Mr. Speaker, anytime I have spoken in the House over the past seven years, I have usually been able to say that I am pleased to take part in the debate on a particular bill. Today, however, June 24, my pleasure is considerably lessened because I am quite sad that I cannot be in my constituency right now.
In less than an hour from now, I was supposed to take part in an activity, a mass, with some people and then, as in the past, I would have continued celebrating with my constituents until the wee hours of the morning. Basically, I usually celebrate Quebec's nation holiday as a Quebecker, and not just as a member of Parliament. We are always members of Parliament, even when we go grocery shopping.
It saddens me to be here, especially since my colleague from Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour tried to seek unanimous consent to interrupt the debate today and resume it again later.
The issue here is not playing the government's game by passing the bill and returning to our ridings to be on vacation for three months, as the media likes to say. Every MP is going to take some vacation, but they will continue to work during the summer period, to receive constituents in their office and take part in all the summer festivities in their riding. In any event, we are here for one reason. We were elected to work, to legislate. There is a bill before us and it is our responsibility to address the matter.
The government's Bill C-6 is an affront to democracy. Everyone has the right to fair and equitable working conditions. The summary of the bill is quite clear as to the government's intention to use a sledgehammer to impose conditions on the postal workers. The summary of the bill states:
This enactment provides for the resumption and continuation of postal services and imposes a final offer selection process to resolve matters remaining in dispute between the parties.
On reading the bill we see that an arbitrator, no matter how competent—it will not be his fault if he has to rule on the working conditions—will have no choice but to side with the conditions imposed by the employer. As far as I am concerned, it is not a matter of taking sides. I have always said we must side with the negotiation process, the possibility for both parties to reach an agreement. The government has not seen it that way from the very start.
I just got a reaction from the Conservative members when I said that Ronald Reagan had acted no differently in the 1980s by straight out dismissing air traffic controllers who had used pressure tactics to get fair working conditions. I even heard someone yell that it worked at least. Perhaps it worked, perhaps it is a right-wing way to impose rules, to be in control of a situation. But when it comes to a social environment, I do not think that this is the right attitude for a responsible government to take. The postal workers will go back to work and, if the conditions set out in the bill are imposed on them until the end of that collective agreement, so until 2015, the environment in the postal offices will be terrible.
At the post office in Victoriaville, during the conflict when the rotating strikes had begun, scabs arrived. The police had to step in because a scuffle broke out. Fortunately, nothing too serious happened.
The same thing happened in Sherbrooke, and some people tried to do the job of the postal workers. There are rules that need to be followed in those cases. That does not mean that all work is prohibited, but the work of postal workers must not be done by scabs.
We must also understand that there were negotiations during this conflict. We were told that the Canada Post Corporation was not too inclined to negotiate because the sword of Damocles, in the form of a special bill, was being held over the heads of employees. All we had to do was wait. When the rotating strikes began, there was some inconvenience to Canadians.
However, there was no major disruption since the unions had decided against a general strike. Rotating strikes were a way of getting their point across by inconveniencing certain categories of people in a particular sector for a specific period, with a different sector being affected a day or so later. This meant that those affected by the initial round of rotating strikes were no longer inconvenienced. Despite this, the employer reacted immediately by locking out workers, causing great inconvenience.
So, when I hear the government say that this is hurting the economy, it is important to consider what exactly occurred. The threat of special legislation caused Canada Post to lock out workers because it knew that the legislation would force employees to agree to conditions that were undoubtedly unacceptable to them. The buck therefore stops with the government. The threat of special legislation was looming and precipitated the lockout by Canada Post. Of course, all the employer had to do was wait for the infamous special legislation, for conditions to be set by an arbitrator, and then simply wash its hands of the matter, with no need to negotiate.
It was the government’s responsibility to ensure that a proper mediation process was in place and certainly not to specify in the special legislation that it would be left up to an arbitrator to choose between the two offers. It was like pouring salt on a wound when the decision was made to include in the special legislation lower wages than previously offered by Canada Post. And then there were the “orphan clauses”. In short, the government went to great lengths to ensure that Canada Post would have the upper hand in the “bargaining process”.
The Conservative government is largely responsible for the economic consequences it has spoken of today. Considering the government’s approach and its legislation, Bill C-6, it is no surprise to read of “Conservative arrogance”, the title of a Le Soleil editorial. Allow me to quote Brigitte Breton, the author of this article:
By introducing Bill C-6, the Conservatives have demonstrated that the public interest is by no means the only thing motivating them. The opportunity to show people who is in charge in Ottawa is too good to miss. That much was made abundantly clear by the inclusion in the bill of inferior wage conditions to those offered by Canada Post.
That summarizes what I have just said. We saw the same thing with Air Canada, when the government immediately said that it would introduce special legislation. They had not even started to use specific pressure tactics, there were no particular hardships, and right away, the government wanted to put a stop to it. It said that people would return to work, regardless of how, regardless of the work climate that would ensue. I think this is important, because all of that has an affect on the service being provided to the public.
I believe that workers at Air Canada, as well as Canada Post, like all workers in the public sector or semi-public sector, whether they are unionized or non-unionized, always want to work as hard as they can to provide the best possible service. However, when they return to work, their tails between their legs, because someone has imposed working conditions that go against what we have always stood for, conditions that the employer had subjected them to and that jeopardized their pension plans, this means that, whether we want it or not, services to the public could be affected because there will be a poor work climate. Obviously, I am once again directly blaming the government for this.
To sum up, the Bloc Québécois will obviously continue to oppose this bill, which is nothing more than the Conservative government trying to impose its own views.
