Pat Martin

[Canada Transportation Act, June 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, there was one more point that came to mind after I listened with great interest to the member's lengthy address. I made note of one comment he made, which I agree with. He said that Bill C-34 was being sold to us as a bill that is supposed to benefit producers. That is the guise under which it was introduced and the face the government is trying to put on it.

However, would the hon. member not agree that over the past decade the federal government has done the following things: It eliminated the Crow, which was supposed to benefit producers; it repealed the Western Grain Transportation Act, which was supposed to benefit producers; it changed the grain car allocation process in the guise of benefiting producers again; and, it privatized CN? All these major restructures were supposed to result in a benefit. Why would we believe the government now about Bill C-34 to radically change the aspects that it will be changing?

Does the member for Brandon—Souris have any confidence that Bill C-34 will in fact benefit producers, and will the $4 per tonne that the government is talking about even translate into a benefit to producers that will help the family farm survive on the prairies?

[Canada Transportation Act, June 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Brandon—Souris, in his rather lengthy and long-winded address, raised a number of points, some of which actually had some merit. However, I would like to ask for some clarification and comments on a couple of those points.

The hon. member raised a very legitimate and valid point about the state of rural roads in the prairie provinces. Both coming from the prairie provinces, we share the concern of the state of rural roads. He pointed out that $175 million has been allocated for the prairie provinces over five years. Is this to be equally distributed among the three prairie provinces or is it just for one prairie province?

We all know that the federal government collects literally billions of dollars per year in fuel taxes. When these fuel taxes were introduced to placate the critics, the promise was “Yes, we are going to charge you a tax on all the fuel you purchase, but we are going to reinvest that into the road and highway systems of the country”.

I have a question for the member, even though I run the risk of allowing him to talk longer. With $3 billion per year in revenue and $175 million paid out over five years in road construction, is there not something fundamentally wrong with this picture? When I take $3 billion a year, that is $250 million a month in fuel taxes that the federal government takes in, and, in its largesse, it will give us on the prairie provinces $175 million. Would the hon. member comment further on what he knows about that?

[Canada Labour Code, May 31st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the tripartite joint labour-management-government working group recommended that there be a two tier system and that the system should be as follows: the first stage of appeal would be to the RSO, the regional safety officer. In other words, the RSO would make a directive to an employer or an employee. Either of those could then appeal and ask them to review the direction that was given.

If the directive still stands, then the next stage of appeal would be to the CIRB, the Canada Industrial Relations Board, where a three part panel would then review the matter, and hopefully that panel would have expertise in workplace safety and health.

Currently in Bill C-12 that whole process has been tossed to the side. It put in place an appeals officer who works for the department and is in fact an employee of the department. What we really have, in a way, is the fox watching the hen house, because we are filing our appeal in a single stage to the same people who issued the directive that we are appealing with no further outside arm's length appeal option.

Everybody involved, from the FEDCO federal employers, to the Canadian Labour Congress and all the unions affiliated, agree that they want an arm's length appeal heard by a third party like the CIRB not by an appeals officer who actually works for the department.

[Canada Labour Code, May 31st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter this final stage of debate on Bill C-12, a bill that we have all watched with great interest. There has been great interest from labour, management and government in a truly tripartite way to deal with the issues of the bill and to move it forward within this session. I am very appreciative of that and of having the opportunity to debate the bill today, prior to the House adjourning for the summer.

All Canadians agree that no one should be injured, butchered, maimed or killed in a workplace on behalf of some arbitrary production schedule. It would be crazy to indicate otherwise. Canadians are justifiably shocked and horrified when they hear of people being injured, butchered, killed or poisoned on the job. They feel very passionately about this subject.

We all agree that Canadians get up in the morning and go to work to earn a living, not to be killed. “It is your life and you should not leave work without it” is the motto we use in the labour movement. Yet, given that commonly shared sensibility, in Canada three people per day are killed at work. Almost 1,000 people per year die an avoidable and needless death in the workplace. Beyond that, every year over one million people suffer some form of lost time due to accident injuries which prevent them from doing their job.

Aside from all the moral and ethical reasons for cleaning up the workplace and putting an end to this carnage, there is an economic side to it. There is a very practical side to why Canadian industry, Canadians in general and the Government of Canada should be very concerned about lost time due to accidents and injuries, and that is productivity.

