Carole Lavallée

[Child Care, November 1st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, in the francophone media, the Minister of Social Development keeps repeating that he is going to respect the provinces and that Quebec is the model to emulate in the field of child care. Your applause is welcome.

However, in the anglophone media, he goes into more detail. In an interview on Saturday he talked about points of reference, reports and standards.

I ask the minister to be clear and precise, here in the House, and to confirm that Quebec, whose system is the model, will be permitted to opt out entirely, unconditionally and with full compensation.

[Tlicho Land Claims and Self-Government Act, October 27th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, to say that I am disappointed by the reply is an understatement: I am extremely disappointed. I did not expect a chronology of events. That, I could have provided myself.

I did not get an answer to my questions as to what the President of the Treasury Board intends to do and what concrete efforts he intends to make to reach a negotiated settlement. Perhaps the answer lies in an expression containing three words, namely “nothing at all”, because this is what we understand right now. The President of the Treasury Board plans to make no effort whatsoever to reach a negotiated settlement.

Moreover, I am sure that CSN people would be very pleased to be told by the President of the Treasury Board how to sign a collective agreement.

I put my question again to the parliamentary secretary: what specific action does the President of the Treasury Board intend to take to reach a negotiated settlement with correctional officers?

[Tlicho Land Claims and Self-Government Act, October 27th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, last week, I had the pleasure of asking a question in this House on the fate of the 6,000 correctional officers who have been without a collective agreement since June 2002.

They have had 80 negotiation sessions. They are currently at the conciliation stage, but the process has been suspended because the conciliator is not available to meet with them before November.

When I asked my question, I was told that the CSN was in the process of learning how things worked. The CSN is one of the largest labour unions in Quebec. The response was quite arrogant and unfounded.

As we know, correctional officers have the right to strike but the entire work force provides essential services. They work under very special conditions and do very difficult work. They encounter verbal, physical and psychological violence and abuse on a daily basis.

Penitentiaries are also places where infectious and contagious diseases are prevalent, diseases such HIV, hepatitis A, B and C, as well as tuberculosis. Inmates, who have exchanged bodily fluids with correctional officers, cannot be tested without their consent.

And as I said, it is a very violent environment. For example, among the 2,600 inmates in maximum security, there were five murders in one year. That is a murder rate 100 times greater than average.

It is also an environment with a great deal of harassment. It lends itself to harassment from the inmates. The stress is constant; aggression is a necessary part of the work. The negative environment has an obvious impact.

Proportionately speaking, the incidence of violence is greater in prisons than in the general population.

This level of violence and this atmosphere in which anything can happen combine to add to the stress of the correctional officers. There is twice as much depression among correctional officers as in the general public, that is, 22% instead of 11%.

A survey of 2,432 Canadian correctional officers, including 710 in Quebec, showed a very clear association between the level of work-related stress and years of service. Thus, 34% of officers with 15 or more years of service thought their work was stressful, while only 14% of officers with less than two years' experience thought so.

Contrary to observations in the work force as a whole, where the more experience and skill one acquires, the less stressful the job, in the world of corrections, it is exactly the opposite. They say the last years are the most difficult.

Special working conditions require a special collective agreement. That was the original justification for the correctional officers having their own union. Their main demand is a pension plan where 25 years of service at age 50 would bring 70% of salary.

Far be it from me to do their negotiating for them. Far be it from me to imagine we can reach an agreement, but I just wanted to make members aware of the necessity to negotiate special conditions.

I would like to ask once again what positive steps the President of the Treasury Board intends to take so that the corrections officers get a properly negotiated collective agreement?

[Correctional Services Canada, October 19th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the correctional officers have been without a collective agreement since June 1, 2002. Currently at the conciliation stage, the bargaining process has stalled because, in September, after three sessions, the conciliator announced that he would not be available again until November.

In light of this rather odd situation, could the President of the Treasury Board tell us what positive steps he intends to take to ensure that a collective agreement is negotiated with the correctional officers as soon as possible?

As we all know, these officers have a dangerous job which generates high levels of stress, which in turn requires—

[Labour Relations, October 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, as it has for six years now, National PEP Your Workplace Week, a creation of the Institute for Business Technology, will take place in early October.

The Government of Canada is one of the institute's major clients and consequently invests a considerable amount of money in training its employees to enable them to improve their personal efficiency and productivity, or PEP, in the workplace.

This same government could save a good deal of money, taxpayers' money, merely by showing some respect for its employees who are members of the Public Service Alliance. How so? By negotiating fair and reasonable conditions based on conciliation board reports from the various negotiating tables.

Negotiation is the best way to settle labour disputes and to better serve taxpayers. The result would be 130,000 employees who are motivated and “peppy” employees instead of depressed and on strike.