Dale Johnston

[Dna Identification Act, November 3rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to speak on the bill today. We should reflect back to 1995 at which time there was no process in place to collect the necessary material for a DNA sample.

I was in the House the day the member for Wild Rose challenged the Minister of Justice to bring forth a bill to allow for the collection of DNA samples. It was pertinent to an upcoming case in which the DNA samples would have a large bearing on the guilt or innocence of the person involved.

To the commendation of the government, it acted quickly. It brought in a bill. We debated it in the House. It was passed so that now there is a process in place through which DNA samples can be collected. Prior to that there was no procedure.

Certainly it is a step forward but whenever we consider this type of legislation we have to think about the balance between the rights of the individual and the rights of the accused to privacy and the rights of the public to be protected and to enjoy a law-abiding society, or at least a society that takes action when people do not abide by the law.

While there may be some concern that this is an intrusion into one's personal life, perhaps a check stop is also an intrusion. Someone can be motoring down the highway perfectly legally, well licensed, insured, in a safe vehicle and so forth. A policeman can pull him over simply because he is stopping everybody to check for drivers who have been drinking. I suppose a true libertarian would say that is an infringement on the rights of the driving public. We always have to weigh whether or not we have to give up some of our so-called rights to make society acceptable for all.

That is one of the main reasons the breathalyser test was brought in. It is simply a collection of exhaled air rather than a blood test. At the time when we were talking about the legality of breathalyser tests in Canada there were people who said that taking a blood sample was an intrusion into the personal rights of the accused. The breathalyser test was developed as a result of that balancing act. What we are proposing as an amendment is a balancing act between individual rights and collective rights of society.

Some concerns have been raised with regard to what will happen to the collected DNA provided the accused is acquitted. Those details certainly could be worked out. The DNA information should be kept with the local establishment, the arresting body in whatever town, city, village, or wherever the arrest takes place. If after the trial it is determined the accused is innocent or is acquitted, the evidence should be automatically destroyed. An application should not have to be made. That could be easily accommodated in the bill. It would speak volumes to people who are libertarians and who set their personal freedoms ahead of all other freedoms.

I am reminded of one of my father's quotes when he said that democracy and freedom were all about being able to do whatever it is that one wanted to do provided it did not interfere with the rights of others. That sums it up quite nicely. When one interferes with the rights of others or when one's actions causes the rights of others to be lessened or infringed upon, these kinds of consequences have to take place.

I stress the balancing aspect of the legislation. It is of utmost importance. The question of whether or not the DNA material, evidence or analysis will be widely or locally distributed can be very easily dealt with in the legislation. I am pleased to hear it being raised as a concern because of the possibility of having it included in the legislation. It is of utmost importance.

We must also not assume that DNA evidence is there only to convict. It is also there in cases where the accused would be very pleased to offer up a DNA sample and I can think of a few cases without enumerating them. We all know of cases in which people have been accused and convicted on circumstantial evidence and where DNA evidence has ultimately proven their innocence.

This can be viewed from both sides. We should not automatically assume this is a convicting tool. It is also a tool that will determine innocence. It is very much along the lines of the breathalyser test, a commonplace test for sobriety.

I am very pleased to see the Reform Party has put forth these amendments and that the government has at last come forth with the legislation and has allowed us to debate it here today. In my opinion this debate is excellent. My hope is that the government is willing and ready to accept the Reform amendments.

I am a little disappointed that the government is not here to share its rationale behind this legislation. I would very much like to hear how it views the privacy aspect and the public need aspect. I know the government is monitoring what is going on in here now. I would certainly like it to put forth somebody from the justice department to enlighten us a little more on their thoughts on this matter.

[Tamara Okeynan, October 30th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, today in my constituency of Wetaskiwin baby Tamara Okeynan will be laid to rest in the ancestral burial grounds of the Hobbema Indian Reserve.

With Tamara's birth imminent, her parents who do not own a car or a telephone, attempted to walk the five kilometres to get a ride to the hospital. There would be no hospital delivery for baby Tamara. Time ran out for mother and daughter and the baby was delivered not in sterile surroundings but on the shoulder of the gravel road. Throughout the two-hour ordeal the plight of Tamara's mom and dad were ignored by passing motorists.