If Canada is so concerned about being competitive internationally and keeping the levels of productivity high, surely we would want to address the issue of lost time due to injuries and accidents in the workplace. We are seeing a shared interest in addressing that concern.

By way of illustration, in my province of Manitoba we lose approximately 50,000 person days per year due to strikes and lockouts, due to labour unrest. During that same period of time we lose 550,000 person days per year due to injuries incurred from accidents on the job. If we are serious about productivity and lost time as an issue, surely we are better to address that concern and clean up the workplace when, clearly, ten times as many days are lost due to injuries than to any kind of labour unrest.

Bill C-12, as has been pointed out by other speakers today, was the result of many years of broad consultation by business, labour and government. The lamentable thing about us dealing with it today is that it should have been dealt with years ago. The tripartite working group that arrived at the recommendations to amend part II of the Canada Labour Code prepared its consensus document years ago and was just waiting for the government to move it forward.

All of these issues were dealt with at the committee, and I believe there was a lot of goodwill at that committee. I know people who sat on that committee for many years. People were very generous in their co-operative approach. Like any negotiations and bargaining sessions, people arrived with firm opinions on each side, but they tempered their demands with reason and, over a period of time, over an exhaustive series of meetings and a huge contribution made by all who took part, they honed down those positions to round out the package which we now see before us.

They were negotiations in the truest sense of the word. I think that serves as a model for creating legislation like this. This kind of legislation should be non-partisan. It should be dealt with in a way that is non-confrontational. What could be more important and what could be more realistic than the safety of Canadian workers in the workplace?

This process certainly should be commented upon and should be applauded. This is how this type of legislation should be crafted in the future. It should stand as a model.

Bill C-12 has many good qualities. I sit as a member of the executive council of the Canadian Labour Congress. All of the affiliate members of the Canadian Labour Congress have had a great deal of input and opportunity to review these amendments. They feel that for the membership they represent this bill has a great deal of merit and it will make Canadian workplaces safer.

Some of the qualities have been pointed out by other speakers. I do not think it is necessary for me to itemize on a clause by clause basis what we like about the bill, but I will say briefly that the bill really emphasizes three things about workers in the Canadian workplace.

First, it emphasizes, establishes and augments a worker's right to know about hazards in the workplace. That is key and fundamental. Workers have a right to know what they are dealing with, what products they are dealing with, and any inherent dangers they may be faced with.

Beyond that, because of the increasingly complex workplaces we are representing, sometimes the compounding of materials influences the different properties they are dealing with. For instance, a person may be working with chemical A which is completely benign and chemical B which is completely benign, but when the two of them are mixed together in the kidneys they blow up into chemical C , making for a very sick person.

Workers have a right to know and that is why, under this legislation, there is a system called WHMIS, the workplace hazardous material information system. Any worker has the right to ask for and be given the exact composition of the materials they are dealing with and any inherent problems that may arise.

The second thing which Bill C-12 will establish in part II of the Canada Labour Code is the right to take part in correcting those hazards. In other words, the right to sit on workplace safety and health committees. It is mandated by the Canada Labour Code that these committees will be formed and that they will be charged with a mandate. Their powers and their authority have been augmented by Bill C-12, which is a very positive step.

The third fundamental employee right that is recognized and institutionalized in part II of the Canada Labour Code is the right to refuse. A person has the right to know what the hazards are, the right to participate in correcting those hazards, and the right to refuse unsafe work. It is one of the most basic, fundamental rights and freedoms that we have to withhold services if we feel strongly enough that something will pose a danger to ourselves and our fellow workers.

Bill C-12 strengthens and emphasizes the worker's right to refuse and the protections for both the employer and the employee.

We sought amendments to Bill C-12. The spirit of co-operation extended beyond the tripartite working group to those of us who came later as critics in this field. We agreed that we would not introduce any amendments which went beyond the tripartite agreement and consensus building process. The only amendments we sought were where we thought the language was unclear or ambiguous, or if in our opinion the article did not accurately reflect the consensus position of the committee, and there were some cases like that, or if the article was brand new and we felt it was arbitrarily put in place by government without ever going by the tripartite process.

