Dennis Bevington

[Air Service Operations Legislation, March 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my hon. colleague that this is the situation that faces us.

We have all recognized that the Air Canada work stoppage that was projected by the company was probably a ruse based on the company's understanding of what the government was planning to do. It could take some of the heat off the government for its anti-labour position. That is quite clear. It does not take a lot of thought to come to that conclusion.

The government is creating a new society for Canadians, one in which workers' rights are severely limited. The ability of corporations to enter into arrangements that better suit them is their primary objective. This is a corporate government. This is a government that sees the corporations as the most important segment of society. That is what it will do over and over again. That is the way it plays this game.

[Air Service Operations Legislation, March 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am once again not pleased even to have a second opportunity to debate this particular motion, because the motion has once again shown an authoritarian side on the part of the government towards the labour component in this country.

The government has come up with basically two arguments to justify its work stoppage action at this time.

First it talked about the economy and the detrimental effects potential work stoppage would have on it. The Minister of Labour herself referred to a figure of $22.4 million per week lost to the Canadian economy if the strike went ahead. This is the figure that the government has presented us with to understand the nature of the effect on the economy.

That $22.4 million per week amounts to less than nine one-hundredths of a per cent of the economy of this country. It is really not a very large figure when we consider the economy of our country at $1.3 trillion per year.

The labour minister has indicated that this loss to the economy is greater than the loss of the values that we have established in this country for collective bargaining and has made that determination based upon those numbers.

I find that to be very misleading with regard its impact on the economy and the need to move ahead with this thing, this bill, this closure, this stoppage of work action by both the company and the union involved with Air Canada.

In some ways our aviation industry has been hamstrung by the government over the past number of years. The New Democratic Party, and I myself as transport critic in the last Parliament, have stood in Parliament and talked about the impact that the government is making with its excessive airport rents, which in one year amount to about $257 million to the aviation industry. The air travellers security charge amounts to a $394 million charge against our Canadian companies. Fuel taxes are $40 million. A total of $748 million is levied against the industry.

The industry has to compete worldwide and it has to compete with American domestic carriers with airports located near our borders. The industry is under pressure, so of course it is trying to cut back on its labour component.

Let us look at the labour component in this as well. According to Transport Canada, air carrier cost breakdowns are as follows: labour is 17% of the costs of aviation transport in Canada; fuel is 32%; airport fees are 10% ; capital costs are 9.6%; purchase services are 5.6%; and other is 24%.

What we can see is that in reality, the problems with our aviation industry come back to the costs that it has to bear from the current government and previous governments, which have set up our airports as cash cows. Where does it come back to? It comes back to labour. It comes back to the labour component as a way to reduce its costs. It cannot do it with fuel, as fuel is internationally regulated. Other costs are also not subject to change, so where does the industry look for savings? It looks for it in labour, and our unions stand up.

What we have is a situation in which unions are standing up for their employees, government is sitting back collecting huge sums of money off the aviation industry, and the industry is in the middle. That is not a good situation.

What has the federal government done about that? Its response over and over again is, “We do not not care. We are not worried about the aviation industry”.

However, when it comes to the unions standing up for their workers, that is a different matter. When it comes to the money that the government collects from the aviation industry, it will just keep on doing exactly that.

When we look at the situation that we are facing today, we are looking at a government that is becoming increasingly authoritarian in its behaviour. It now considers applying back to work legislation to be just part of the routine. It considers it just part of the routine to reduce the debate that takes place in the House of Commons.

Quite quickly over the last year it has moved more and more toward an authoritarian type of behaviour. It is happy with it. Where it will lead us in the future remains to be seen, but it will not lead us in a direction that is going to be acceptable to Canadians, and we will see that over time.

The type of action that has been taken today is anathema to everyone who believes in Canadian values, in collective bargaining, in the rights of workers and the right of democratic discourse in the House of Commons. The bill takes a shot at a lot of us, and yes, we are standing up. We on this side will continue to stand up against those types of actions.

The minister has not proven her case. One statistic about how this is impacting the economy is all she provides to us in her speech. That is the analysis that she expects us to buy and live with for this type of legislation.

