Bob Nault

[Business of Supply, February 25th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure for me to follow my esteemed colleague and to enter into a debate that is extremely important to all Canadians.

The opposition is concerned about the unemployment rate in Alberta. I come from a region in Northern Ontario. My constituents have been living with an unemployment rate of 13% for at least a decade under the Conservatives. People in my region have become so used to a 13% unemployment rate that they think it is normal. That is why I am in this debate.

We as a government work with Canadians to supply employment insurance and different programs and services. We have to remember there are a many parts of our country that struggle continuously just to survive.

I speak to this from the perspective of what government is supposed to do on behalf of Canadians. Our role as government and as parliamentarians is to protect the most vulnerable. How do we characterize the most vulnerable? For me, they are the poorest people in our society. They are the seniors who are struggling just to make ends meet. They are our veterans, who we should always support because they have done their share in defending the democratic interests of our country. Those are the vulnerable people who we speak about on a regular basis. We want to ensure we make programs and services available to them.

People in the workplace are also vulnerable, whether they be part-time employees or employees making minimum wage. Canada's minimum wage is not a working wage in this society. It needs to be looked at in a serious way. We need to think about the unemployed from the perspective of regions of the country like mine where there are a lot of seasonal employees who have no choice but to accept the fact that in any given year there will be periods of time when they will be unemployed. We as governments have put in place programs that we think will help these vulnerable people.

One of the reasons why I am interested in speaking to the motion is that the NDP has put it forward for reasons that are not genuine. Those members know darn well that this government is within days of making some serious announcements about some of the major changes that we want to make. We committed to making these changes during the election campaign. The NDP members know this will happen because they have heard it from all of us day in and day out in the House and they have heard it from the Prime Minister.

Let me just repeat some of this for members opposite.

I have been fighting NDP candidates in my region for decades now. I beat them pretty much every time I run against them, and I will tell the House why. I beat them because they are not realistic in the way they approach their campaigns, and here is an example.

The New Democratic candidates who ran in the last campaign told everybody that they would balance the books in the first, second, third and fourth year. We all knew that would never happen. It was easy on the hustings to talk about the NDP and some of its policies. Those policies have to be real if we want to convince Canadians to vote for us. I had the great pleasure of running against the ex-NDP leader in Ontario. I enjoyed my time on the hustings against him because he was talking as if he was still in the sixties, not 2015.

I tell the House that because it goes to the motion we have been presented with today. We on this side of the House would love to support the motion. The member for Malpeque and I were just talking about that. If the NDP had presented a realistic motion, we would be on our feet supporting it. However, we cannot possibly support it because of the way it has been crafted. That plays into the NDP's hands, that the Liberals do not care about EI or the unemployed, but that is not the case.

In the short time I have, I am going to give a quick list of what this government is prepared to do within a matter of days.

To that end, we are going to eliminate the discrimination against workers that are newly entering the workforce or re-entering the workforce. That was mentioned by the parliamentary secretary.

We are going to reverse the 2012 changes to the employment insurance system that force unemployed workers to move away from their communities and take lower paying jobs. I represent one-third of Ontario's land mass. Moving away is a serious matter. That is like moving from one end of the Atlantic to the other and still being in my riding. So when people talk about moving away to take another job, I hope they do not mean the folks that I represent moving to Toronto, which would take 22 hours non-stop driving just to get there. We have to be realistic about the kind of things that the Conservatives brought in that just do not work.

I want to get a chance to speak about the rationalizing and expanding of the intergovernmental agreements, which is the labour market development agreement, and supporting training for unemployed workers.

I will stop with that list because it is exhaustive, but I want to speak to the really important commitment of this government. Those are going to be changes that we can make relatively quickly in the House, but the real interest from my perspective is the undertaking of a broad review.

If we know that employment insurance is so important to our constituents, and 40% of our constituents can qualify and the rest cannot, then we know we have a system that is broken, that needs to be looked at, that needs to be reviewed, that needs a broad review by government as to how we are going to get the other 60% of the people, who are not part of this system, into play if they need our help from government for employees and employers.

Keep in mind that this is a program that is funded by employers and employees. Keep in mind as well that we have a Canada Employment Insurance Commission, and we should be looking at the mandate of that commission. The commission should not have just the one job, the one role of looking at what amount each employer and employee pays into the system. We should look at the commission's role and responsibilities from the perspective of making sure that this program really does help Canadians; because if it does not, then we are just relying on the provinces to basically give these workers social assistance, when they may just need a step forward on skills development, on training, on opportunities for them to improve their lives and then potentially move on to another job.

When we made the commitment that we wanted to move from $500 million a year to provinces and territories for workers who are not eligible for EI, to increase it by an extra $200 million, so $700 million a year, I think that was a good start. Those are the people we are talking about. We are talking about the 60% who do not qualify, and where do they get help? They get help under that tool, that part of the EI system. So the more we can do in that area, and help those folks, makes a big difference.

Then the whole issue of the LMAs and the $2 billion of labour market programs, that is just a small amount in the system toward building the training structure and moving beyond the economy we have today and looking at productivity and how people would work in the new economy.

