Erin Weir

[Department of Public Works and Government Services Act, May 11th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, certainly, New Democrats also support the concept of community benefit agreements. However, we are concerned that simultaneously the Liberal government is plowing ahead with trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that restrict procurement preferences at the subnational level.

Is the member for York South—Weston confident that the community benefit agreements that he envisions would survive Liberal trade policy?

[Employment Insurance, May 10th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the government's response.

Unsurprisingly, there was a mention of some EI measures in the budget. I would make the point that the budget document itself projects that employment insurance benefits will be held below employment insurance premium revenues for four out of the next five years. I believe there is room to do more. I think one of the obvious ways to do more is to include Saskatchewan's oil patch in this temporary extension of EI benefits.

Another one of the points we heard is that Saskatchewan remains below the national average in terms of the overall unemployment rate, which is fair enough, but this temporary extension of benefits was not about an extension for those regions that had the highest unemployment rates. The duration of benefits already varies based on the regional unemployment rate.

The stated objective was to provide additional help to regions that had seen a particularly large increase in unemployment, and southern Saskatchewan—

[Employment Insurance, May 10th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the collapse of commodities has led to layoffs in resource industries. Statistics Canada's latest labour force survey indicates that, over the past year, the number of unemployed Saskatchewan workers jumped by 49%, by far the largest increase of any province.

Statistics Canada's latest employment insurance figures indicate that claims have increased more in Saskatchewan than in any other province over the past year. It also indicates that fewer than half of unemployed workers in Saskatchewan and across Canada are receiving EI benefits. This is the result of previous Conservative and Liberal governments cutting benefits and draining the EI fund.

We need to ensure that workers who paid into EI have access to decent benefits and help struggling Saskatchewan families. That is why the first issue I raised in question period after being elected was improved EI for laid-off resource workers.

I am proud that the NDP used one of our three opposition days after the election to propose protecting the EI fund to finance increased access based on a national entrance requirement of 360 insurable hours. Despite campaigning to fix EI, and having previously promised an entrance requirement of 360 hours, the Liberals voted against the motion. Despite presenting themselves as the champions of the oil and gas sector, Conservatives also voted against improved EI for laid-off resource workers. However, that was a couple of weeks before the budget.

In the budget, we got an extension of EI benefits supposedly for areas hit hard by the collapse of oil prices, but the measure left out Edmonton, Regina, and southern Saskatchewan, where most of our province's oil patch is located.

I asked about this exclusion in the first question period after the budget. The only thing stranger than the lack of response from the Liberals was the silence from Conservatives. Not a single Conservative MP from Edmonton or southern Saskatchewan stood up to ask why their constituents were excluded. Then, 10 days after the budget, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle sent out a press release belatedly questioning the exclusion, but this past Friday, the member for Saskatoon—Grasswood stood up in question period and declared, “EI is not the solution”.

We can all agree that EI is not the ultimate solution. In the long run, we must build an economy in which meaningful and gainful employment is available to everyone who wants it. However, right now, Saskatchewan families need all of our elected representatives speaking with one voice to have all parts of our province included in the EI extension. When Saskatchewan Conservatives declare that EI is not the solution, it undermines our efforts and undermines our province.

I implore the government to ignore the dissonance on EI from the Conservatives. The government should listen to the NDP, but more importantly, it should listen to the evidence and apply extended EI right across Saskatchewan.

[Employment Insurance, May 6th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, Regina's Evraz steel mill announced more layoffs. Today, Statistics Canada reported that the number of unemployed workers in Saskatchewan has exploded by 49% in the last year. Yet, when the government had a chance to do something in the budget, it chose not to help. The Liberals excluded Regina and southern Saskatchewan from extended EI benefits. Why are the Liberals turning a blind eye to workers and families in our community?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1, May 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Spadina—Fort York spoke about the urban agenda and part of that is transit funding. The budget allocates transit funding according to ridership, which is certainly a good formula for jurisdictions that already have well developed transit systems. When I think of my home city of Regina, last week I had the opportunity to ride on a couple of buses and they are very nice, but we could use more buses and more frequent service.

Regina will not get very much transit funding because ridership is currently low. If we look at the province of Saskatchewan as a whole, we get less than 1% of the transit money in the budget even though we comprise more than 3% of the country's population.

Could the member speak to the fact that the budget really focuses transit funding on jurisdictions that already have a lot of public transit and does not do much to expand it in cities like Regina, which he was fond of mentioning in his speech and question responses?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1, May 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, for his trenchant critique of this omnibus budget bill.

I am sure he also remembers that the current government was elected promising a new health accord, yet the budget does not provide any increase in federal transfers to provincial governments, either as a share of the economy, or relative to previous projections. In fact, by 2019-20, this budget will have reduced annual transfers to provinces by $1 billion. To be specific, if we look at table 5.2.6 in budget 2015, it shows major transfers to other levels of government of $76.3 billion in 2019-20; whereas, if we look at table A1.4 in budget 2016, it shows the same figure down to $75.4 billion, again in 2019-20.

I wonder if the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques would comment on why the Liberal government is cutting health transfers to Canadian provinces.

