Pat Martin

[Petitions, March 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today to present a petition signed by literally tens of thousands of Canadians who call upon the House of Commons to take note that asbestos is the greatest industrial killer that the world has ever known.

The petitioners point out that more Canadians now die from asbestos than all other industrial and occupational causes combined and yet this country remains one of the largest producers and exporters of asbestos in the world. They also point out that Canada spends millions of dollars subsidizing the asbestos industry and blocking international efforts to curb its use.

Therefore, the petitioners call upon the government to ban asbestos in all of its forms and institute a just transition program for asbestos workers and the communities in which they live. They also call upon government to end all subsidies of asbestos, both in Canada and abroad. Finally, and perhaps most important, they call on the government to stop blocking international health and safety conventions designed to protect workers from asbestos, such as the Rotterdam Convention.

[Canada-Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, March 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the foreign affairs critic for the NDP. We benefit greatly from her views. Having been a diplomat in the Canadian foreign service, she has first-hand knowledge and experience of some of these matters of which she speaks.

I ask the member this. How did we arrive at this position? It begs the question, were the people around table negotiating on behalf of Canada involved in some treachery? Were they merely incompetent? What was their bargaining position?

Where I come from, one tries to bargain from a position of strength. As the dominant party in this trade agreement, in the overwhelming elephant-to-mouse relationship in this agreement, surely we would be dictating the terms and conditions of any ultimate agreement we come to. Therefore, were they incompetent or did they deliberately sign an agreement that is not in the best interests of Canada for some other unknown motivation?

[Canada-Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, March 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Vancouver East for laying out some of the NDP's sincere and legitimate concerns about this bill and the points we have been trying to make. We have been urging the government to take into consideration and accommodate some of the reasonable concerns we have had about this.

I would like to focus on one comment my colleague made. Essentially the hon. member for Vancouver East was making the point that a free trade agreement with Canada is not a right; it is more a privilege.

In fact, if one wants to become a member of the community of free trading nations, one should be agreeing to a set of standards and rules that in fact stipulate that the standards of wages and living conditions in one's home country be elevated, complementing those high standards of wages and living conditions in the trading partner, in this case Canada. In other words, we should be raising up the conditions of these countries to our level and not allowing our standards to be pulled down to their level. It seems like a very straightforward notion, to my mind.

Is that in fact the basis of her objections to this agreement as it stands?

[Air Canada, March 27th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, none of that is any consolation to the 410 employees in Winnipeg who have lost their jobs at Aveos.

The minister has the right, power and authority to act, without any further study. I have one simple suggestion to make. Why does the minister not save the jobs and then study the issue, instead of studying the issue and maybe saving the jobs?

These jobs were protected by legislation while Mulroney sold out our national airline. It is up to the minister to act. His partner, the Minister of Labour, does not miss a beat trampling all over labour rights. Why does the minister have to study it before he stands up for workers' rights?

[Privilege, March 15th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have anything to add to that.

[Privilege, March 15th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the consideration you have given my appeal for a question of privilege. I move:

That the question of privilege regarding the free movement of members of Parliament within the Parliamentary Precinct during the state visit of March 2, 2012, be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

He said: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to debate the merits of the issue as I understand you have carefully considered the jurisprudence and precedents in coming to your ruling. I would like to take the opportunity to give some direction to the procedure and House affairs committee in the context of the ruling.

I would like to preface my remarks by saying that in no way do we intend any disrespect for or criticism of the security officers or the RCMP officers who were providing added security to the parliamentary precinct on that day in light of a state visit. We all understand the need for heightened security. Even those members who brought it to the attention of the Speaker that they were inconvenienced intend no disrespect or heightened criticism of the actual police officers in question that day.

Our concern is that the procedure and House affairs committee understands fully the context and parameters of the grievance that we have brought forward today. In light of that, we did want to remind the members of the committee of the incident in 2004, the visit of George Bush, and the 21st report of the procedure and House affairs committee that you, Mr. Speaker, made reference to in your ruling. I am sure they will be guided by it and perhaps will use it as a starting point as they consider the implications of what happened on March 2. I would also like to point out work in the same vein just prior to and since that time.

I begin by making reference to page 19 of the 1992 report of the Auditor General of Canada. I will not go into great detail, but I will simply say that at that time the auditor general was seized of the issue of whether or not the House, the Senate and the RCMP should be working together to harmonize and communicate their security policies for the command and control and development of procedures that affect the parliamentary precinct. Denis Desautels, the auditor general at that time, made recommendations which I think we would find useful today as the procedure and House affairs committee deals with this issue.