We found it necessary to ask for amendments in two or three areas, and I am pleased to report today that we got co-operation from the committee to amend Bill C-12 in three important areas.

We eliminated the definition of health altogether. We felt it was better off to rely on standard definitions of health found elsewhere than it was to have what we thought was poor language in the definition of health within the bill.

We managed to delete a clause which dealt with mandatory medical examinations and testing. We felt this was an infringement of basic human rights and workers' rights, that they do not have to participate in those things unless they are voluntary.

We succeeded in clarifying when an employee would be disciplined for making a right to refuse unsafe work action when it was not warranted. In other words, if it can be demonstrated that the employee acted in a malicious or vexatious way and was pulling a right to refuse, or misusing his or her right to refuse, then we agree that some discipline would be warranted. However, we want it clarified that the burden of proof and the onus has to be on the employer to demonstrate that the employee willingly and willfully abused his or her right and that there was malice and mischief associated with it.

All three of those amendments add to the quality of Bill C-12. We have probably saved ourselves a fortune in arbitrations and court challenges based on the language of those three amendments that we made. All of them would have been challenged extensively had they gone through unamended.

Again, it is an example of how the system works. If we bring things to the attention of people who genuinely care about a bill, they will respond in a reasonable way. We are very pleased that the committee co-operated with us.

Some things still need to be done. Unfortunately we are very critical that we were unable to amend the appeal process. The joint labour-management working tripartite committee all agreed that there should be a two stage appeal process and an arm's length process to distance it from the bureaucracy and the department. We did not achieve that. What went forward in Bill C-12 is an appeal process which we believe is flawed and we hope there will be an opportunity to revisit this process in the very near future.

We hope that Bill C-12 will be passed so that its many good qualities will be implemented, but we look forward to and serve notice that we will be seeking to improve the appeal process at the earliest opportunity.

Another poignant issue comes to mind when we are dealing with the issue of workplace safety and health. It may be beyond the scope of Bill C-12, but our legal opinions have it that it could have been addressed within the purview of Bill C-12; that is, the recommendations of the Westray inquiry as they apply to introducing the concept of corporate accountability.

In other words, if there is gross negligence in a workplace to the point where it kills Canadian workers, if corporate greed leads to corporate murder, then there should be corporate accountability. This was the recommendation of Justice Peter Richard of the Westray inquiry in November 1997. This ruling is almost three years old and we have been calling upon the government to take action to implement the recommendations of the Westray inquiry along those lines.

I should point out that in the next two weeks every member of parliament will be visited by members of the United Steelworkers of America who are on the Hill, to their credit, to represent the families of the 26 Westray miners who met their death at the Westray disaster. They, too, are here to appeal to parliament to do this one thing. Our goal and objective is not to put executives into prison. It is to make them take note that for any enterprise over which they have direction and control, they have an obligation and responsibility to do at least the minimum required by law to ensure that their enterprise is clean, safe, healthy and does not pose a threat to Canadian workers.

We were joined at our press conference with the steelworkers on Monday by Robert Ellis, a businessman from Burlington, Ontario, whose son, 18-year old David Ellis, was killed on his second day at work in a bread mixing machine at a small privately owned bakery. It was a high school job and he would have gone to university the following fall. He was pulled into the mixing machine and killed in a tragic accident.

We believe in that case, where such gross negligence killed a Canadian worker, that it was corporate manslaughter, and we are not afraid to call it that.

I have another example in my own riding where a chop shop or scrap metal yard often hires young summer students. One summer student was hired, given an acetylene torch and told to cut some 45 gallon drums in half. You and I know, Mr. Speaker, if a 45 gallon drum has any fumes left in it then it is not an oil drum anymore, it is a bomb. This kid was killed also on the second or third day on the job. These things do happen in the workplace. I am not raising them to be romantic or to make the argument with any kind of cheap points. I am just saying that three times a day these things happen in Canadian workplaces and sometimes there is negligence that warrants criminal charges, not just charges under the Canada Labour Code but charges under the Criminal Code of Canada.

The analogy we often use is that if we drink a bottle of whisky and jump behind the wheel of our car and kill somebody, we are not just charged under the Motor Vehicle Act, we do not just pay a fine and lose our licence under the Motor Vehicle Act, we will be charged under the Criminal Code of Canada for gross criminal negligence. The same, we argue, should apply in the case of the workplace.

