Leon Benoit

[National Defence, March 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, Ms. Simone Olafson who works at the base in Cold Lake received this letter from Major Barber, deputy judge advocate, after her appearance before the defence committee.

She is chastised for saying negative things about his department. The letter from the JAG's office concludes with the warning “govern yourself accordingly”.

Ms. Olafson has been betrayed. When will the minister apologize to these people for encouraging them to appear before the committee and then betraying them?

[National Defence, March 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, picture this. A civilian employee, a maintenance worker of the defence department, gave testimony before the defence committee in Cold Lake in January.

Shortly after she received a letter from the office of the judge advocate general warning her that it would be in her best interest not to speak out against the department.

Will the minister advise the House whether this lady has been singled out for intimidation, or is this routine procedure in his department?

[Income Tax Act, March 9th, 1998]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-366, an act to amend the Income Tax Act (deduction of mechanics' tool expenses).

Mr. Speaker, this private member's bill would allow mechanics to deduct their tool expense, which is now denied, provided that it is a requirement of their employment to purchase the tools.

The deduction would encompass maintenance, rental, insurance costs and the full cost of tools under $200 and the capital cost allowance above $200. That is consistent with what artists, musicians, chain saw operators and other individuals now do when claiming the cost of their tools as an income tax deduction.

I am very pleased to present this bill on behalf of mechanics.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Canadian Armed Forces, March 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, following the crash of a passenger plane in Manitoba on December 9, Canada's air force arrived at the scene four hours after a civilian helicopter. An inquiry into the mission found that unnecessary risks taken by the pilot, a lieutenant colonel, put the Hercules itself and the town in jeopardy, yet the only one to be punished for this was the junior officer.

Does the minister of defence feel it is good for morale to allow a junior officer to once again be a scapegoat for his superior?

[National Defence, February 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian forces Hercules involved in the rescue attempt near Little Grand Rapids, Manitoba, illegally dumped over 50,000 litres of fuel on the town and surrounding area. The pilot broke the three cardinal rules of fuel dumping, thus putting at risk the people of the town and the crew of the Hercules.

Has the Minister of National Defence chosen to keep the people of Little Grand Rapids in the dark about this breach of regulations, or has he been kept in the dark by the officials of his own department once again?

[Canada Labour Code, February 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. Tommy Douglas would be rolling over in his grave seeing what the members of the New Democratic Party are doing in this regard. He believed in democracy.

Democracy has been taken out of the union movement. The New Democratic Party seems to be protecting union bosses, as the hon. member just suggested.

Part of what is not in the legislation is fairness in voting. When a union is being established every individual should be given a fair democratic chance to express his or her will. Clearly the New Democratic Party has abandoned what many of the founding members of its movement would have supported in terms of the importance of democracy.

At one time that party was a grassroots party, but clearly it has become a big union boss party now. That is why many union members are voting Reform. That movement will continue and expand.

[Canada Labour Code, February 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize to the member. I did not get the last question. I certainly encourage him to repeat it later.

With regard to support for section 7 which would ensure that the grain that gets to the coast is loaded on ships, certainly we support it.

As the member indicated, we would like it to go an awful lot further. That is why we have been suggesting we should use final offer selection arbitration to ensure that there would be no work stoppages right from the local elevator, or whatever type of gathering facility, through to the loading of the boats and that the collective bargaining process goes through to completion.

That is what the process allows. That is important because we do not want to interfere with collective bargaining. We think that is extremely important.

Our final offer selection ensures that without stoppage there can be an agreement that makes sense. We know that each party will present a reasonable offer when they know the arbitrator or the panel will choose all of one or all of the other with no mixing and matching as happens in many forced settlements now.

It will be all of one or all of the other. Two very reasonable offers will be presented. Both will be very close. Whichever one is chosen, I think both parties will be relatively happy.

We certainly encourage that type of mechanism. It goes much further. It will not only deal with grain because I do not think it is fair. My heart is with grain farmers. I grew up in that type of setting. My neighbours and friends were and still are grain farmers. It has to go into other industries that are affected in a similar way. The legislation discriminates unfairly in that regard as well.

[Canada Labour Code, February 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her comments and questions and for reading from another letter.

I believe farmers would have tears in their eyes because their very livelihood is affected by these stoppages that happen again and again. That is exactly what I was talking about.

As I was growing up, these were my friends and neighbours. I was in no way throwing aside the comments made in the letter. I was saying she was interpreting them loosely when she said that person was saying this legislation solved all the problems. That is nonsense. It does not.

To the quote from the other letter which said what farmers want is to provide a reliable supply of grain to their customers, that is exactly what they want. That is what this legislation will in no way deliver. All it will do is ensure that if grain makes it to the coast it will get loaded on the ships. That is only a short part of travel for grain. It has to move right from the elevator system to the coast first. That is more often than not where there is a problem. What good will it do to have these changes to ensure the ships are loaded when in many cases the grain never gets to the coast because of a work stoppage of some type?

