Daniel Blaikie

[Business of Supply, June 2nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I will not prejudge the process by getting right into the substance of the debate. I do have some preferences on that, but I am also not a total expert on the details. That is part of what we have to hammer out.

First, the committee would have to decide that it wants to go to some form of mixed member proportional system. At the end of the day, it would be unfortunate if the list of MPs was just a creature of the leader's decision. It is important for internal party democracy that there be some method, whether through the party or Canadians directly having a say in who gets elected off what list. That is where my sympathies lie. This is one of the issues that merits further study. I look forward to having a committee that can do that and then make a decision, not unilaterally by government members but by members in collaboration.

[Business of Supply, June 2nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform you that I intend to split my time with the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie.

I am really pleased to rise to speak to this motion. As the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley mentioned earlier today in the House, I had a hand in crafting the proposal. As a new member of Parliament, it was nice to see openness within my party and that member to working with a new MP on an interesting idea on how to move voting reform forward. Today, it is nice to see that same spirit is prevailing in this place.

I have been a long-time advocate for voting reform. It is one of the issues I have held dear through my entire participation in the political process, let us say, and involvement in politics. We have heard partisan illusions about what the government may or may not be intending for a voting reform idea, proposal or initiative. I do not think anyone on this side of the House is naive that this is the beginning of a process. There may yet be many things that go awry in that process. It is up to the government and cabinet to decide whether ultimately they will take the recommendations of this committee seriously, or whether they will do their own proposal. Therefore, I do not think anyone here is naive about where we are at.

This is a very positive first step, but it is just one step. However, it is really important because we need to take that first step if we are to get to any kind of meaningful voting reform. I feel, not just from a partisan perspective, it is important that the government not do this by itself. This is the second reason why I felt this kind of proposal was important. If we really believe in voting reform and if we honestly want to move that forward, whatever proposal comes forward and for it to be legitimate, it cannot be just one party pushing it through. This proposal is a way of building in, at least into the initial stages of that process, that idea that proposals can only move forward with the support of multiple parties instead of just one party.

It is right and good in this case of electoral reform, which I think is different from just about any other issue. This is a place where people come to disagree, or people who already disagree come to work that out. In other places, what happens in Parliament and the differences we see manifest in Parliament, are things that are fought for, not in a chamber but on a battlefield. We do come here and we do disagree, but we do it according to certain rules and on certain terms. By doing that, we ensure we do in a way that does not put people's lives in jeopardy for the values they hold and we have an understanding we will work things out with words. It is not always pretty. It is not always nice. However, it is a far better system than the kinds of ways of resolving conflict in some other parts of the world.

When we talk about voting reform and how people actually get here in order to engage in, if we want to use a militaristic metaphor, that kind of battle or that kind of argument, then it is important people agree on how we get here. Those are the basic rules and it is those rules that ensure that kind of civility.

I personally believe that if members of a party make it part of their electoral platform that they have a particular system, a particular model in mind and they get overwhelming support during an election, they may go ahead with that, but not in a way that people in other parties are not prepared to sign on to. We need at least the support of some other parties.

This is a way of building that into the process to ensure that whatever comes out of this process, at least at that first stage, will be something that a number of members across party lines in this place have agreed on. That is really important because it speaks to the legitimacy of changes. No government should be able to unilaterally change the rules by which people get here and fix the next election.

In that sense, I agree with some of the arguments from other members in this place about the importance of not having a government unilaterally change the rules.

As I have said, I have been a long-time advocate of voting reform. I have also been an advocate of a particular system, although there are a lot of debates to be had about how that may manifest. I have been an advocate for a mixed member proportional system. It is really important that people in particular geographic locations of the country have direct representatives who represent those locations within Canada. It is also important that our parliaments not be composed of false majorities or give a false impression of where Canadians are at.

Recently we have seen governments get 100% of the power with only 39.5% of the vote. That does not work because it does not reflect where Canadians are at. The problem with the first-past-the-post system is that it tends to generate those issues. That is also a problem with the alternative vote method. It does it in a slightly different way, but it still produces parliaments that do not reflect the division of opinion within Canadian society.

Part of the issue is a philosophical one about whether we are busy electing individual representatives for a particular place, and that is certainly part of it, and it is important. In elections, we could have a system that would allow us to elect parliaments better, so we are not just electing individual members but electing a parliament. We want a parliament that represents the diversity of opinion within Canadian society.

This is one of the major virtues of a mixed member proportional system. It allows us to balance out the representation of a party within the chamber so Parliament reflects the division opinion within Canada. Then members are forced to engage meaningfully with members of other parties to try to come to some kind if not consensus at least decision. On some issues, there will be a majority composed of certain members and on other issues there may be a majority composed of other members. There is agreement between some on some things and between others on other things, and that would be fine. This would be a virtue.

