Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, I want to extend best wishes for Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, a very important day of celebration. Many francophones from coast to coast celebrate it, and it is an important day on which to stand up and recognize the day and commend all of those who are involved in the organization of the day so that many Canadians, from coast to coast, are able to participate in the many different celebrations across Canada, in particular, in the province of Quebec.
I come from a very unique city when we talk about labour. Many will recall the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 and the impact that strike had on the whole labour movement here in Canada. When I consider the type of legislation that we have before us today, it is hard not to reflect on so many different labour leaders.
When I talk about labour leaders, I am not just talking about those who hold formal positions within the labour movement. I am talking about those who have been involved in the grassroots of our union movement, not only in the last decade but over a number of years.
I believe that Winnipeg, in the province of Manitoba, in many ways has been very progressive with regard to coming up with areas of labour policy that have in fact been of great benefit both for workers and for businesses, I must add.
I want to comment very briefly with regard to postal workers. l recognized yesterday when I had the opportunity to speak, and I wanted to reinforce, what I believe is a very important point, something that is being lost. This should not be about a filibuster or anything of this nature. What this should be about is the employees who are working for Canada Post and Canada Post as a corporation itself. We would have loved the opportunity to allow those two entities to sit down in a collective bargaining fashion that is free in which an agreement would have been achieved.
We believe that the government would have known, and I suspect possibly even supported, Canada Post's decision to lock out its employees. That is really where the problem began. At that point I believe a lot of people lost faith in what was taking place. Ultimately, at the end of the day, the government did have a choice. The crisis we are in today is a crisis that has been created by the government of the day. I believe that to be the case. I do not believe for a moment that the government would not have known that Canada Post was going to lock out its employees. At the very least, Canada Post would have informed the minister responsible. If not, many might even suggest that the minister responsible might even have had some discussions with Canada Post prior to Canada Post making that particular decision. There is a great deal of concern with regard to what actually has taken place there.
All I know is I have had the opportunity to meet with and have discussions with Canada Post workers over the last number of months, and I made reference to some of those discussions yesterday. I should say “today” because we are still on Thursday inside the House. When we talk about the issues that were important, I listened to what Canada Post Corporation had to say when it came to Parliament and made its presentation, but I also intentionally took the initiative to go out and talk to some of the letter carriers and others concerning what they thought Canada Post's new, next generation of services is going to be like.
They raised concerns, and there were two different sides. The one that came to mind, which I made reference to yesterday, came from not just one letter carrier but a few letter carriers who raised the identical issue concerning how they are going to have to carry the mail door to door. It was a one-pack system. Now it is going to a two-pack system, which is very difficult to carry in their arms because of the way they flip through the mail to put it into mailboxes.
Suffice it to say there are many different issues that we in the chamber are not necessarily aware of. It is important that those issues be brought to a table wherein there is a sense that the bargaining process is going to be fair. Say what one will, I suspect that at the end of the day the employees of Canada Post believe that the government has not been fair and has directly intervened.
It is not to say that there is no place for back-to-work legislation. It has proved to be an effective tool in the history of our country, whether it is in the House of Commons or other provinces. In fact, we will find that there are political parties of all stripes, Conservatives, Progressive Conservatives, New Democrats and Liberals, who have all used back-to-work legislation. Every political party inside this chamber when in government has in fact used back-to-work legislation.
What makes this back-to-work legislation so unique is that it has been taken from the perspective of the arbitrator. Limitations have been put in that will prevent legitimate negotiations. As a result many would argue, and I would argue, and I believe the leader of the Liberal Party argued, that it could even be unconstitutional. By the time it hits the court everything will likely be resolved, but I suspect that given the way in which this legislation is worded it could be unconstitutional. There is a need for us to amend and change this legislation.
I still cannot get over the fact that the government locked out the employees of Canada Post. That is a hard pill to digest. I do not think the postal workers will ever digest that particular pill because it was premature at best, not warranted.
Having said that, I believe that the legislation and the way in which it is worded if taken to the Supreme Court I believe would be unconstitutional. The government cannot put the workers in this position. It shows its bias toward management. That is why it was interesting to listen to what the New Democrats had to say during the debate as they addressed the amendment that is being proposed, the six months' hoist.
We have been asking questions, and in terms of the responses they are interesting because we are looking for ideas. We want to see how the workers can benefit by ideas and discussions within this chamber in terms of how we could resolve this thing. We could tell Canada Post to take the locks off and end it. Then the union and Canada Post could get back together and try to resolve this through mediation. I think that is a viable option. The leader of the official opposition has talked about bringing amendments. There was even one member who stood up and said that there were amendments submitted to the government. I think there needs to be a little bit more transparency in terms of what we are talking about.
If we continue to have this debate for the next number of days, I am game for that. I was in the Manitoba legislature in 1988 when we had the final offer selection debate go for hours and hours and days and days. It was interesting to do the comparisons where they had the six months' hoist. It was a Conservative government and an NDP opposition. I have been there and I can say that there was a great deal of frustration because there was not the transparent debate that is necessary to provide comfort to not only the employees but also to the corporation.
I think we have to start to be a little fairer in our comments and start saying how we can resolve this as opposed to trying to add to the division by saying we are either for the union or the corporation. I believe at the end of the day we need to be more sympathetic in terms of what it is that our letter carriers have to go through in order to be able to communicate their messages, in order to be able to continue doing the fabulous job that they currently do. How many smiles do they put on people's faces when they walk up to their doors to deliver the mail? They are ambassadors to our communities in very many ways. They do not get the recognition that they should be getting. In essence, through the lockout, the government is trying to demonize it when its members talk about it being a strike when it is not a strike.
I see my time has expired, Mr. Speaker. I am thankful for having had the opportunity to speak.