The other interesting subject that was brought up was the impact of the work stoppage at Air Canada on northern and isolated communities. Air Canada is hardly a major influence in the aviation industry in northern Canada. There are a couple of flights to Yellowknife and a couple of flights to Whitehorse. Both of those locations are well serviced by experienced northern airlines that provide regular service to southern destinations and also provide service through the whole of the north of Canada. These are good airlines. They are working hard to provide the service that Air Canada does not provide there and will not provide there. The situation there is that if the strike goes ahead, if the work stoppage were to go ahead, there would be no impact on northern communities; northern communities do not see Air Canada as an essential service, and for the government to even make that suggestion is completely wrong.

We are going to go through this exercise here today and tonight and we will end up with more back to work legislation enforced by the government. This is a situation that is intolerable, but is a situation we will have to endure for a while yet. Sooner or later the Canadian population will wake up to what is going on here, and when they do, the government will suffer the consequences.

[Air Service Operations Legislation, March 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, there is a difference between people being quiet and people actually listening. I will leave it at that.

When it comes to domestic travel, as I mentioned, the numbers are way up and the aviation industry is healthy in that regard. However, the government has imposed other charges on the industry in the last few years. It upped the security fee. Canadians who fly with our airlines pay three or four times what the Americans pay for security charges. That hurts the industry as well. The government continues to do things which hurt the industry. It sees the industry as a cash cow and that is wrong.

[Air Service Operations Legislation, March 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am actually not very pleased to have to stand again and speak to an issue of this nature, dealing with a motion to cut the time we can spend debating the issue of whether we should support the back to work legislation which the Conservatives have sponsored.

I listened to the Minister of Labour's speech. She said that there is more at stake than what is at the bargaining table.That statement is very true. What is at stake with the legislation and the particular approach the Conservatives have taken?

First, when we talk about process in the House, we have a motion that is dedicated to eliminating any discussion on this issue. That is one thing that is very clear. We have some very significant issues with that.

The Conservatives are basing their argument on the principle that this work stoppage, this labour issue, is going to affect the national economy very seriously. We have heard other things from the member for Simcoe--Grey. She said that the work stoppage and disruptions could cost Air Canada $22 million a week. Carried over a year, that figure would be about $1 billion. Out of a $1.5 trillion Canadian economy, it does not appear to be as large a figure. If there was a two or three week labour stoppage, we would be dealing with an impact on the economy of less than $100 million, according to the figures supplied in the speech that was just given.

We are dealing with legislation that is ostensibly put forward for one reason only, to stop the labour dispute because it affects the economy, yet the figures that have been given are laughable.

I also heard concern about not being able to get vaccinations into northern and remote parts of the country. Anyone who lives in a remote part of our country realizes that Air Canada is not the provider of transportation services there. A strike would have to include First Air, Canadian North, and many other sub-carriers which carry people all over the country. They are not part of Air Canada. The remote regions of our country are not going to be impacted tremendously by this labour dispute. That is just not going to happen.

As for the issue of major Canadian transportation across the country, there is another airline that does that very well: WestJet. It does not have executive seats. Maybe that is one thing the Conservative Party is worried about. I walk past many government members on the way back to economy class on Air Canada when I go across the country. I would put that as a very serious consideration.

The bill has more at stake than what is at the bargaining table. Since it got its majority, the government has been dedicated to crushing labour. It identifies organized labour as a prime opposition to its continued hold over the country. The government is taking very firm action right at the beginning to make sure it separates what it considers to be its problem from its legitimate place in Canadian society, with legitimate rights of collective bargaining. This is what is going on here. It is another step. Perhaps it is not as dramatic as the postal work stoppage that we had to deal with in June, but it is one which is clearly along the same lines.

Let us talk about what the Conservative government has not done for the aviation industry to help these companies so that they can afford to pay the workers a decent wage. One is that the government views the industry as a cash cow.

If we look at what the U.S. government charges its airport facilities for rent versus what the Canadian government does with our airports, we would see a remarkable difference. On the one hand the government says it does not want to get involved in a labour dispute, but on the other hand it collects money from the very airline it is supporting. That has made the airline less competitive in the world. Many Canadians cross the border to get flights from the United States. We see that loss of passenger services.

