Garnett Genuis

[National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, September 27th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, today we are discussing Bill C-22, an act to establish the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.

We do not support this bill because it is ineffective in its current form. The Prime Minister has all the authority. He chooses the members and the information the committee can have and present to the House of Commons. Having parliamentarians review the actions of the government when it comes to security and intelligence is very important, but this bill does not give us a realistic chance to do that.

This legislation demonstrates another Liberal smoke and mirrors show, another deviation from an election commitment.

I want to go through and in fairly precise detail talk about the mechanisms that this law would create.

I was in the House to listen to the government House leader's presentation. With great respect to the work she is doing, the reality is that many of the things she said, and I pointed one of them out in questions and comments, simply did not accord with the text of the legislation.

It is not sufficient for the minister to reassure us of the government's good intentions, or to somehow interpret what the government is trying to do, or wants to do or wants the legislation to mean. What is important is the substantive text of Bill C-22. If we think through the actual process in place, the mechanisms that the bill would provide, there is not any kind of seriousness in terms of parliamentary review or oversight being proposed.

I want to remind members of a commitment the government made during the election, and I found this on the Liberal Party website. It said that it would create an all-party committee to monitor and oversee the operations of every government department and agency with national security responsibility. Clearly, all-party was mentioned as well as providing meaningful review of past and oversight of present operations. This clearly was the commitment that was in place.

The House passed private members' bills that were proposed by members within the government. The parliamentary secretary who just spoke proposed Bill C-622 and the member for Malpeque previously proposed Bill C-551. It is interesting to look at what was being said by that party when in opposition in terms of structure and mechanism and what this would do, what those private members' bills proposed to do, and the sleight of hand variations that were not even being acknowledged in the speeches but are present in Bill C-22. These are the major concerns we have.

Let us just go through it. I am going to talk about the limitations with respect to the appointment process as well as the provision of information, and then finally about the limitations in terms of the reporting process.

In terms of the existing appointment process, unlike Bill C-622 that was proposed previously by the now parliamentary secretary, this bill would provide for not only the appointment of the chair by the Prime Minister, but also the appointment of every member of the committee. It does say that not all of the members can come from the government, but the three members of the House of Commons who are not members of the governing party could be anyone the Prime Minister chooses.

These could theoretically be independents recently departed from the government caucus. I do not know if that is likely but that is possible. There is nothing in this legislation to suggest that the official opposition would necessarily be represented. There is nothing to suggest that the committee structure should be reflective in some sense of the composition of the House or similar to some degree with what exists in parliamentary committees. This would be a committee where the Prime Minister could, at will, choose seven members of Parliament who he thought should be on that committee and then also two members of the other place.

There is a requirement for consultation with the leaders of parties from which members are appointed if that party has recognized status in the House of Commons. There is no requirement for consultation with the leadership of Senate caucuses or with the leadership of a party in the context of appointments in the Senate. There is no requirement for consultation in the case of members being appointed who are not from recognized parties. Perhaps more importantly, there is no requirement that the consultation actually be meaningful.

The legislation does not say that the leader of another party has to agree. What would be much more sensible, I would argue, if this process were more serious, would be to have the leaders of the different parties put forward names of those within their parties, as is normal practice, and the committee would then select its own chair. However, there is not a meaningful requirement for the engagement of other parties. It is totally and completely up to the Prime Minister as to who gets appointed.

I want to draw the attention of members to subclause 4(3) of the legislation, subtitled “Not a committee of Parliament”. The committee would not be a committee of either House of Parliament or of both Houses. That is a distinction we need to appreciate. The legislation says very specifically that this would not be a parliamentary committee. It would be a committee that happens to include parliamentarians but parliamentarians who are appointed by the Prime Minister and who effectively report directly to him, which I will talk about.

It is interesting, as well, that the way the committee would operate is different from what those of us who participate in parliamentary committees are used to. I will just read a couple of other sections of the bill. These are important to read into the record, as people earlier in the debate were saying things about the bill that just do not reflect the substance of what we are seeing in the bill. Clause 18 states:

Meetings of the Committee are to be held in private if any information that a department is taking measures to protect is likely to be disclosed during the course of the meeting or if the Chair considers it to be otherwise necessary.

