Exactly. Some cuts don't heal. We have our workers in national parks. We have a whole team that is trying to fight this, the team at table 2.
I was actually one of these members when I was elected because I was the GS. I am not inventing this. I was one of them. I was actually sitting at table 2.
When I was elected in 1997, I was a member of the table 2 negotiating team. The table 2 members are as follows.
The negotiating team at table 2 is Paul Anstey representing the Atlantic. We have Gary Smith, Rene Kitson, John Shaw, Gary Fraser representing B.C., Paul Brewer, Leslie Hamill, Judith Scott representing NCR, Kevin King, Steve Covell representing the prairies, Mike Benoit, John Irving representing Ontario, Abdelkader Elkak, known as ElKak, Denis Dupre representing Quebec, Byrun Shandler representing the north, Nycole Turmel as an officer, and the negotiator is Luc David. Their researcher is Doug Marshall.
It is important to recognize these workers because they have been fighting at the table. They have been fighting for all the blue collar workers. It is important. There is a team that wanted to negotiate.
Unfortunately, the other side, the Treasury Board, had no intention of negotiating. It does not need to negotiate any more. It pretends that employees have the right to strike, until there is a disruption, such as this rotating strike, a little inconvenience here and there. We have to remember that when employees inconvenience us a little bit, they are fighting for our children's future.
My 13 year old will be looking for a job, hopefully when he is out of university, that is if I am still here and can afford to put him through university. I may be back to where I was before. Today a lot of poor people will never go to university, but let us assume my child will make it through university. I want him to be able to find a good job with good security and with half decent pay.
That is all the negotiators are asking for. They are asking for what we want for our children.
But the thinking is that, because there are strikes that inconvenience us, we must stop this, that and the other. These people are fighting for our children's future.
Do people who earn good money today know why that is? Is it because we have a government that offered everything?
Who negotiated the good benefits enjoyed by employees nowadays? Who negotiated leave to care for a sick child. Who negotiated health insurance? The unions did. These benefits were not handed over on a platter. This was negotiated in the hope that it would benefit our children, our children's children, and would last a long time.
But governments keep on wanting to destroy it all. It is important for Canadians to understand that workers are fighting for them. They are fighting for young people. We have young pages working here. They will want to have good jobs later on. They will want to buy a house, have a family. People cannot do this if they do not earn money. They cannot do this if they do not enjoy job security. We know the government does not want to give it to us unless we fight for it. It is important to remember how things work.
For the past two years, federal employees have been trying to negotiate a collective agreement with Treasury Board. It is very difficult to negotiate with a government which is still promoting inequality in this country. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless across the country and the government keeps on closing its eyes.
Thousands of unemployed workers have no income while there is a $25 billion surplus in the employment insurance fund.
These decisions perpetuate inequalities in this country, let us not forget it. Canadians must remember this. The government wants to ignore all kinds of people. What was the unfair treatment of students at the APEC summit in Vancouver all about?
Another example of the unfairness encouraged by the Liberal government is its refusal to abide by the decision of the human rights tribunal on pay equity. It is all the same. I myself was a victim of pay inequity when I was a CR and an ST. Promises are things of the past. They are forgotten now that they got elected.
They are saying: “Sorry, we do not need to keep our promises. We only make promises to get elected”. We remember that. The elections in Nova Scotia are a case in point. The results of the next elections in Nova Scotia remain to be seen. I believe there is a risk in New Brunswick as well. I could name many more.
Even today we see another example of unfairness. The federal government is refusing to recognize a national pay rate, which means equal pay for equal work. This is not complicated.
It is time this government shouldered its responsibilities and did the right thing for its workers.
One Liberal member appears to believe that MPs' salaries are not the same country-wide. Let us correct that immediately. My salary as an MP—not my operating budget, but our actual salary, the cheque that is made out to me—is the same as that of a member for Vancouver or for Winnipeg. The salaries are equal, unless a person is a minister or a parliamentary secretary. Perhaps, though, the Liberals are paying themselves more. That may be what is going on.
Speaking of raises in salary, I was in table 2 for the negotiations. Then I was elected, and then people said to me “Now you will be in a position to vote yourself an increase”. Imagine that.
Public servants can never turn up at the table and announce “Mr. President of Treasury Board, we have voted ourselves a raise, and that is what we want”. But we can. I did not accept my raise, because I do not believe in such a system. It is a rotten system.
There are some employees who want to sit down and negotiate. They accept that they cannot give themselves a raise like we can, but even then we have to contend with a Liberal government that has refused to negotiate.
When we see that MPs can vote themselves a raise, this raises questions. A recommendation was even made for there not to be a raise, but it was not heeded. A committee decides whether we should have a salary increase or not, and we have to accept these decisions.
We were able to give ourselves an 8% increase as MPs, but how many public service employees got an 8% increase? We must not forget that 8% of $25,000 is a lot less than 8% of $65,000. And yet this is what we see, and it goes on.
Let us look at employment insurance. In the Atlantic region, we would say we are being hit on again, and again and again. When they made these cuts, 31 of 32 members were Liberal. When that all changed after the federal election, they said “What will we do? No one is representing the Atlantic”. Things could not have been worse than when there were 31 out of 32. The 31 of the 32 said to the other members “Go ahead, cut. Forget the Atlantic”.
At least today, there are voices speaking on behalf of the poor, women and workers seeking justice and the elimination of the discrimination to be found in regional rates, workers who are working very hard and who deserve the very best.