I do not enjoy representing a region that has 13% unemployment. I am here to try to make a difference. When I left politics in 2004, the unemployment rate in my region was around 10% and it had dropped from about 17% during the major recession when the Mulroney government was in power. When I came here, we worked very hard to start moving toward an unemployment rate that might be a little more realistic for a region like mine. That tells me that this program that the government has announced, which we will see in a few days, is the right approach to improving a system that all of us think needs to be improved.

[Canada Labour Code, February 3rd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his very good speech. During his speech he spoke about red tape duplication. What we mean by that is, the provinces already have legislation dealing with these matters in their jurisdiction. In fact, this legislation that was put in tries to duplicate things that are already under provincial jurisdiction.

Why would any government, including our own, want to proceed in this fashion when it is not constitutionally our jurisdiction and just adds another layer on something that does not need to be done as it is?

[Canada Labour Code, February 3rd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has been in the House for many years and understands the process of legislation and the structure of how we make improvements to the Canada Labour Code. One of the things that shocks me the most about the previous government bringing these two private members' bills forward is that anyone who is in government would know that the Department of Justice would have given the minister of labour and the member, in the private member's bill process, an explanation as to whether it was provincial or federal jurisdiction.

Why would the previous government bring in legislation that was in the provincial jurisdiction, related to provincial labour agreements, and did not have anything to do with the federal government per se?

[Canada Labour Code, February 3rd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, in the discussions the member had with his colleagues when they passed Bill C-377, was he aware that seven provinces voiced opposition to this bill. They had concerns with encroachment on their jurisdiction as it related to labour issues?

Why did the previous federal government see fit to interfere in provincial jurisdictions as it related to labour relations, and put labour relations and the whole balance of labour relations in jeopardy in the provinces of the country when it was not a federation jurisdiction at all?

[Canada Labour Code, February 3rd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I can tell the member that this side of the House agrees and understands that the Canada pension plan needs some serious change and work.

The Minister of Finance, we are quite convinced, is working with his colleagues for one simple reason: to try to make those changes. Thanks to the previous government and its leader, I went door to door for 11 straight months. That is not true. I started about six months before that. Everyone we talked to on the hustings, every pensioner who only had the Canada pension to rely on, said that the previous government let Canadians down by doing nothing with the Canada pension plan.

On this side, we will make sure that we correct that, even if it takes us a little while to do it.

[Canada Labour Code, February 3rd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, it is quite interesting that the member, who was the minister of labour, stands up in this place and defends her time as the minister of labour but at the same time does not tell us why she went through the back door with a piece of legislation in a private member's bill. Why not use the regular process and show a little courage and have a real debate about the Canada Labour Code and the ramifications of the process? If there was a discussion about this process, then there obviously would have been a bill sponsored by the minister of labour, not a private member's bill.

I do not know exactly what the member is talking about, but I will tell members that the previous government had a bad habit of picking enemies and making everyone who did not agree with it an enemy of the state. I think the Conservatives decided that organized labour was an enemy of the state, like scientists, environmentalists, and anyone who disagreed with their platform. In the last election, I think people spoke about their involvement with labour, and they disagreed with everything the Conservatives were doing.

[Canada Labour Code, February 3rd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to stand here in my place to speak to Bill C-4. Before I do that, I just want to say that I will be splitting my time with the member for Davenport.

I want to start off by talking a little about my background, because I think it is important for the members to know that I am one of those union bosses the members opposite are talking about. I am one of those people who was high up in the union movement in the 1980s, and the 1970s for that matter, before I became a member of Parliament. I must be the one they are targeting who was not accountable and not transparent and had something to hide and that they were trying to fix in the pieces of legislation we are speaking to.

I wanted to come clean right off the bat that I have a particular bias. I am a labour unionist and am very proud of it. This country has a long history with the organized labour movement. It has done well in making those kinds of changes.

Let us talk a little about the history of the labour movement. It is pretty clear that the labour movement has had huge impacts on blue collar workers and workers in Canada. Part of that is obviously better wages, better working hours, and better health and safety, which is one of the main reasons unions started in the first place. Workers were under very severe pressure to work in unsafe conditions in the early part of our history. The labour movement was started because of the lack of protection for the everyday man and woman working in Canada.

I want to share with members the race to the bottom the Conservative Party, and the Reform Party before it, have been bringing to the House for the last 20 years I have been involved. It scares me. I will use the example of the Canada pension plan and pensions in general.

The labour movement had a huge role to play in bringing pensions, good pensions, to men and women all across the country to supplement their retirement incomes, because obviously, we know that the Government of Canada cannot look after all our seniors after retirement. The pension plans, the funding put in by employers and employees, are very important in our economy today.

We not only need to talk about the collective bargaining structure but about the social aspects of what collective bargaining and organized labour can do.

I just want to talk a little about a 2012 study, by the Boston Consulting Group, I have been reading about. Here is what I found out. On average, 14 cents of every dollar of income in Ontario communities comes from pensions. That means that in Ontario, 7% of all income in our towns and cities, or $27 billion, is derived from defined benefit pensions.

Instead of trying to diminish labour, we should in fact be trying to strengthen our relationship with employers and employees so that there are more pensions in the workplace so that pensioners, the people we represent in the House, have a good retirement.

