Sheri Benson

[Status of Women, October 6th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, for no reason, the government announced it would wait two more years before introducing pay equity legislation.

The Canadian Labour Congress says:

After all the expert testimony, and with the Task Force and Committee’s recommendations in hand, it’s unacceptable that the government would decide to make women wait another two years for pay equity legislation.

It is a human right.

Women should not have to wait until 2018 for the government to act. Will the minister introduce proactive pay equity legislation before the end of this year?

[Standing Orders and Procedure, October 6th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about private members' business.

For me personally, being a new MP, I think it is a shame that in a four-year term, I may never have a private member's bill come up for debate.

I think what happens is that members bring forward many private members' bills for their constituents, to have at least spoken about them in the House. With regard to all the resources that go into all those private members' bills that will never see the light of day, including all the research and reaching out to stakeholders and so on, I am wondering what he thinks about my idea that everyone, during one Parliament, should be able to have at least one private member's bill.

[CANADA LABOUR CODE, September 26th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his great speech and comments, his passion, and all the years of advocacy he has done on behalf of working people in his riding.

I would like to give my colleague a few more minutes to comment on the theme of his speech around how this is a good first step, and what might be a second great step for the government to take. We have heard in some of the comments that we have a private member's bill coming up on Wednesday, in case anyone did not remember, around anti-scab legislation. We have heard comments from the other side that we cannot bring in changes to the labour code through a private member's bill, and that if we want to change the Canada Labour Code we have to do it tripartite.

I want to ask my hon. colleague to comment on the last time we looked at replacement workers. There was a review of the Canada Labour Code, but there was no consensus on it. Although there was evidence there that replacement workers definitely undermined the integrity of the bargaining process, that it really tipped it in favour of the employer, that particular commission could not come to a consensus on the evidence.

Would my hon. colleague not agree with me that this is the time when a government needs to step up, make a decision, and bring forward balance and fairness, when sometimes those processes do not get us to where we need to be?

[CANADA LABOUR CODE, September 26th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I want to underline that what we have heard from the other side was a need to bring more balance and fairness to the relationship between unionized employees and their employer. One thing we need to point out is that the Canada Labour Code review is best done by a tripartite, but that process is not always going to be able to arrive at a consensus. That is exactly what happened the last time that we reviewed replacement workers, or anti-scab legislation.

Would my colleague agree that sometimes it is important for the government to lead? When one process does not come to consensus, although there is evidence for both sides, does the government not sometimes have to lead a process, and would he agree that this might be the place to do it around anti-scab legislation?

[Petitions, September 26th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to present an e-petition signed by many folks and concerned citizens across Canada calling for the complete ban on all products containing asbestos, as well as ensuring that Health Canada and the federal government inform and educate all Canadians about, and provide funding to treat and prevent all ailments arising from, exposure to asbestos.

Included in their petition, the petitioners ask that we make it clear that Canada bans the importation and exportation of asbestos and asbestos products from Canada, that government websites stop promoting a safe-use level of asbestos, and that we ensure that the asbestos annex is listed as part of the Rotterdam Convention.

[Montgomery Community Association, September 26th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, September 17, I had the honour of bringing greetings to the Montgomery Community Association in celebration of its 70th anniversary and its recent designation as a national historic site.

In 1946, the first 25 homes built through the Veterans' Land Act were occupied in the Saskatoon neighbourhood of Montgomery. At first there was no sewer, no water, no garbage pick-up, no mail delivery, no street signs or lights, and definitely no trees.

Today the Montgomery community is a beautiful neighbourhood in my riding. People can wander the streets named after famous World War II battles and servicemen, and at the corner of Rockingham Ave and Caen Street, they can view the special memorial that pays tribute to the 568 veterans who settled in Montgomery Place between 1946 and 1977.

Please join me in congratulating the Montgomery Community Association on 70 years of remembering and honouring our veterans.

[CANADA LABOUR CODE, September 26th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I was very heartened to hear the member use words that I used in my speech, which were about having a more balanced approach to labour relations and that the legislation before us was a first step toward correcting what I feel was anti-worker legislation from the previous government. The NDP fought hard in the last Parliament to get rid of these anti-union, anti-worker types of legislation. Although there was consultation, if we go back and look, most people who were consulted disagreed with the government's legislation.

Why would we continue to operate under the previous government's Bill C-4 and just go at it bit by bit? Why not really make a stand, if the government really is supportive of workers, and repeal all the previous anti-worker legislation? I would like to hear whether the member would like to join with me in order to move forward. It is almost as big a step going back to start over in order to get back what workers fought long and hard for, which was taken away under the previous government.

[Canada Labour Code, September 23rd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, my brief answer would be that they both set back labour relations, workers' rights, and health and safety. They worked in tandem. They were part of a larger agenda, and I am very proud to stand today to support the government's leadership here and to make those two bills history.

[Canada Labour Code, September 23rd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for giving me the opportunity to talk about this issue and to reflect on the previous government's attitude toward unions. It certainly was not the champions of unions, and I think most of us in this House would agree, except for perhaps a few.

Part of the agenda of the previous government was to reduce workers' rights as much as possible, and to undermine the collective rights of workers and unions to make workplaces better, to improve health and safety.

If we look at other things that were involved in the previous government's Bill C-4, we will see a list of things it wanted to remove: health and safety, the rights of public sector workers to take things to the labour relations board. It wanted to unilaterally be a part of negotiating things it took off the table that we could no longer do with collective agreements.

When the Conservatives espoused the words “democracy, transparency and accountability”, they were using those to say that working people are somehow not that way, that unions are not that way, that the public is not that way. It was a wedge issue in order for them to bring forward what was very clearly the anti-worker, anti-safety, anti-union agenda of the previous government.

[Canada Labour Code, September 23rd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for the comments and question and bringing up that conversation we had at committee level. The evidence is clear from the research that it is employers who are intimidating employees; it is not unions intimidating members to sign cards. There will always be people within a workplace, for whatever reason, who are not going to agree with the majority of people who sign cards.

However, some of this is about understanding the actual rules as they are now. If there is any whiff from a labour relations board that something amiss has gone on during that certification drive, the board is there to ensure that a secret vote was taken, to see if that in fact happened. What we know from the research and evidence is that it is more often employers who are the ones who receive unfair labour relations charges, because they are the ones trying to influence union members not to sign a card.