will make the process much more efficient. Work will proceed faster, and this should be to the advantage of all parties involved.

We are also pleased by the willingness of the government to redefine the role of Director General of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. That person, a man at the present time, intervenes at every stage of a labour dispute and is responsible for making very important recommendations to the minister. To that extent, we believe it is wise that his or her role be clearly defined.

One of the most remarkable achievements of the bill is probably the addition to the new labour code of a single-stage conciliation process, something which had been requested by all parties. I will come back to that point, but let me say that the previous two- or three-stage process was extremely time-consuming and probably not very conducive to bringing the parties together.

That being said, it would have been possible for the minister to be much bolder, much more enterprising.

We have to admit that, even though a number of amendments are worthwhile, this reform is incomplete. Still, extremely important

demands were made, by both management and labour, but the government did not respond favourably to them.

I will give some examples. First, it has long been recognized that RCMP officers and workers are being discriminated against. The Sims report, which the minister likes to quote at length, shows it makes absolutely no sense for the RCMP to be the only police force in Canada not to have access to collective bargaining.

We are not talking about the right to strike. No RCMP spokesperson, both in the recent past and in the evidence submitted to the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development, asked for the right to strike. They understand the nature of their work. However, they legitimately asked to be able to negotiate, to have access to collective bargaining, like all other public sector workers.

When they were on this side of the House, the Liberals moved some motions calling for the right of RCMP officers to unionize. Now in government, the same Liberals are cruelly letting them down.

The House will recall that the official opposition tabled a motion but the Liberals refused to debate these matters. Today, we are faced with this kind of discrimination being perpetuated, maintained and condoned by a government, which should be ashamed of itself for denying people as central to the functioning of society as RCMP members the right to unionize.

Same thing with the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the Professional Institute of the Public Service. Both unions have made representations to the government in order to come under part I of the Canada Labour Code. This demand was made in committee. They met privately with the minister, but in the end, although this would be in their best interest, these workers are still not allowed to negotiate under part I of the Canada Labour Code.

Why did PSAC and PIPS members ask for this right? Quite simply because, being subject to the Public Service Staff Relations Act, PSAC cannot negotiate provisions as important as those governing job security, protection against technological changes-I will come back on that-job classification, appointments, promotions, transfers, all very important aspects of a career plan.

What difference would it have made for the government to recognize that it would be beneficial, a very significant motivating factor for public service employees to be able to bargain under part I? It must be recognized that there was serious lack of sensitivity on the part of the government on this issue in particular. Sensitivity is what sets great reforms apart.

This is an amendment that would not have cost the public purse tremendous amounts of money. We can see in what shape public finances are in Canada. This is an amendment that would have represented a very significant motivating factor for workers. It is sad to say the least-and that is what bothers me the most-that the government turned a deaf ear. And I know my colleagues are as disappointed as I am.