We pride ourselves on being a caring nation, on the cutting edge of technology. Yet despite her parent's valiant efforts a young life slipped away before she had a chance to experience the things we all take for granted.

I would like to offer my sympathy and that of all members of this House to Tamara's parents, Paul and Lorna, and their families who have been denied an opportunity to know this infant.

[Fair Wages And Hours Of Labour Act, October 28th, 1997]

Yes, Madam Speaker.

There are so many places to start I hardly know where to begin. My colleague the parliamentary secretary implies that employees are now not being paid a fair wage. She says she would like to see that and so would I.

However I would put to my hon. colleague that people are being paid fair wages. Evidence of that is in my talk where I say that there have been very few complaints made. Of the complaints made, a lot of them have been found to have no basis. There is quite conclusive proof that people are being paid fair wages at the time.

The parliamentary secretary further says that there is no 100% guarantee that the system they are considering will work. I propose that the system now is working. Case in point, there are .00002% of the cases where it is not working. That is so close to 100% I do not see how the parliamentary secretary could possibly argue.

On the matter of overtime, these schedules we are talking about would restrict workers to work eight hours a day. Any time after that would have to be overtime. I realize that my friends in the more socialist parties would say that is great, that it is a good thing.

However a lot of contracts now are negotiated by the employer and the union to allow trades people and labourers to work four 10-hour days rather than five 8-hour days. The result of that is when they are working away from home, as in the construction business, most of the time they can work their 40 hours in four days rather than five days and have a long weekend every weekend. They would have actually more time to spend with their families.

If we come in with wage schedules that say that it cannot be done, then we will deny these people time spent with their families. I am positive my colleagues would not want to have these people spending more time on the job and less time with their families.

I thought I had done such a good job of delivering information, unbiased of course, to my colleague from the Bloc that he would certainly support this. I was very surprised to see that he would say “yes, yes, I think it is a good idea that the federal government would interfere with the wage schedules and hours of work in my province of Quebec”. I was amazed.

I thought all along that the Bloc among other things, stood for more autonomy of the provinces, more devolution of power to the provinces, more made in the province solutions rather than top down things from the federal government, a paternal type of government. I guess I was wrong.

My colleague from the Bloc talked about a vacuum. There is no vacuum. The area that he claims to be a vacuum is filled by people who are getting fair wages. The case for that again is 99.888% of the contracts now are being paid fair wages.

I want to close on this note. I think my time is pretty well up. I think that any time I am admonished by the NDP, my constituents leap up and say “yahoo, that guy is on the right track”.

[Fair Wages And Hours Of Labour Act, October 28th, 1997]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should not reinstate the wage schedules under the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act, but allow the provincial wages and hours to prevail.

Madam Speaker, in 1935 the Parliament of Canada passed the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act. It applied only to private sector contractors working for the federal government on construction projects. An example would be a new post office or some federal government public works project.

In those depression era days, when jobs were scarce and the labour market was plentiful, such legislation may have been justified to some extent to ensure that labourers were not exploited and underpaid for the work performed.

In 1983 Canada was in the midst of another depression, probably the worst one since the dirty thirties. Since the legislation did not stipulate that wages and hours of work schedules were mandatory, the Liberal government of the day suspended all activity relating to schedules for construction projects on federal sites. Those we will remember as the days of six and five, the wage and price control program the Liberals told Canadians they would never implement but did.

It seems the Liberal government has a long history of broken promises.

Schedules were frozen at 1982 levels so contracts would remain within this six and five range. When the Liberals were defeated in 1984 the new government re-evaluated the need for these schedules.

This evaluation revealed that the legislation was largely irrelevant and affected only a small segment of the construction sector, approximately 3%, and that the wages, hours of work and overtime problems it was designed to address in 1935 were being dealt with quite adequately under provincial legislation through collective agreements and by the marketplace.

Wage schedules and the survey on which they were based were found to be expensive to administer and statistically unsound. In 1987 the government officially suspended the issuing of schedules for a three year trial period. That trial period found that the introduction of wage schedules would likely increase so-called fair wage compliant levels only marginally. However, the cost to the department of those schedules was estimated to be approximately $270,000.

