Ted White

[Committees Of The House, March 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the second report of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations presented on Tuesday, March 10, 1998 be concurred in.

Pursuant to its permanent order of reference, section 19 of the Statutory Instruments Act, the joint committee draws the attention of the Houses to sections 56 and 57 of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police regulations, 1988.

In early 1997 it was drawn to the attention of the joint committee that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police continues to apply section 57 of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Regulations, 1988, notwithstanding that similar, though somewhat less all encompassing, restrictions on participation in political activities by other public servants was struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada in Osborne v Canada as contravening the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The force was requested to advise the committee whether it considers section 57 to be constitutionally valid, notwithstanding the Osborne decision. In the event that it did, it was to provide a detailed statement of reasons in support of that position.

The designated instruments officer for the RCMP initially explained that in view of the fact that the constitutionality of section 57 has been challenged before the Quebec Superior Court, “it would be inadvisable for the RCMP to bring this matter before committee at this point because it is sub judice”.

For reasons I will explain shortly, the committee did not accept this as a satisfactory reply and reiterated its request for a detailed statement of reasons in support of the constitutional validity of section 57 of the regulations.

In a letter dated March 12, 1997 the committee was informed that “the Attorney General of Canada is of the position that section 57 of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Regulations, 1988, is not contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that the 1991 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Osborne v Canada (Treasury Board) does not apply to the said section”, and that “The attorney general is prepared to make these same arguments and defend section 57 in an action before the Superior Court of Quebec”.

Despite the reference to arguments, it is clear that the RCMP has chosen to simply refer to conclusions reached by the Attorney General of Canada and no reasons have been put forward in support of these conclusions.

In light of this, your committee wrote to the Solicitor General of Canada asking him to provide the joint committee with a statement identifying the governmental objectives served by section 57 and explaining why a nearly absolute ban on all political activities is necessary to achieve these objectives.

The solicitor general was also advised that the committee might possibly object to the constitutional validity of section 56 of the regulations.

By letter dated April 9, 1997 the solicitor general explained that it is the government's view that the Osborne decision does not apply to the RCMP because it involved a challenge to subsections 33(1)(a) and (b) of the Public Service Employment Act which prohibited public servants hired under that act from engaging in work for or against a federal or provincial candidate or party.

On the other hand, sections 56 and 57 of the RCMP regulations deal with RCMP members who are engaged pursuant to the RCMP Act for the purposes of law enforcement and who, as a consequence of their duties, have broad powers of discretion which have an impact on the general population.

The question is not whether the Osborne decision applies as such to members of the RCMP but whether sections 56 and 57 contravene the charter of rights and freedoms. The factual distinctions mentioned by the minister are obvious. It should be equally clear, however, that the reasoning of the supreme court in the Osborne decision is relevant to a determination of whether or not sections 56 and 57 of the regulations contravene the charter.

Section 33 of the Public Service Employment Act and sections 56 and 57 of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Regulations, 1988, are both intended to promote a similar governmental objective: political neutrality of the persons to whom they are directed so as to maintain public confidence in public institutions.

In his reply, the minister also stated that initiative RCMP/93-9-L, which has been included in the federal regulatory plan every year since 1993, is intended to indicate that the RCMP is studying the best means possible to maintain the needed political neutrality of the force, that political neutrality being the objective of sections 56 and 57.

The force is examining whether there are alternatives to the current scheme of sections 56 and 57 which could permit more flexibility while continuing to safeguard the political neutrality of the force.

This statement is apparently meant to suggest that the relevant regulatory initiative should not be construed as an admission that the restrictions set out in sections 56 and 57 go beyond what is necessary to ensure that there is no political partisanship in the performance of police functions and duties and that this initiative is no more than a study or an examination of possible alternatives.

In this regard the committee notes that a federal regulatory plan is an annual listing of the government's anticipated regulatory activity for the coming year and that initiative RCMP/93-9-L clearly states that the RCMP regulations 1998 will be amended to reflect the extent and the conditions under which members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police will be permitted to engage in political activities.