I look forward to the day when Canadians can contemplate not just who their local representative will be, but also what their Parliament might look like. I can imagine the situation. Some people may feel strongly about a certain local candidate, but not that candidate's party. Some people may want to vote for an independent candidate, but also want to have a say in what party they want. It is perfectly consistent for Canadians to say that they like a local representative, but they are not big fans of his or her party so they will vote for the representative. However, now, because we have a mixed member proportional system, Canadians would get to vote for a party different than the local rep thereby helping to shape Parliament and making it more about how they think. Canadians do not always agree with one party so a mixed member proportional system gives them a chance to express what may be a division of opinion within themselves, at least with respect to where certain parties are at, and allow them to balance out their own vote in a certain way. I see that as a positive thing.

I came to political consciousness in Canada in the 1990s. It was a time when Canadian politics was seriously regionally divided. Quebec was largely represented by the Bloc Québécois. The Reform Party was really a western Canadian party with hardly any seats outside of western Canada. The Liberal Party was the party of Ontario. It had some seats outside of Ontario, but not many, and it used that to win consecutive majorities.

Having sat in a caucus for just over six months, I can say now how important it is to hear the different regional voices within caucus. A first-past-the-post system or an alternative vote system would not guarantee that a party would get members from all parts of the country within its caucus. Having an element of proportionality allows for that. It would help to quell some of the divisive regional politics that Canada has sometimes seen by having those voices represented in each caucus. That is an important virtue of the mixed member proportional system.

I am really glad we are taking a positive first step toward having a process to get to a proposal that will have to be decided on either here or by some other method. We are not there yet. I look forward to discussing these ideas more during that process.

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, June 1st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I would ask Canadians listening at home and members in the chamber to imagine what would happen to their communities if a large number of working people lost the good-paying jobs that support their families. It does not take a vivid imagination to realize what that would mean for those communities. It would be bad for families. It would be bad for the country. It would be bad for the economy.

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, June 1st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, had the question been put to me here is how I would have answered.

That is the problem with the bill. We hear that the work is going to stay in Canada. We hear that it is going to stay in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec but the government has failed to mention that it is giving complete discretion to Air Canada to define the level of employment, the type of work, and the volume of work. Whether that work is going to stay here in Canada is an open question. If we believe the arguments by the Liberals about the competitiveness of the industry, it sure sounds to me like they are going to be moving those jobs out of the country.

Canadians can do that work competitively. Canadians who actually do that work have told us that they will do that work competitively. They have asked for more time to work with both the government and Air Canada to create a business plan to keep that work in Canada according to the existing terms of the Air Canada Public Participation Act. Liberals at transport committee would not put that motion through. Bill C-10 does not provide any kind of guarantee for that kind of work in Canada. It is simply not the case.

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, June 1st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, the member's question allows me to set something straight. It is true that the previous Manitoba government said that it was pleased with that arrangement in the new circumstances. The member failed to mention that when the federal government changed and insinuated that it was prepared to change the Air Canada act, and there were rumours to that effect going around for a long time before Bill C-10 was tabled, that fundamentally changed the negotiating position of the provinces with respect to Air Canada. Knowing that they no longer had a federal government that would continue the act in its current form, and that there would be no legal basis for a challenge, fundamentally changes the negotiating position of the provincial government.

In the new circumstances with a federal Liberal government that was selling out aerospace workers, the NDP got the best deal it could for Manitobans.

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, June 1st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I will start by informing you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Windsor West.

I want to thank the member for Newmarket—Aurora for demonstrating the kind of fundamental incoherence of the Liberal argument when it comes to the bill.

We just heard a speech about how Bill C-10 is really about the competitiveness of the aerospace industry and the airline industry, and how it is unfair that competitors of Air Canada are able to move their maintenance work outside of the country. Then on the other hand, the member got up and said that Bill C-10 is really about jobs in Canada.

Well, if Bill C-10 were really about keeping jobs in Canada, and the argument the Liberals are making is that Air Canada cannot be competitive by keeping its jobs in Canada, it is an argument that we in the NDP do not agree with. However, this is the argument when the Liberals talk about competitiveness.

To get up and say that somehow Bill C-10 is not really about Air Canada moving those jobs out of the country is incoherent. They want the freedom to move those jobs out of the country so that they can move them out of the country, which is the essence of the Liberals' argument when they talk about how Air Canada is apparently getting beaten, although there is no news that I have heard that says Air Canada is on the verge of bankruptcy. Therefore, I thank the member for that.

I hope Canadians are listening, because if they were, they would see just how at loggerheads the two sides of the Liberal argument really are. They do not go together. They do not dovetail. Actually, they are in contradiction. This has been the story of the bill before us.

