Mr. Speaker, we will let the boys carry on in the background.
I want to close the debate with some pretty serious thoughts and some pretty serious concerns about what we are facing across the country right now in terms of 31 million people being without postal service. I am sure, with the noise going on behind me, that they have an equal number of concerns about the postal strike.
Let me make a few comments about some of the things the constituency of Edmonton North has been facing and talking about regarding this postal strike. People were concerned that the postal strike would occur. They were trying to make alternate arrangements for the delivery of mail. They were trying to make sure their voice was heard and that Canada Post, which is a monopoly, was not going out into a strike situation. We certainly hoped that as well.
The Reform Party believes in the collective bargaining process. We believe in conciliation. We believe in the mediation process. We were truly hoping that the situation would be resolved, that CUPW and Canada Post would get along, and that we would have good, sure, safe delivery of mail, especially in this Christmas season.
Unfortunately that did not happen. The member for West Kootenay—Okanagan asked for an emergency debate on the very day the postal strike happened. We knew what would happen if it got into a crippling situation with mail right across the country. Government ministers such as the Minister of Labour would stand, as they did for days after in question period, and say “I will look after the collective bargaining process”. That is exactly what made me and the people in my riding nervous. We heard him say “I am the one that will look after everything”. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Two weeks later here we are with a postal strike that has cost an estimated $3 billion. The government could have done this on the very first day. It could have bargained in good faith. It is just a terrible thing. Maybe we should label the Minister of Labour the $3 billion man. That is what it has cost. They put this thing off and off.
I heard last week that there would be a picket in my constituency office in Edmonton North by some CUPW workers.
Those who worked with Canada Post were out on strike and they came to my office on Friday morning. I phoned and spoke to their union representative and said: “I look forward to talking to you. I am not going to lock my door on you. I believe your members have the right to protest peacefully.” It was certainly a different scene than what we saw when the Prime Minister shouted down those people who were peacefully demonstrating at the APEC conference where the RCMP had ordered pepper spray in their faces.
I said to these union members: “Come into my office. I would like to talk to you about this situation.” They came in and I had coffee and Tim Horton's donuts ready for them and we had a really good visit. I spent 45 minutes talking with them. A couple of the union people said: “We think we should negotiate a settlement.” I said: “I agree with you. We should negotiate a settlement.” Unfortunately, both sides just were not able to come to any sort of an agreement. I said: “There has to be a better way to solve this thing than having four strikes since 1987; two in 1987, one in 1991 and another one in 1997.”
It does not matter if the Tories or the Liberals are in power, it goes back and forth. Basically, it is just the flip side of the same loonie. Whoever is in power, the other side goes hysterical and says: “You simply cannot do this.” Then the other side that is in opposition goes hysterical also.
There has to be some long term solution so that we are not going to continue to face postal strikes for the next 10 or 15 years, if they are allowed to keep the monopoly.
We have to ask the question: is there not a better way than the opposition and the government going crazy and then flipping sides? There has to be a better way.
We think that final offer arbitration is the way to go. If someone happens to work for Safeway and goes on strike, and we believe that there is a right to strike peacefully, then we can always buy our groceries at the IGA.
The Maple Leaf meat processing packing plant in Edmonton is on strike right now. We could buy wieners at Schneider's. We have a choice. But when Canada Post goes on strike, that's it, especially if you happen to live in rural Canada. There are not a lot of options to delivery service.
We say that there are places and times that are so important that final offer arbitration is when we should ask: “What is your bottom line, side A? And what is your bottom line, side B?” Then someone can come in and arbitrate that so that we do not get into a crippling situation such as we have again for the fourth time in 10 years. It is an essential service.
A lot of people have fax machines, so they do not care if Canada Post is out on strike. A lot of people do not have fax machines or modems on their computers, or UPS or Purolator service. I have lived in places like that where the last thing one would see is a Purolator delivery service, which does cost extra money.
The postal service is fundamental. On the day that the strike was called, my colleague, our critic for the postal service, the member for West Kootenay—Okanagan, asked for an emergency debate. It seems that just in the last 24 or 48 hours the government has decided that this is an emergency. Surely to heaven it knew something was coming down the pike and we were going to have some serious problems before Christmas. Of course, there is a huge bulk of mail that goes through at Christmas.
When these people came to my office on Friday, I spent 45 minutes with them. We discussed the situation and I told them I had heard from a tremendous number of people in my constituency that want the postal workers to return to work. I was challenged about that by one of the union members who said that he did not believe me. He thought they represented the majority of my constituents because they had brought a pile of letters with them.
Most of these people were not from my riding but those from Edmonton North came and said: “Okay, here you are. We have the majority now. We must outweigh the number of phone calls and the number of people who have complained. We represent the majority now and you as a Reformer are bound to vote the majority consensus of your constituents.” I said: “You are about 100 here today”. I have about 100,000 constituents and I certainly have not heard from all of them. But I was challenged by the postal workers to ask: “How do you know if there is a majority here?”
Not long after their visit, I got the news that the government had introduced its back to work legislation somewhere around noon on Friday. I thought there had been a change of heart by the government. It has been on a rant for the last two weeks saying that it was not going to legislate them back to work. Then all of a sudden it brought in legislation.
If the speeches today were not so sad they would be laughable. These people are now the great champions of Canada Post. Canadians want to make sure they receive postal service.
It is funny that someone would ask how we know what 100,000 people think. I will tell members how we know what 100,000 people think. We commission a scientific poll that by proof—