Considering the nature of the federal regulatory plans and the language used to describe initiative RCMP/93-9-L, it appears to the committee that this initiative states a clear intention to amend the existing regulations rather than merely an intent to undertake a general study of possible alternatives. As such, this initiative must reflect an official finding that the current level of restrictions is not necessary in order to secure the objective of political neutrality.

The committee observes that it also drew the attention of the solicitor general to the fact that the legislation governing police forces in other jurisdictions either does not contain any expressed restrictions on police activities or, if it does, such restrictions are far less severe than those found in sections 56 and 57. The committee asked the solicitor general to explain why sections 56 and 57 should be regarded as essential to the preservation of the political neutrality of a federal police force when lesser restrictions are considered sufficient to preserve the political neutrality of provincial police forces such as the Ontario Provincial Police or the Sûreté du Québec.

As already mentioned, it appears that an action has been initiated in the superior court for the district of Montreal in which the constitutional validity of section 57 being is challenged. This led the RCMP to suggest that the question of the constitutional validity of section 57 should not be dealt with by the committee. The committee does not believe that the fact that an action challenging the validity is before the courts does or should preclude Parliament from considering the same question.

Parliament and the courts both have a responsibility to ensure the constitutionality of legislation. Indeed, since it is a fountain head of all legislation, it may be thought that the responsibility of Parliament in this regard is pre-eminent. If legislation is unconstitutional Parliament may in some instances provide a more timely and cost efficient forum for resolution of the matter than the courts. In any event, Parliament exercises a jurisdiction that is completely distinct from that of the courts and the joint committee does not accept that it should refrain from exercising its statutory mandate on behalf of Parliament because the validity of a particular regulation is also being considered by the court.

The joint committee has examined the question of whether sections 56 and 57 of the regulations conform to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and concludes that these sections should be revoked on the ground that they do not conform to the charter. In addition, the committee objects to these provisions on the grounds that they amount to the exercise of a substantive legislative power that is properly the subject of direct parliamentary enactment and that they trespass unduly on rights and liberties.

The committee wishes to make it clear that some restrictions on political activities of members of the RCMP are unquestionably necessary to maintain public confidence in fair and impartial enforcement of laws by the force. It may even be the case that the existing restrictions are constitutionally appropriate at certain levels of the RCMP or as they apply to officers occupying certain positions. On the other hand, the member's committee simply cannot do otherwise than conclude that the existing restrictions, involving as they do a near complete ban on participation in political activities, go beyond what is required in most cases.

Having considered the relevant case law, the joint committee has formed the opinion that sections 56 and 57 are inconsistent with the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that the restrictions imposed by these sections cannot demonstrably be justified in a free and democratic society. In addition, these sections may infringe on the freedom of association guaranteed by section 2(d), and the right to be qualified as a candidate guaranteed by section 3 of the charter.

Section 2(d) of the charter guarantees freedom of association. Is this freedom contravened by section 56 of the regulations which prohibits any public display of political partisanship or by section 57, prohibition against working for or on behalf of a political party? Freedom of association has been defined as including the freedom to establish, belong to and maintain an association. In the Osborne decision, the supreme court observed that a prohibition against federal public servants working for or against any candidate or political party or standing as candidates appeared to constitute an infringement of section 2(d).

The situation in the present instance is similar. While it has been concluded that section 56 and 57 violate section 2(b) of the charter, there is also a strong case to be made that the provisions of the regulations in question infringe the freedom of association guaranteed by section 2(d).

The importance of governmental objectives that are served by sections 56 and 57 of the regulations cannot be denied. As the solicitor general wrote, political neutrality, which is the objective of the sections, is to ensure there is no political partisanship or perception of political partisanship in the performance of police duties and functions or law enforcement more generally.