Therefore, it would not be up to the will of the committee to determine whether they move in camera, as is the normal practice. It would be solely at the discretion of the chair.

The voting rules would be different as well. The bill states:

The Chair may vote at meetings of the Committee and, in the case of an equality of votes, also has a deciding vote.

This is again different from the normal procedure. Effectively, the chair would always vote, as I understand this section, and in the case of a tie, the chair would vote again. This is a situation where although the government would have only four members from the House, and potentially two appointed members from its own side from the Senate, the chair would effectively have two votes. He or she—but we know who it is going to be; it is going to be a he—would have the ability to vote twice. That is unusual. That is a pretty substantial deviation from the way the process normally operates.

These are limitations in terms of appointments. It is very clear that the government has designed an appointment procedure that gives all the control over who sits on the committee, and by extension, over aspects of its deliberations, directly to the person who happens to be the Prime Minister. Clearly, it would not be a parliamentary committee. It would be a committee made up of some parliamentarians but would not at all be a parliamentary committee.

We go on to the issue of the provision of information in the bill. What information is to be provided, and how would that information then be considered and synthesized by the committee? Again, there are substantial limitations in terms of the work of the committee.

I attended the technical briefing last night, and we were told by the Minister of Public Safety that the goal is to include, as much as possible, both retrospective review and oversight of current operations.

Yet if we look at clause 14 of the legislation, which deals with exceptions, the exceptions would effectively include any possible scrutiny of ongoing operations. I draw the attention of members to clause 14:

(b) information respecting ongoing defence intelligence activities supporting military operations, including the nature and content of plans in support of those military operations;...

(e)information relating directly to an ongoing investigation carried out by a law enforcement agency that may lead to a prosecution;

Effectively then, it would be anything related to investigations that may hypothetically lead to prosecutions or anything related to military operations. I do not dispute the value of some exclusions, although these are people who are going to go through the process of getting security clearances. They are going to be approved for the purpose of doing these kinds of reviews. It is interesting that right at the outset, these exclusions would effectively seem to exclude most of the kinds of information that might be related to ongoing operations. Those exclusions would happen right at the outset.

That is not all. It is not just those automatic exclusions. In clause 16 we have sort of a discretionary exclusion for the minister involved that is extremely broad. It says:

(1) The appropriate Minister for a department may refuse to provide information to which the Committee would, but for this section, otherwise be entitled to have access and that is under the control of that department, but only if he or she is of the opinion that (a) the information constitutes special operational information, as defined in subsection 8(1) of the Security of Information Act; and (b) provision of the information would be injurious to national security.

Again, in the official opposition, we understand the importance of the sensitivity of this information, but this would be a matter of the opinion of the minister; this would not be a matter of saying that in the opinion of experts there is a risk to national security. This would purely be a subjective determination by the minister saying that we do not want to give this information to this committee, because in the view of the minister, it is injurious to national security, but we do not actually have to justify that belief in any objective sense.

The legislation is clear that the committee would not have a mechanism, for instance, to challenge the exclusion in court.

The committee, already appointed by the Prime Minister, dominated by members of the government, where the chair, appointed by the Prime Minister, would effectively have two votes, could still be refused information solely on the basis of the opinion of the minister without any kind of review of that determination by the minister.

We talked about the limitations and exclusions in terms of appointments. It is clear that there are substantive limitations and exclusions in terms of the information an already secretive committee would receive itself privately.

Let us go on to the limitations in terms of reporting. Who would the committee report to? The Prime Minister would be appointing it, and the Prime Minister could determine that it would not receive information. Who should the committee report to? Well, let us keep it in the family. The committee would report to the Prime Minister. That is right. This committee of parliamentarians would not report to the House; it would report directly to the Prime Minister. Of course, the Prime Minister would then provide that information back to the House within a certain number of days. I believe it is within 90 days, but the Prime Minister would have total unfettered discretion in limiting what he tabled. I am going to read again from the legislation itself, subclause 21(5):

If, after consulting the Chair of the Committee, the Prime Minister is of the opinion that information in an annual or special report is information the disclosure of which would be injurious to national security, national defence or international relations or is information that is protected by litigation privilege or solicitor-client privilege or, in civil law, by immunity from disclosure or the professional secrecy of advocates and notaries, the Prime Minister may direct the Committee to submit to the Prime Minister a revised version of the annual or special report that does not contain that information.

