Nathan Cullen

[Business of Supply, October 31st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I have some experience with this argument because I introduced a private member's bill in a previous Parliament to ban a certain type of chemical in plastics, a softener that was an endocrine disrupter and a known carcinogen. As it moved through Parliament, the government raised the same issues, as did industry. They said there were no good replacements. Government members said there were no known replacements and that any replacement they could find would be very expensive. This is exactly how industry, which is being targeted for exposing people to risky products, always responds. It is the same argument in reverse that the tobacco industry used for years. It asked for proof that smoking gave people cancer, said it could not be done, and said it would provide experts who would say otherwise.

Of course, industry is going to defend itself to the nth degree, because that is what it does, but the role of government is to defend the rights and interests of Canadians and, as a further extension, to stop promoting the use of something that we know kills people and at the very least to slap a label on it that says it is dangerous. To suggest asbestos is not dangerous while neither the minister himself nor any of his colleagues will put it in their homes is what we call hypocrisy. We must do better than this, and we can.

That is true.

[Business of Supply, October 31st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan.

I suppose it is with some anticipation but regret that I enter this debate, because I find it incredible that the government must be called to account again over such a fundamental choice, the choice before it and before us as Canadians, as to whether to support and prop up an industry that is, not to be too hyperbolic, dying a natural death.

The industry is not supported by the markets. As a government that believes in the magic of the invisible hand, the government continues to dump money into the asbestos industry. It does not do it for other mining companies or other products. I know this because I come from a district that does a great deal of mining.

The asbestos industry has somehow become the sacred cow for the government. To have to defend something like asbestos must make some in those benches feel great discomfort, because it puts in front of Canadians an aspect of profound and dangerous hypocrisy. There is not a Conservative who would want chrysotile or any other kind of asbestos put into their homes. Why not? It is because we do not allow it in this country. Why not? It is because we should not allow it in this country, yet the same Conservative members somehow find comfort in sending it overseas, where there are virtually no building codes and there is no ability to promise that there will be any safe or determined handling of it. Conservatives say, for some of the most crass and coarse political calculations possible, that they will continue to dump money into it and continue to turn a blind eye.

While the Conservatives are entitled to their own opinions, they are not entitled to their own facts. The facts of the matter are that according to every health organization in this country and around the world, there is no safe use of asbestos, full stop--not chrysotile, not white, not otherwise. It is a fact. We cannot find doctors who are actual doctors, as opposed to the shills that the asbestos lobby pops up every once in a while, the same guys who were used by the tobacco industry. I do not mean similar people; I mean the exact same experts with “doctor” in front of their names. We find out they are doctors of geography or theology, yet the industry props them up and says, “Doctor so-and-so says asbestos is safe”.

However, the fact is that as taxpayers we have spent millions of dollars taking asbestos out of our Parliament buildings. We cannot go into the West Block anymore, because we are taking asbestos out of those offices. Heaven forbid that any member of Parliament or senator or member of our staff would be exposed to a minute of asbestos, but anyone happening to live in India, Indonesia or Sri Lanka who wants a trading relationship with Canada is going to get this stuff from Canada. Heaven forbid that we put even a warning label on the packages to tell them that the use of this material is seriously harmful for their health as workers. That is why union after union that is concerned with the health and safety of its members has stood up and said this is wrong. For many years this has been a struggle within the union movement.

One has to wonder, after all the years of debate around the safe use of tobacco, where the Conservatives would have stood on that question. They refuse to admit it as the evidence mounts from the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Québec Medical Association. One group of cancer experts after another has come forward and said unequivocally that there is no way to use asbestos in a way that will not eventually kill the people exposed. The Conservatives say, “Never mind; we are just going to put it in concrete. That will make it safe. It will be embedded in concrete so that no one gets exposed”. Obviously, in the developing world there are never natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, or floods that would break a building apart and then cause the asbestos to crack out of the concrete and be exposed.

At the heart of the debate and the motion we are moving today is the hypocrisy of the government in saying it cares a whit about workers' health and safety or at all about Canada's international reputation. Since 1984 we as taxpayers have pumped more than $50 million into the asbestos lobby, for goodness' sake. All those Canadians out there are working hard and paying their taxes, and a bit of those taxes has been going to help promote asbestos exports from this country.

As we go out and campaign around this issue across the country, the first thing I find is that Canadians first have to be convinced that we are actually still exporting asbestos. In this modern day and age when we all know the dangers, they do not believe it.

If a newsletter was sent home from your kid's school that said, “We found asbestos in the school, but we're just going to leave it there”, all the parents in the country would be pulling their kids out of school the next day.