In the Osborne case the supreme court had little difficulty in concluding that restrictions imposed on the political activities of public servants were clearly intended to further an important governmental objective, namely the preservation of neutrality of the public service. The same reasoning unquestionably applies in the case of sections 56 and 57.

The committee cannot but conclude that the prohibitions imposed by sections 56 and 57 of the regulations go beyond what is necessary to achieve the legitimate governmental objectives identified earlier. The provisions in question preclude a very wide range of political activities by members of the RCMP. For example, section 56 provides that a member shall not wear or display the emblem or insignia of any political party or display political partisanship in any other manner. This would, in effect, preclude a member from displaying a lawn sign in front of the member's home in support of a candidate in a municipal election, for example.

Section 57(1)(a) prohibits a member of the force from engaging in any work for, on behalf or against any person seeking election to the governing body of a municipality. Thus a member could not be seen to support a candidate in a municipal election who was campaigning for or against a particular local issue such as the widening of a bridge or the expansion of a shopping mall. Even an activity as innocuous and removed from the public eye as stuffing envelopes with campaign literature is prohibited.

In his letter of April 9, 1997, the solicitor general took pains to point out that he had not yet approved changes to sections 56 and 57 and that he had not submitted any such changes for the consideration of the governor in council. If the solicitor general had already approved changes to these sections and submitted them to the governor in council, there would be no need for the committee to recommend the revocation of sections 56 and 57. In that sense the minister is stating the obvious.

In view of the nature of the joint committee's objections to sections 56 and 57 of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Regulations, 1988, in particular its belief that it is inappropriate for restrictions on freedoms and association as serious as those found in sections 56 and 57, to be enacted by way of regulation, the committee initially took the position that the disallowance of these sections by the House of Commons was the most suitable course of action.

Shortly before the committee was scheduled to consider a draft report containing a disallowance resolution, the solicitor general requested to appear before the joint committee. This appearance took place on April 24, 1997, almost a year ago. In the course of his testimony the minister reiterated that his position remained that sections 56 and 57 of the regulations are constitutional and do not infringe the charter of rights and freedoms:

If we look at the regulations strictly from a constitutional standpoint, they do meet the test and should not be revoked on the grounds that they are unconstitutional. If you are concerned that the regulations are overly restrictive compared to those of the Sûreté du Québec or the OPP, I assure you that we are working to bring them in line with the regulations of other police forces. However, we are not acting because the regulations are unconstitutional.

In light of the assurance that the current provisions would be revoked, the committee decided not to proceed with the disallowance of sections 56 and 57 of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Regulations Act. Although a proposed revision was to be presented to the solicitor general in the fall, this did not occur.

The delay has led the committee to decide that this matter should be drawn to the attention of the Houses by means of this report. In particular, the committee wishes to highlight its recommendation that any limits on the constitutionally protected rights and freedoms ought to be decided by Parliament itself and not by a delegate in exercise of subordinate law making powers.

At the same time the immediate concern of the committee remains the continued existence of sections 56 and 57 of the regulations and should these provisions continue in existence much longer the committee is going to consider the possibility of invoking the disallowance procedure.

The committee wishes to make it very clear that is not impugning the legitimacy of the objectives of section 56 and 57 and it is not the role of the joint committee to define precisely which restrictions may be placed on the political activities of members of the RCMP so as to preserve the neutrality of the force while infringing the rights of members as little as is reasonably possible.

It is, however, the responsibility of the committee in cases where such measures are enacted in subordinate legislation to advise the Houses whether the means chosen to achieve certain objectives are proper and lawful. In this connection we would draw attention to the House that the RCMP has had amendments to the impugned provisions under consideration for at least five years and it is presumably in a position to propose to Parliament through the responsible minister a new, less all encompassing regime in an expeditious manner.

The committee recommends that sections 56 and 57 of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Regulations, 1988 be revoked without further delay, which in practical terms conveyed to the solicitor general by letter means by April 4, 1998.

I urge the government to act by April 4, thereby avoiding the embarrassment and inconvenience which could occur when the committee recommends disallowance to the House.