We want to put it right through the complete grain system. It should be in other areas where people have no place at the table and are affected directly. That is what we want to do and that is what we are calling for. The letters are important, but let us interpret them accurately.

[Canada Labour Code, February 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-19, to amend the Canada Labour Code, part I.

In my presentation I will briefly outline Bill C-19, although that has been well done by members who spoke before. I want to speak a little about unions and their roles in Canada. Then I want to focus mainly on the impact of the legislation on the grain industry. I will focus most of my comments on the impact of the legislation on farmers and their families and especially on what is missing from the legislation that will have an incredibly negative impact on farmers and their ability to access markets and earn a living.

Other speakers before me have done a good job of outlining the bill. Some members have done an excellent job in pointing out some of the flaws in the bill. The member for Calgary—Nose Hill did an excellent job in making it clear that it is an important piece of legislation that should not be taken lightly and has to be reconsidered. She did an admirable job of pointing out some of the key flaws in the legislation.

I will start by talking a bit about unions. I received several letters on the bill, as did the member for Guelph—Wellington. One thing that concerned me in many of the letters was the negative comments of people against unions. Many said that unions should not be allowed anywhere in the grain industry. That is too bad.

I want to say very clearly that unions serve a very useful role. They have a purpose and they are necessary. If unions are not present in certain industries, some businesses would take advantage of labour. That is a concern. It is unfortunate a few unions that have not acted in a responsible way have turned the feelings of people against them. That is an important concern.

To help improve the unions, their effectiveness and their acceptance, certain things must happen. We need better balance between labour and management, which is something the bill does not offer. It also does not offer the protection needed for innocent third parties.

The bill deals to some extent with grain at the ports and the moving of grain out of the ports. It affects farmers in a small way, in a positive way, but it does very little to protect farmers, people in the forestry industry and people in the mining industry. It does not protect any of the people affected in a negative way as third parties. These are the people who have no say in the unions or in management. Yet their livelihoods are affected to a great degree as a result of work stoppages.

We need better protection for innocent third parties. A little later I will focus on one particular group, grain farmers who are innocent third parties in any dispute which stops the movement of grain from the local elevator to being loaded on a boat in harbour.

I would like to talk about farmers and how they are affected by work stoppages. We have debated several times since we came to the House legislation concerning labour and management disputes. Since 1956 we have had nine major disruptions in the grain industry. It began in 1956 and went right through to 1972, 1974, 1975, 1982, 1986, 1988, 1991 and 1994. There have been over a dozen other labour-management disputes involving grain handling and transportation which have ended up in back to work legislation.

In the 1998 stoppage 30% of the country's grain exports were stopped dead. How many grain handlers in the union were involved to stop 30% of the export of grain? There were 69 grain handlers involved who were unhappy with their working conditions and stopped the export of 30% of the grain. This affected in a very personal way the lives of grain farmers who were unable to move their grain to market. I believe that demonstrates the seriousness of the situation, the seriousness of the legislation, and the seriousness of the flaws in the bill which will do very little to change things.

Growing up on a grain farm, I remember going to school during times of work stoppage and speaking with friends. My friends at school, who also grew up on farms, were mostly quite poor. That was the situation then, although people did not complain about it. We certainly had the necessities of life. My neighbours and friends during the times of work stoppages felt the negative impact in a way that we could see and hear in our discussions. They were unable to get the new footwear or the new clothes they needed. Their parents, in many cases, were struggling to put food on the table.

These work stoppages are connected with reality. They have an impact on people's lives. This legislation does not do what has to be done to stop the impact which these work stoppages have on farmers and others who are captive to the labour-management relationship.

Section 87.7 of the bill will make a little difference. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour referred to a letter she had received from a farmer with respect to this section of the bill. This section will ensure that the grain that gets to port is loaded on to a ship. That is not entirely true because more and more of our crops are moving through bulk handling facilities where that would not be the case. When using the bulk handling facilities there is no requirement to load the grain on to a ship.

Furthermore, the definition of grain that is used in the legislation is the same as that used in the Canada Grain Act.

The hon. member for Yorkton—Melville referred to the fact that it will not have any impact at all on many farm commodities.

Farmers are trying to diversify. Government has encouraged farmers to diversify. They can no longer depend on wheat alone. The farmers have done a good job in doing that. They have started to produce all kinds of alternative crops. It used to be that wheat, barley and oats were the main crops on the prairies, as well as some rye and some flax. Now canola rivals wheat in terms of the value of the crop being sold. There are many other crops such as peas, lentils and alfalfa. The member referred to alfalfa being cubed and sent mostly to Asian countries, but alfalfa is not covered at all in this legislation because under the Canada Grain Act it is not a grain.