I am sorry, it was not 90 days. The timeline between the Prime Minister receiving this and when he would be obliged to table it would be 45 days.

In terms of this section, it is very clear that, first of all, the Prime Minister would have full and complete discretion in terms of what is and is not tabled. He could go back to the committee and require it to make these kinds of changes before it was tabled. However, it is also clear from this section that he would not even need to invoke national security or national defence, because the section includes, as well, a reference to international relations.

In other words, if the Prime Minister believed that something in this report, which would then be tabled in the House, might have a negative impact on the reputation of the government and therefore would have some implications for our international relations, then on that basis, not even on the asserted basis of security, the Prime Minister could then go back to the committee and say that it needed to exclude that information.

What options would the committee have? Of course, in a normal situation, where we were not dealing with secrets, there would be an opportunity to publicly raise some objection. However, the committee could not do that. There would be no ability for the committee to then draw the attention of the public to this information in some other way, and quite appropriately, in this context.

However, we have to ask what is actually going on here. What is the effective check on the power of the government? Surely that is what is behind the very notion of parliamentary oversight, that there would be some opportunity for parliamentarians to meaningfully check the activities of the intelligence agencies that are accountable to the government.

However, there is no such check. The Prime Minister would fully dominate the appointment process. The Prime Minister and the cabinet would fully dominate the question of what information would flow to the committee, and the Prime Minister would be directly and fully in control of what information was or was not tabled in the House. This clearly is not in any sense a meaningful mechanism of scrutiny, at least as the bill presently stands. It is not a meaningful mechanism for checking the exercise of power by the government.

It is also worth looking at some of the differences between the legislation before us and the other private member's bills we have heard. Again, a few of them I have mentioned. Some of these other proposals refer to an all-party committee and not just to other members being chosen by the government. They also refer to the election of a chair by members.

Also, the legislation before us provides for significant remuneration not just for the chair of this committee but for all the members of the committee. That is a difference from what was promised in the past. The stipend available for the chair, and again the chair position has already been promised to someone, is substantially higher than the normal stipend for committee chairs.

We see these deviations, but we do not see a meaningful check in place.

I would very quickly mention that there are alternative models. The government has referred to our Five Eyes allies. It is worth underlining, for example, the British model, which does involve a parliamentary committee. It is not just a committee that happens to be made up of parliamentarians but is an actual parliamentary committee that reports to Parliament and is, of course, bound by all the same laws this committee would be bound by in terms of respect for secret information. However, it is ultimately accountable to the law and to Parliament, not to providing a report exclusively to a prime minister.

We also have a Canadian law that, frankly, has worked very well. The government has to explain how this addition would interact with our existing, highly effective Canadian model. It is not a parliamentary oversight model. It is a model of genuinely expert, independent oversight.

We have an intelligence review committee that is actually chaired by a former parliamentarian and has the expertise and the ability to provide an effective check, which this legislation just would not. Unfortunately, this is smoke and mirrors, not a substantive check on the power of the government.

[National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, September 27th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the opportunity to read the bill, as I am sure my friend, the member for Victoria, has.

I have to say that there are some things the House leader said in her speech that do not reflect the text of the bill. One example is that she talked about the Prime Minister not being able to exclude information on any basis, other than national security.

However, I would refer her to subclause 21(5) of the bill, which states very clearly that, “If...the Prime Minister is of the opinion that information in [this] report...disclosure of which would be injurious” and it lists a number of criteria, including “international relations”, he could ask the committee to submit a revised version. The Prime Minister would have the power to remove information even if there is not a negative impact upon national security if, in his judgment, it might have some effect upon Canadian international relations. Indeed, one might expect that anything the committee would cover would have an effect upon Canadian international relations in some way.

Therefore, I want to ask the government House leader what she thinks of that, the seeming incongruity between the legislative text and the way she described it, and why that subclause is in there.