[Private Members' Motions, March 26th, 1998]

It is to be removed from the Order Paper.

[Private Members' Motions, March 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask for the unanimous consent of the House to drop my name from the order of precedence regarding Motion No. 27, a private member's motion which deals with the issue of the sitting hours of the House which is currently before a committee on the Hill.

I would like members to agree to drop my name from the order of precedence on this matter.

[Small Business Loans Act, March 13th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-21, an act to amend the Small Business Loans Act.

The bill will extend the Small Business Loans Act to March 31, 1999 and raise the government's total liability under the act to $15 billion. That is a $1 billion increase on where it is now.

It is important to note that the auditor general has criticized the Small Business Loans Act. He is simply not very impressed with it for a number of reasons. For example, taxpayers will already be on the hook for about $210 million in defaulted loans, $210 million of taxpayers' money which has been given away badly by the Small Business Loans Act.

In addition, the auditor general found that studies done for Industry Canada in 1994 and 1996 showed that 40% of the loans did not even meet the requirements of the Small Business Loans Act anyway, that the people could have obtained their loans directly from the financial institutions concerned.

He also found that lenders and borrowers have been abusing the small business loans program. Is that not typical of most government programs? There is no accountability. They are always tied up in bureaucratese. They use other people's money. We simply get into a mess with these sorts of programs.

The auditor general also found that there is little accountability to Parliament. Frankly, although Reform is agreeing with the idea that we should extend the act for another year since so many businesses rely on it, we are really opposed to increasing the liability to taxpayers at this time. It is simply unacceptable to do that. That is why my colleague moved an amendment that we should extend the act but not increase the liability to taxpayers.

In the overall scheme of things, a far better approach to this entire Small Business Loans Act would be to get rid of it and to offer instead tax incentives to private finance options to supply the sorts of financing that small business borrowers need.

At the moment, private sector capital suppliers who maybe would use a person's home as a guarantee for a mortgage in order to supply them with funding for a small business loan end up in a situation where they are classified as investors. Instead of being in business they are considered investors. They end up being taxed at a 50% tax rate, even in a corporate structure. That is such a disincentive for small business entrepreneur financiers to get into financing other small businesses that they simply do not do it.

The government would be far better, instead of taking taxpayer money and spinning it out the window in this Small Business Loans Act, to leave those tax dollars with the taxpayers of Canada, have lower tax levels and allow these small business financial entrepreneurs, who want to lend money to other businesses, to operate at a lower tax rate, at the normal corporate small business rate of maybe 23% to 25%. That would supply such a huge amount of money into the market and we would not need this Small Business Loans Act.

It is typical Liberal government. It just cannot see any other answer to a problem than to throw taxpayer money out. It cannot stop itself from spending money. It cannot help itself.

One of my constituents wrote me a letter:

The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by physicists at the Yale Research Centre. The element, tentatively named administratium, has no protons or electrons, thus has an atomic number of zero. However, it does have one neutron, a 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice-neutrons, and 11 assistant vice-neutrons. This gives it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together in a nucleus by a force that involves the continuous exchange of meson-like particles called morons.

Since it has no electrons, administratium is inert.

He goes on with quite an amusing description of this. He says any resemblance to the federal government is purely coincidental.

He points out very well the sorts of things that go wrong with government programs. They build into bureaucracies, with layers and layers of administration, often filled with people who have never met a payroll, who have absolutely no idea what it is like to run a small business and have absolutely no idea how to solve the problems of small business. They just think they can throw money at the problem and get it fixed. It simply does not work.

Continuing with the observations of the auditor general, in 1994 the industry committee did call for a review to be done on the Small Business Loans Act. The auditor general points that a complete cost benefit study analysis has never been done.

