Charlie Angus

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I feel I should put it on the record that I have incredible respect for your judgment. You have given us a very judicious and wise response. Certainly members of our caucus will take note of that and ensure that any of the points of order we raise will be in the interest of debate and will not be any sort of mischief.

I do respect the Chair and what is happening in this House is an important debate. I want to apologize if I was too enthusiastic earlier.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

I would like to emphasize as I begin my point of order that points of order do not come off the five-minute question and comment period, so I would like to have the clock stopped at all times.

I would like to ask the hon. member to withdraw her comments that we are holding Canadians hostage. I think this is beneath the tone of debate that we should have in this House.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am not sure if she does not understand, or maybe she made a mistake, maybe she is tired, maybe she is trying to slip in the name of the Prime Minister, but I think that she should go back a few steps and remind herself that she cannot use the name of the Prime Minister, nor his government, nor what he is doing, by referring to him personally.

I think it is only fair that we follow the decorum in this House and the long-standing rules that have been established in the Westminster system of Parliament.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am astounded that on the fête nationale the member would say we should be wearing red for the troops on Friday. We all respect our troops, but he does not even take a moment to recognize that this is the fête nationale and for the Quebec--

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the hon. member took the time to read it.

I certainly support the scout movement. However, it is clear that scouter Tim did not blame the members opposite. The member did, and I would ask that he withdraw his statement.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. While listening to the debate through night, I noticed the members were always calling on these emails they had received from various constituents.

I find it shocking that Scouter Tim would have said days ago that the members of the other party were holding up the debate. Would the member table the email from Scouter Tim so we could see what it actually says?

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it was very clear last night, when the labour minister was speaking in terms of the Conservatives' little narrative they are trying to set up and their attack on unions and the NDP for defending the rights of people to have pensions, that the labour minister said it was obvious the NDP had a direct line to labour leaders.

I would think that any labour minister with any sense of responsibility would also have a direct line to labour leaders, because if she did she would not have stood up in this House and given us this drivel about how the Conservatives were not taking sides and how they wanted to get people back to work. If she had a direct line to the labour leaders, she would have known that the lockout was engineered, that the workers are ready to go back to work and will be delivering the pension cheques.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague why he thinks the labour minister has no direct line to labour union leaders and so has no idea of what is actually happening in this debate.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I see my colleagues over there are probably tired and grumpy after staying up all night. I think they are starting to be a little delusional. I think they just need to calm down and engage in some respectful debate and stop interrupting. It was a very interesting speech, and I find that what I am hearing from across the way is starting to sound rather delusional. I would say, have a little cup of Ovaltine and everything will be fine.

[Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Legislation, June 23rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the issue of bargaining in good faith is fundamental to union and management negotiations. When a government intervenes, locks out workers, forces a crisis and then imposes a new wage agreement that is lower than was negotiated, that sends the signal to management and all other sources of work.

The government has taken sides and intervened above and beyond its right. A very bad precedent is going to be set by the government.

[Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Legislation, June 23rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I find that an odd question. Previous Liberal governments were always against the working rights. Now the Liberals are onside with us, but want to know if there could be a hypothetical situation down the road where they could jump ship. I am sure we will jump ship from them as soon as we can down the road from this legislation on many things. I will not get into whether there could be a hypothetical situation.

I am glad to hear my hon. colleagues in the Liberal Party speaking up for working rights. I am certainly glad to hear that they will be with us as we stay up night after night in the House. Maybe as we talk all night, we can find some hypothetical situations where he might find a reason not to support the legislation.