[Petitions, September 27th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition calls on the House to maintain the listing of Iran as a state sponsor of terror. The petitioners recognize grievous abuses of human rights by the Iranian state as well as the threat that the state poses to international peace and security.

[Petitions, September 27th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions I would like to table today. The first is with respect to Cassie and Molly's law. The petitioners call on the House of Commons to pass legislation that would recognize preborn children as separate victims when they are killed or injured during the commission of an offence against the mother.

[CANADA LABOUR CODE, September 26th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I spent the first quarter of my speech laying out, in precise detail, aspects of the process for private members' business as it relates to and differs from the process for government legislation. Private members' business is the only process by which individual members of Parliament can bring forward substantive policy ideas to the floor of the House to be debated, considered, and then voted on.

The member has been here long enough to know that private members' bills receive relatively less debate, generally speaking, than government legislation, although with the way that the Liberal government has rushed through some things, we may be testing that. Generally speaking, private members' business receives less debate on the floor of the House, but there are not the same limitations at all in the committee process. If the issue is consultation, there is an opportunity for detailed committee hearings to happen, and that did happen on both of the bills in both the House and the Senate. The member knows that. He knows that there is a process in place that allows for that kind of consultation. It is ultimately up to members to decide when they vote whether they think the bill before them is a good bill or a bad bill.

We have had many substantive ideas come through private members' business. The member's colleague put forward a detailed bill on animal cruelty. We had a proposal earlier to change the national anthem. These are substantive pieces of legislation, and it is important that members of Parliament have the ability to pose them. If my colleague thinks that we should somehow dumb down the ability of members of Parliament to use this avenue, the only avenue they have to bring forward ideas that are important to them and their constituents, then I strongly disagree.

[CANADA LABOUR CODE, September 26th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague both for the question and for his good work in the previous Parliament on these important issues.

The member is absolutely right. The approach we have advocated in terms of transparency as well as secret ballots is more in line with what we are hearing both from the general public and from union members.

The point my colleague made about private members' business is particularly important. We have already had some substantive proposals from government members in the form of private members' business, and I give them credit for doing that. I give credit to members of the government, as well as members of our party, for putting forward substantive ideas through private members' business, even if I do not always agree with what is being put forward. The approach taken by some members on that side of the House is to completely delegitimize this vehicle. Let us remember that private members' business is the vehicle through which changes to the words of our national anthem were proposed. We routinely deal with important things in the context of private members' business, so the members are using that argument in a way that has dangerous implications for this institution.

[CANADA LABOUR CODE, September 26th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I do not know if I was being overly populist; I was seeking to refer to opinion data from union members. It is important for us to listen to what union members are saying.

The member may have disagreement about the specific trigger threshold. It is worth noting that this legislation does not just change a trigger threshold, but it repeals two pieces of legislation, again whole hog. However, I will say that 40%, and I think the member would know this, is the average across the provinces. I would argue that is a sensible approach, given that across the provinces there have been debates and different conclusions about different thresholds.

Again, the member may advocate a different threshold, but the reality is that we need to have secret ballots. The most important thing in the bill is secret ballots. Whatever the trigger threshold is, we should all be committed to the principle of secret ballots. Having that part of it remain in the law is particularly important, and it is disappointing to see the Liberals getting rid of it.

[CANADA LABOUR CODE, September 26th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague, that is one of the most ridiculous things I have heard thus far in the House. He says it is not necessarily about the provision of the bill. What is it about then? We are debating whether or not we should pass Bill C-4, a piece of legislation before us. It is exactly about the provisions of the bill. What else could it possibly be about? He said let us not talk about the provisions of the bill, let us just insult the so-called flawed way in which the Conservatives, Mr. Harper, did this and that. It is great to be able to use his name.

Mr. Harper did many great things for this country. This is about the provisions of the bill. Let us have a discussion about the provisions of the bill. If Liberals want to throw mud, that is fine, but I would rather engage in a serious debate about this important legislation for the future of the country.

[CANADA LABOUR CODE, September 26th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise to join in the debate. Having listened to some of the different comments that members have been making and given the broad strokes in which this discussion has been discussed, let us get back and talk about the actual provisions in the legislation.