How can we have a program that has already dispensed $13 billion, plus or minus a billion, of other people's money and we have not even reviewed the program to see if it is working? Mr. Speaker, that is more than you spent in the last election campaign. You mentioned in the committee hearings just a day or two ago that you were not very happy with the amount that was being spent. It is unacceptable that these amounts of money can be spun out the door without our having any idea whether the program is working.

Anyone reading the auditor general's report would come to the conclusion that the Small Business Loans Act simply is not working in its present form, or at least not working very well.

When 40% of the loans do not meet the SBLA guarantees, we have to ask ourselves is what we have here just a group of bureaucrats wanting to keep their jobs and throwing money out the door as fast as they can to justify more increases, more desks in their department, more telephones, more employees, and all the job creation is happening in their department and not out in the small business sector at all.

In any case, as I mentioned, many of the people who are making the decisions on the loans actually have no concept of what it is like to run a small business and what is needed. There are some crazy ideas out there.

Frankly, if private financiers, private capital suppliers and banks are not willing to finance an idea, is it really worth financing? Certainly we have to ask why should the government then take $13 billion off taxpayers and throw that money into ideas which no one else seems to be interested in financing.

Surely it would be better to let the market make the decisions by transferring that $13 billion back. Let the taxpayers keep that money but make it more attractive for private capital suppliers to get into that risk market themselves. I know this market very well because I do have business friends who operate in that market who would put more money into it if there were the right sorts of tax levels to encourage them to do so.

At the moment what most of them are doing is actually investing overseas, in other countries. The bulk of their capital is going overseas where there are lower tax rates.

We are not doing ourselves any favour by creating a situation where the people with the private capital who would invest are sending it overseas to invest in more friendly investor countries while we then take money off the taxpayers and pour it into an ineffective Small Business Loans Act.

Reform would, if we were the government, take steps immediately to study this Small Business Loans Act to find out exactly what is happening in that department and make changes that have been suggested by the auditor general. We would certainly not increase the liabilities to taxpayers by one single dollar.

As my colleague pointed out earlier, there is already about $1.3 billion left in that liability fund, if the comments by the minister at committee were correct a few days ago.

We could use that $13 billion if only the government never set up this act in the first place. We could have better used that $13 billion, leaving it in the pockets of taxpayers or diverting it if we must tax people into meaningful programs, overhauling the Young Offenders Act and properly funding the CPP program. There is a long list of areas where that money would be better spent.

I look forward to seeing other members of this House oppose this extension to the Small Business Loans Act unless it has the approval of the amendment put forward by Reform to not increase the liability to taxpayers by another $1 billion.

[Small Business Loans Act, March 13th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, if members are ready to begin statements, I would be quite happy to do that and to start my speech at the end of question period.

[Questions On The Order Paper, March 12th, 1998]

With respect to the House of Commons Intercity Telephone System, which is accessed by members via local telephone numbers in some cities and via a 1-800 number elsewhere in Canada and the USA: ( a ) are any parts of the system automated so that members can use touch tone input to enter their access code and connect to the chosen telephone number, and if so, which areas of the country have automated systems; ( b ) what timetable does the government have to fully automate the system across Canada, and what are the projected annual cost savings for carrying out such automation; ( c ) where is the operator centre for the system located, how many people are employed as operators, and what is the annual cost for those staff; ( d ) what is the total annual cost of maintaning the system and what is the cost comparison with contracting for provision of the services using private sector suppliers; and ( e ) what is the total number of minutes carried by the system each year within Canada and to the USA, and what is the average cost per minute carried to each of these countries?

[Recall Act, March 11th, 1998]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-371, an act to establish the right of electors to recall members of Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, in the interests of democratic reform I am pleased to introduce a bill which when passed will allow for the recall of a member of Parliament for good reason.

The signature threshold requirement and the general mechanics of the bill are modelled after recall legislation which has been in place in some of the United States for more than 75 years and has been modified to fit our parliamentary system.

Almost three years of research and preparation went into this bill because of the serious nature of the subject.