Another contradiction that has to do with the bill is on the timeline of it. We hear insistence from the minister that there is no deal, that Bill C-10 is not connected in any way to a purchase of jets from Bombardier by Air Canada. Yet, it has been a priority of the government to rush the bill through the House. If there is no deal, how can it be that there is a timeline for getting the bill through? There is no demonstrated need that Air Canada needs this to happen right away. The only way it could need it to happen right away is if it already had plans to move the jobs out of the country; the ones they have not already moved out of the country.

Incidentally, the member for Newmarket—Aurora was wrong to say that Air Canada had not moved any of its maintenance jobs out of the country. In fact, it did in 2012. The member for Winnipeg North understood that well when he was in opposition. The Prime Minister understood that well when he was in opposition. The people who are taking Air Canada to court to get those jobs back understood it well.

What is wrong with the bill is that it would eliminate any legal basis for challenging Air Canada now and into the future. It may well be that the Quebec government dropped its suit, but there are others who are prepared to take Air Canada to court in order to win those jobs back to Canada. However, after Bill C-10 passes, they will not be able to do that. They will not be able to do the very thing that the member for Winnipeg North and the Prime Minister were calling on the last government to do, which was enforce the act.

Now that the Liberals are in government, not only are they not enforcing the act, but they are changing the act. It is reprehensible, because it means that citizens in Canada who want to take Air Canada to court to enforce that very same act would not be able to, because the act would be changed, which is the shame of Bill C-10.

What we have learned from this whole process are a few things about the character of the government. There are a number of reasons why I think Bill C-10 is so telling in terms of the character of the government. It is kind of unique in that it was the first bill that the government brought that was not a routine motion or a direct consequence of an election commitment. Bill C-10 was really a preview of the current Liberal government's mind and what the Liberals do when they are not handcuffed by election commitments.

The first thing the Liberals did was something that goes totally against what they were campaigning for in opposition, which was enforcement of the act. They decided to change the act to take out the provisions that they said needed to be enforced. I do not see how anyone can think that is consistent from one moment to another. I think there is a bit of hypocrisy, frankly, which is interesting to note about the government.

It is interesting to note that western Canada in all of this was an afterthought, because, despite the protestations of the minister, it is hard not to believe that part of this was really about finding a deal for Bombardier. Instead of saying that we need to do that in a responsible way, in a way that does not play the maintenance sector off the production sector, instead of doing that in a way that does not play regions of the country off against each other, we would just go and cut a deal with our big corporate friends and sort the rest out later.

If it just so happens that we cannot get back a major part of the Winnipeg aerospace industry because the law has changed, so be it, because Winnipeg is not really on our mind and western Canada is not really on our mind. I found that very interesting.

From that I think we learned that it is not just about regions, or a lack of strategy when it comes to the aerospace industry, or the government's willingness to engage in hypocrisy, but it is also about big corporate friends getting one set of rules and everyone else getting another set of rules. Therefore, if individuals used to work for Air Canada and they were counting on that lawsuit to go through and looking forward to someone else taking up the charge after the Quebec government let that lawsuit go, then it is too bad for them. The Liberals are actually getting rid of those rules. The rules that protect those individuals, they are getting rid of and they are bringing in a new set of rules, a set of rules that are going to be good for Air Canada executives and shareholders. If that means Liberals are selling out Canadian workers, now that they are in government, that is just too bad. They cared about them in opposition because they wanted their votes, but now that they are in government they have better friends. That is the message of Bill C-10. Shame on them for that. Canadians ought to remember that at the next election, far away though it may be.

I think we learned a lot about the government in this whole process, and it is important to articulate those lessons.

Incidentally, just in terms of getting a bit of insight or a premonition, there is now an established pattern of not having a lot of respect for Parliament when it comes to the Liberal government. We first saw it with Bill C-10. The first time allocation was moved on Bill C-10. At the time, I could not figure it out because I was listening to the Liberal government saying that it had a lot of respect for Parliament, that Parliament is a great place, and that they wanted to hear from parliamentarians. We still hear some rhetoric to that effect, although it is harder to believe because, as the Liberals say, we too are interested in evidence and evidence-based decision-making. If we are going to make a decision about what to believe about the Liberals, and we look at the evidence in terms of what they have done, it is very hard indeed to believe their claims about respect for Parliament. That started with Bill C-10. It was a mystery then, because I wanted to take them at their word. I really did. Also, there was no deal. There was no deal for the purchase of Bombardier jets, no deal at all with respect to this legislation. There was really no need to push it forward, so it was genuinely mystifying.

As time has gone on and we have seen this lack of respect the government has for Parliament, we have heard from witnesses on Bill C-10 who also skated around the issue of whether or not there was a deal among perhaps the government, Air Canada, and Bombardier. We are not quite sure because no one from the government will enlighten us. It is hard to believe there is no deal at all. Moving time allocation on C-10 at every stage begins to make a bit more sense.