We have come to the realization that any exposure is bad. This is important: it is not that someone needs to be exposed to a great quantity of asbestos or to have that exposure happen over many decades; any single exposure has been proven to have the capacity to cause a debilitating form of cancer that essentially suffocates the victims to death.

It is the number one industrial killer in the world today, according to the World Health Organization, and these guys think that is okay. They think dragging Canada's reputation through the mud internationally, exposing workers the world over to this known carcinogen for the most narrow and crass of political considerations is okay. They are entitled to their opinions, but not their own facts.

“Safe use of asbestos”: can we put that sentence together? Let us try to rationalize that sentence to someone who is dying the slow and painful death that is related to asbestosis. Let us tell them it was “safe use” that is killing them right now--that there were safe exposure limits that they were exposed to, and that it is somehow their fault that they are now dying. Let us tell that to the families and the widows I have spoken to, who cannot believe that in 2011 we even need to have this debate.

The government needs to hear this. All the members across can look down into their notebooks and iPads and not engage in this discussion and continue to read the prepared notes from the Prime Minister's Office, but I encourage them, I demand from them, to talk to the opposition and to find the just transition that would be the ethical thing to offer to these workers. If we are talking about jobs, the government is living in a false and invented world where somehow asbestos will be made good again and these workers will have work and be able to provide for their families, when we know that according to 2009 Quebec medical studies, the exposure rates around Thetford Mines and Asbestos are off the charts.

The minister can scoff, but he knows the facts, and the NDP has a long and proud tradition of supporting workers in this country. They can accuse us of a lot, but the idea of members of the Conservative Party getting up and somehow becoming champions of the union, of the working man and woman, and suggesting that the NDP is otherwise, is a bridge too far. What we have suggested and offered, and have gone into Thetford Mines and talked to the leaders there about, is that we must provide options and a just transition program.

I ask the minister to stop dumping money into the lobbyists. They do not need Canadian taxpayer-funded support to make their case. I am sure the Speaker would not want to give them any money either.

We learned as a society to pay attention to the medical expertise around tobacco. We learned there was not a safe exposure to tobacco for a young person and that it could not be handled safely if we let our kids have tobacco in order to retain jobs. Conservative members at the time would have been saying, “Well, this is about the economy, and anyone wanting to get kids to stop smoking hurts the Canadian economy. The Conservatives believe in the Canadian economy; therefore, our kids should be smoking”.

What industry is next, they ask? I reverse the question. If they think asbestos is fantastic, why not bring back smoking? “Let us start introducing it back into the schools”, say the Conservatives.

There has to be a line in public policy where we understand that the politics may be difficult, but we can get through them. We can offer the workers who are still in this industry a just transition.

I will end on this: I have many mines in my riding. They open and they close. The workers are not offered just transitions when the mine closes; the markets respond, and the mine shuts down. We are offering something particular and unique in this case: the idea that we must transition to something better, something that does not make the government the hypocrite that it is and does not continue to expose workers around the world to this known deadly product.

[Business of Supply, October 31st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I share a friendship with my colleague across the way, except on this. We have found our way to disagreement.

He was talking about members of the NDP and Liberals who have said some things contrary to their party's position. I will read something for my friend. It reads:

We should just list it. What isn't right is to ship something to some country and say, 'We won't tell you what's in this. Don't worry about it. The important thing to me is to tell people about the risk. … It is demonstrably bad for you, this stuff.

That was said by Chuck Strahl, who is also a friend. He sat in the Conservative cabinet for quite a while. He suffers from a very serious and grave illness due to exposure to asbestos. Is Chuck Strahl wrong or is it time to finally list this and tell people what it is that they are exposed to?

We need to put it on the package. We need to say what everybody knows: this is dangerous.

[Firearms Registry, October 31st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the government's abuse of its power and the dangerous path it is taking the country down.

In Bill C-19, Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, we see the Conservatives giving in to their worst instincts in proposing to destroy all the data. Their solution to a registry that cost too much to establish in the first place is to commit to spending millions more to wipe out the records from that same registry, untold millions more.

The government was not given a mandate in the last election to have a bonfire of the vanities--in fact, two bonfires, one for the data and another one for the $2 billion that has already been spent.

From shutting down debate on the Wheat Board to building prisons for crimes the government cannot find, the 60% of Canadians who opposed the government are proving it right that we need electoral reform in the country to have it truly represented in the government of the day. If ever a government has made that case, it is this government.

If the provinces and the police want the data, why will the government not simply give it to them?

