Joe Comartin

[Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, May 28th, 2003]

Nineteenth century, thanks very much.

It is interesting because it is never put in terms of people being afraid that somehow they will lose a little of their power. The lawyers did not talk that way, and the members of Parliament do not talk that way. They talk of some other greater good. With the lawyers it was that it may somehow infringe on their solicitor-client relationship with confidentiality. Those were the kinds of arguments we heard. They were hogwash, and so are the arguments from the members of Parliament who classify their opposition to collective bargaining with their staff by stating it is an historical privilege that we have had.

If it is a privilege and if they think history would justify that, there are times when we have to move beyond. We had the divine right of kings too at one time. It was obvious that at some stage the general population would not accept that, whether it was kings and queens having their heads cut off or there simply being a coup d'état, power being usurped and a more democratic government put into place. It is the same type of thing.

What this is really about is justice and fairness. Will we deal with our staff in a relationship that is fair and just or will we stand on some historical privilege that in effect oftentimes leads to abuse and certainly does not contribute to a fair and just relationship between the employers, in this case the members of Parliament, and their staff?

The second point in my history that I want to talk about, which was brought back as I was entering into these negotiations, was the process I went through in my last place of employment before I was elected. In that case I was the manager of an office of a prepaid legal plan, a plan that had been set up in cooperation between the auto companies and the CAW union. Early on we unionized. We recognized the union, and we did not have to go through a process of the vote and all the rest of that.

It was the first I had the opportunity to work in a management position where I had to on a regular basis deal with collective bargaining and a collective bargaining unit in the workplace. It taught me very clearly that when there was that type of structure, it was much easier to manage because there were built-in procedures to which the employee, in this case the union member, and the employer had agreed. Oftentimes they work collectively on establishing those procedures.

My colleague from Acadie—Bathurst a few moments ago made reference to how a discipline problem would be handled. That procedure is established and because it is established by way of bargaining, it is generally much easier to apply because both parties have accepted that it is a fair process, whether one is the employer or the employee.

I worked under that system for 13 to 14 years. It was a comfortable system to work under. I would not suggest that we did not have difficulties. We always did at negotiations but as in any other equal relationship, we hammered them out by way of negotiations, came to a satisfactory resolution to both sides and then used that agreement to base our relationship on for the next number of years until the negotiations came up again.

I have had exactly the same experience working in the situation I have here in the House as I did in my professional life as a lawyer in that legal plan. In the last round of bargaining I can remember a few heated arguments between our team and their team but we hammered it out. We improved the relationship in fact, and that has shown to be the case over the last two and a half years. It has worked reasonably well. It is not perfect but it is a major improvement over the types of relationships that we see between staff and other members of Parliament who belong to other political parties.

One final point, because I know my time is just about up, is the role that we have as members of Parliament to provide leadership in this country. That is true in a whole bunch of ways, and this is one of them. If we say we expect employers across Canada to treat their employees fairly, we have to do the same thing. We also have to recognize that the labour movement is a fundamental infrastructure for our democracy. Therefore we have again a role as leaders in the country to say that we can work within that setting and that we expect most other employers to do the same thing. If we are not prepared to do that, we are abandoning our role as leaders in this country.

[Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, May 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, we always stand up and say we are happy to have the opportunity to speak to a bill. That is really true this time as opposed to most of the other times when we are dealing with diplomacy and diplomatic speech. I am very happy to support Bill C-419 by the member for Halifax.

It was rather interesting when I was first elected because I felt to some degree like I was going through a repeat of one of my earlier historical periods. I am not that old, but that is what I felt like. The reason for that was I was appointed to help carry on negotiations between our caucus and the staff who worked for us. As I got familiar with the situation in the House and in preparation for those negotiations, I felt to some degree like I was going back through some history of mine.

Two incidents in particular come to mind. One was I had only been practising law in private practice for about a year when I had cause to hire a staff person, a secretary, who had attempted to organize a union in the city of Windsor in the legal profession. She had been locked out for the better part of a year, and eventually lost her position. She was looking for work at the time I needed staff, and I hired her.

I remember some of the discussions we had about the attitude of the legal profession, what I will call the very archaic attitude of the legal profession at that period of time toward collective bargaining and unions. I cannot help but think, when I hear some of the speeches in response to this bill, of a similar type of attitude.

[Petitions, May 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I wish to present a petition calling on Parliament to focus its legislative support on adult stem cell research.