In question period today, and other days, we heard the Minister of Democratic Institutions say that one of the great things about the Liberals' process for a new voting system is that every member would have a say, every member would have a vote. We are all going to get up, and after the Liberal majority committee makes a recommendation to the Liberal cabinet, which comes back with legislation that is being dealt with by a Liberal majority, everyone would have their say on a new voting system, as if the Liberals' majority did not make a difference or as if they were comfortable with the idea that, if their majority did not make a difference, that would be okay.

Again, Bill C-10 is instructive, because it was only the last Monday we sat before the break that Bill C-10 came to a vote at report stage. Because the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley changed his vote, we had a tie vote. He had voted against it at second reading and then voted for it at report stage and that came down to a tie. Because of that tie vote on Bill C-10, we got to see what the government is really like with respect to every member having his or her say. Not all of its members showed up because perhaps they did not think it was important. I will not presume to say why they were not there. However, the result of the tie was clear. The government did not say that was great, Parliament had spoken, and had it had one vote less, that would be fine. Instead, it lost its temper. It brought forward a motion that was completely draconian, that would have handcuffed Parliament, and created a climate where people were prone to losing their temper. Therefore, I think we saw another insight into the real mind of the Liberal government through Bill C-10.

[Hi Neighbour Festival, May 31st, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to say, “Hi, neighbour”.

The Hi Neighbour Festival is a staple of Transcona culture, dating back to its inception in 1964. An eleven-and-a-half-foot statue of Hi Neighbour Sam, the festival's mascot, towers over Regent Avenue, just west of Plessis Road. It was originally placed at the Crossroads Shopping Centre in 1968, and then spent many years at the local Canadian Tire before being moved to its current location.

During the Hi Neighbour Festival residents and visitors of Transcona are invited into Transcona's downtown to enjoy food, entertainment, and to celebrate the neighbourhood. While there are many things to take in during the festival, I would be remiss if I did not mention a few family favourites: the Transcona Legion's pancake breakfast, the Hi Neighbour parade, and last but certainly not least, the Baba's kitchen luncheon at the Ukrainian Catholic parish of St. Michael's, or St. Mike's as it is commonly known, where one can taste world-class, homemade perogies.

I look forward to being home in Transcona this weekend to celebrate the Hi Neighbour Festival.

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, May 30th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, we have not yet heard any real arguments to justify the exclusions that are in Bill C-7.

Considering all the other protections for management that are included in Bill C-7, why does the government feel that these exclusions are necessary, and why not allow RCMP members to weigh in with their opinion?

This question should be pretty easy to answer, given that the government supports these protections.

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, May 30th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, when we had a spreadsheet submitted to us at committee on the last day, one from MPPAC and one from the RCMP itself, we found that in virtually every category of exclusion, at least one and often more police forces across Canada do have clauses that fall within the area of that exclusion.

These exclusions are not normal for police forces across Canada, which is part of what we are saying. If police forces across the country have negotiated clauses that fall under the purview of these exclusions and the sky did not fall, then why would we think that the sky would fall if RCMP members are allowed to just bring it to the table for starters? They may negotiate something that falls within the purview of one of those exemptions, but that would not be the end of the world.

To speak to some of my colleague's concerns about cost and other things, it is important to know that the proposed framework set up in Bill C-7 is that those things go to binding arbitration. The arbitrator, because of what is in Bill C-7, is required to take into consideration in his or her deliberations the unique nature of the RCMP as a national police force and the stated budgetary policies of the government. That is not a very forgiving arbitration regime from the point of view of RCMP members. What we are saying is that the government should at least allow them to bring proposals to the table and maybe—

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, May 30th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, if we look at the flashpoint incidents, or the cases that RCMP members and the MPPAC, and those who have advocated for collective bargaining for the RCMP for a long time and who took the government to court to secure those rights, they are not talking about 5% over four years or little adjustments to the health plan or pension. They are talking about the kinds of incidents that we have heard about in the media. They have to do with harassment. They have to do with officers answering calls alone in remote and northern communities and ending up hurt or dead. They are talking about the equipment that in some cases they do not have in order to respond effectively, and which has ended up in the injury or death of members.

These are the things that animated and motivated a court battle over many years in an effort to win those rights. I have a lot of sympathy for members who are feeling angry and frustrated that the bill that is supposed to bring a collective bargaining regime into existence for them, at the same time takes away their ability to raise the very issues that animated and maintained and motivated that court battle over so many years.

My short answer to the member's question is yes. It is not right that the RCMP is not able to bring proposals to the table. No one is saying collective bargaining fixes everything, but the court has said that Canadians have a right to it and that it is another way to address problems. It is fair to say that the RCMP is in need of a new way because it has tried things under the old model many times before. I am glad to see that we are going to try again. I hope it is successful. We could increase the odds of success by putting more tools in the toolbox. That is what meaningful collective bargaining would do, but that is unfortunately not in Bill C-7.