[Saskatchewan Book Awards, May 2nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the night before last, I attended the 23rd annual Saskatchewan Book Awards, which recognize authors and publishers in our province.

My former professor, Raymond Blake, was nominated for his book, Lions or Jellyfish: Newfoundland-Ottawa Relations since 1957. I believe that he would have won an award had there been a category for best title.

I was very proud that my colleague from Timmins—James Bay won two awards for his book, Children of the Broken Treaty, published by University of Regina Press. This book provides chilling insight into how Canada, through breaches of treaties, broken promises, and callous neglect, denied first nations children their basic human rights.

Tragedies at Attawapiskat in his riding and at La Loche in my province underscore that we must do better.

[The Senate, April 15th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday news broke that the government's representative in the Senate demanded nearly $1 million to run his office. Talk about entitlement.

Liberals are already spending $1 million a year on the advisory board that recommended him, and now he wants another million to manage supposedly independent senators on behalf of the Liberal government.

Will the government turn down his outrageous request for yet more money spent on this outdated and unnecessary institution?

[Tax Avoidance, April 14th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, since I have only a few minutes, I would like to focus on three key questions: what is the problem; how big is the problem, and what, if anything, is the government doing about it?

What is the problem? We need to talk about what tax rates are actually in effect in Barbados on international business companies. What we find is that on the first $5 million U.S. of profit the tax rate is 2.5%. That used to go down to a tax rate of 1%. However, as of 2013, Barbados has cut that all the way down to 0.25%. A quarter of a percentage point on profits over $15 million a year is what international companies pay in Barbados, so when the Conservative member for Brantford—Brant or the Liberal member for Sudbury give us these textbook explanations about avoiding double taxation, we have to talk about what is really happening in Barbados.

Certainly it makes sense that if a Canadian company actually pays a decent amount of tax somewhere and then repatriates profits back home it does not again pay Canadian tax on that same money, and fair enough. However, is the position of the Conservatives and the Liberals in this debate that when a Canadian company pays a tax rate of 0.25% in Barbados that is good enough, that the company has paid its fair share of tax and it should not owe any more Canadian tax on that money? It seems that is what we heard from the previous speakers.

There is absolutely a very serious problem of Barbados being a tax haven and it really does not make sense to exempt profits repatriated from that country from Canadian tax.

The next question is, how big a problem is it? Maybe there is a little loophole there, but if Canadian companies are not really taking advantage of it, we would not worry. The member for Mount Royal tried to suggest that there are all kinds of different tax havens out there, so why focus on Barbados. I will tell him why. If we look at Statistics Canada's figures on foreign direct investment positions, we find that most of Canada's foreign direct investment is in the United States, as one would expect, but the second largest Canadian foreign direct investment position in the world is in Barbados at $71 billion. Why is that? Barbados is a pretty small country. Its GDP is something like $5 billion Canadian, so why would we be parking $71 billion in an economy of that size?

We have not heard an answer to that this evening. I think it is obvious that Barbados is just being used as a tax shelter. Why would Canadian companies be investing more in Barbados than, say, in the United Kingdom, the third largest country for Canadian foreign direct investment? The United Kingdom, of course, has an actual economy and there are things there that corporate Canada might actually want to invest in.

There is a really big issue with Barbados. It is not to say there are not other tax havens, but clearly, Barbados is the biggest tax haven being abused by corporate Canada. We have to start somewhere and it makes sense to start with the biggest part of the problem. That is exactly what this excellent motion from my colleague, the member for Joliette proposes.

The third question that we need to address here is, what is the government doing about this very serious and very large problem? There was a lot of talk in speeches from the Liberals about all the good measures in the budget to deal with tax evasion. Indeed, the budget documents use the term “tax evasion” about a dozen times. It even uses the term “tax avoidance” about half a dozen times. A word that does not appear in the budget at all is “Barbados”. We are going to fight tax evasion without even talking about the largest source of tax evasion and tax avoidance. That is a very major problem, and that is the reason why members of the House need to vote in favour of the motion presented by my colleague from Joliette.

[Canada Labour Code, April 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to rise as a seconder of this private member's bill, Bill C-234.

In the debate about a previous government bill, Bill C-4, government members often spoke about restoring balance to Canadian workplaces. We in the NDP were happy to support that legislation, because Bill C-4 did restore balance to certification and decertification. However, we need to be concerned not only about the right to join a union, but also about the right to bargain collectively.

An essential component of balance in collective bargaining is that in the rarer cases where this process breaks down, both sides bear a cost. Employers do without labour while employees must do without their wages. That puts pressure on both sides to keep negotiating to try to find a solution.

The use of replacement workers, or scabs, destroys that balance by allowing the employer to continue functioning as though there is no labour dispute. We have had far too many cases in Canada of employers demanding severe concessions, locking out workers or provoking a strike and then using scabs rather than negotiating in good faith. One problem with replacement workers is that they can be used to prolong labour disputes.

