House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2019, with 15% of the vote.
Service Canada September 21st, 2011
Mr. Speaker, our seniors deserve better.
By significantly reducing the services offered at Service Canada centres, the Conservative government is showing no consideration whatsoever for our seniors. Apparently, according to the minister, anyone who cannot communicate with Service Canada over the Internet is unworthy of the 21st century. That is unacceptable.
Can the minister tell us here today how the cuts to Service Canada will better serve our seniors?
Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act September 20th, 2011
Madam Speaker, I would like to quickly come back to a comment made by my colleague across the floor. He said that human trafficking presents a minimal risk. This raises the question as to why they are introducing even more arbitrary and draconian bills, when instead we could be enforcing existing measures better to end human trafficking, without penalizing refugees.
Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act June 25th, 2011
Madam Speaker, I make no claim to fully understand the intentions behind the bill, but I know that in the present situation the workers are indeed trying to defend their pensions, their wages and their needs. For them, it is very important to be able to have access to these tools.
When we look at the Supreme Court’s decision, we can clearly see that it underscores that workers must have the right to organize and the ability to work with the tools at their disposal. The bill now being studied will prevent postal workers from doing this. That is why the NDP is opposed to it.
Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act June 25th, 2011
Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his congratulations. I am very pleased to hear him acknowledge my passion for these matters. At the present time, passion is indeed what is needed.
To answer his question, I will say that it is quite simple. As the New Democratic members have said since the start of this debate, a union functions democratically. Not all the members will necessarily be in agreement all the time, just as not all the people of Canada voted for the present government. Yet we make do all the same. What is more, we express our opinions all the same.
I am very happy that his constituent—I do not recall whether it was a man or a woman, and it is not important—expressed his or her opinion to the hon. member. The fact remains that, in a democracy, one cannot always get what one wants. However one must deal with the situation and work within the system, which is what we are doing at the present time.
Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act June 25th, 2011
Madam Speaker, since we do not have the same concept of time in the House right now, I would like to follow up on what I was saying this morning. I was telling the story of a teacher who, although not in the same situation as the one Canada Post workers are currently in, said she was scared of the precedent this would set and the domino effect it will have.
In fact, I have read the 2007 Supreme Court of Canada ruling in Health Services and Support – Facilities Subsector Bargaining Assn. v. British Columbia. I will read an excerpt that I find to be quite relevant:
The history of collective bargaining in Canada reveals that long before the present statutory labour regimes were put in place, collective bargaining was recognized as a fundamental aspect of Canadian society, emerging as the most significant collective activity through which freedom of association is expressed in the labour context.
The relevance of this quotation is obvious, but I will elaborate. It is what is at issue here. Canada Post workers have not had the opportunity to exercise what is a fundamental right in our society and in our Canadian history. This ties in with the story I was telling earlier. If we cannot even have this right, what rights will be taken away next? What will be the next situation in which things do not work out and the government decides to use special legislation to resolve the problem?
I would like to give an example of recent collective action in my community. It did not involve unions. I want to make that clear so as not to scare the members opposite too much. It was during the flooding in Montérégie. Two weekends in a row, people from the entire community came to the help of strangers. They did that together, collectively, simply because these are things that could not be done alone. A collective effort was needed. That is why we have unions and workers' groups. They want to have things they are not capable of getting alone. They are not going to get what they want by going to their boss one by one. They have to express their wishes collectively.
The hon. members opposite have asked us a number of times why New Democrat members continue to express their disapproval with the current situation and with this bill. It is simple. Just like workers who come together to make their views known, we too are making ours known. We are doing so on behalf of those in our ridings, whether they be workers or small business people. That is why we are here. This is not a waste of taxpayers' money, this is our job. We are paid a salary to be here or in our ridings when something is happening. Something very important is happening now. These will be very relevant questions over the next four years. If we cannot handle situations like this and answer questions like this now, where will we be in four years? I have no idea, and I don't even want to know. Perhaps I would be better off staying in my riding, rather than being here all night, because I might prefer not to know about any of this. But we are here, and we are now trying to establish what we want to do as representatives of our communities.