All Canadians were horrified when 26 miners died at the Westray disaster, but I think most of us were even more horrified to learn that under the current criminal code the crown prosecutors in Nova Scotia had no choice but to stay the charges. They could not make the charges stick because under the current criminal code it does not contemplate the idea of corporate manslaughter or corporate killing, and this needs to be done.

Motion No. 79 put forward by the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough clearly articulated this in a very brief and straight to the point manner. His motion called for the House of Commons to implement the recommendations of the Westray inquiry as put forward by Justice Peter Richard. The motion passed in the House by a vote of 216 to 15, all party support. Everyone, except for 15 individuals, agreed that was exactly what the House of Commons should do.

That motion was agreed to months ago and now the Minister of Justice tells us that it is before the justice committee. Between members, myself and the fence post, it is not before the justice committee. I have talked to all members on the justice committee who I could track down and the motion has never been mentioned at the justice committee. It is not on the agenda and there is no plan to put it on the agenda as far as anybody can ascertain.

The United Steelworkers of America are on the Hill today and will be on the Hill for the rest of this week and all of next week. They will be visiting every member of parliament urging us to show the collective will to implement or introduce these changes during this session of the House so that they can bring some closure to that tragedy. Hopefully we can motivate boards of directors and heads of corporations to take more of an interest in workplace safety and health of any enterprise under which they have direction and control to at least go through the basic motions of providing a clean, healthy and safe work environment for the workers they represent.

All Canadians deserve the protective umbrella of workplace safety and health legislation. Parliament Hill has the only group of workers who are specifically denied by legislation the right of access to any workplace safety and health legislation. These workers are covered by the Parliamentary Employment Staff Relations Act. The Mulroney government allowed these employees the right to collective bargaining during their tenure but failed to proclaim part III of the Parliamentary Employment Staff Relations Act. Part I received proclamation, which gave employees industrial bargaining rights. Part II received proclamation. Part III, the chapter dealing with workplace safety and health, was never proclaimed. These employees now have no workplace safety and health protection whatsoever.

I wrote the Minister of Labour asking her to bring to cabinet the idea of giving part III of the Parliamentary Employment Staff Relations Act royal proclamation or recommending it, completing it and making it law. This would provide parliamentary employees, the ones we deal with everyday, the guys who drive the little green buses, access to workplace safety and health legislation as well.

I think it is important for us to do that and I think most members, if they were made aware of the situation, would also agree that it is important. I am only talking about 500 or so individuals but it is 500 people who have been specifically denied any kind of workplace safety and health committee, any avenues of recourse if they are injured on the job, et cetera.

Bill C-12 is a worthwhile piece of legislation. Every industrial sector in the federal jurisdiction welcomes it. We want speedy passage of it, but all of the best legislation in the world is completely useless without enforcement, enforcement, enforcement. It is like real estate: location, location, location. It has to be enforced.

The fact is that workplace inspections are way down. The number of workplace inspectors in the field are way down and therefore prosecutions are down. All of that has been allowed to slide a great deal. We would call for the government to not only pass Bill C-12 but to show a real commitment in the enforcement of Bill C-12 when it enters into the federal sector.

[Criminal Code, May 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the justice committee is not dealing with recommendation 73, nor is it dealing with Motion No. 79 which passed in this House. It has been three years since Justice Richard of the Westray inquiry made recommendations to amend the criminal code so that senior management would be held personally accountable in cases of gross negligence causing death. In those three years this government has done absolutely nothing.

The justice committee is not seized of the issue. We doubt the justice committee will be dealing with the issue within this parliament, unless the Minister of Justice takes action.

Will the minister act within this session of this parliament to make recommendations to amend the criminal code along the line of recommendation 73?

[Criminal Code, May 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, all Canadians were horrified when 26 miners were killed in the Westray mining disaster. They were even more horrified to learn that, in spite of overwhelming evidence of gross negligence, the crown prosecutors had to drop charges because under the Criminal Code of Canada they could not make those charges stick. The Westray officials got away with murder. In fact, they got away with 26 murders.

Will the Minister of Justice assure this House that within this parliament she will amend the Criminal Code of Canada to make it a criminal offence to kill workers on the job?