[Business of Supply, October 31st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments. It is ironic and strange to see the Conservatives expressing so much hope for a better union in this case. I very clearly recall the courage and leadership shown by the hon. member for Outremont and the other NDP member from Quebec on this matter. The Conservatives are playing nasty political games when they say that workers and people in general must die in order to boost Quebeckers' confidence in them. It is a question of morals and ethics. I wonder if my colleague could comment on that.

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, October 6th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I find it ironic that the member across the way viewed the last election as the Conservative government's effort to listen to Canadians when they denied Canadians the ability to ask the leader of the Conservative Party any questions throughout the course of that entire election period. That constitutes listening on their behalf. That does not work for us in the New Democratic Party. We believe that when we say we are going to listen, we actually listen.

The concern with this is that the government is falling in love with the hammer of closure. There is no more draconian measure that a government can use. The way that the government justifies this is by saying that the Liberals used to do it when they were in government. It is as if the standard that the government is setting itself by is how the Liberals conducted themselves when they had majority governments.

This is dangerous for the government and it is certainly dangerous for this place and for our democracy. The Conservatives are taking a convenient but incorrect lesson from the last election. They are taking a lesson that this majority gave them the power to shut down debate and, more dangerously, not change their ideology or opinion or legislation when the circumstances have changed underneath them.

This is most dangerous for our economy and our country. I plead with the government that a day of debate over our economy is not enough. The Conservatives did not have it during the election, they did not allow Canadians in the door and now is the time. This is what this place is constructed for and what it is meant for.

We need to allow this place to do its work and allow the elected members of this place to our work. The debate should not be shut down. You need to get out of the ideological trap you have set for yourselves and get to work on putting people back to work.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 25th, 2011]

I thank my colleague from Toronto for the question.

It is ironic. I suppose Canada Post and its workers feel some small graciousness from this Parliament as there have been so many who have applauded their work and proficiency. That is known throughout the world because other postal services come here to study the efficiency and the modern advancements this network has made.

If one talks to good CEOs or good managers who are running a good company and asks what the secret to their success is, the smart ones and the good ones will say it is the people. It is the intelligence and hard work of the people who come in every day to work and make this company successful. To turn around and expect that after this kind of action they are going to get the same productivity and zest and all the energy that Canada Post workers put in every day, this government is absolutely undermining the very stature Canada Post has achieved over many hard working years. Members should know that the unions and the workers have made many concessions in the last four or five rounds of bargaining on wages and pensions. However, there has to be a line somewhere, where one says enough is enough; there should be fair treatment, fair wages and fair pensions for the generation coming. That is exactly what this dispute is going to settle.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the question from my friend, who I have some respect for.

It seems ironic coming from a government that interprets a 39.6% vote from Canadians as a full endorsement of all the things the Conservatives want to do, but the 94% strike mandate from the 45,000 CUPW members, some of whom he just quoted, is somehow not an endorsement of the leadership, who were elected into their positions of the union, and what they are seeking to do.

The government thinks that the only way to solve this is to bring in the sledge hammer of forcing these folks back to work. This is how the government's view of democracy works. Perverse is one way to describe it.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your ruling.

On the point my friend has raised, I recall the speech from the Minister of Labour where three times she said what we are in right now is a strike. I do not know how the member interprets telling the truth from not telling the truth, but if what we are in is a lockout, which is completely different from a strike, it is simply for him to determine what the Minister of Labour was trying to accomplish by saying what she said. She characterized this as something that it is not. She then later admitted that it was not strike but in fact a lockout.

The Conservatives can argue all sorts of points that they would like, but the point they cannot argue is the fact that the mail is not moving right now because the doors are locked at Canada Post. There is no other reason.

We have had public declarations from the organized members of that union who were saying they have binding agreements and they are ready to go back to work and move that mail, but the lockout must end. They cannot move mail that is behind locked doors. That is the fact.

We are simply trying to encourage this government in every forceful way we can to allow the parties to negotiate. That is what the Supreme Court of Canada said is their right to do.

If the government cannot see its way to doing that, it is its choice, but it cannot turn back on New Democrats and say that somehow we created the problem. In fact, it was the government's piece of legislation and its tactic that has led us to this moment. It should take ownership for what it is doing.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their warm welcome.

It is with some pleasure I enter the debate here on Bill C-6. As a disclosure, I have been up for about 25 hours now, so that is a small caveat to forgive me for any of the potential mistakes I make. I usually do not forgive myself before I start.

The dispute we have in front of us is about far more than just one simple piece of legislation, as draconian as it is. It is about far more than one labour dispute that we have here with Canada Post and its management.

What we have before us is a government that is attempting to set out what might be called labour policy, but it might be better described as management policy for the country. Its implications go far beyond the 45,000 CUPW members who are going to be beholden to any legislation that is drawn here. It goes far beyond that to other public sector and public service employees.

