Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this important debate tonight on the special legislation forcing certain public servants back to work. But before we deal with the actual content of the bill, what we are debating now, and until 11 p.m., is the gag the government is imposing on us. This is an attack on democracy, at least on parliamentary democracy.
The government is in such a rush to get this bill passed that it wants to gag parliamentarians. In my opinion the special legislation is already a breach of democracy, but to deprive parliamentarians of their right to speak is an attack on democracy.
The people in my riding elected me to represent them, not to sit in my seat and passively watch as special legislation is passed constraining much of the population, because it involves public servants. The people want their members of parliament to express their fears. I think many public servants met with their members individually and spoke of their expectations and claims.
I have had the privilege of serving my electors, who are affected by this bill. The union members, including the general labourers with the coast guard working in Quebec City, came to me to say they considered it unfair they were being treated differently according to regions, they did not consider one category of worker should have a different salary because of where they live in Canada.
That is the case. They objected and came to ask me “Do you think your salary should be the same as that of a member of parliament from Vancouver or Newfoundland?” I answered “Naturally, it is a matter of equity”. There is a lot of talk in the House about—and increasingly, Bloc Quebecois members are talking about it—pay equity. We must eliminate the differences in pay for jobs traditionally considered masculine or feminine. We must not only reduce the gap, but eliminate the differences. We consider that an important right.
I heard people in my riding, not only women but also men, say they agreed with that. All this has come up in the negotiations on labour relations.
Yesterday, the government had a knee-jerk reaction. Today, it is resorting to closure to quickly end the matter. Why is the government so anxious that it is using closure?
I am convinced that the majority of Liberal members are not very proud to adopt special legislation. I would even say that some are ashamed of such a measure. They are ashamed, they are not proud of such a measure, but they are forced to support it. As we know, the government imposes the party line when members vote on such issues. Members do not agree with that legislation, but they are forced to follow the party line and support it, because they fear that they will be ejected from the party and perhaps even have to sit as independent members. They prefer to side with the majority and, in some cases, not be present during debate, and certainly not take part in debate.
Many members can vote against their own opinion, but it is quite a bit harder to do so during a vote in the House. I understand why there are very few Liberal members here this evening. We cannot allude to members' absence, but we can talk about their presence. Very few are here this evening to discuss the issue of freedom of speech for parliamentarians. Very few want to enjoy this freedom which is limited, since the debate will come to an end at 11 p.m.
Today, I was at the industry committee. Throughout the day, for hours on end, I had to fight with other members so that the hon. member for Mercier could finish the speech she spent a whole weekend preparing and which summarized the testimony heard in the past two or three weeks.
It was unbelievable the trouble we had getting permission for her to finish her speech. Almost every week lately, this government has been moving time allocation. It is as though our constituents had elected us to sit in our places and do exactly what the majority or the establishment required of us, to keep to ourselves what our constituents tell us and not to make it known in the House.
But is this building, this institution, not called parliament? What is a parliament? The last time I looked in a dictionary, it was a place of speech, the site of democracy.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure your knowledge of history is as good as mine, so I do not need to remind you that not just hundreds of thousands, but millions, of people died fighting for freedom of speech. They died so that their fellow citizens could continue to exercise their democratic rights.
We are in this place, supposedly the very symbol of democracy, and the party in power wants to limit the time spent debating a topic as important as the right to strike.
There is another right and that is the right of association. If we recognize that people have the right to form unions, we should be logical and ensure that they can exercise the other rights that flow from the right to negotiate.
If we look at the history of this government and its predecessor, what do we see with regard to the labour rights of federal public servants? In 1982, a bill was introduced to freeze the salary of some 500,000 workers. In December 1989, back to work legislation was passed. In October 1991, we had legislation saying that the employer's offers would be imposed unilaterally if they were not accepted. There were threats.
In April 1992, we had Bill C-113, which imposed a two year freeze and a unilateral extension of the collective agreement. In June 1993, Bill C-101 gave the government the right to require a vote on its final offers during any negotiations. In June 1994, Bill C-17 extended the freeze for two more years as well as the collective agreement. Salaries were frozen for six consecutive years. Again, this approach was criticized by various stakeholders.
Then, in 1996, we had Bill C-31, through which this Liberal government wanted to start contracting out. In 1992, the federal government closed the Pay Research Bureau, thereby avoiding taking into account facts and figures which contradicted its claims. In 1993, Bill C-26 on public service reform gave a great advantage to the employer by making it judge and jury on issues related to the workplace.
