Dale Johnston

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Mr. Speaker, the member who just sat down tried to claim that these members are anti-union. When I read through their recommendations where they have objection to secret ballot votes, I have to wonder if maybe their amendments are not anti-democratic. What better way to express a view on anything than through a secret ballot.

We talked earlier in other amendments about undue pressure being put on either one side or the other to come to a decision that was considered to be harassment, undue pressure or otherwise excessive convincing. I do not think we can have it both ways. We cannot say that this group is not allowed to express their rights but this group is allowed to express their rights and to put on whatever pressure is necessary so that they can come out with a favourable outcome of their vote.

What are they suggesting, that they have a show of hands only or a mail in ballot? A secret vote is the only way to go.

The government has made some amendments that are worthy of support. I have recommended to our caucus that we support them as they seem to make good sense and are not in any way confrontational. In this particular area we should be doing everything we can to seek a balance and to make sure that one side does not have all the ammunition and the other side just has a shield.

Rather than going on and on in this regard, we would be willing to support Motions Nos. 19, 33 and 35. However I am unable to come up with the proper rationale to support any of the Bloc amendments.

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Mr. Speaker, after reviewing this group of amendments it seems to me that most of the information put forward by our colleagues from the Bloc concerns matters that should be negotiated in a collective agreement.

I agree with the parliamentary secretary that the old agreement should stay in place until such time as negotiations break down and a strike vote or lockout has taken place. I would suggest that it is best for this to remain as it is. I am not willing to support Motion No. 14.

Motion No. 13 is something that should be negotiated between the two interested parties.

In my estimation, Motion No. 36 is very basic. It is about free speech. Some restrictions have been placed already on employers concerning what it takes to certify a union and what does not, what is coercion and what is undue pressure on employees. We must be very careful not to infringe on the rights of people to free speech and expression. In any campaign where for the certification or decertification of a union there will be some lobbying, some campaigning on behalf of both parties. I think that is natural. To not state the pros and cons and the possible outcome which could result is not much different from a political campaign. A scenario has to be laid out, a position and a plan put forward.

I do not see it being much different in these cases. Most of the stuff we are talking about in the three amendments are things that should be negotiated between employer and employee.

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Madam Speaker, since I am not sure how many points I covered when I last spoke I will recap. I also want to raise a point made during question period by the minister of agriculture. In his reply to a question by a member of the NDP, the minister said that if the Saskatchewan government would amend its successor rights it would go a long way to solving the problem with the short line railways and their buyers.

It is a rather strange stance for the minister of agriculture to take when his government is suggesting we should have successor rights in the airline industry. It is strange he suggested that it should not be the same in the railroad industry. We in the Reform Party suggest the section of Bill C-66 that deals with successor rights should be eliminated.

Why should it be eliminated from the bill? We think it complicates things. It does not do what the minister has set out to do, that is to create a balance. It is making legislation for legislation's sake. It is not accomplishing anything.

We also notice the government's amendment to limit the succession rights to the airline securities department. Does it really? Further on we recognize that the governor in council, the cabinet in other words, has the authority to make regulations designating that any other service in any industry would have to comply with the same successor rights provisions. For those reasons we would very much like to see the successor rights portion of the bill removed.

Further, the Sims report from which most of the bill is drafted did not report on the subject. It did not have any consultation with the airlines, the industries or the airports in terms of successor rights.

This is rather ill thought out legislation. It is legislation that may have been brought in to appease certain groups. It is not part of the solution but could be exactly the opposite. It could be part of the problem.

I urge all members of the House to reconsider the portion of the bill that deals with successor rights, specifically clause 47.3 of Bill C-66, and to support the Reform amendment to delete the clause.

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moved:

Motion No. 41

That Bill C-66, in Clause 45, be amended by a ) replacing line 34 on page 34 with the following:

"tion 24(4) or 34(6), section 37, 50 or 69," b ) replacing line 41 on page 34 with the following:

"subsection 24(4), paragraph"

Motion No. 51

That Bill C-66 be amended by deleting Clause 72.

Mr. Speaker, members of Reform believe Motion No. 11 in Group No. 4 will have a beneficial effect on this legislation.

Let us look back at what the minister had hoped to accomplish. His aim was to seek a balance. The more we see of the legislation, as he outlined it, the more we see that there needs to be a balance, yet he has not attained that.

In the area of successor rights, we have suggested that section 47.3 of the bill, which relates specifically to airline industries, should be deleted. That is pretty self-explanatory. The Sims report does not mention successor rights. This whole bill seems to have been drafted after the recommendations in the Sims report and yet there was no reference to successor rights in the Sims report. I wonder where the minister came up with this idea.

The successor rights package is a wide ranging provision. It goes all the way down to baggage handling, telephone services and would interfere with existing collective agreements. For those reasons, Reform supports the deletion of section 47.3.

The people who provide the ground services to the airlines, for example, can have contracts with a number of carriers. That might mean that a truck driver who was supplying services to one, two, three or as many as seven different employers could have as many rates of pay. It is an untenable situation to put any employee in. They would spend more time in the day keeping track of who they worked for and what the pay rate was than they would accomplish in doing what they were really there to do in the first place.

