Christine Moore

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I have decided to speak once again as part of the debate on the back to work legislation for Canada Post employees because what is going on here is very important. We are about to take a step that should never be taken by any rightful government.

At no time should a government decide to so shamefully violate the rights of workers, when there is the simple solution of removing the locks and putting an end to the lockout. If this government had done what it should have done from the beginning of the dispute, which is put an end to the lockout and allow Canada Post workers to continue to work, we never would have needed this bill, and mail service would not have been suspended for Canadians and Canadian businesses.

But no, the government would rather introduce legislation that mocks the workers of this country, that violates workers' rights, that imposes working conditions that are worse than what was offered by the employer. The government would rather set our country back, even though we have always been proactive about the rights of our citizens.

For three and a half years, I wore the Canadian flag on one of my shoulders, in both red and white and in green camouflage. What is important is that I was always proud of this flag and what it represents.

Every time I travelled abroad, in Europe or in Africa, when I was asked to talk about my country, I was proud to do so because this country has always respected and promoted the fundamental rights of its citizens. I talked about all the battles Canadians had to fight to improve our standard of living.

I honestly believe that there is nowhere better than here, this land where I grew up. And I would want nothing else for my future children.

That is why I urge my colleagues from all parties in this House to look past their partisan quarrels, because what is going on here is much bigger than that. Not only the workers of Canada Post, but all workers in Canada will suffer the consequences, and the dignity of our country will be undermined.

When this government so shamefully shows that it can side with the employer in a dispute, it does not just hurt the postal workers, but the entire political institution all of us here represent.

We are not talking about overpaid employees with obscene benefits, as some would have us believe; we are talking about men and women who work hard, who have average salaries, who work irregular schedules at the start of their career which quite often does not allow them to enjoy their family life, and whose working conditions sometime cause their health to suffer. We are talking about most Canadian families who work every day for this country.

Let us talk a little bit about the working conditions of Canada Post workers. Some of you may recall the election campaign that started in 2005 and ended in January 2006, in the middle of winter and during the holidays. Most of you who campaigned at the time probably went door to door. Was it not terrible to walk knee-deep in snow, go up icy steps and deal with the freezing cold conditions?

We do not often have to campaign in the middle of winter, but Canada Post employees have to face the winter every year and not just for the duration of an election campaign. They cannot take a coffee break to warm up when it is too cold outside. People do not invite postal workers into their homes to let them warm up and to encourage them to carry on.

The French version of our national anthem, of which we are so proud, says “protégerons nos foyers et nos droits”, which means “we stand on guard for our homes and our rights”. It seems to me those are the two things we are talking about here.

What does it mean to stand on guard for our homes? I think it means to protect the health and safety of our workers. I think standing on guard for our homes means to ensure that workers have a decent pension plan.

What does it mean to stand on guard for our rights? I think it absolutely means to preserve the right of workers in this country to negotiate.

In my work as a nurse, I learned that if I did something for my patients instead of letting them do it, or I did their thinking for them, I would never get anywhere with them. To successfully get lasting change, it is essential to give them the tools they need, but also to allow them to solve their own problems themselves.

With this bill, the government is interfering in a dispute where that was not needed. At the outset, the government should have ordered that the lockout be ended and the parties return to the bargaining table and find a way to agree, and that they find a middle way between the demands of the two sides, to achieve a fairer solution.

Let us talk about that: a fair solution. In this bill that we have been discussing for some time now, there is one thing in particular that is revolting: the wage cut. It is not a wage cut imposed by Canada Post; no, it is being imposed on the workers by our government, a government that deserves credit for being clear about the interests it is prepared to defend.

I would like to say one thing to all Canadians who are watching us or will be watching us later in the day: it is not your interests that our government is prepared to defend, it is not the government that is prepared to spend hours on end in this House to try to persuade the party opposite to bring forward reasonable and respectful legislation.

Our government seems to have respect for only certain people, the ones who are at the top of big corporations, the ones who make profits. The government should not forget, however, that the profits made by Canada Post do not fall from the sky. Those profits are the fruit of the hard work done by the postal employees, and I am sure that all those employees will be grateful to the government for the gratitude it might show them, gratitude that could be expressed, for example, in a bill that did not provide for lower wages than they had been offered. I hear them saying thank you from here.

We do not agree on numerous points, on either side of this aisle, but we agree that the workers should go back to work so that everyone who relies on the postal services can breathe easier. There are two ways of achieving that result. The first is to pass an unfair bill that jeopardizes the social benefits that all workers in this country enjoy. The second is to end the lockout and allow the postal employees to go back to work with dignity. I am on the side of human dignity.