We could go on and on. I want to protect federal public servants. Some people may wonder why a sovereignist would do that. There are federal public servants everywhere, including in Quebec. Since Quebeckers pay federal taxes, part of that money is used to pay public servants. Some of these people do a good job. I am not one of those who think that federal public servants are necessarily bad people. On the contrary, many of them are competent and qualified workers.
What we are dealing with here is the right to strike, to bargain, to organize. This is one of the rights recognized by the United Nations, which makes us a supposedly democratic society.
I have been in this House since 1993 and have had numerous opportunities to note that the Liberal government is not motivated by a very keen sense of democracy. Anytime it runs into a problem, gag orders are used., not just at the end of a session.
At this point in time we are not faced with a huge legislative agenda. I am not the only one to say so; a number of political observers have said the same thing. There are not very many bills. There would probably be enough time. There is no great urgency, yet we are being forced to get the discussions over quickly.
It was the same thing in committee, as I have said.
On top of that, we Quebeckers are dealing with an increasingly centralizing government, which is flouting the Constitution and its various provisions.
Bill C-54 clearly establishes trade as a provincial jurisdiction, yet e-commerce is being used as a pretext for passing a bill aimed at creating federal legislation to protect personal information in the context of commerce. This is a provincial jurisdiction.
We have seen the strategies the government is making use of, for instance the millennium scholarships. The government knows very well that it cannot hand out grants to students in other provinces, in Quebec and elsewhere, directly. What does it do? It creates a foundation that will go over the provinces' heads to give grants to students. This is a way of circumventing democracy, of doing indirectly what it cannot do directly.
When it can take direct action, it is often borderline, a bit dubious, as in the case of the environment, and the member for Jonquière knows what I am referring to.
The environment was not mentioned in the Constitution of 1867. This is a concept that comes up more now. Since it was not specifically mentioned in 1867, much as it did when it patriated the Constitution in 1982, the government is using grey areas to justify invading these jurisdictions.
It sees the provinces as lesser governments and itself as a higher government to which all others are subordinate, a government that wants to set national standards.
There is another point to consider as well. I often meet young people, as all members do in their ridings. Young people often express their opinions of the Bloc Quebecois, but they do not always realize what is going on. They tell us all the parties look the same and ask us how we are different. My reply is that Bloc Quebecois members have always defended democratic values, respect for freedom of speech, respect for the right of association, fundamental freedoms that must be preserved. We constantly have to uphold such rights.
In the present system, questions must be asked. I am not saying this has to be sorted out this evening. In the United States, they hold presidential elections. Here, we hold an election to elect a party and members to represent ridings, but it is the party that gets the most members elected that forms the government and the majority rules.
The Liberal Party did not receive 50% plus one of the votes in the latest federal election. The Liberal Party got the most ridings, which gives it a majority of five seats. Supported in its position, the government is trying to dish that up all the time, in committee and in the House, forcing us to act at its speed and to pass its policies.
They say “Keep talking, you members, it will get you nowhere. We will do the deciding”. For government backbenchers, it is the will of cabinet that counts, and the ministers impose the will of the Prime Minister.
If we look at that, Canada is not the United States. It is not as powerful as the United States, but if we compare the powers of the Prime Minister and of the President of the United States—with a veto in Congress and in the Senate, which is not the case here—the Prime Minister can do what he wants most of the time.
This person who is currently the Prime Minister is imposing the party line on the people in his party. We have special legislation before us, even though many members, men and women, oppose it, because they find it too precipitous and they do not support different pay for different regions.
Let us discuss that a little. I listened to my New Democratic colleague from Acadie—Bathurst. He is quite right. He comes from one of the poorest regions in Canada. Moreover, people there are told “You come from a poor region. You have less benefits. We know that the industrial strategies of the federal government are targeted so as to make Ontario rich”. There is no other way to put it. This is done at the expense of the regions.
People in remote areas are told “In addition to that, the public servants who work in your region will be paid less”. We are talking here about workers who belong to groups such as general labour and trades and ships' crews. Because they work in poor regions, these public servants are paid less.
This increases regional inequalities. If public servants are paid less in these regions, they cannot spend as much as other public servants. They cannot make the same contribution to their region's economic development. This is not fair.
Public servants have come to my constituency office, including people who belong to groups such as general labour and trades, ships' crews, hospital services, general services, and even firefighters. I promised them I would tell my colleagues in the House what they told me, since I was elected to represent them. I promised them I would try to make government members realize that it is not right to force these workers to immediately go back to work by passing special legislation. I must also say on their behalf that it is not right for the government to use closure, so that other citizens cannot hear what we have to say on this issue.