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

[Taxation, February 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, like many other urban ridings across Canada, North Vancouver is home to a lot of small businesses many of the owners of which work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week to fill the coffers of the finance minister. Often those owners take home less in pay to support their families than they pay in corporate and payroll taxes to this government.

Why is the Prime Minister dishing out more money for lavish and wasteful spending for his cabinet ministers when he should be giving tax relief to the small business job creators of Canada?

[Prostate Cancer, February 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, employees at Canada's second largest telephone company, BC Tel, have raised more than $240,000 for prostate cancer research in just a few months.

Fund-raising for prostate cancer research is their special project for 1997-98, and I am honoured to recognize their efforts exactly two weeks before MPs and senators get the chance to attend an information session on prostate cancer on the Hill.

One man in eight will get prostate cancer during his lifetime, and almost as many men die from prostate cancer each year as women die from breast cancer.

I urge all MPs, senators and the media to come and hear research urologist Dr. Martin Gleave on March 10 and to ensure, if they are male, they take the PSA blood test for prostate cancer which will be available on that day.

Thank you to BC Tel employees for their fund-raising efforts and thank you to Abbott Diagnostics for helping sponsor the information session and PSA testing on the Hill.

[Canada Labour Code, February 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, as I rise today to speak about Bill C-19, I want to continue with a theme introduced by my colleagues this morning. I thought one of the best ways to do that perhaps would be to read from a letter I received from a constituent to set the scene. I know one of the members on the Liberal side read from a letter, so I am going to do exactly the same thing.

This letter came to me from a very concerned constituent who has done quite a lot of research into Bill C-19 and is particularly concerned with the democratic aspects of it.

If I can quote a bit from the letter just to set the scene: The Minister of Labour introduced Bill C-19 on November 6, 1997, and this bill contains most of the amendments that were incorporated in Bill C-66. Regrettably the revised version contains the same defects its predecessor displayed. The result is that the changes that would have made the labour code a better enactment are more than offset by the provisions which perpetuate undemocratic rules and introduce measures which will make Canadian enterprises subject to federal labour legislation less competitive”. Bill C-66 was from the last Parliament.

This letter highlights three of the deficiencies in detail, although it mentions quite a number of them. I would like to outline a couple of those. The minister has not followed the recommendations of the Senate standing committee on social affairs, science and technology when it studied Bill C-66 when it was before the House previously. The recommendations made really suggested that this federal legislation should give the right to workers to participate in secret ballot representation votes to determine whether a union would represent them.

Provincial labour legislation in Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland currently mandates secret ballots. It is only the NDP in B.C., when it recently came into power, that removed this right to secret ballots. That caused quite a lot of outrage in B.C. not just from business people but from union people as well that this ability to have a secret vote had been removed.

Frankly, it amazes me that the NDP in B.C. and the NDP in this House, which both claim to be democratic, are not up in arms about this taking away of the democratic right for members in the union to have secret ballots.

It is hard to think of anything less democratic than placing union members in a position of being unable to cast their votes in a secret ballot. It leaves members of unions wide open to coercion by overzealous union bosses and to delegates who perhaps are getting carried away with a particular cause and just force people, through fear or otherwise, to vote in a particular manner.

Imagine if we ran federal or provincial elections that way. Canada would be the target of sanctions and criticisms from the entire free world if we were selecting people in ballots that were not secret.

I wonder how Liberal members can sleep at night knowing they are going to be voting with the instructions of their whip for something so undemocratic. The NDP members should be outraged. They should be jumping in their seats at this blatant attack on democracy against their union members. They have already demonstrated, by their interventions during the speech by the Reform member for Calgary—Nose Hill this morning, that they are not interested in even trying to defend the rights of the workers, the people they claim they are representing.

As one of my colleagues mentioned a little earlier, Tommy Douglas would be turning in his grave if he could see the NDP today. Tommy Douglas represented my riding back in the mid-1960s. Tommy Douglas was the person who achieved the highest ever percentage of votes in the riding of North Vancouver—Burnaby. He actually got 52.4% of the vote.

