Madam Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their understanding.
I would like to begin by thanking all my colleagues for their very significant moral and physical support throughout this long debate which, to all intents and purposes, has dragged on since last Thursday. All staff in the offices of the whip, the leader and the research unit have been of invaluable support throughout the debate.
Returning to the merits of the question, there are two categories of worker particularly affected to which I wish to draw attention.
And, before I forget, I also thank my administrative assistant, Lucien-Pierre Bouchard, who has, as usual, with the greatest of good will, been of inestimable help to me, especially intellectually.
There are, therefore, two categories of public servants affected by the measures taken by their employer, who is also the legislator.
First of all, obviously, I have in mind the correctional services officers, who are once again being pushed around. Yet these are the workers who experience, on behalf of society, what might be termed the decline of the American empire. Their working conditions continue to deteriorate, their work pressures are continually on the increase because of our overcrowded prisons and the risks of contracting serious illnesses—AIDS among others—from the slightest physical contact in which blood may be exchanged.
We know that these people are living the increasingly acute problems that our society is faced with, a bit like the schools, sadly. We can only hope that the government will perhaps be more understanding with this group of workers, who do not deserve to be treated the way they have been for years, because they do provide services, in dreadful circumstances, day in and day out. We must be aware of that, and try to imagine what it is like to face such dreadful working conditions constantly, doing a job that probably no one else would want.
So, it is incumbent on the employer, the President of the Treasury Board, the Department of Justice or of the Solicitor General to take all necessary measures to ensure that these people are treated with more dignity.
There is another group of employees that I want to talk about, that is the members of coast guard, because I am the Bloc Quebecois critic in this area.
I had the privilege of meeting them some weeks ago, in Quebec City. They are very courteous and very competent and they not only provide great services to the public, in particular to the recreational boaters, but they are also very important as a group for the economy, some carrying out important rescue duties on the St. Lawrence River. Furthermore, and this is what I want to underline and I would appreciate it if the President of the Treasury Board also took this into account, these people have made a considerable effort in terms of the restrictions, the downsizing and the restructuring in the federal public service.
These people have accepted to merge services that are not necessarily compatible, and to take training courses because their tasks have changed over the years. Through new operational procedures, they have made it possible for the Canadian government to enhance productivity and save $13 million a year. As a reward for the sacrifices they have made, they were promised special treatment when the great negotiations came around. But, in actual fact, these promises have not been kept.
They are being treated just like everybody else. They do not have any special status in the ongoing negotiations. I wish the President of the Treasury Board would pay attention, because these people are very deserving in view of their generous attitude towards their employer. They have been co-operative, innovative, creative, responsive, and they have made substantial savings possible in the operations of the department.
Today, the door is being slammed in their faces, when a commitment, at least a moral commitment, had apparently been given to them by their immediate supervisors that the government would reward them in due course. But nothing has been done.
This is not a big group. There are maybe 350 to 400 people who, we are told, have had an exemplary behaviour as servants of the state and of the public. But today, they receive the same harsh treatment from that giant employer, the Government of Canada, which is unable to make the distinctions that sometimes need to be made.
To come back in a more general way over this day, which is a historic one, once again, I have to say that every day we adopt special back to work legislation is a sad day, historically, a black day in parliamentary history.
To better understand what is going on, we have to give some background to indicate where today's back to work legislation fits into the strategy of the Canadian government. Therefore, we have to go back to 1982.
It can never be overstated that we are dealing here with a type of behavior that is deeply rooted in ideology. We are in the midst of a neo-liberal trend, where individuals like Mrs. Thatcher and Mr. Reagan had all the latitude in the world, in the new global order, to set the course, for which we are now paying the consequences.
However, it had all started earlier, when the powers of governments began to be limited in order to force them to curb their spending and give up more and more of their responsibilities. Important measures were taken during the 1980s and the 1990s that led to governments giving up their responsibilities and getting rid of thousands of employees, about 55,000 employees apparently.
As for giving up responsibilities, I will give an example.
To cut its costs and do its share in a collective effort to reduce costs or to expand the Consolidated Revenue Fund, as we all know, the coast guard has set a new fee structure, which was imposed arbitrarily on users, especially icebreaking service users.
The Bloc Quebecois has played a key role in bringing the government to show more compassion and wisdom. It made to government back off significantly in order that users, and above all foreign users, keep wanting to do business with Canada, in particular with Quebec and Montreal, at a reasonable cost.
Now an aspect that is less known, a natural phenomenon, or in any event one resulting from the way we use the St. Lawrence River is bank erosion. Previously, the riverbanks were under the Coast Guard's responsibility.
There were complaints about erosion. Now there is are very serious problems. It seems that, in some regions in Quebec, 15 feet a year are lost to erosion. This is a lot. Over three to five years, it is 60 feet of land that disappear due to erosion.
Previously, there was an organization that felt concerned, and that was the coast guard. But now, the coast guard does not care. Apparently, there was devolution of this responsibility to municipalities. To turn to the Government of Quebec is out of the question; it would be too embarrassing. But municipalities do not have money, they do not have a budget for that, and everyone is passing the buck. Municipal taxpayers, including private ones, could see their own property eroded year after year with nobody in the country feeling concerned. In the past, however, these people were looked after.
This is part of the so-called rationalization, and it is a result of the fact that employees were cut, a lot of employees were cut—55,000 of them—and now we are obliged to let go of responsibilities previously appropriately assumed by the public service.
I know that, in my region, Trois-Rivières, in the riding of Champlain, huge rocks were used for back filling so in the spring there would no longer be the disastrous erosion.
So, this is a very practical example of what happens when the public service is attacked rather blindly and much more ideologically than claimed. It all happens without discussion, vision or transparency. They administer Monday to Friday, biweekly. Years and months go by. The next day it rains. Out they go in it. There are no plans. No accounts are given. They say neither where they are going nor from whence they came.