Another problem with replacement workers is that they increase the likelihood of violence. The process of moving scabs across a picket line into the workplace inevitably puts the employer's security forces in confrontation with the picketers. That is a recipe for bad things. However, even where replacement workers are not actually used, the implicit threat of scabs gives management an unfair advantage in bargaining.

There is a very simple solution to all of these problems: to prohibit replacement workers during legal strikes and lockouts. This is not a new or theoretical solution. Two provinces already have anti-scab legislation and the longevity of anti-scab legislation in those jurisdictions is a testament to its success and to its workability. Quebec has had anti-scab legislation for nearly 40 years. British Columbia has had anti-scab legislation for nearly a quarter century. In both of these provinces, anti-scab legislation was introduced by social democratic governments, but importantly, it has been continued by subsequent right-wing governments. At the provincial level, parties of both the left and the right have accepted anti-scab legislation.

What about at the federal level? What did we hear from the Liberal Party? The member for Cape Breton—Canso tried to tell us that the existing provisions in the Canada Labour Code, which do not actually prohibit replacement workers, constituted some kind of appropriate balance. However, I have already explained why the real balance involves pressure on both sides during a strike or lockout. The real way to achieve balance is not to have replacement workers in the equation at all.

The sense in which the member for Cape Breton—Canso considers this a balance is that we have two sides, unions and employers. Unions obviously would like to have anti-scab legislation and employers would not want to have it. He does not think we can make a change without consensus.

That is kind of a disingenuous argument, because the current situation confers a huge advantage to employers, so of course employers will never voluntarily agree to give that up. It is for parliamentarians to make a balanced assessment, and that is exactly what this private member's bill proposes.

We have also heard the argument from the member for Cape Breton—Canso that this is the wrong process, that we do not want to look at one little element of the Canada Labour Code, that we need to do a big tripartite review of the whole thing. Well I say, bring it on. There has not been a review of the Canada Labour Code since 2006.

The member for Cape Breton—Canso kept saying that we could not do this without a big review of the Canada Labour Code. Let us have that review of the Canada Labour Code. I think that would be very much welcomed on this side of the House. That is not really a good argument not to adopt this legislation. Let us go ahead with the review.

I think the main argument, though, from the member for Cape Breton—Canso is this notion that it is somehow inappropriate to put forward this proposal as a private member's bill. Leave it to the Liberal Party to turn a question of principle into a question of process.

The grain of truth in this argument is the idea that the previous Conservative government did abuse private members' bills to make changes to labour legislation without the same sort of scrutiny that would have been applied to government legislation. That is a criticism that one can make of a government; and if the present government wanted to put forward legislation to implement a ban on replacement workers, obviously, we in the NDP would support that legislation. The reason we are putting it forward as a private member's bill is that the Liberal government has not put it forward on the order paper. It missed the opportunity to do so in Bill C-4. The only way we have to put forward legislation is through private members' bills.

We heard the statement from the member for Cape Breton—Canso that this is introducing a change by the back door. It is not the back door. It is the only door to which the NDP has access. Therefore, yes, from a process point of view, one could criticize a government for sneaking things through with a private member's bill. One cannot criticize the third party for introducing legislation through a private member's bill, because that is the only way it can happen.

What did we hear from the Conservative Party in this debate?

The member for Louis-Saint-Laurent, first, suggested that anti-scab legislation was inappropriate in the federal sector because the federal sector includes these strategic industries, these kinds of essential services.

The way to protect essential services is not to allow replacement workers. If there are specialized people off the job in telecommunications and that is causing a national emergency, the solution is not to bring in scabs. The solution is, hopefully, to negotiate some sort of essential service protocol with the union. If that is not possible, there is the possibility of back-to-work legislation under the Canada Labour Code.

The member for Louis-Saint-Laurent said, well, we don't want to spend all our time in Parliament passing back-to-work legislation, which is kind of a funny statement because the Conservatives were content to spend all kinds of time doing that in the last Parliament when they were in power. Every major strike or lockout in the federal sector during the previous Conservative government attracted back-to-work legislation from that party. Therefore, I do believe that comment is a little out of context.

One of the concerns that the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent raised was that anti-scab legislation could force employers to settle labour disputes quickly.

I would suggest that is a feature, not a bug, of this private member's bill, that we actually want to bring these disputes to a quick resolution. One of the problems with replacement workers is that they drag things out, and one of the benefits of this legislation is that it would speed things up.

We also heard an argument from the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent that there were more labour disputes in Quebec versus Ontario and that this is all the fault of anti-scab legislation.

I would suggest there is a whole bunch of other differences between Quebec and Ontario, including the higher rate of unionization in Quebec. I think the better comparison is what happened within Quebec when anti-scab legislation was passed, because actually it was passed in response to an extremely high level of very disruptive labour disputes in that province, and the introduction of anti-scab legislation led to a great reduction in the number of strikes and the amount of picket-line violence in Quebec. Therefore, I actually see this as a good model for the federal sector.

In conclusion, I urge members to support this private member's bill, which they are free to do because it is a private member's bill. They do not have to vote on party lines. This legislation would strengthen the right to strike while, at the same time, producing fewer, shorter, and less violent labour disputes.