[Trucking Industry, May 26th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, for the same minister, let us try International Truck and Engine Corporation in Chatham. It is going down. It will lose 1,000 jobs. What do we hear from the Liberal member for Chatham—Kent Essex? A vitriolic attack on the workers, blaming them for it.

Does the minister accept that as the reason? Is that why that plant is going down? Is that why he is doing nothing?

[The Environment, May 26th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I think we have to put this motion in the historical context of where we find ourselves as a legislative body and where the country finds itself at this period in time. I believe that factually we have to recognize these two points: first, historically we have had numerous contaminated sites, and contaminants have been allowed to get into our natural environment; and second, we have ongoing problems, where we know we are releasing contaminants that are dangerous to human health and to the natural environment or ecosystems. It is occurring on an ongoing basis.

What we are confronted with, and what this motion is to some degree attempting to face in building a framework to address these problems, is the reality that we have these sites and we have these contaminants. These are problems we already know about to some degree. We also have to recognize that on an ongoing basis we are going to have to build a process to deal with those types of problems, because given the current economic and legislative framework we work within, this is not a problem that is going to go away. It is not one that if we deal with it we will put it behind us. It is true that we have to do this, but we also have to recognize the fact that we are going to have to deal with these problems at least for some time into the future until we can build what I call environmental closed loops so these contaminants do not get out and damage human health or the natural environment.

I listened to the Liberal member who spoke earlier this morning and was trying to portray a rosy picture of how we already have a legislative and regulatory framework that deals with all these problems. I do not know what country he is living in, but that is not an accurate reflection of the reality in Canada at this time.

We heard from my colleague from Windsor West about the problems we have specifically in our home city of Windsor, Ontario. We heard from the member from the Progressive Conservative Party about the example of the Sydney tar ponds. I would add to that list, in terms of my experience, what happened in Walkerton.

In all three of those cases, I have done extensive work with the communities and it was very clear that our existing legislative and regulatory framework was greatly wanting in terms of dealing with the problems that those specific communities had to deal with, whether it was, as in Walkerton, contaminated water, or in Windsor, severe air pollution, or in the community of Sydney, Nova Scotia, the problem with having to deal with the contamination of its water sources and to some degree its air due to those ponds. In all three cases, in dealing with community members who had worked extensively on the problems, the message I saw coming out was, “This has occurred and it should not have happened, but what are we going to do about it and why do we not have a legislative framework and a governmental infrastructure to deal with this calamity our community is faced with?”

I met with the citizens' group in Walkerton and those citizens in particular had done a fair amount of analysis on the need for government to be in a position to react quickly, efficiently and sensitively to a community faced with that kind of crisis. I always remember one individual I spoke to. He said they felt that not one person at a governmental level, whether it was the local, the provincial or the federal level, had been able to respond in an efficient and sensitive manner to the community and that it was left to the local community to get things organized to respond to that tragedy.

We had a meeting in Windsor after the Gilbertson-Brophy report was issued and there was the same type of feeling in that room of 600 people. There was the feeling of fear, but a real demand on their part for the government to be there, to provide them with the security and protection the government is supposed to provide. We heard from individual members of the community that that was not happening.

The motion my colleague from Windsor West has brought forward is a very clear attempt to build a structure and a process so that when a contaminated site or contaminants that are damaging human health were identified as being in the environment, the government would have a process and infrastucture with which to respond. The process would be efficient and sensitive to the needs of the community. It would need flexible elements because each community would need a somewhat different response.

The government states it has emergency legislation, which is true. In most cases that legislation does not get triggered when dealing with contaminants in the environment that are damaging to human health in particular. When an issue like this comes up, we need to have a system whereby we know that the government infrastructure will kick in. A triggering mechanism would be needed within the legislation or the regulations. That triggering mechanism would produce a process that would respond to the needs of the community. That process would be necessary so that the contaminant could be identified.

It has been interesting to hear the recurrent announcements made by the government. We have identified 135 hot spots in the Great Lakes. These are sites which over the last century have become contaminated with all sorts of toxic materials such as mercury, asbestos, benzene and PCBs. It is all there. I have heard members of the government announce over and over again funding to clean up these sites. The government announced funding for a site cleanup in the Windsor area five times and it is still not cleaned up. That site is still contaminating the water system in our area.