We know these approximations are just that and generally they tend to run a lot higher than originally set out. It was felt this high administration cost did not warrant a continuation of the practice of maintaining wage schedules.

Fast forward the VCR to April 24, 1997. The prime minister was just a few days from calling a federal election, and the government's olive branch, Bill C-66, otherwise known as amendments to the Canada Labour Code, was in the process of going down in flames in the other place.

The Liberals, it seems, were in a bit of a panic mode. The Reform Party was gaining momentum. The Liberals feared that their reign was in danger of collapse and that one of the wise things to do was to dispatch the Minister of Labour to Hamilton, the centre of the universe, of course, and home of the former deputy prime minister.

In an attempt to curry favour with the left and secure the Hamilton area seats, the minister announced the reinstatement of those expensive, outdated, unneeded, unnecessary schedules. This was the same government that, only months before, announced with much fanfare that it would no longer set minimum wage rates.

Almost exactly a year ago, on October 30, 1996, the House passed Bill C-35, which aligned the federal minimum wage with the general minimum wage rates established by the provinces and territories.

The rate paid to an employee is based on the employee's province or territory of employment. That is a concept that the Reform Party agrees with, that the going rate in Alberta, British Columbia or even in areas of Alberta or British Columbia or Ontario should be the going minimum rate.

However, the portion of Bill C-35 that Reformers did not agree with was that, if the governor in council did not agree with the rate in the provinces, it could interfere. We say, hands off. If it is good enough for private enterprise and if it is good enough for the provincial governments, then it should be good enough for the federal government as well.

The government showed that it had at least a reasonable amount of faith in the ability of the provinces to set minimum wage, therefore we have to wonder why it would take the opposite approach on wage rates and hours of work in the construction industry.

If the provincial minimum wages are satisfactory, why are the provincial laws governing construction wages and hours not adequate? In other words, if someone is a contractor and had a job in Ontario working for the provincial government doing a public works project, then the federal government would not interfere. It would be a deal between the contractor and the wage earner, the trades people or the labourers.

If someone had a job in the private sector in Ontario—same contractor, now—then the marketplace would determine what those people were paid for their services. However, the minister is suggesting that if that same contractor had a job working for the federal government in the same province with the same crew, it would be subject to the fair wages and hours of work schedules.

I really cannot get a grip on this because what is the rationale? We have been led to believe that not only will the reinstatement of these schedules cost the government the bare minimum, $270,000, and very likely more dollars in administrative costs, estimates are that implementation of the wage schedules will add 2% to 5% to the tab for all construction projects.

That is at a time when the country can ill afford increased contract prices. Why are the contractors going to do this? They are simply going to hedge their contracts. They are going to build this in. They are going to say, it is possible that the federal government is going to impose something on us later so we are going to have to build in something to protect ourselves.

They simply cannot, as a contractor, as an employer, take on a contract for x dollars and then have the person who they are working for, in this case the federal government, come back and say that it has decided because of a complaint that as contractor you did not live up to the schedules and it will cost x dollars. The end result is that these contractors are going to build that extra price into the contract right up front.

If we are to believe the things that the finance minister says about not embarking on a spending spree, and we would like to give him the benefit of the doubt on that, higher costs brought on by the implementation of this outdated practice will mean fewer projects and fewer jobs everywhere but in the labour program of Human Resources Development Canada. We can expect to have more bureaucrats as a result of these schedules.

Let us look back into history a bit more. In 1996, the average hourly construction wage for union and non-union workers in Alberta was higher than what the government was paying its trades people. That hardly seems to be rationale for bringing in schedules called fair wages and hours of work, when the construction industry is already exceeding what the federal government is paying its trades people. There is no rationale there.

I believe this is a blatant attempt by the government to interfere in the marketplace. It will cost taxpayers millions of dollars in unnecessary costs and ultimately, lost wages and lost jobs.