I would also like to point out the subsequent work of the former auditor general, Denis Desautels. In 2001 he was put in charge of the parliamentary precinct oversight advisory committee, which was established to put together a long-term vision and plan for Parliament Hill. Part of that was the massive renovations undertaken, but another part of that was to revisit the entire question as to whether or not there should be one central agency that takes over the maintenance, operations, security and control of the parliamentary precinct.

As he put it in this study, which is worth looking at, there are too many cooks in the kitchen. This has added to a great deal of confusion and difficulty for the basic administration and control of the parliamentary precinct, and has led to what we believe is the reason everything costs 10 times as much and it takes 10 times as long to get anything done. There are far too many agencies involved with the maintenance and operations. The same could be applied to the security measures, the Senate security, the House of Commons security, the RCMP and the general police forces that oversee these things.

We would like the procedure and House affairs committee to take seriously the recommendations of this blue ribbon committee that has been studying this issue for a great length of time. Among others the committee includes Denis Desautels, Frank LeBlanc, who is a professional engineer, Jean-Claude Marsam, who is an architect and urban planner, Terrance Williams, who is an architect as well, and former Speaker Fraser, who of all, talked about whether we should be masters of our own domain, whether we should be merely tenants of the parliamentary precinct or if we in fact are an integral part, the directors and controllers of the parliamentary precinct.

In that light, I would ask the procedure and House affairs committee to expand the parameters of its review and look at other jurisdictions, such as Westminster and Washington. Their capital precincts are overseen by a single office and agency. In the case of Capitol Hill, it is the architect of the Capitol Hill that oversees all of the maintenance, operations, control and security. In Westminster, it is the architect of the precinct there.

The final thing I would ask people to keep in mind is a study undertaken by former Speaker Milliken as recently as 2005 or 2006. He, in concert with the Speaker of the Senate at the time, made recommendations that there should be one person in charge of the parliamentary precinct. He believed it was a mistake, and the Speaker of the Senate agreed, that they had abdicated jurisdiction and control over the parliamentary precinct to Public Works and Government Services Canada, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the National Capital Commission, to all of the other bodies that now have influence and control over Parliament Hill. We believe that has led to a great deal of confusion.

Therefore, if it is the right of members of Parliament to have unfettered access to and freedom of movement and control of the parliamentary precinct, we as tenants should be seeking to have a tenants revolt to take back control of our parliamentary precinct.

I hope the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs can be seized with this issue and come back with meaningful recommendations that will give some satisfaction to those who were inconvenienced on March 2, but also to give us the control of the parliamentary precinct, which I believe we deserve as parliamentarians.

[Petitions, March 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to present a petition signed by literally tens of thousands of Canadians who call upon the House of Commons and Parliament to assemble to take note that asbestos is the greatest industrial killer that the world has ever known. They say that more Canadians now die from asbestos than from all other industrial and occupational causes combined and yet Canada remains one of the largest producers and exporters of asbestos in the world. They also point out that Canada spends millions of dollars subsidizing the asbestos industry and blocking international efforts to curb its use.

Therefore, the petitioners pray that Parliament bans asbestos in all of its forms and institutes a just transition program for asbestos workers and the communities in which they live, end all government subsidies of asbestos both in Canada and abroad and stop blocking international health and safety conventions designed to protect workers from asbestos, such as the Rotterdam Convention.

[Air Service Operations Legislation, March 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that thoughtful analysis and for reminding members present that it is a constitutional right, a fundamental cornerstone of our democracy that working people have the right to organize and all of the rights that flow from that, including the right to free collective bargaining and the right to withhold their services.

As my colleague from Malpeque pointed out, the government is systematically undermining many of the great Canadian institutions by which we define ourselves as Canadians, the progress we made in the postwar years, the Canadian Wheat Board, the CBC, the right to free collective bargaining. This is the country that our parents built and which those guys in eight short months are attacking on every front. The Conservatives want to recreate Canada in the image of the United States and their gurus in the neo-conservative Republican right-wing movement.

I do not want to live in the United States. Members should look south of the border and see how they like it. We did it right in Canada and we will not let them destroy it.

[Air Service Operations Legislation, March 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Malpeque knows that my question regarding which side the government is on was a rhetorical one and did not need an answer. We judge people by what they do, not what they say. What the Conservatives do is undermine the best interests of working people, many of whom probably voted for them at every opportunity. A lot of people voted Conservative. A lot of blue collar hard hat workers voted Conservative. Now the Conservatives are undermining the workers' ability to negotiate a fair wage with their employer. Whose side are they on?

When the government says it is in the interest of the economy that it has to smash these workers' rights to negotiate a fair wage and fair living, what about the economy that would benefit from fair wages throughout the whole community? The way to stimulate an economy is to give people money in their pockets and they will spend it that day. If we give money to a corporation, it will invest it offshore in some tax shelter and that money will never be recirculated into the local economy.