The second highest was achieved by Reform in the 1997 election when I got 49.9% of the vote. While it was still 3% away from the record set by Tommy Douglas, it does show an interesting progression in my riding, to digress for a moment. How it started was with the NDP in the mid-1960s, then it moved briefly to the Liberals, then back to the NDP, then to the PCs and now to Reform. It is certainly interesting that Reform today is representing a greater percentage that has ever happened since the Tommy Douglas days. He would be turning in his grave today if he could see what is happening with the NDP failing to fight for worker rights in this bill.

Could it be that the NDP likes this bill because it virtually guarantees forced union certification, which in turn means the compulsory extraction of union dues from workers, which in turn helps fill the coffers of the NDP? Maybe the NDP is not as democratic as it likes to make itself out to be. Maybe the NDP does not actually stand for New Democratic Party; maybe it stands for the no democracy party.

I will return to the points in the letter because it is a communication from the real world, outside of this place. It details problems that are in Bill C-19, this hastily thought out legislation that is being rushed through. There is really no need to rush this through. It has been 25 years since this labour code has been revised. There really is no need to rush through these sorts of provisions.

I quote one of the objections listed in this letter:

The new bill gives the Canada Industrial Relations Board the jurisdiction to certify a trade union that does not have majority support where “but for the unfair labour practice, the union could reasonably have been expected to have the support of the majority of employees in a unit”.

Frankly, no union should ever be certified without a secret ballot. If there are problems in the way the procedure took place leading up to the ballot that should be dealt with in other ways. To take away the right of free ballot for the workers, to punish the employer, is totally ludicrous. I cannot imagine why or how this government could think that was justified in any way.

To quote again from the letter:

Neither the Canada Industrial Relations Board nor any other body has the capacity to rationally discharge a task which involves nothing more than wild speculation. If an employer has committed an unfair labour practice, the board should sanction the employer, not deprive workers of the democratic right to vote on the wisdom of union representation.

The dangers associated with this type of law were demonstrated when the Ontario Labour Relations Board, ignoring the will of the workers, certified the United Steelworkers of America as the bargaining agent for workers in a Wal-Mart Canada Inc. store in Windsor. The workers had voted 151-43 against union representation.

Imagine if we were conducting our votes in Canada that way. Imagine if we had a federal election where the chief electoral officer could decide that he did not like the outcome in a particular riding and that he would appoint some other candidate to be the MP other than the winning candidate, thereby taking away the right of the voters in order to rectify some perceived wrong that occurred during the campaign.

It is absolutely outrageous. If that were to happen in a true federal election situation, the chief electoral officer would order another vote and therefore return the power to the people who have the vote, not take away that right. That is another good example of why this is a terrible provision in the bill.

Just to remind the House, the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology presented its report on Bill C-66 on April 25, 1997. The government has had plenty of time to review and think about the report.

The report stated that the committee had “concerns about whether the recent use of a similar clause by the Ontario Labour Relations Board in the Wal-Mart case is in fact an appropriate use of such a measure”. The letter writer shares this reservation, keenly aware of the danger that this provision represents to the democratic values Canadians hold and cherish.

I would like to finish by mentioning that all of us in the House should be fighting the bill tooth and nail. It tramples on the democratic rights of Canadian workers. It violates the fundamentals of freedom of voting in society. It somehow suggests that cards are a reliable indication of a worker's intent in the certification process. Just the fact that we can get someone to sign a card is sufficient proof the person will also support the forming of a union in a ballot. It is an absolutely ludicrous provision.

When the legislation is passed it will eliminate the need for unions to report on their financial status. This is unbelievable. That would put them in the same class as charities, which the House is just beginning to recognize needs to be dealt with, where they are totally unaccountable for the way they spend their money and are unanswerable to the people who give them money to do their work.

I could speak about the bill for some time but I see my time has elapsed. I will now leave it for my colleagues to take up the charge.