Once again, I call on the government today to reverse its position. Not for the NDP. We are not here to win or lose a vote; we are here because something brings us together: the profound conviction that each of our fellow Canadians deserves respect. Our fellow Canadians deserve better than that. The government has the power to prove that it respects Canadians and Canadian workers.

So I suggest that it end the lockout, and most importantly, I call on all my parliamentary colleagues of all political stripes, on behalf of everyone we represent here, to vote against this bill as long as it remains unchanged.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague, the member for Bourassa, how he can play petty politics by saying that it is the NDP's fault we were unable to attend Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day festivities. Our leader moved a motion so that we could take a break for Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day and return to our families. The Bloc Québécois also moved a motion on that. But both times, the Conservative government refused to let us go.

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

Mr. Speaker, of course there are small businesses in my riding that are affected by this situation. That is why I feel that Conservative members should ask their leader to end the lockout and take the locks off the doors so that Canada Post workers can get back to work, deliver the mail and resume negotiations.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that this bill is very significant. We are debating what will happen to Canada Post workers, but the underlying debate is about the future of all Canadian workers.

If we agree to let workers' rights be violated even once, we open the door to the government intervening in these issues and imposing working conditions on workers whenever there is a strike or other problem. We are fighting here to preserve all workers' right to negotiate, not the just the right of Canada Post workers.

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

Mr. Speaker, that is absolutely true. It would be much more acceptable to remove the locks and to ask the parties to resume negotiations to preserve a good working relationship. I had working conditions imposed on me in 2006 and I can tell you it creates an abysmal working environment. If the locks were removed and negotiations resumed, I think the working environment at Canada Post could be salvaged.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am aware that many people hope to start receiving their mail again. That is why I would very much like to ask the parliamentary secretary, even though it is not her turn to respond, why she does not call on her leader to remove the locks. That would resolve the problem and mail service would resume.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am going to try to take advantage of the few minutes I have to try to explain the concepts that some of my Conservative colleagues have obviously not understood, even after several hours of debate.

We are here today to vote on a bill forcing workers to abandon their right to bargain, forcing them to return to inadequate health and safety conditions at work, conditions that need to be improved, and forcing them to be quiet.

This back-to-work legislation means that workers are losing ground and that their rights are being rolled back. We have said this repeatedly in the House, but apparently the words have not made it to the other side of the chamber.

Because of this bill, workers will be deprived of the right to negotiate their working conditions, a right they acquired decades ago. Please note the word “negotiation”, a word the leader of the government needs to examine more closely.

We have to discuss and debate to arrive at an agreement that will satisfy both parties and be fair to both of them, because even if one of two parties has more power, for instance if it is in majority at the bargaining table, the spirit of democracy and justice should dictate that it listens to what the other side has to say, to learn from the experience that informs each of their statements. But this government clearly has nothing but contempt for the word “negotiation”.

For several months now postal workers have negotiated to obtain better working conditions. They made concessions and they agreed to listen to what their employer had to say. They were willing to accept the collective agreement that was in force. They were ready to live with it so that things could move forward.

They demonstrated more commitment to their work and dedication to their fellow citizens than their legal obligations required. And what did the government do in light of these concessions? What did the government do in return for their dedication to public service and the citizens of this country? It treated them with contempt, ignored them and gave them short shrift. And what is even worse, it is offering postal workers even less than what they had obtained in their negotiations with Canada Post. It is proposing a lower salary and poorer working conditions. Why impose worse conditions on the workers than those Canada Post had agreed to?

Let us come back to the reason Canada Post is giving for refusing the union's demands: the argument that agreeing to these demands would supposedly render the company financially non-viable.

Given how broadly Canada Post defines its financial viability, we can therefore assume that the provisions agreed to by management did not directly or indirectly jeopardize Canada's or Canada Post's finances.

And yet, the government decided to retract these provisions. Why? The answer is simple: for profit. This bill trades the security, health and quality of life of devoted workers and their families for profits larger than the $281 million Canada Post made last year. The government is trading the dignity of our workers for a few million dollars extra. Does the Prime Minister think that this is in the best interest of our country?

Has he perhaps forgotten that a country is not a bank? This country is not a pile of money; it is people who work and dedicate themselves to this country, people who have already made concessions.

Where are this government's concessions? Where is this government's dignity? I do not know. I do not see them in this bill. All I see here is a supreme insult to all the workers in this country who get up every morning to keep this country running, to make sure the mail gets delivered, to take care of the sick, to manufacture goods, to teach our children and to ensure that our society and economy do as well as possible. The truth is that the workers we are talking about have shown more concern and respect for Canadians than this government has.

But contempt is common on the other side of the House. Take, for example, the fact that this government was found in contempt of Parliament. We have not forgotten. The contempt this government has for postal workers who did everything they could to continue to provide service to the public even while they were on strike is unacceptable.

