Bob Rae

[Pensions, June 20th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I did not hear an answer to my question about pensions. This issue affects not just the workers at Canada Post, but all workers in the country. It is evident that there will be more strikes this year and next if we do not find a solution that provides more security for Canadian workers.

[Pensions, June 20th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things the minister just said was that she was trying to get the parties to focus on the issues.

It is very clear that one of the key issues is that workers who used to be able to rely on a defined benefit plan that would provide them with a degree of security are no longer able to rely on that security with respect to major employers in the country. This is a pattern that has been growing. The fact remains that the defined benefit provision has been one of the main pillars of the Canadian pension system.

What is the government doing to make sure that this pillar does not simply crumble?

[Labour Relations, June 16th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I hope the Prime Minister is not suggesting for a moment that there is no public interest in economic security, that there is no public interest in economic justice and that there is no public interest in the fact that workers are being left to fend for themselves in a situation where even the largest of employers are saying, “We are not going to provide for a defined benefit plan any more for your pensions”.

Does the Prime Minister not understand that what is at stake here is the pensions, not only of these workers, not only of these employees, of these people, it is the pension system in the entire country.

When will the Prime Minister face up to that fact? That is the problem.

[Labour Relations, June 16th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, everyone agrees that, without a doubt, the public interest is important. However, in the public interest, people must also have access to pensions to live on in the future. This is the issue that is at the heart of negotiations, not only those that are currently under way but also future negotiations. This is the gap that the government is creating: it is leaving people to fend for themselves without its support.

How can it tolerate this situation?

[Labour Relations, June 16th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the trouble is that when the only tool we have in our toolbox is a sledgehammer, everything starts to look like a rock. That is the problem we have with the government.

The Prime Minister said, in answer to an earlier question, that pensions had nothing to do with the back to work legislation. Nothing could be further from the truth, to coin a phrase.

The fact is that it is the pension issue that is at the heart of the negotiations in this dispute, in the Canada Post dispute, in the issue with CUPE coming up with Air Canada and with the machinists coming up at Air Canada. It is the core of the issue.

Will the Prime Minister not face up to--

[Labour Relations, June 15th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the third example of the government's double standard is the situation we are in with Air Canada and Canada Post. With Air Canada, it is clear that a legal strike started yesterday. Services are still being offered, but the government is in the process of introducing a bill to put an end to the strike. As for Canada Post, the government is very slow to react on behalf of the workers who have been locked out and on behalf of consumers.

Why this double standard?

[Auditor General's Report, June 15th, 2011]

Speaking of double standards, Mr. Speaker, we now have another one.

The Prime Minister is constantly saying that those of us who quote the Auditor General are not telling the truth. So let me simply quote the Auditor General very directly with respect to the activities of the President of the Treasury Board and ask him one simple question.

The interim Auditor General said that he found what the government did unusual and troubling. I would like to ask the Prime Minister, is the Auditor General telling the truth when he says those words?

[Foreign Affairs, June 15th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I have just learned that the Minister of Finance has just given a speech in New York City where, in the middle of a major political debate in the United States, the minister has chosen to side with the Republican fiscal hawks in the United States Congress.

I would like to ask the Prime Minister, since when does the Government of Canada interfere in the domestic political issues in the United States, and since when does his government become a branch plant of the Republican tea party in the United States?

[Government Spending, June 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it is very clear that the government has one standard for cabinet, one standard for the Conservatives, one standard for ministers' ridings; then there is another reality for Canadians throughout the country.

The Prime Minister's agenda does not have the necessary credibility because he is proposing one thing for those in power and another for Canada's middle class. This is the problem we have with the Conservative government's approach.

[Government Spending, June 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the hard fact remains that he has put a minister in charge of government restraint who is himself responsible for a $50 million expenditure that he could not explain, that he could not justify, for which there was no documentation, including for gazebos, the paving of roads, whatever it might have been. There was no documentation whatsoever, and that is the minister who is now in charge of helping Canadians to deal with the new economic climate in which we find ourselves.

Again, there is a double standard: one standard for ministers, one standard for—