I am proud to represent retired railroaders, mill workers, and miners, all these people in the Kenora—Rainy River district, and now the Kenora riding, that I have been a member of Parliament for for the past 16 years. These people have good pensions. Those workers were represented by organized labour. They had huge benefits because of good collective bargaining.

That does not mean that the employers did not make money. I was a railroader. I represented the railway unions. Those railways made money in the days when I was there negotiating collective bargaining agreements with them.

The fact that the previous government felt that it was in its best interest to try to diminish organized labour makes me wonder what the motive really was. In fact, it does more harm to Canada than it does good. We should be strengthening the opportunity for organized labour to work with the government and with employers, instead of the reverse.

The previous government set a very dangerous precedent. The balance between labour and employers has always been hard to arrive at. We have spent, I would bet, 100 years trying to get the balance right provincially, federally, and even municipally. Then we had a private member's bill foisted on us, without any discussion among the key players—labour, government, and employers—through the tripartite process that has been ongoing at the department of labour federally for as long as I can remember. That is a very dangerous precedent by any government.

Even Brian Mulroney's government would not have done something like that. I was involved in those days in opposition when Brian Mulroney's government wanted to bring some changes to the Canada Labour Code. It used the tripartite process.

The Conservative Party, and I think there are too many Reformers in there still, really needs to start thinking about what exactly its intent was in getting involved in provincial jurisdiction, which has nothing to do with the federal government, and using the Income Tax Act to do so.

That is exactly why the current government is repealing those pieces of legislation. First, this is not our jurisdiction. Second, they are unconstitutional. We all know that, and we know that if we do not do anything, the courts will throw them out, like it did many pieces of legislation the Conservative government brought it.

We are doing the right thing. We are putting in place the balance. The balance is always difficult to achieve. Yes, sometimes workers go on strike. They have to have the ability to do that. They have to have the ability to certify. They have to be able to do it without everyone in the world knowing their strategy and their plan. It is pretty hard to negotiate with both hands tied behind one's back. What the Conservative government proposed to do under that legislation was to have the union tell the employer, on the other side, all its financial resources, who it was speaking to, and what it was proposing to do.

If a union is putting money into social issues or into campaigns, that is its prerogative. I can say this because I was there at the top end of the union: union members know where their money is spent. It is ridiculous for any party to be suggesting to the average Canadian that somehow workers do not know where their dues go. We all know that this is just a fabrication to make it sound like it has to be done.

These two pieces of legislation destabilized that very careful balance that we in Canada, as legislators, tried for many years to make sure stayed in tact. The legislation we are proposing to repeal will be repealed because we want to make sure that the relationship between labour and the government and employers is respected and that collective bargaining will be done in the way it has always been done, between the employer and the unions. They will work it out. That is what the legislation is intended to do for Canadian workers and their employers.

I want to speak a little about the importance of our new government's relationship not just with labour but with the Canadian people. Over the next couple of months in this place, we are going to see the government probably remove a number of pieces of legislation the other side brought in that we think are counterproductive to building a good society. I hope that we on this side of the House never feel that we have to find an excuse for not be doing that. We ran on a platform of not allowing those kinds of things to happen anymore. We are going to have respect for the labour movement. We are going to have respect for Canadians. That is what we are going to do.

[Canada Labour Code, February 3rd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I want to ask the member if she would comment on the historical way that Parliament has, over generations, dealt with labour legislation.

Those of us who have been around the labour movement for many years know that in the federal jurisdiction, here in this place, governments, both Conservative and Liberal, have always had a tripartite working group process that allowed the labour department to sit down with organized labour, all of the different unions and all of the different employers in the federal family, to look at the Canada Labour Code. If changes were necessary because times had changed, they would go through the process of putting a tripartite committee together and then, following the discussions, provide a report to the minister of labour to look at different changes to the Labour Code.

Why is it that the previous government refused to do that and, instead, took the backdoor route of using a private member's bill to get through this process?

[Canada Labour Code, February 3rd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, that was a very good speech because it talked a lot about labour, organized labour, the importance of organized labour in our society, and the role of organized labour in the balance of rights of workers and, of course, the rights of employers to make a good living and those workers, those blue-collar workers, to make a good living.

I would like to ask a couple of questions of the member because I think it is important to get this on the record.

Why is it that the Conservatives, and especially the member from Quebec, who does not believe that the federal government should enter into provincial jurisdiction, generally speaking, have chosen to use the Income Tax Act to bypass provincial laws and legislation relating to the labour movement? It is their jurisdiction.

I do not, for the life of me, understand why the Conservatives are even messing around in provincial jurisdiction when it is a province's right to deal with the labour movement, the collective agreements, and organized labour in its particular province or territory. I ask that question of the member.

[Canada Labour Code, February 3rd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments, even though, to some extent, I cannot understand what he is trying to accomplish.

I will ask a simple question. If there are problems with labour and employee relations, could he explain to the House exactly what they are? Before these bills were presented, I did not see any major issues in the relationship between unions and employers in this country, so I wonder what the motivation would be for the previous government to present the bills that it did.