Perhaps a lot of workers complained about unfair wages so let us take a look at that. In 1990 an evaluation revealed that during the three-year trial from 1987 to 1990, six complaints were registered involving fair wages. Two of these were in Newfoundland and Labrador where further investigation turned up that these people were in compliance. In other words, there was no basis for the complaint. Four were in Yukon where violations were found and arrears were collected. During this period, the Department of Public Works awarded 4,622 contracts with a greater value of $30,000 per contract for a total value of $1.428 billion. The fair wage arrears amounted to $31,401, an amount that is .00002% of the $1.428 billion total of other contracts.

I am told that over the last three and a half years in Alberta and the Northwest Territories there have been a total of 26 complaints involving this legislation, virtually all concerning overtime and a few concerning wages. Of these 26 complaints, six were said to involve so-called fair wages and two violations were found. One violation involved wages in the amount of 40¢ an hour and the second is said to involve wages of less than $2 an hour.

Are you confused yet, Madam Speaker? Because this is rather confusing to me. Here are examples of workers who say they are not being remunerated fairly. They make their complaints and in the last three and a half years, 26 of them were in Alberta and in two cases it was found that they were not coming up to the rates. These two cases are out of all the contracts that are awarded by the federal government.

If this process can be put in place, why is it that we need to implement these schedules? This is more than I can comprehend. This sort of rationale escapes me.

In a letter to the Minister of Labour, the president of Merit Contractors stated:

Two fair wage violations over a three and a half year period, involving millions of dollars of work, present a strong case for not using additional resources or mechanisms such as schedules to address the matter that is not problematic.

I would like to have seen this motion as a votable item. However, it is not. The only thing I have at my disposal now is to urge the Minister of Labour to reconsider this rather unnecessary, expensive consideration.

[Petitions, October 6th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to present a petition that was signed by 54 residents of central Alberta.

The petitioners state that in their opinion 38 percent of Canada's national highways are in substandard condition, that the United States and Mexico are engaged in the repair of their national highway systems and Canada should do likewise for the obvious benefits of job creation, lower congestion and better traffic flow.

They therefore call on Parliament to urge the federal government to join with the provincial governments to make a national highway system upgrade possible.

[Final Offer Arbitration In Respect Of West Coast Ports Operations Act, October 6th, 1997]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-233, an act to provide for the settlement of labour disputes affecting west coast ports by final offer arbitration.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Calgary Northeast for seconding my bill.

This is the second time this bill has been presented to the House. I presented it to the House during the last Parliament. I think that introducing it to the House now is timely because we expect that amendments to part I of the Canada Labour Code will come back to the House.

My motion impacts very positively on a final offer selection arbitration settlement mechanism for west coast ports. It would be a welcome addition to part I of the labour code. I look forward to debating it in the House.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Speech From The Throne, October 2nd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I did not hear a question there but in reply to my colleague's comments, I can only underscore the need to have some sort of process in place to encourage the parties to come to an agreement on their own. A negotiated settlement is probably the best settlement. There is no probably about it, it is the best settlement. Any time that two parties can negotiate and settle their differences without any interference from outside is the best way to go.

[Speech From The Throne, October 2nd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, that certainly opens up a great debate. We could probably talk about that for some time. I agree that I have seen some information which tends to indicate that final offer selection arbitration tends to favour labour slightly.

However, every work disruption and every strike results in labour getting some improvements in its situation, either in working conditions, benefits or wages. I think that while some of the information does seem to tend to favour the unions, it would at least settle a strike.

Having to take the drastic step of passing back to work legislation, which, by the way, some government members have already decided, and have said so in the newspapers, is the way to handle the postal strike which has not happened yet, will have a tremendous detrimental effect on the bargaining process.

We should have some apparatus in place that is an item that either labour or management can put in its tool box and require them to bargain this situation right down to the nitty-gritty.

[Speech From The Throne, October 2nd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, let me congratulate you on your appointment to your new job. We actually did not think this was going to happen until we occupied the other side of the House. I am sure that you bring expertise and fairness to the position. I look forward to a long tenure with you.

While I am congratulating and thanking people, I would certainly like to thank the people of the grand old constituency of Wetaskiwin for returning me to the House of Commons for the second time. This is a real endorsement of our party's policies, our leader and our platform. If I may be so bold, it is probably an endorsement of myself as the candidate.

