Mr. Speaker, I will start by saying how disappointed I am at having to rise to speak to this bill. This is not the kind of bill that I expected to have to deal with. If I had been told a year ago that the Liberals would be in government and then base a projection about this kind of bill on what they were saying at the time, I never would have thought that I would be speaking to such a bill.
In the last Parliament the now Prime Minister was standing on picket lines with Air Canada workers, shouting about solidarity, and probably taking a few selfies, too. That was great, because he was out shopping for votes. Many workers who felt that the Prime Minister was serious in his expression of solidarity may well have gone out and voted for the Liberals because they never would have suspected a Liberal government to bring forward a bill like this.
Some of the prime minister's members, some of whom have returned, like the member for Winnipeg North, were saying, “The law is clear. The corporation is to maintain operational and overhaul centres in the city of Winnipeg, the Montreal urban community, and the city of Mississauga. That is the law. The Conservative government says it is tough on crime. It is time to get tough on Air Canada”. Those are the kinds of remarks we were hearing at the time from Liberal MPs like the member for Winnipeg North.
Fast forward to today. As I mentioned in debate on a motion earlier, we are six months into the new government. Most of the legislation that has been brought forward is either routine business with respect to the finances of government, bills responding to Supreme Court decisions, usually with a court-imposed timeline, or they are straight up and down repeal of certain measures brought in by the previous Conservative government that were explicit election commitments by the Liberals.
If we want to look for a bill that does not involve any of that, that goes beyond those things, then really the only indication of what the government is going to be like for the next four years on issues that were not foreseen in the election is this bill. I have to say that this bill is a complete betrayal of the workers that the Liberals pretended to be the champions of when they stood beside them on the picket line. It is absolutely shameful. It is a sign of the kind of cynicism and condescension the Prime Minister must feel toward Canadian workers. How could he stand on a picket line with them and say that he is going to protect their jobs, to shame the government of the day for not enforcing an act that in the end it was his intention to change when he came into government? That is a rhetorical sleight of hand the likes of which even the previous government was not capable of doing. During the campaign the Liberals were righteous in saying “Oh, the government should enforce the act. We will enforce the act.” Yes, they will, right after they change it to get rid of the very provisions that would protect the jobs and the very reason for which the workers would like to see it enforced.
I am appalled, frankly, but maybe having spent as much time around politics as I have I should not be surprised, particularly not by Liberals. We are six months in and they have already managed to teach me a new depth of cynicism when it comes to politics.
If it is a contest of narratives as politics so often is, the Liberals would have us believe there is a happy coincidence of factors, that it just so happened that without any prodding or conversation between the government and Air Canada, Air Canada decided to buy some Bombardier C Series jets, and it just so happened to be at a time when Bombardier was in trouble. Some other hon. members have done a good job of poking and prodding at this issue to get the government to affirm that there is a connection between those things, but if we listen to the government members' answers, they say, “No, no, no. There is no connection. It is just a happy coincidence. Bombardier was in trouble and Air Canada came forward.” It just so happened that when Air Canada came forward and there were some rumblings about the federal government selling out Canadian workers that the provinces just happily decided to drop their lawsuits.
As a result of all of these things magically coming together by some unseen force, the government feels this is a great time to change the act because we need to be fair to Air Canada, the very same Air Canada that the Liberals not that long ago when they were in opposition thought it was time to get tough on.
That is the story.
The Liberals have said that a whole bunch of benefits are going to accrue from this bill. It just so happens that none of them are in the bill. The centres of excellence are not in the bill.
There are no legal guarantees for those jobs. There are for the ones that are getting gutted. However, for the new jobs that we are supposed to get in this great trade, there are no legal protections for those jobs and there is no guarantee that Air Canada would not turn around, walk away, and put those jobs somewhere else.
Under the terms of this bill, by far the most contentious clause is not the clause that says instead of having the jobs in Winnipeg, Mississauga, and Montreal we would have them in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. It is the one right under it that says Air Canada would define for itself the type of work that would be done and the type of work that would satisfy the requirements of the act. It is the clause that says it would determine the volume of work and the level of employment. Air Canada could rent a closet in Winnipeg, put some engine parts in it, and pay a guy to come around once a year to check up on them, make sure they are still there, maybe dust them, and that would be sufficient to meet the requirements of the bill.
The Liberals cannot tell me that we are supposed to be happy with that situation and accept a bunch of jobs that have no guarantees at all, particularly with the language of the company, and the government, incidentally. Next time there is a spot for a Liberal speaker on this bill, I wonder if they should not just invite the Air Canada corporate executives in and hear from them directly and cut out the middle man. They are expensive middle men for Air Canada in this debate. We do not need them.
We have heard these kinds of arguments before when we have heard about flexibility and the need to compete. I am sensitive to some of that, but one wonders, there is a tension here. That is, are we saying that we have come to the point where we cannot do maintenance on planes in Canada and have a competitive company? Is that what we are prepared to say? Is the Liberal government encouraging Canadians to believe that the global economy has come to a point that we cannot do maintenance on planes in Canada, that they have to be shipped somewhere else in order for companies to be competitive?
One wonders why one should be so concerned about the viability of a company once it does not mean any direct employment in Canada anymore. We are giving up guarantees for these jobs because we need to be flexible and competitive. That language means moving the jobs out of Canada. The government cannot have its cake and eat it too. It cannot say this is all about creating jobs when all of the jobs it is talking about, frankly, are completely consistent with the act as it is. There is zero reason in order to establish those centres of excellence to change the act. If this is not about exporting jobs, if this is not about sending jobs to Mexico or elsewhere, then why the changes to the act? It does not make sense.
On the face of it, this is about taking good-paying Canadian jobs and moving them out of Canada. The rest of it, the window dressing, none of which is in the act, and none of which is legally enforceable, is all about giving a fig leaf to cover the government in this, and it needs a big one because there is a lot that is ugly to cover.
There is nothing to say that a month later Air Canada would not take those jobs away. I am not saying it will. Maybe it will be three, four, or five years, but there is nothing to prevent those jobs from being taken away. The Liberals knew that well when they were opposition. That is why the Liberals said that the Conservative government should enforce the act. The Liberals must realize that now there will not even be an act to enforce, not in any meaningful sense, because under the bill Air Canada will be given every right to define the scope of this work right out of Canada.
The Liberal narrative on this is so contorted it is just shocking. I hope Canadians will listen to this debate. They do not have to listen to a lot of it to understand what is really going on. I hope they are paying attention, because what is going on here is completely unacceptable.