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, May 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, people are satisfied that it has been illustrated and demonstrated quite clearly that there is a right to appeal at every stage of the revocation of citizenship, all the way to the highest court in the land.

I indicated that people are satisfied and comfortable with that. When it came forward that there may be an alteration in Bill C-16, or an amendment to the act that would change the access to the appeal process, a number of groups were concerned. The issue was raised.

It was clarified by the department heads of citizenship and immigration that nothing in Bill C-16 threatened the right to appeal in the case of revocation of citizenship. In fact there is a right to appeal at every stage of the process. It is an exhaustive, some would say even ponderous, appeal process that can take years. As we well know, there are classic cases in Canada that went on five, seven or nine years before people were ultimately issued a deportation order or had their citizenship revoked.

Having looked at the charts, graphs and tables of how the appeal process would take place, we are comfortable that there is an exhaustive appeal mechanism inherent in Bill C-16 and inherent in the citizenship and immigration acts. I do not think there is any cause for concern. Those groups that did come forward with those concerns have had them allayed.

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, May 29th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be able to take part in the debate surrounding Bill C-16, our last and final opportunity to debate the bill before it proceeds to its final vote.

The NDP caucus feels strongly that Bill C-16 has merit and does meet the needs of Canadian citizens. We are comfortable and satisfied that the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration listened to numerous representations. In fact 37 groups and organizations came before the committee. We are satisfied that the concerns brought forward by the experts in the field and by the many advocates who made representations were incorporated into the final bill. In other words the committee heard Canadians. The committee listened to them and the committee instilled what it heard into what we now know as Bill C-16.

The bill started out in its first incarnation as Bill C-63. It was dealt with, at length, under that name. We brought forward many concerns and recommended amendments at committee stage. We are pleased to say that the government when it reintroduced the bill as Bill C-16 took into consideration many of the shortcomings we pointed out with respect to the original bill.

The 37 presentations to the committee is an indication of the broad interest in this subject. I have sat on other committees and dealt with other pieces of legislation when we did not have nearly as many groups coming forward. People feel strongly about the issue of citizenship. Canadian citizenship is to be valued. Canadian citizenship is to be treasured. Most of us feel very passionate because most Canadians are fiercely proud Canadian nationalists.

The reason the particular bill generated so much interest is that many of us are looking at citizenship in a whole new light, given the global economy we currently live in. We have been forced to re-evaluate and revisit the whole concept of citizenship.

Given the globalization of capital we are seeing borders disappear. Many say we are probably witnessing the beginning of the end of the concept of a nation state. Free movement of goods, services, investment and capital does not pay attention to international borders. These things are happening all around us. The only way we can define ourselves and maintain our identity as Canadian is to ensure that the nation state of Canada survives as a entity and that the personification of that or the way it affects citizens is by virtue of our citizenship.

We are very concerned when we see international trade agreements that do not recognize nation state boundaries. For instance, we saw the MAI, the multilateral agreement on investment, which recently failed. The people of the world voted that idea down. The people who were promoting the MAI were actually quoted as saying that there was a surplus of democracy in the world which was interfering with the free movement of capital, meaning that freely elected governments were getting in the way of what businesses wanted to do.

This is why I raise the issue that people are concerned about the concept of citizenship. They are concerned about the concept of the nation state and ultimately about the future of democracy if we have corporate leaders of the world saying that there is a surplus of democracy in the world that is interfering with the movement of capital. It makes us wonder what is the next step.

These are some of the reasons people are concerned with the idea of citizenship and why we had so many groups come forward to the committee. It is not just about the practical aspects of how one achieves citizenship in Canada or how citizenship can be revoked within the country. Those are the technical elements. There is a larger more philosophical issue regarding the very concept and nature of citizenship. Many of the groups that came forward and made representations dealt with the much bigger picture of what it means to be a citizen.

In being a citizen of Canada I believe the whole is greater than the sum of its parts in many senses. It is a feeling of camaraderie. It is a feeling of togetherness that Canadians enjoy, being part of the greatest country in the world. It is something we treasure and value but we take very seriously.

We have to take note that citizenship is not a right. It is a privilege. With citizenship comes responsibilities. With citizenship comes many benefits, but it also carries with it the burden of responsibilities. We have to conduct ourselves in a certain way or frankly our citizenship can be revoked.