That did not come about strictly by accident. It came about as a result of a lot of hard work. I would like to thank those people who spent so much time, effort and shoe leather getting me elected. They did an exemplary job and I would like to recognize them here in the House.

When I was going around in my constituency during the election campaign, I talked to a lot of people in the coffee shops, on the doorsteps and on the farms throughout the constituency. Their concern was that they felt they had more government than they could afford, that the debt was certainly a huge problem, that it was a millstone around Canadians' necks. They told me that they would like a fresh start. Coincidentally, that is exactly on what we campaigned.

Therefore, it is incumbent on us to do our utmost to give Canadians a fresh start and to ease the tax burden. As the labour critic for the Reform Party, I noticed that the throne speech was sadly lacking in the area of labour.

Being a farmer, labour as it relates to me most directly is in the shipment of grain to port. Of course, a lot of other products have to go to port. We discover that these shipments can be interrupted either through work stoppage, that is a strike or a lockout.

I was most disappointed that the government did not take an opportunity to put into the throne speech some sort of final offer selection dispute settlement mechanism. I think this is of utmost importance. The loss of markets that we suffer each time there is a work disruption is an immeasurable commodity. Although we can measure certain amounts of lost markets, we cannot measure the entire impact on the economy.

Mr. Speaker, if it is not too late I wish to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with the member for Calgary West.

What about the amendments to the Canada Labour Code? We expect them to be tabled in the House very soon. Those amendments would be an excellent opportunity to see a final offer selection arbitration settlement mechanism take place.

This mechanism would affect about 700,000 federal workers, people who do not necessarily work for the federal government but who come under the jurisdiction of the federal labour code. That represents about 10 percent of the Canadian workforce. These people are mostly involved in the movement of goods, services or capital. They are people who work in the airline industry, the banking industry, the railroads and the post office.

We think it is of utmost importance that we have a mechanism to settle these disputes and yet we are not getting any kind of co-operation from the federal government. The federal government will use final offer selection arbitration once they have legislated either a locked out group or a struck group back to work. If it is good enough to use after these people are legislated back to work, then why not make it available to the parties before the work stoppage starts?

How would that work? The parties involved would agree on who their arbitrator was. They would present to the arbitrator the matters that were agreed on, the matters that are outstanding and their final position on those outstanding items. The arbitrator then would choose all of one position or all of the other position, no compromise position.

To me, this is a tool that can be equally used by labour or by management. If it is used to its ultimate, as I have said in this House many times before, it will not to be used at all. Both parties know that they have to bargain in a most earnest situation. They have to arrive at the best possible bottom line. There would be no fudging, no hedging, just the bottom line. If they do not, then an arbitrator can be imposed on them.

Some people have said this takes away the right to strike and disrupts and interferes with the bargaining process. Quite the contrary. Groups that are either locked out or on strike will have their bargaining process far more compromised through back to work legislation than they ever would with final offer selection arbitration.

I was most disappointed that we did not hear any mention of this during the Speech from the Throne. It is high time we adopted this. As I mentioned, Bill C-66 as it was known in the last Parliament, died in the Senate. Therefore I expect that the minister will reintroduce it in the House in the coming weeks. I am going to push very strongly to see that there are some changes made along the lines of final offer selection arbitration.

Canada is in a global marketplace. We have to establish our reputation as a reliable supplier of goods. Not only do we have to supply the best possible commodities, which we do, there is no problem with that, but we have to supply them on a regular, consistent and reliable basis. If we do not, our customers are certainly going to be looking elsewhere. It is like being in the supermarket business, if it is not on the shelf, it is pretty difficult to sell.

I am looking forward to seeing the bill come back to the House for debate, which I am sure will be any day now, at which time we will be addressing it and making all sorts of improvements to it, not the least of which is final offer selection arbitration.

[Petitions, September 29th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by a good number of constituents in the Wetaskiwin riding who are concerned with the sustainability of the Canada Pension Plan.

They are also concerned with the tax hike foisted upon them by the increases in the pension plan and that they will be paying in more and getting back less.

I present this petition on behalf of my constituents.