I think it is important to talk about the role of unions in society more broadly, and I will be making comments about that in my speech as well, but let us first be clear about what we are actually substantively debating.

What the government proposes to do in Bill C-4 is to whole hog repeal two pieces of private members' legislation that were passed under the previous government: Bill C-525, with respect to guaranteeing a secret ballot in the context of certification in federally regulated areas, and Bill C-377, which is a bill about financial disclosure for unions.

We are talking about some fairly specific things. We are talking about secret ballots and we are talking about financial disclosure. I would posit that one can be in favour of secret ballots and financial disclosure and still very much believe in the important role that unions have played, and continue to play. I think we can have an honest conversation about the provisions in Bill C-4, agree or disagree, while still recognizing that there are some points of common ground insofar as there are also points of disagreement.

One of the first lines of attack we see from the present government on these two private members' bills, and it is quite striking that it is doing this, is to attack the very legitimacy of private members' legislation, at least as a vehicle for putting forward substantive ideas.

I would argue, as an individual member of Parliament who takes my rights and responsibilities very seriously, that we are sent here to represent our constituents individually and private members' business is the only vehicle we have, and it is based on a draw, depending on where our names line up, for putting forward bills that we personally believe are important and for having the opportunity to have those bills discussed and then voted upon.

It is not only legitimate, but it is valuable for members of Parliament to use those private members' bill opportunities in very substantive ways. With the exception of bills that spend money, private members' bills are allowed to, and should, cover a wide range of different important and substantive topics.

Members opposite know the process that exists for private members' legislation. Of course, there is less time allocated in the day for a private member's bill debate than there is for government bill debates, but there are no such restrictions upon the ability of parliamentary committees to study that legislation once it proceeds to committee. Indeed, when private members' legislation makes it to committee and it is debated at committee, committees can call many different kinds of witnesses. They can take the time they need to consult, to hear from a broad range of stakeholders. Also, if a bill is going to become law, it will have gone through that process in both the House and in the Senate, providing two different opportunities, again, for stakeholders to be engaged. That is in addition to any consultation that individual members of Parliament do or that the sponsor also does.

There is a process in place, and it is important to underline that other than private members' legislation, there is no channel for anyone other than the government to bring forward bills in this place. Wherever members stand on the bill, I say, let us stop this attack on the legitimacy of private members' business, because it hurts all of us when members across the way make the kinds of comments that we are hearing about private members' bills somehow not being a legitimate place to have important and substantive debates.

I want to talk a bit about the role of unions, from my perspective and I think, probably, from the perspective of my colleagues on this side of the House, as well. I believe, we believe, that unions have a very important role to play in our society, that they have had and continue to have an important role.

First, they have a role in advocacy. We know that many of the basic, accepted notions of workers' rights that we have that are now protected in law for all workers are things that were initially advocated for by unions. Unions have provided that general social advocacy on behalf of certain reforms that have been important and helpful for workers.

Unions have also provided advocacy at a collective bargaining level on behalf of a whole bargaining unit. That continues to be an important role that unions play. Also, they provide advocacy for individuals who may have grievances or challenges in the workplace and need the support of a broader group such as a union acting on their behalf to ensure their rights and interests are protected. This advocacy is an important function that unions have and continue to carry out, and this is something I think we would find broad agreement on in the House.

Perhaps a role of unions that gets less attention, but is still very important, is the way unions provide training, mentorship, and elements of social community to people within the workplace. Members of my extended family who have been members of unions have really benefited from the mentorship structures that exist in unions. Therefore, unions play an advocacy role as well as a community role, and they provide a lot of value when they play that role.

Unions can also help to instill a deeper sense of pride of vocation. For many of us work is not just a way to earn a living, but something we invest aspects of our identity in and we appreciate the dignity and value that comes to us through our opportunity to contribute to the work we do. Unions can help instill that sense of pride in work, and often they do that.

On our side of the House, certainly from my personal perspective, we would strongly affirm that unions have an important role to play.