Who will be next? Who will be the next to be humiliated and sacrificed in the supposed best interest of the economy, an interest that we clearly do not define in the same way at all?

Who else will be silenced in the name of these supposed economic interests? Or, should I say, who else will be silenced in the name of this government's interests?

Here is one email I received:

It has been a long haul with Bill C-6, and it's with pride that I see men and women standing in defence of what is right, not only for postal workers but for all workers who don't have a voice.

I would prefer not to repeat yet again what this government has been denying for hours now, but we have no choice. It authorized a worker lockout. It prevented workers from doing their jobs, even though they were willing to continue doing work that no essential service legislation required them to do.

Then the government proposed legislation forcing employees back to work, to do a job they did not want to stop doing in the first place. Incidentally, the government took away some of their rights. The right to collective bargaining, the right to a safe working environment, the right to retire at a deserving age, the right to sick leave, the right to retirement benefits pensioners can live on and not just get by on, all of which are and should remain fundamental rights in this country.

Since this debate began yesterday, all of my NDP colleagues and I have been receiving constant emails of encouragement and appreciation. Emails asking us to fight, to continue standing up for the rights of those who live and work in this country.

Now it is my turn to take this opportunity to thank all those people for their support. They serve as constant reminders of why we are here, why we rise in this House one after another and why we are prepared to stay here as long as necessary.

We have repeatedly heard the Conservatives argue that Canadians gave them a clear mandate to justify their behaviour in this House. I think they are sadly mistaken. I see no clear message. Thirty-eight percent of Canadians voted for the Conservatives. But, as I see it, the clear message and the message that should be obvious to anyone who can add or subtract is that 62% of Canadians voted against the government.

Since the hon. members do not seem inclined to hear the voices of those Canadians, I will make their voices heard here. This morning, I got an email from a woman telling me how proud she was for voting NDP, how heartwarming it was to see all of us, here in the House, standing up for principles that she holds dear, such as the right to free collective bargaining, equal wages for equal work, decent pension plans, public services for all Canadians and fighting back against this unfair attack on the working class. She urged us to keep up the fight against this right-wing government, which, in her words, has shown nothing but contempt for the working class and ordinary people.

And there are others.

It says, “My family has watched the debates and we are all amazed and grateful that you will stand up for us, to not be bullied by Canada Post and the government into accepting an unfair contract. Thank you for standing up for who has a right under the law to free bargaining.”

Another says, “Keep on speaking out. Keep up the fight. Keep making clear how the crisis is one which has been manufactured by the Conservative government.”

Please listen carefully to these words. We have heard many Conservative members refer to a strike. Once again, there seems to be a misunderstanding here. As my colleagues have repeatedly pointed out, there was a rotating strike. It had a very moderate impact on mail delivery.

However, the lockout is having more than a moderate impact; it has paralyzed mail delivery. This lockout was not chosen by postal workers; it was a choice made by the executives at Canada Post, under the authority of the state, the authority of our government.

The constant use of the word “strike” rather than “lockout” by my government colleagues shows their obvious and dishonest intent to mislead citizens, to have the responsibility for this situation rest with the workers rather than the government.

The Conservatives have often talked about their concern for small business. All of us here in this House are concerned about small businesses that are being adversely affected by the absence of mail delivery.

My Conservative colleagues have been reading emails from small businesses demanding that mail service resume. But no one asked for this lockout at the outset, no one besides this government. Why not let them know once again who is really responsible for this situation, who supported the lockout, who is really adversely affecting small businesses, who is damaging our country's economy now? The answer is simple: it is the government.

Our hon. Prime Minister is doing harm to small businesses. Our hon. Prime Minister is doing harm to this country's economy. Our hon. Prime Minister is doing harm to this country with a pointless lockout he has the power to end and an unfair piece of legislation. He is not trying to find a solution that would resolve this matter, which would be to take the locks off the doors.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 23rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Ottawa—Vanier for his comments. I just read his parliamentarian file, and I see that he has been in Parliament for over 16 years, since 1995. As I am a new member, I would like to benefit from his parliamentary experience. I am certain that he was politically astute before he came here, and I would like to know if he knows of any government that ever acted with so much contempt for workers?

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

Madam Speaker, during the rotating strike, there were very few consequences for the general public. The government could have acted to prevent the lockout and to ensure that people in every constituency in Canada did not have to deal with lengthy delays.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for her comment. The working conditions for postal workers are often not every secure at first. One of my roommates started working at Canada Post and at first his job varied quite a bit. He had to work as both a security guard and a letter carrier. He tried to juggle both positions, never knowing when he was going to be called by either employer. I think negotiating this collective agreement could have helped these workers avoid such situations.