There are parts of Bill C-16 that deal with the revocation of citizenship. Some of those who made representation to the committee felt very strongly that it gave the minister far too much power in terms of the revocation of citizenship.

The NDP is satisfied that on that subject Bill C-16 is balanced, in that there are options for appeal at every stage of the revocation of citizenship. This can ultimately wind up in the highest court of the land and we do not believe anyone needs any more avenue of recourse than that. I am glad to see we have broad acceptance of that idea.

We are comfortable that Bill C-16 gives the avenue of recourse of appeal to the federal courts. We are satisfied that Bill C-16 is not too heavy handed in dealing with the revocation of citizenship. We are comfortable now that the terms of gaining citizenship are clarified. Some of the changes we asked for in the early stages of Bill C-63 have been incorporated in Bill C-16.

We found great fault with a change which recommended that when people take their citizenship tests they would have to know one of the official languages of the country. They would not have access to translators. They would have no access to interpretation. We did not think that knowledge of one of the official languages and any kind of a test for what kind of a good citizen a person would be related whatsoever.

We are glad to see that under the current incarnation of the bill people will be allowed access to translation services if their working knowledge of either of the official languages is inadequate to carry them through what can be a very complicated test.

Another issue we commented on and brought forward at the early stages of Bill C-63 was the concept of being physically present for a certain period of time in order to qualify for citizenship. We pointed out that many landed immigrants, many new Canadians who come here, still have interests offshore. Some may be business people. We can use the example of a new Canadian from Asia who may have a number of different business ventures throughout that region. That person would have to travel to take care of those interests. We also do not believe that physical presence in the country is any kind of a test or an indication of what kind of citizen the person will ultimately be.

We felt it was being unnecessarily rigid to demand that a person be physically present for x number of days within a certain timeframe in order to qualify for citizenship. We are comfortable that the government listened to these concerns and tempered those measures somewhat along the lines we asked.

A number of groups came forward and spoke about citizenship rules as they pertain to disqualification due to criminal activity. We believe we should not be providing safe refuge or sanctuary for international criminals. We have every right. We do not believe it is a violation of any of our international obligations under human rights conventions of the United Nations to say to some people that we will not allow them to be citizens of Canada.

We value our citizenship too much and it trivializes my citizenship to allow people into this country who would abuse the system or who would take refuge and sanctuary in order to carry on criminal activity. We will not tolerate it. Canadians want tough rules to make that abundantly clear.

Canadians are incredibly tolerant in terms of their attitude toward immigration per se. We want the front doors opened even wider when it comes to inviting new Canadians to come to this country, but we also want the back doors shut soundly so that we are not allowing any undesirables, international criminals, terrorists or people of that type to take sanctuary or refuge in Canada. We do not need them and we do not want them here. Bill C-16 in a very soft way speaks to that somewhat when it deals with the revocation of citizenship.

The New Democratic Party caucus is comfortable that Bill C-16 meets the needs of Canadians in terms of acquiring citizenship. It sets fair rules for both the acquiring of citizenship and the revocation of citizenship in the unlikely event that it becomes necessary.

We are comfortable that the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration listened to the concerns brought forward by a number of Canadians, by some 37 groups that made representations, and by members of the committee like myself who moved amendments at committee stage. We are satisfied now that those concerns have been addressed under Bill C-16.

We will be looking forward to voting in favour of the bill to move it through the House so that we can spend more time addressing the larger issue of immigration and refugee protection found under Bill C-31, another citizenship and immigration bill that deals more with the meat and potatoes of the immigration rules and how we attract and retain more people to come to Canada to help us grow the economy.

We are looking forward to moving on from Bill C-16 satisfied that it is adequate and to getting into the much larger debate of immigration and refugee protection under Bill C-31.

[Canada Labour Code, May 19th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, Motion No. 2 seeks to amend Bill C-12 by adding further language to section 132, which would make it such that the rules in the provincial jurisdiction would take precedence over the federal code in matters related to pregnant and nursing mothers in the workplace.