It is perhaps also worth recognizing that unions come in different forms. Some of the functions I just described, whether it be community, training, or advocacy, can often happen in a different form in a non-unionized workplace as well. Therefore, I would not say there is one model that is necessarily better than another. It is up to individual workers to evaluate and consider what type of workplace model best reflects their interests.

That is why it is important to have a democratic model for deliberation about certification and for workers coming to those decisions, as well as having a truly democratic model for deliberation about which union. There is increasing diversity of union options out there. It is logical to regard that as a positive thing, when we have different kinds of union models that provide workers with some choice in the process of certification, such as which union, what kind of union, or perhaps no union at all, in terms of how they proceed with their certification. There is an important role for unions and it ought to be one in which those functions are fulfilled.

Unions are at their best when they respect the internal diversity of opinion, the rights of their members, and democratic principles in their activities. Many unions do that. Unions are at their best when they consider their work in the context of universal human solidarity, when they are invested in the needs and interests of their workers, as well as the unemployed, as well as the long-term well-being of the company that supports their activity. Unions are at their best as well when they work to encourage excellence in the workplace. That is very common. That is something many unions do.

We can have a conversation about the details of how unions operate from a place of respect for the role they have and continue to play, but also we need to dig into these specific provisions and, recognizing the role that unions play, ask what the best way is to maximize their success.

As I was reflecting on that I thought it would be worthwhile to draw on some opinion data. I found a survey that Leger did in 2013 with some really interesting data about the opinions of the general public, as well as the opinions of members of unions, about some of the different aspects of the legislation. It is important that we listen to individual union members who have bought into this model, see the value of the work their unions do, and who also may have specific opinions about the kind of structure under which it could operate. This is from 2013, but I suspect there has not been a radical change in the opinions of union members on these types of issues.

The first question that was asked was whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement, “It should be mandatory for unions from both the private and public sectors to publicly disclose detailed financial information on a regular basis” .

Members might be interested to know that 61% of union members in that sample completely agreed with the statement that unions of both the private and public sectors should publicly disclose detailed financial information on a regular basis, and 23% somewhat agreed, so of current union members, over 80% either completely or somewhat agreed with the idea of public disclosure of financial information on a regular basis. If we are going to call some of these things “anti-union”, I think we should listen to what union members are saying and reflect on that feedback.

It was interesting to look through the full range of questions that the study asked. One of them was whether workers felt that their dues were being well spent. In terms of the numbers, 57% of unionized workers said they thought their dues were being well spent; 27% said they were not being well spent. Therefore, that is a positive number for unions. Unionized workers saying, yes, they see the value of their membership in unions, they see the value of the dues they are spending, but at the same time also saying that they see the importance of financial disclosure.

There has been some discussion of the use of union dues for certain kinds of political activities. It was interesting that 62% of unionized workers in this sample felt that making contributions to advocacy groups unrelated to workplace needs was something that they disagreed with. They did not want to see their dues used to fund advocacy groups unrelated to workplace needs. A full 77% of unionized workers said they did not want to see their dues being used to fund political parties.

That was some feedback. Workers are saying, yes, they see generally their dues being well spent, but they want to see that they are going to things related to workplace needs, not things unrelated to workplace needs, and that they see the value in public disclosure.

This one really stuck out for me, “A secret ballot vote should be required when forming or removing a union from a workplace.” Of current unionized workers, 62% completely agreed with that, and 24% somewhat agreed with that. According to this particular survey, 86% of current union members said they believed that a secret ballot should be required when forming a union in the workplace.

When I hear my colleagues across the way suggest that advocating for a secret ballot is somehow going against unionized workers, when well over 80% of unionized workers are telling a pollster that they want to have a secret ballot, there is obviously some dissidence there.

May I say, I wonder if that is why we hear so little discussion of the actual substantive provisions of the legislation. We hear members of the government saying that the old bills were anti-union and their new approach is eliminating those anti-union bills, without actually saying what the specific provisions in the bill were and whether those provisions in the bill accord with what union members are asking for. If we look at the numbers, it seems pretty clear that these things do accord with what union members are asking for.