Sites have to be clearly identified, as well as the extent of the danger they pose. The infrastructure would then develop remedial action. Part of that action would be the actual physical cleanup. There are all sorts of ways of doing it, but it has to be done quickly.

I could not get over the level of frustration of the local community in Sydney for the length of time the process took in trying to deal with the tar ponds. It still has not been accomplished. It became both a bureaucratic and an academic nightmare for that community. There were numerous discussions and proposals, but the process itself was flawed from the beginning. In particular I think it was flawed because it did not involve enough of the community in the decision making process. That came too late and even then it was too little.

We need to look at having a process and the process has to be as good as possible. It has to have a triggering mechanism. It needs financial resources behind it. The process itself is what we need to study, develop and implement.

[Agriculture, May 16th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have given their support to a trade challenge that would force the nations of Europe to accept GMOs. Europe does not want GMOs. That is also true of many Canadians, since the Liberals torpedoed a bill that would have made GMO labelling mandatory.

My question is for the Minister of Industry. Why is his government continuing to deny families the right to know what they are eating?

[Aboriginal Affairs, May 16th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday thousands of first nations people stood up in Kenora, in the heart of the riding of the minister for aboriginal affairs, to tell the Liberal government to kill Bill C-7.

Jack Layton was there and Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton was there. And the member for Winnipeg Centre, who has fought tooth and nail in committee to stop Bill C-7, was also there.

Other members of the House say they too oppose Bill C-7, but first nations and the NDP worry that the government will do to first nations on governance what it did to taxpayers on the GST: say one thing and do another. We say that is not good enough. Across Canada first nations are speaking loudly against Bill C-7, and after centuries of not listening, it is time the House did.

Clearly Bill C-7 is dividing a Liberal caucus already in chaos and disarray. Why prolong the agony? It is time for a free vote on Bill C-7 so every member of the House can stand up and be clear with first nations where we stand, and that includes the former finance minister.

[Health, May 5th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Environmental Defence Canada group just released a report proving that Canadians are eating food with high levels of lead, cadmium and other heavy metals. This report, based on Health Canada's own data, was only made public through an access to information request. It highlights the absence of an online food contamination data registry and that the standards for toxic residue levels in food in Canada are below acceptable levels.

My question is for the Minister of Health. Will she commit to creating enforceable toxic food residue standards for all heavy metals that will protect the health of all Canadians?

[Health, May 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I thought everyone in Canada knew that West Nile Virus was a serious public health problem. Last year Health Canada paid to test dead crows for the virus. Today we hear from CBC radio that in fact the government has cut the funding for this year. Is the report accurate? Why would the minister cut off funding to test for the virus?

[Supply, May 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the debate throughout the day and I kept hearing about finding a balanced approach with management on one side and labour unions on the other because it is the Canadian way. I heard this from the Minister of Labour, other members of the government and some Alliance members. I must tell those people that they are wrong. This is one of those times when a decision must be made about what is right. When it comes to strikebreaking legislation, to the use of scabs in the workplace, that is wrong and we must outlaw it.

I had a personal experience this past summer on a picket line in Chatham, Ontario, which will live with me for the rest of my life. In the course of that strike a truck was trying to move through the crowd and some of the picketing workers were being forced through to so-called security firm people, who in fact were professional strikebreakers. They were a bunch of goons. I had dealt with the same group of people earlier in January in Windsor. As the truck was going through it was forcing the workers to move toward a yellow line that had been painted on the ground and they were not supposed to cross over that yellow line.

As they were being forced toward that yellow line they were hit, kicked and punched by the strikebreakers, and an incident developed. One man was kicked in the chest, and when he went down he was kicked in the head by one of the strikebreakers. His wife, who went to his aid, was kicked in the chest by one of the macho strikebreakers. The real sadness of this was what happened the week following as a result of the tension on the picket line. One of my constituents was almost killed by one of the strikebreakers when he was doing nothing more than picketing there.

The government must realize that what we saw in the Chatham and Windsor areas this past year can happen anyplace in this country. All of the evidence has been heard today, particularly from my colleagues in the Bloc, about this type of legislation prohibiting that kind of conduct. It will reduce lost work days and increase the potential for peace in those kinds of relationships.

I feel very strongly that this legislation is required. It is no longer a question of consensus building or what has to be done right. If the government does not realize that, it will have the same kind of problems as we had in Windsor and Chatham this past year.