Section 132 consists of totally new language. All of section 132, which deals with pregnant and nursing employees, consists of brand new language and is the product of the same comprehensive, co-operative, joint committee work that has been undertaken for many years between labour and management. The language that we have in Bill C-12 concerning section 132 is what the industry sector stakeholders agreed to. They saw no need to amend it further. There was no directive to us from labour representatives indicating that they wanted additional changes to section 132. FETCO, the employer agency in the federal jurisdiction, was satisfied with the new section 132.

The only amendment that the NDP sought was to add further clarification to one clause. That amendment failed at committee. Frankly, it is not of much concern to us. We only hoped to further clarify the intention of section 132.

With reference to the speech we just heard from the Bloc member, everyone agrees that we should all have legislation that is as civilized as that which is enjoyed by Quebec workers in the province of Quebec. I have no doubt in my mind that pregnant and nursing employees in the province of Quebec are better served than in any other jurisdiction, and that they are better served than they would be under the Canada Labour Code. However, the impact of the amendment the Bloc put forward would give primacy to provincial legislation over federal legislation. In many provinces, if the provincial legislation had primacy, Canadian female workers would have lesser terms and conditions than those provided in the code, other than in the province of Quebec.

The NDP cannot agree with this because in the other nine provinces and two territories the standards would actually decrease, rather than increase to the highest standards, which are those found in the province of Quebec.

The other reason we are reluctant to support this amendment is, as with the first motion, we do not want to see this bill delayed in any way, shape or form. We believe that the motion which was put forward by the hon. member from the Bloc would cause delays.

When this bill reaches the Senate, I believe that the Senate review committee would have serious problems with the language. The Senate would ask for a review by the justice department to see what the real impact would be. Would it overlap with provincial jurisdiction? Could there be a constitutional challenge?

In other words, even if this amendment passed all of those tests, it would cause delays that would take us well beyond the end of this session. It would take us into the fall. Who knows what the future will bring in the fall of this year. We may be faced with an election. It would be very regrettable if this legislation did not get back on the books at all. All of the people in the federal jurisdiction who have been waiting patiently for amendments to part II of the Canada Labour Code, who have been waiting patiently for all the positive changes in part II, would be further frustrated. The whole process would have to be started again.

It is with regret that our caucus cannot support this motion. I should make it abundantly clear that it has nothing to do with the merits of the argument brought forward that pregnant women and nursing mothers need additional recognition due to their special circumstances in the workplace. However, my party is comfortable that part III of the Canada Labour Code deals with the redeployment of pregnant or nursing mothers who feel that they or their babies may be in some danger in the workplace.

Furthermore, part III of the code is being reviewed in the same comprehensive fashion as part II. It is being reviewed by the actual stakeholders, labour and management, and FETCO, which represents employers in the federal jurisdiction. They are seized of this issue. They know that the current code is lacking and needs improvement. Part III is the appropriate place to make improvements to the issues we are talking about, not part II.

I would appeal to all members of the House to support Bill C-12 as amended. The NDP hopes that the bill will be widely received in a positive way by all parties. Let us move quickly to pass the bill into law prior to the end of the session.

[Canada Labour Code, May 19th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, the first amendment we are dealing with today seeks to reverse an amendment that was passed at the committee stage, moved by a member of the Bloc Quebecois, that would amend the definition of danger to make reference to pregnant and nursing mothers.

I want to say by way of opening that the NDP finds no fault whatsoever and agrees to a large degree with many of the points made by the recent speaker from the Bloc Quebec. One of the most compelling representations made to the standing committee dealing with Bill C-12 was one put forward by Professor Katherine Lippel from the University of Quebec at Montreal.

The NDP caucus certainly concurs with many of the things she pointed out about the importance of taking extra measures and extra steps in the workplace to protect the special interests of pregnant and nursing mothers. I am glad to point out that the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour in her recent address to the House also seems to agree these are valid issues that need to be dealt with in the Canada Labour Code at some point.

In order to protect the health of pregnant workers, their unborn children or children who are nursing, our party believes that it is necessary for workers to have the right to be reassigned to tasks that do not present a danger to their health or the health of the unborn child or the nursing child.

If the reassignment of these workers to other less hazardous work is not feasible, the workers should be allowed to withdraw from work and be compensated thoroughly or without any loss. Workers should be made whole and should be able to feel free to leave the workplace without jeopardizing either their income, opportunity or ability to re-enter the workforce after the nursing period or the pregnancy is over at the same stage as they left.