All these things add up to airlines that cannot compete as well. It is not about the cost of wages. Many other factors enter into why our airlines are having trouble today.

Is it the number of passengers on the flights? No. Actually the number of passenger seats that are filled is higher than it has been for a long time. In other words, domestic flights are fuller than they have been in a very long time, so the aviation industry is actually healthy when it comes to that.

It is not healthy in the extra charges, the security charges. What we have to pay for security in Canada, a country where security is not--

[Safe Streets and Communities Act, March 9th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for actually taking the time to go through each one of the statutes in the bill and reminding us again how very horrendous some of these penalties would be for people who may or may not fit within his definition of criminality.

It has been estimated that up to 300,000 Canadians utilize marijuana for medical purposes. The present marijuana licensing procedures have properly licensed perhaps 5,000 Canadians. In Canada many people are using marijuana for medical purposes, but they are not legally licensed to do so. Those people who are using it to take care of their health issues are either accessing it on the open market, growing plants themselves or finding other ways to supply themselves with a product they have identified as useful for their health issues.

Now we have a situation where if people who are taking care of their own health are found in possession of more than five plants, they will be given a mandatory minimum sentence for that. The judge will not have the ability to look at the mitigating circumstances.

Would my colleague explain to me how this would serve us well in the future?

[Petitions, March 9th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition in the House of Commons from many of my constituents. The petitioners say that the Conservative government has threatened to make changes to the old age security program and that this is a direct attack on the poorest seniors who rely on that money for daily living expenses. On February 2, 2012, the NDP moved an opposition day motion calling on the House to reject the proposal by the Prime Minister to increase the eligibility for old age security while also calling on the government to take the necessary measures to eliminate poverty among seniors. Therefore, the undersigned citizens of Canada call upon the Parliament of Canada to maintain funding for the OAS and to make the requisite investments in the guaranteed income supplement to lift every senior out of poverty.

[The Environment, March 9th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Northwest Territories biomass energy strategy has been an unqualified success. In the Northwest Territories, buildings owned by the territorial government and many large commercial buildings have been converted from heating with fuel oil to this source of renewable energy made from waste forest product.

The federal government owns many facilities across Canada's north. My question is for the Minister of Public Works. Has the government considered a program that would convert these buildings to renewable energy?

[Committees of the House, March 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have an opportunity to rise on the issue of finance and trade in our country. It is an issue of great concern to all of us.

In the last year, we have faced the proposal for two pipelines that would ship raw bitumen out of this country to the United States and one potentially to China. This raw bitumen represents a piece of the supply chain where the upgrading would occur in another country, which would mean the loss of many jobs. The unions that work in this area estimate that the job loss would be severe. I think the loss to the Canadian economy could be calculated simply by the value of upgrading times the number of barrels sent out of the country per day.

What does my colleague think about the kind of energy strategy that we are employing in this country that would leave us as the hewers of very rough wood and leave the profits from our natural resources, our treasure house for our grandchildren, in the hands of other countries?

[Privilege, March 2nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would report on an incident that happened last fall when there were protesters on the Hill against the Keystone pipeline.

The Hill was double-fenced and the stairs were closed off. I approached the RCMP officers who were doing due diligence there and asked if I could stand on the stairs. The RCMP told me I was not allowed to do that. A discussion incurred. An RCMP officer went away and came back with a book on procedure. After reading the procedure with me, he granted me access to that space. Quite clearly, no parliamentarian can be denied access to the Hill for any particular reason.

I would say that an issue that is brewing is the unrelenting increase in security which is hampering our privilege on the Hill. I would like to see the Speaker deal with this question of privilege in good fashion and come back to us with a report on the nature of security vis-à-vis the privilege of parliamentarians.

[Canada-Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, March 2nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is a very good point that my colleague makes. What happens to money laundered in Panama when there are many corporations that have registered in Panama to take advantage of a situation where money can be cheap? When money has to be laundered, there is an opportunity for other companies to pick it up. The more relationships we set up with Panama, the more we legitimize the work that is going on between our corporations in Panama and Canadians. The more we say that the free flow of money between Canada and Panama is going to be unhindered, the more we are saying we support this process. That is the reality of it and it really does not matter what the Conservatives say: reality is reality.