Here is another passage from the Supreme Court of Canada decision:
Recognizing that workers have the right to bargain collectively as part of their freedom to associate reaffirms the values of dignity, personal autonomy, equality and democracy that are inherent in the [Canadian] Charter [of Rights and Freedoms].
What is at stake here are individual rights.
We hear a lot of bogeyman stories from the hon. members on the opposite side of the House. They are saying that the NDP members have a leash around their necks and the union leaders are pulling on that leash. But that is not the case. We can see in the Supreme Court decision that this is about the autonomy of the people who came together to make a democratic decision and exercise their freedom of association in order to use this tool collectively. As we have seen over the past few evenings and nights in the House, we now take these things for granted. I may be young, but I know that it is important not to take these things for granted because people have fought for them. Why should we start taking them for granted now and thereby prevent workers from continuing the work that has been started?
Let me go back a little. I was talking about the flooding in my constituency, which has been a great concern to me since the beginning of my mandate. When I first spoke in the House, I had the opportunity to ask the minister whether the army was going to help the victims with the cleanup. But the army did not come to help the victims and that is not its fault because it follows orders. It does a great job under the circumstances. I am bringing this up and I think it is relevant because the government clearly said that the private sector should be allowed to deal with the situation, that things should take care of themselves and that the market should do the same. Why are they not approaching the current situation in the same way? Why does the government not let the union and management work things out between themselves?
I spent the election campaign hearing that the NDP was a party that was going to interfere in everything and that it was not going to let people sort out issues for themselves. Ironically, the government that claims not to act in that way is doing just that, at the expense of our workers, their rights and their pensions.
Once again, I am speaking as a young person. I do not want to come up with a definition of what a young person is, because, in our hearts, we all either are young or see ourselves as young. When young people consider the environment, for example, it is easy to see the consequences because they can be seen. We can see what is happening with the environment. When we consider our pensions and the financial future of the country, we do not see the consequences. That is what scares us: we do not know what is going to happen and we do not understand all the issues. The fact that we cannot see the consequences results in some of those involved thinking that everything will happen without anyone asking questions about the consequences. It is therefore up to us to point out the consequences so that future generations know that the issues are important.
In our current situation, I have a duty to speak as the voice of the young. And I am not alone. Once again, we are not a nasty union, we are a parliamentary caucus. Just like workers and their unions, we work as a team and for a common purpose. We use our freedom of association to work together in the name of the people, the workers, as the Supreme Court decision described. We will stay here for the night and for as many days as it takes, right up to the end of next week, up to the royal couple's visit. We will stay for as many days as it takes. We missed Quebec's national holiday and we will miss Canada Day if we have to. We have freedom of association and it allows us to be here fighting for people and making our views known on their behalf. We are not nasty trade unionists, we are not bogeymen, we are people who were elected in our ridings to do this job. Our constituents are proud of us and we have nothing to be ashamed of. This is also why we are opposed to this bill.
Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act June 24th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, the answer is quite simple, but it is crucial to this debate.
The rotating strikes the workers were holding allowed them to serve Canadians anyway and to perform their duties, even in a less-than-perfect way. However, when there is a lockout, there are two things to consider. Firstly, people are deprived of service. The other factor, which is even more important, is that management makes this decision and workers pay the price, without being able to make their voices heard, voices that my colleague and I deem to be important, but that are being jeopardized by this debate.
Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act June 24th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I am happy to have the opportunity to reply to a question from a colleague who is from the area I was referring to.
In fact, that event I referred to does for some mark the beginning of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec. To answer the question, if this bill is passed, if we silence workers in this way, we will be losing ground and going back to that era known as the great darkness.
As I mentioned in my speech, this is very important because it is going to create a precedent. The time to act is now. We have four years to go and in my opinion, this is not a very good message to send at the beginning of a mandate.
Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act June 24th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, I would say that the problem with this way of thinking is, as I mentioned, that we can no longer hear the workers' voice in all of this. Are the workers not also Canadians who are negatively affected by certain circumstances, as the member opposite said? Yes, we understand the importance of the economy, but workers are also part of the economy.
I would like to say—as we have said throughout the night and will continue to say this weekend—that things were going well at Canada Post until management decided to lock out the employees. There is no reason to prevent workers from expressing themselves and having a voice at the bargaining table.
Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act June 24th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time I have risen in this House, but it is the first time I have made a speech. First, I would like to thank the voters of Chambly—Borduas for electing me to this position. Speaking of them, I also want to point out that like all my colleagues from Quebec, I will unfortunately not be able to take part in activities marking our national holiday in Quebec with my constituents. I do wish them a wonderful holiday, however. I want them to know that I am very disappointed not to be there.
What is happening is worthwhile, though, because it has given me an opportunity, on this national holiday, to put things in perspective. I would like to take a step back for a moment. I assure you that what I have to say is relevant and relates to the bill we have before us.
One of the activities I was going to take part in today was a performance put on by students at Osias-Leduc secondary school, entitled Je me souviens. All Quebeckers—and many Canadians—know that the motto Je me souviens appears on our licence plates in Quebec. But those words mean much more.
For one, they remind us to think about important historic events, such as the asbestos strike in 1949, which I think is relevant to this situation. I am not bringing this up to upset the member for Winnipeg Centre. The town is called Asbestos. We will not talk about the asbestos issue. One all-nighter is enough. Perhaps another time.
In all seriousness, I want to talk about the asbestos strike because, at that time, there was a serious issue in the labour dispute. It had to do with the language of work. People had no say. At that time, they literally had no say because management and workers did not speak the same language. Now, 60 years later, we find ourselves in the same situation: the workers have no say.
Responsibility for the lockout does not lie with Canada Post. It lies with the government, which wants to force a return to work and impose previously determined conditions that have been set out in the bill we are debating. I find it very problematic and very disappointing that, after 60 years, we are still in a similar situation, even though the circumstances have changed.
I would also like to tell a story about a woman in my riding who is a teacher. Last night, the Minister of Labour spoke about the 45,000 Canada Post workers, who, it seems, are less important than the rest of the Canadian public. However, we must not forget the big picture. My constituent was right to bring this up. She and her colleagues are constantly fighting for their fair share. Yes, I know what the members on the other side are thinking. They are going to give me a lesson. They are going to tell me that education is under provincial jurisdiction. I know that.
I am bringing up this example because the government needs to lead by example and show people that they can have a say, that they have a role to play in society. Be it through a union or some other means, they all have a right to their fair share in society.
This teacher, when she spoke to me about this, told me that she was worried that this bill would pass. Why? Because from that point forward she would be living in a society in which she did not even know whether she would be able to fight for her rights. She did not even know whether she could defend her right to have an acceptable collective agreement, get her pension, and so on.
This is all very relevant for me as a young person. With all due respect to our seniors, it is not only them we are thinking about and whom we have to think about when it comes to pensions. We must also think about young people. As young people, we do not even know if we will have pensions. Without unions or organizations that allow us to have a forum in which to speak, we cannot guarantee the security of these things, the security of pension plans.
That being said, this teacher certainly took notice of what the 308 members of this House wanted. Yes, we want the mail to be delivered again.
However, she said it very clearly. We can spend the whole night, as we have done, taking out our BlackBerrys and saying that we have received an email from some person or another saying that the workers should go back to work or that they should not and that we are doing the right thing. However, the fact remains that the letter carriers, Canada Post employees, were delivering the mail. It was management that decided to declare a lockout, not the workers. People, including those from Quebec, know this. It strikes at the very core of the community values we hold in Quebec.
I would therefore like to take this opportunity, with all due respect to the people in the rest of the country, to note that today is Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day. It is indeed important to remember. We need to be able to say “Je me souviens”, I remember this important event and the fact that, 60 years later, we are still fighting for the same thing. That being said, this is why we must oppose Bill C-6.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his comments.
What people seem to be forgetting in this debate, despite the importance of the situation, is that this is about more than just Canada Post. It is about all employees working in various situations. What sort of precedent will be set if this is how the government acts whenever it is confronted with such a situation?
I would like my colleague to go into further detail about the following issue. It is very important that seniors have pension plans, but many workers have young families, and we are here to protect them too. I wonder how important it is to have a good argument in order to ensure that we do not set a precedent that might negatively affect workers' rights.