If we were serious about putting a true right to protective reassignment in place to protect the unborn child or the nursing child, it is important that it permits the withdrawal of work without penalty. That is a key point which I believe the member from the Bloc made. I believe the member was motivated to make that point because the law in Quebec provides for that. In that regard the law in Quebec is far more favourable to pregnant and nursing mothers than the Canada Labour Code.

I wanted to preface my remarks by saying how wholeheartedly we agree with the concept and how we look forward to the day when the Canada Labour Code is amended to accommodate pregnant and nursing mothers in that fashion. I also want to point out that Bill C-12 is the product of exhaustive consultations between labour and management over the past seven years across Canada.

The experts in the field, the actual stakeholders and practitioners in industrial relations in the federal jurisdiction, have viewed every clause and every aspect of the bill. They did not seek to amend the definition of danger when the recommendations were finally put forward to government and when government finally tabled Bill C-12. Even at every stage of Bill C-12 to this point, neither the labour community nor the management community in the federal sector has felt it necessary to amend the definition of danger as it stands in the act.

The NDP is of the view that Bill C-12 has much merit and is eagerly anticipated by those who practise in the federal jurisdiction. It has such a possibility of protecting the health and safety of workers in the workplace that we are very reluctant to enter into any kind of amendments at this stage that may delay the speedy passage of Bill C-12.

The best thing that could possibly happen is that Bill C-12 gets through report stage, gets into third reading, and gets passed through the Senate prior to the end of this session of the House. If it is left over to the fall, we are fearful that it may jeopardize the progress that has been made through the process of consultation, negotiation and now debate in the House of Commons.

I liken it to a lengthy and exhaustive round of collective bargaining. Seven years ago labour and management sat down at the table to start to review part II of the Canada Labour Code. Both parties came to the table with a number of issues they wanted dealt with. They exhaustively went through clause by clause every aspect of part II of the Canada Labour Code.

Both sides showed real generosity and a spirit of compromise to make it work. Everyone had to compromise their positions and temper their demands with reason so they could put together a package that would be palatable, would serve the needs of their industrial sector, and ultimately protect the rights of workers.

Bill C-12 achieves that in most regards. One of the gains we look forward to in Bill C-12 is the strengthening of the rights of workplace safety and health committees so that they might better oversee the conditions in the workplace to make sure that they do not present any danger to workers.

It allows for regulations that every employer has to establish and monitor a prevention program for the workplace. These are big moves to anyone who actually knows the realities of this industrial sector of federal jurisdiction. To actually have agreed on issues like that one shows huge movement and great progress.

Whereas we are sympathetic to the issue raised by the member from the Bloc at committee, we believe the Canada Labour Code should deal with the rights of pregnant and nursing mothers, but not in part II. Frankly part III of the Canada Labour Code is the area which deals with the reassignment of pregnant or nursing mothers if they feel there is some risk to their health in the workplace.

I should point out that part III is currently being reviewed and amended by the same exhaustive process which we dealt with in part II. We are satisfied the experts in the field, the true practitioners in the field, will be seized of the issue and will make recommendations to amend part III to give satisfaction to those who are concerned about the issue and to those who believe, as we do, that the current code does not go far enough to look after the special interests of that group of workers.

We also believe that it would be wrong at this point to change the definition of danger in part II of the code to specifically point out any group of workers. The definition of danger should be a general clause that deals with all workers in the jurisdiction. It should not point out any particular occupation, trade, gender or age group.

To be truly legally effective, the definition of danger has to be a very general term that will stand up to any challenge from any sector. We believe it was a mistake, although a well meaning mistake, at the committee to seek to amend the definition of danger to specifically refer to any type of worker.

The last and final point is that the only reason we find it necessary to oppose the amendment passed at committee and therefore vote in favour of the amendment we currently have in front of us is the very real fear that if this were subject to review, challenges or exhaustive interpretations by the judicial department, or even if it ran into problems at the Senate because it may add some unnecessary complications to the definition of danger, we may run the risk of delaying the whole bill and losing the opportunity to pass it in this session of the House.

For that reason I urge all members to vote in favour of the motion we have in front of us, which would reverse the vote made at committee to include pregnant and nursing mothers in the definition of danger in clause 2 of part II of the Canada Labour Code.