Reform amendments 41 and 51 are consequential amendments necessitated by the foregoing motions.

I think it is extremely important that there is a balance set up between management and labour. If the scales are tipped too far in either direction there is going to be acrimony. We certainly are not in favour of one side having a huge advantage over the other.

I commend the minister for what he has set out to do. His goal is to seek a balance. What the Reform Party has suggested in its amendments would do exactly that.

The minister will say that the motion which the Reform Party has put would specifically apply to the pre-board security screening service. That is not important. It is not necessary because of the arrangements which are in place between the airports and Transport Canada. The second part of the amendment gives cabinet the authority to make regulations designating any other service or any industry which would have to comply with same successor rights provisions.

We have noticed in this legislation, as in any legislation which has been brought in by the government, that the governor in council has been given sweeping powers. We realize the governor in council has to have some latitude. Not every little thing should be brought back to Parliament for ratification or discussion. We recognize this is an accepted way of doing business in any legislature in Canada-

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moved:

Motion No. 11

That Bill C-66 be amended by deleting Clause 24.

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Mr. Speaker, a point of order. You said the motion was seconded by Mr. Harper. I think you will find that was Mr. Hanger.

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Mr. Speaker, we are now debating Group No. 3 which contains amendments proposed by the Reform Party.

I would like to speak specifically to Motion No. 5. The Standing Committee on Human Resources Development should have some scrutiny over the remuneration paid to the CLRB. The main estimates for 1996-97 show that the total program budget for the CLRB is $8,791,000. That budget is not broken down enough to show much detail. By bringing this to the board it would allow parliamentarians to scrutinize how the money is spent and on what it is spent: how much of it is wages, how much is travel, how much is expenses, et cetera.

Further, a motion suggests that part time members of the CLRB should be absorbed by the parties that are involved in the dispute. That should apply only to part time members and would go a long way in helping parties resolve their problems themselves rather than bringing so many decisions to the board. At least it would not be overloading the taxpayer to settle one argument after another.

Reform supports Motion No. 5. We agree that the board should have some scrutiny and knowledge of where the taxpayers' money is being spent in this particular area. We are not interested in micro-management but we are interested in the overall picture. If the matter did come to the standing committee it would at least give us an opportunity to question departmental officials.

There was a lot of talk in committee regarding the certification of unions and whether that can be accomplished for off site workers with or without their permission. Can it be accomplished only when a majority of the workers agree on the certification of a union or if the CLRB can decide when there was interference or at least undue pressure put on the employees.

To back up my point, recently there was a case where the majority of the people did not support the formation and certification of a union but the board ruled in favour of the union because the company suggested that the formation of a union might jeopardize jobs and it might have to shut down some of its operations. The board ruled in favour of the union and the union was certified without a majority of employee members wanting it. That is wrong. It is against our democratic principles. I believe that if a majority of the employees in any operation would like to certify a union then they should be allowed to do so. The key word here is majority.

There are several other amendments in Group No. 3 that I would be pleased to speak to at a later date.

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moved:

Motion No. 45

That Bill C-66 be amended by deleting Clause 46.

Motion No. 49

That Bill C-66, in Clause 50, be amended by replacing line 36 on page 36 with the following:

"controlled by their employer, who have consented to the release of that information, and authorize the"

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moved:

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-66, in Clause 2, be amended by adding after line 24 on page 5 the following:

"(3) Where a part-time member is paid travel and living expenses by virtue of subsection (2), and those expenses are incurred in the course of carrying out duties and responsibilities under this Act in respect of a dispute heard or determined by the Board, the parties to the dispute shall reimburse Her Majesty in right of Canada in equal parts for the money paid to the part-time member for those expenses and that money, until paid, constitutes a debt recoverable by action in any court of competent jurisdiction as a debt due to Her Majesty in right of Canada."

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Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the comments of my colleague from Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. He tried to put the case that somehow the RCMP is at a terrible disadvantage because we do not allow its members to join a union.

One very important fact has escaped my colleague. By no means does the majority of members of that force want the option of joining a union. That has been made very clear in the House several times. Perhaps those were days when my friend should have been paying attention and was not.

Had he paid attention I am sure he would have picked up on that fact. It has been brought to the House several times by me and by my colleague from Calgary. It is a well known fact. I have had several representations from members of the RCMP in my constituency and elsewhere who say that the divisional representative situation is working just fine for them.

I also find it interesting that my colleague would like to pick and choose. He would like to say that the flour mill workers, for instance, should be taken out of federal jurisdiction and another group of people should be moved into federal jurisdiction. The more legislation we create in this place, the more need there is for legislation.

If we come up with a plan whereby members of the RCMP could join a union, what good will the union do? Will it give them the right to strike, or will they immediately be declared an essential service? If so, what has been gained? We would have passed two pieces of legislation, one really nullifying the other.

I do not want to belabour the point so I will not take up the full 10 minutes to make my point.