Mr. Speaker, I have heard a lot of people debating on both sides of the House, and it really gives me the impression that what is going on here goes beyond the current debate and even goes beyond the dispute between Canada Post and its employees.
If you look at the record of proceedings of the House, at Hansard, you can see that the members on the other side of the House in particular attack the very notion of unionization and the very concept of the labour relations process. When you hear talk of union bosses trying to rule everything and everyone, I believe that perception is out there. From their perspective, the unions are obviously an easy target. These are people who fight, who stand up for their rights, and it is apparent that the people on the other side of the House ultimately want people who are docile, who are able to comply with their employers' wishes and who want to comply with the wishes of people making the economic decisions in times like this.
The Conservatives rely on that perception in order to divide Canadians. What they are doing in their arguments is very clear and obvious: they are trying to pit Canadians against each other, to polarize. As I said in my speech yesterday, this government is the most polarizing government in Canadian history.
I believe we have to remind the House of some basic concepts here. It must be understood what a union is. In my view, the people from the Conservative Party do not understand what a union is. A union is an organization of ordinary people, the people they claim to defend. These are ordinary people because, in our economy, there are people with economic power, employers, and there are people who individually have no bargaining power to oppose that economic power.
It should be borne in mind that a business executive has power; and I am not talking about small and medium-size enterprises that are often family businesses. I am talking, for example, about publicly listed companies. Those businesses have power. The representatives of a business are generally paid quite well by their business. In addition, if the business closes, they are entitled to compensation and, with their administrative skills, can easily find jobs elsewhere, at another business, so they can continue managing.
The situation is different for employees. They depend on their salary to survive, to feed themselves, to meet their basic, essential needs and perhaps splurge a little, and to have a comfortable standard of living. They need it. An employee who suddenly ends up out of work has very little with which to survive when EI runs out. Consequently, there is no balance of power in bargaining.
Knowing that, we must now determine why people unionize. People unionize in order to acquire some power to offset the economic power of a business. These are ordinary people, people like you and me. Currently, more than 30 or 35 percent of the Canadian population is unionized. These are ordinary people, unless we decide that they are not ordinary people. Not so long ago, even 40 percent of Canadians were unionized. They unionize in order to acquire this collective power against economic power, which is utterly normal. They also bargain for better conditions.
For example, there is a lot of talk about wages. When there is no union or minimum labour standards, it is easy for an employer to favour certain employees over others. It is easy for an employer to tell one employee that he will have five weeks of vacation leave because he likes him, whereas another employee will get only two or three weeks of vacation because he likes him less.
A collective agreement negotiated by ordinary people who join forces to bargain with an employer makes it possible to establish the basic ground rules to ensure that all is fair for everyone.
Do they ultimately secure better conditions? Of course they get better conditions. The ordinary people I represent in Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, like the ones my colleagues represent in their constituencies, secure better working conditions when they are unionized. Why? Because they have acquired this bargaining power.
It seems the Conservative members consider ordinary people as people who refuse to work together, who refuse to acquire power and who will acquiesce much more readily to employer demands.
Another question arises: why do they take labour action? In this case, it will be recalled that there was no general strike at Canada Post, but rather a series of rotating strikes.
Why that kind of labour action, or strikes in other cases? So they can exercise that power. If there is a bargaining exercise in which the employer refuses to bargain in good faith—there are examples in which Canada Post did not bargain in good faith—they must exercise that power. Ordinary people join forces to compel the employer to return to the table to bargain and to establish the ground rules. In this case, it is quite clear that Canada Post was not in good faith. It let the negotiations drag on so the government could introduce special legislation favouring it. I will get back to that point. Much has been made of that during this debate.
Now I am concerned about what is going on here. I am concerned because this debate goes beyond the mere issue of Canada Post and the labour dispute. It is clear that, in its argument, the government, although it claims to be in favour of small business, ordinary people, seniors and retirees, promotes a downward levelling. If the power of unionization and the power of ordinary people to join forces to address an employer collectively are reduced, the conditions they secure will obviously not be as good and will be levelled downwards. Instead, the government should be helping ordinary people improve their lot.
Based on the figures, whether it be those of Statistics Canada or of the research institutes, those commonly called think tanks, the middle class in Canada is gradually disappearing. It is the ordinary people who joined forces to form unions that created the middle class. Before unions came into existence, people who demanded rights were oppressed. There was a have class and a have not class, those who had financial resources and those who lived from one day to the next not knowing what would happen to them the following day. It was when the right to form unions was granted that the middle class emerged. Coincidentally, as attacks continue against unionization in Canada and attempts are made to eliminate bargaining power, we are witnessing the gradual disappearance of the middle class and the emergence of the same economic disparities as existed at the turn of the century.
It is clear from the arguments of members opposite that, if the right to form unions did not exist or was not protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it would be threatened as it is in some states in the USA, including Wisconsin. In that state, unionization is clearly and specifically under attack in both the public and private sectors.
In their arguments, the Conservatives refer to the need to avoid jeopardizing the country’s current economic recovery. That argument can be advanced in virtually all unionization fields and labour disputes. The government said the Air Canada strike had to be terminated and a separate agreement was reached at that time. Today they say the Canada Post dispute has to end. What will it be tomorrow? VIA Rail, Bell, Bombardier?
We have to stop talking about this dispute. We have put forward solutions. The government has chosen to promote a forced back-to-work solution with pre-established wage conditions favouring the employer, while restricting their arbitrator. As a result, management will be very pleased because the conditions will be in its favour.
And yet there were solutions. If the government really wants to use special legislation, with its majority of less than 40 percent of Canadians and less than 20 percent of Quebeckers, it has the power to do so. It could end the lockout and allow the rotating strikes to continue. Canadians would receive their mail. The government could also have introduced special legislation to extend the collective agreement until the bargaining process had been completed. People would have continued receiving their mail. There are options.
I would have liked the government to be able to use those options rather than attack the fundamental principle of unionization.