[Air Service Operations Legislation, March 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by noting that once again it falls to the NDP to try and defend these fundamental rights and freedoms that have been systematically undermined and eroded throughout this entire day, throughout this entire session of Parliament. We are here to remind Canadians that they do have friends, that they do have people who will defend and stand up for their rights that were so hard won and fought for over the years.

The fundamental cornerstones of our western democracy are: the right of working people to organize; the right of people to free collective bargaining; and, in the event of an impasse, the right of people to withhold their services to apply economic pressure in the historic imbalanced relationship between employers and employees. It is a constitutionally recognized and protected right. It is one of the very freedoms by which we define ourselves as Canadians.

For the third time in this short majority Conservative government, we are watching that fundamental freedom being systematically eroded and undermined by Bill C-33, which pre-emptively orders people back to work before there has even been a work stoppage. The bill would effectively strip Air Canada workers of their right to withhold their services in the existing bargaining impasse.

One has to wonder whose side the government is on. Is it on the side of the thousands of employees who are voters and citizens of our country, who are trying to eke out a fair living and a fair wage, or is it on the side of the corporation that has not exactly been a sterling corporate entity, nor a particularly good manager? I do not know who is being rewarded by the heavy-handed state interfering as if it is some state airline. It is as if the workers are there to do the bidding of the corporate directors of a lethargic and sloth-like management.

In actual fact the pressure put on businesses in the process of free collective bargaining, when it is allowed to proceed without interference and without any tourists at the bargaining table, has the effect of sharpening their gain. They are forced to be more efficient because they are paying fair wages. However, when the government intervenes and holds back the wages of workers, it makes me wonder who it thinks it is benefiting. If the government is smashing this strike for the sake of the economy, how does it help the economy when working people have their wages frozen year after year? How does that benefit anybody?

I would remind Conservatives that the greatest strength the North American economy has is a well-paid, consuming middle class. We achieve that economic status by free collective bargaining, by the hard-earned struggle in the early part of the 1900s when the right to organize was enshrined throughout North America. Fair wages were negotiated. That consuming middle class was the engine for the greatest and healthiest economic environment in the history of the world. The richest and most powerful civilization in the history of the world has its roots in part because of that consuming middle class that made it all succeed.

The Conservatives seem to be inspired by their American neo-conservative republican counterparts in the U.S. The United States, in its wisdom, decided to smash the labour movement in the 1980s and the 1990s with the right to work states. It legislated unions out of existence. The United States went from 33% unionized employees down to 6%.

The war on labour in the left has had the predictable consequence. There are no unions effectively in the private sector in the United States anymore and neither are there fair wages, pensions, health and welfare plans, dental plans, optical plans, daycare centres, all those things that we fought for in workplaces and managed to achieve. They are all gone and so is the American economy. With the demise of the middle class came the demise of the economy. Fair wages benefit the whole community and the whole economy.

The last time I was in Washington the best bumper sticker I had ever seen said “At least the war on the middle class is going well”. We can attest to that. The war on the middle class has gone very well, but who does the government think that benefits and how does it think that benefits the economy?

The workers at Air Canada have the right to withhold their services. We do not know if they would actually pull the trigger and have a work stoppage. We will never know because the heavy-handed state interfered. The government did not let the free market play itself out. Free collective bargaining is the free market in spirit and practice. It is the dynamic that is allowed to play itself out on a level playing field where the employer and employee deal with their issues without molestation and interference from, in this case, the government.

In this piece of legislation, which is unworthy of any western democracy I might add, the government even prescribes what it calls final offer selection. I am familiar with final offer selection. I have negotiated collective agreements using final offer selection. It can be an effective tool if both parties stipulate themselves to that type of arbitration to settle the impasse. However, when it is imposed on the parties, again in this case by the state, it will not work and is not fair.

Another unfairness is that the minister shall name the arbitrator. The arbitrator in final offer selection is agreed upon by the two parties.

I do not know how to describe how offensive this document is to anyone with any experience in human resources or labour relations. It is an affront to everyone who cares about these fundamental freedoms.

I condemn Bill C-33. I condemn the Conservative government for butting its nose into a negotiation between employer and employees in this country with no justification. It is completely unwarranted. It is part of a pattern. The Conservatives are determined to undermine and attack labour at every opportunity. They do it without provocation. They do it without justification. They do it through the back door with private members' business. They do it in legislation through the front door.

It is a fight we will have for four years. The Canadian people are aware of it. They are taking note and they will not put up with it. It is in no one's best interest to squeeze the middle class until it is the lower class. Even if that is the Conservatives' intent, it will come back to bite them where they will not like it.