When I spoke to the bill before, I talked about how one of the key arguments for a secret ballot is that a secret ballot provides an opportunity for prior deliberation. The card check system is one where members, seeking certification, may go around and get people to sign cards and then once a sufficient number of cards are signed, that is it, the union happens. However, when there is a secret ballot, there is an opportunity for discussion, for the employer and for those seeking certification to present arguments.

There was actually a poll question specifically about this issue of the process of deliberation. They were asked to agree or disagree with this statement, “During a union organizing drive, employees should be entitled to obtain information from both the union and the employer on the impact of workplace unionization”. Of unionized workers, 73% completely agreed with that and 24% somewhat agreed with that. A full 97% in this sample of current union members in Canada said that there should be an opportunity for the union as well as the employer to present information reflecting what their perspective is on the impact of unionization. These are some very telling numbers about the perspectives that union members have.

I want to conclude my discussion, of this poll at least, with reference to one additional question that asked for perspectives. They gave two options. One option was on whether unions are still as relevant today as they have ever been. The other option was on unions being needed and relevant at one time but whether today they are any longer necessary. There were 71% of unionized workers who said that unions are still as relevant today as they have ever been.

A very large majority of unionized workers very much see the value and relevance of unions, and a majority of unionized workers believe that their dollars are being well spent. This is good news for unions in the present and in the future. However, at the same time, workers are saying that they want to have a secret ballot and that they appreciate the value of financial disclosure.

I think this is where we, as a House, need to be. We need to be listening to what workers are saying. We need to recognize what they are saying about the value of unions, for them, and for our society as a whole. We also need to recognize what they are saying about these very simple but important areas of having a proper process in place for certification, and also of ensuring that there is a proper mechanism in place for disclosure.

In the remaining time I have, I will come back to this issue of the secret ballot. It amazes me to hear colleagues in this House argue against the secret ballot. We are having a discussion about so-called electoral reform right now. I do not know if anyone has proposed in the conduct of these discussions that we should eliminate the secret ballot.

The idea of eliminating the secret ballot in our election system would be seen as totally ridiculous and would be very concerning to Canadians if anyone proposed it. However, for the purposes of union certification, it is like we are entering a completely different dimension. People who were elected by a secret ballot, who are very used to the principle of a secret ballot in every other kind of election, say it is not needed when it comes to certification.

The arguments we hear stretch credulity. For instance, they say that secret ballots provide a greater opportunity for employer intimidation. Did they miss the “secret” part of secret ballot? On what basis could it be argued that there is intimidation on a secret ballot?

Again, we do not hear the government arguing against the use of the secret ballot in federal elections because of the risk of intimidation. Obviously, not. That is exactly why we have a secret ballot, to eliminate the possibility of someone looking over another person's shoulder and saying that they should vote this way or that way.

Secret ballots also reflect something else. They reflect a fundamental right to privacy that every person should have with respect to their political opinions. Most of us here choose not to be all that private about our political opinions. However, Canadians have a right, if they wish, to not talk publicly about their views on certification within their workplace. Members might understand why not wanting to tip their hand one way or the other in terms of their views on certification would be a choice that some people would want to make.

If that is how they want to express their right to privacy, to vote in secret about certification, in elections or in any other cases, that is a fundamental function of the rights to privacy that we expect. People should be able to not expose their political opinions if they do not wish to do so.

In the context of the secret ballot, I talked about the importance of the process of deliberation, having an opportunity for debate without having a certification drive sneak up on people who are not aware of it or do not have an opportunity to have that conversation.

I will conclude by saying that this is an important bill, one on which we can and have had good debate. However, we should dig into the provisions. We should talk about the bill. I think we all accept that there is an important role for unions in society. We also need to listen to what unionized workers are telling us with regard to the specific provisions of the bill. Then we need to evaluate it accordingly.

[CANADA LABOUR CODE, September 26th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I want to ask about the issue of the secret ballot. This is characterized by some on his side as supposedly an attack on unionized workers. Of course, we know that unionized workers in various opinion polls have suggested that they support having the right to vote by secret ballot, which is, of course, the same right all Canadians have when they elect their members of Parliament and officials in other areas.

I want to ask the member why he disagrees with the majority of unionized workers in Canada, who think they should have the same right everyone else has, the right to vote via secret ballot in elections that are important to their own affairs.