Farmers have diversified. They have done what they thought they should do. Their reward with this legislation is that the new diversified crops which they are producing to earn a reasonable livelihood most years will sit wherever they are in the system and will not be moved. They will be denied the income from these commodities until an agreement is reached between labour and management. It will take a long time to fix up the system once it has been thrown out of whack by a work stoppage.

These people are being punished for the work they have done and the changes they have made to try to better provide for their families and to make their businesses more viable.

I refer to the letter the parliamentary secretary received from a western farmer who supports this bill. She quoted from the letter to show that we should be supporting the bill. However, part of the quote was really not all that supportive. The farmer said this is a good first step. To me that would indicate there is an awful lot more which needs to be done. This is the best she can do to show support for the bill.

When I am in government I will not be satisfied with simply providing a good first step. We have to go further.

This is what the Reform Party has been proposing over the last four years. We dealt with the first back to work legislation in 1994. I think it was my second speech in the House of Commons. We had only been down here a couple of weeks. We talked about ending work stoppages in the grain handling system right from one end of the system to the other, not just ensuring that grain that gets to port gets loaded on the ships, which is all this legislation will do.

What we proposed is using final offer arbitration to end work stoppages. We have talked about this on several occasions in this House and I believe it is a process which must be put in place to end stoppages such as the frequent stoppages we have seen in the grain handling system.

In particular, this type of collective bargaining should be used when there is a third party which is completely captive to labour and management. In this case there are thousands and thousands of grain farmers across the country who are captive to union and management, yet they have no say at all in the negotiations. They have no place at the negotiation table.

The type of situation we are talking about is for grain movement but also for movement of coal, potash, forestry products, many resource areas in particular where they are captive and are affected very directly, not in some indirect way. Their livelihoods, their incomes depend on these products moving to ports.

Yet in this legislation government says for grain, as defined by the Canada Grain Act, it will make sure it keeps moving as long as it gets to port. Then the member for Guelph—Wellington has the nerve to stand up and say they have done a great job and refers to the farmer who wrote the letter saying it is a first step. That is completely unacceptable and I think the member should expect more. It is from her government.

Again, Reform not only critiques legislation, points out areas that we think are not right and that could be improved, we also present alternatives.

I want to talk about the Reform alternative in dealing with commodities where the producers are captive shippers and yet have no place at all at the bargaining table. What we propose is the use of final offer selection arbitration.

I am going to work through the process. The purpose of a strike is to force a settlement. That is the reason that union members choose to strike from time to time, to force a solution. Final offer arbitration puts the onus on both sides to reach an agreement, to arrive at a solution. It allows the collective bargaining process to take place right through to solution. It can be used equally by labour and management. It does not favour one over the other and it can provide a permanent solution and it is a just and effective dispute settlement mechanism.

It is important to note that this final offer selection arbitration, in spite of the way it is presented so often by members from some parties, does not favour one side over the other. It is not something there for business to use against labour, not at all. It is as useful for one side as the other.

Here is how it works. If and only if the union and an employer cannot reach an agreement by the conclusion of the previous contract, the union and employer would provide the minister with the name of a person or persons they jointly recommend as an arbiter or an arbitration panel. Then the union and the employer would be required to submit to the arbitrator or the panel, depending on what they choose, a list of matters they have agreed on.

There is no need for more negotiation on these matters. They have reached a settlement. In many cases before a situation comes to strike many of the issues have been settled, so those are taken out of the process at this point.

They also submit a list of matters still under dispute, and those are the issues which must be presented to the arbitrator or to the panel. For these disputed issues, each party would be required to submit a final offer for settlement. The arbitrator or panel selects either the final offer submitted by the trade union or the final offer submitted by business, by the employer. In this way any work stoppage is completely headed off.

That sounds like a more complete solution to the problem than saying if we get the grain to the coast and loaded on the ships, the system can be backed up in every other aspect. It may take months to really sort the situation out and it usually does. There could be sales lost, which there always are, to the point that Canada now is looked on as an unreliable supplier of grains and other commodities affected often by labour disruptions.

I think that does sound like a far more reasonable solution to the problem. It is the solution that we have been encouraging now for four years, a solution which I do not believe was seriously considered by this government, and I think it should be.

I close by saying that farmers and other captive shippers deserve a mechanism which will ensure them as captive shippers, as people who really have no place at the table and yet their livelihoods are affected so directly, that they have something better than this legislation. They deserve a system of final offer selection arbitration and that is what Reform will give them when we have a chance, if this government does not see the light before then and give it to them.

[Questions On The Order Paper, February 23rd, 1998]

Besides the Canadian Wheat Board, which other government regulated bodies have partially elected, partially appointed board of directors and president/CEO appointed by the minister?