This is a strange government. Every once in a while when they get into some sort of trouble or scandal they are quick to throw a public service member under the bus and say the bureaucrats made them do it, as we saw recently in the Muskoka affair, and at other times when they are looking to hold up the public sector they laud them for their proud work.

We have also seen a slight evolution from the government in the speaking notes over this past 24 or 30 hours. The labour minister started off the discussion by saying that it was the 45,000 postal workers against the 33 million Canadians. They were not in the same basket somehow. Then we saw the evolution of that to many Conservatives now standing up and showing very high regard for the postal workers in their riding and the good work that they do. That is good to see, because trying to characterize a group of Canadians as outside of Canada somehow because they are having a labour dispute is a troubling trend, and should be a troubling trend, for all of us. That is not the way to characterize any Canadian who is having any dispute in a democratic and fair way with any level of government or management. So it is nice to see Conservatives acknowledging that these are people, these are families that live in their constituencies as well as ours, and they deserve a fair break, as do all Canadians. We all seek fairness for this. I hope there is some common ground in this.

We have also seen an evolution that the labour minister three times in her speech mischaracterized this and I think misled the House in fact by calling it a strike. We now see the talking notes have shifted and the Conservatives are now getting up and calling it what it is, which is a lockout. It is correct to call it what it is, because to mischaracterize it any other way is to try to reframe the debate from the truth into a lie. We need to talk about what has happened here and how we got to this point, because if we do not know how we got here, how, for goodness sake, is this government ever going to hope to find its way out of the predicament it finds itself in now?

I say that this is about much more than one dispute simply because the government has chosen to take this particular approach in this particular case. I would suggest it is a bit of a trial balloon to test it out to see what happens in Parliament, to see what happens in public debate and discussion around the notion that an employer can be in the middle of a negotiation with a group of employees, see some job action from those employees--all legal--and then lock those employees out and have the government impose a contract on the locked-out employees, thereby rewarding the employer for having done the lockout in the first place.

I do not know if this is good labour law. It is certainly not good for peace in the land, because we must take account of how we developed labour law in this country in the first place. It was developed after many generations and many years of people striving to be able to legally gather, collect together and raise their voices in a unified way, after trying to find other ways to raise their voices and sometimes clashing with the law itself. It was in fact governments and business that eventually called for some sort of certainty in the process to settle disputes. It was not the union movement that called for this first. If you go through your industrial relations history, and I encourage many of my colleagues to do so, it was the companies that realized that it was bad for productivity and it was bad for business to have these very often strong and sometimes violent strikes. Instead, they wanted to have a legal mechanism codified in the law and protected by Parliament and the courts to allow the employer to sit down in a predictable way with their employees and negotiate fair terms.

That can be a difficult process. We all have to make concessions. Anybody in this place who has ever been involved in any kind of negotiation, mediation, or collective bargaining knows that there has to be some give and take, and that can be difficult.

Canada Post is protesting that its ship has fallen on hard times, that there is not enough money, and yet it shovels bonuses out the door to its executives and its 20 vice-presidents that it has stacked up over the years. The argument of a $220-million bonus package does not make any sense when you turn around and claim poverty and say that the postal service is in trouble. Meanwhile, the volume of parcels has been going through the roof, and the economy is changing.

The point we are making is that beyond this particular lockout, beyond this particular moment, the government must reconcile itself with the fact that causing more uncertainty in the labour market and more uncertainty in Canada's economy lowers productivity, lowers our competitiveness, and lowers our ability to compete with the world.

It seems to me that the government has given absolutely no incentive to future employers to bargain in what is called good faith. There's no incentive at all. If we allow the pattern that is happening here to take place, which New Democrats will not allow, the next employer in line about to negotiate with its employees will ignore the bargaining table because that is not where the deal has to be made. That employer will simply lobby the cabinet of the day to make sure the next Bill C-6, the next force-them-back-to-work bill, is there. That employer can lock out its employees, claim hardship, dictate the terms of the negotiation and force its employees back to work. Forget all we have learned through more than a hundred years of labour disputes. Forget those hard lessons that you pick up over time to realize that give and take is what we want.

A bunch of employees who go back to the workplace upset, feeling that they were absolutely murdered by the system in the process, is not a workforce that you want to manage. Anybody with any intelligence or experience in management knows that a motivated workforce is absolutely the best thing you can have. It is the best investment, the best asset, the best resource.

Here we have a government sending signals to management and to other groups across the country that they do not need to go to the bargaining table and organize and bargain in good faith. All they need to do is simply rely on the government to have back-to-work legislation at hand.