Mr. Speaker, the people watching might be wondering why the member for Winnipeg North is making comments that are categorically untrue.
Having read and published in the field of legislative drafting and interpretation, I would remind the member that the three basic rules are as follows: read the act, read the act, and read the act. That is what I am about to do for him, so that he can understand what it is all about.
Bill C-10 is the reflection of the fundamental Liberal belief that, if one is rich and well-connected, one can break the law. We saw that in the KPMG file: scofflaws and millionaires hiding their money in tax havens. It is not for no reason at all that we see the Bronfman family being the Liberals' fundraisers. We remember when the Bronfmans went through their lawyers to Quebec City to try to change the law to allow them to bring back from the tax havens without tax. It was put to rest very quickly when they would not answer one simple question: how much would that cost taxpayers? Now, the new Liberal government here in Ottawa, in the KPMG file, has done everything to suppress the names of the scofflaws who hid millions of dollars in tax havens. They did not even charge them anything in terms of penalties when they brought that money back to Canada. What is the message there? It is to go ahead and break the law, because nothing will happen to them.
What are the Liberals doing with Air Canada? They are using all sorts of arguments and excuses, specious as they may be, to say it is really not fair in terms of competition that Air Canada is required to do its maintenance here. I remind members that the bill is called an act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act. Why did we have a bill called the Air Canada Public Participation Act? It was because those brilliant managers, those extraordinary capitalists, those guys who really know that a buck is a buck is a buck came here to Ottawa with their hats held out and said, “Can you fill these with a bunch of taxpayer's dollars?” The government said they would have to do a couple of things in return. They would have to guarantee that they would respect provisions that required them to do their maintenance in Canada, and it specified the cities where that would take place. They are Montreal, Mississauga, and Winnipeg. That is written down in a law.
One of the very foundations of democracy is that the law applies equally to everyone. No one is above the law, no one, that is, unless they are rich, well-connected, and a friend of the Liberal government. It is false to claim that this bill is simply an update to modernize the existing legislation. This bill is meant to allow people who broke the law to do so with impunity, both retroactively and retrospectively.
Once again, I want to read something for my colleague from Winnipeg North.
These subsections that require the work to be done here in Canada “are deemed never to have come into force”. It would erase, retroactively, the crimes committed by Air Canada. Also, they are repealed retrospectively, making sure that no such offence exists anymore. That is called being connected to the Liberals. That is what entitlement looks like.
We hear the member of Parliament for Pierrefonds—Dollard, the member of Parliament for Mount Royal, and the member of Parliament for Laurentides—Labelle come into the House and try to justify the unjustifiable, and I can guarantee each and every one of them that we will never let the people of their ridings forget that they betrayed the aerospace workers in Quebec.
How shameful to listen to the members for Pierrefonds—Dollard, Mount Royal, and Laurentides—Labelle.
Everyone knows where the Laurentians are and how much aerospace there is in that region. The member stands up here and tries to justify the loss of 2,600 aerospace jobs in Quebec and Canada. How shameful for a member who calls himself a Quebecker.
I remember that, in Charles M. Schulz' Peanuts comics, every year Lucy would ask Charlie Brown if he would come and kick the football. Every year, Charlie Brown would say that she was going to pull it away and he was going to wind up flat on his back. Every year, he was promised that this time it would not happen.
I really have a feeling that the member of Parliament for Winnipeg North probably had a picture of Charlie Brown on the wall of his room when he was a kid, because he emulates Charlie Brown all the time.
He stood up here in the House of Commons today and said—and I wrote it down; it was quite something to hear—that we should not worry about it because we have “a tangible, solid commitment” from Air Canada, the company that has been breaking the law. If it is written in a law, duly enacted by the Parliament of Canada, nah, who cares, but we have “a tangible, solid commitment” that it will not pull the football away this time.
Guess what? We do not have anything from Air Canada. It has not set any of this down in the deal. This malarky about a centre of excellence, it is not going to happen. How can we trust a company that breaks the law to respect a deal that is not even enforceable?
It is interesting to listen to the member of Parliament for Winnipeg North, because he pleads against himself every time he stands up in this House. He said that there are people across the aisle who said this is about legalizing the offshoring of jobs. Yes, that is what this is about. It is about legalizing the offshoring of jobs. That is what he is in favour of.
Then he said that, when he was in opposition, he used to stand out there with the workers. In solidarity, he would stand there. I remember the member for Papineau, today the Prime Minister of Canada, standing there with his fist in the air. By the way, it is a little bit like the Prime Minister's promise to restore door-to-door mail delivery.
The funny thing about people who like selfies and things like that is that they should remember that there are actually recordings of this stuff. We have the recording of him promising to bring door-to-door mail delivery, something he has forgotten in the meantime. However, there is also the recording of him standing there, when he thought it would help him get votes with workers, saying that he was going to stand up for them. Here is what he is doing now; he is standing up to vote against them. Shame on him.
My hon. colleague, the member for Winnipeg North also should read the part of the act that says that Air Canada is allowed to determine the type and volume of any or all of these activities. He is trying to pin some vague hope that he is not going to get slammed in his home province on the fact that there is this clause that says there should be work in Quebec, Manitoba, and Ontario. The only problem is that, when it is written into law, it can get rid of any and all of that; if Air Canada does one repair on one motor in one year, then it has met what is now in the bill that the Liberals are putting forward.
We have lost thousands upon thousands of well-paying manufacturing jobs in this country, including thousands of well-paying aerospace jobs, and there is nothing that the Liberals are willing to do, except vote for a bill to let Air Canada retroactively off the hook. It is unprecedented in the history of the Parliament of Canada.
I do remember, a little while back, when another Liberal member of Parliament from Manitoba, the member of Parliament for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley—and for the people who do not know where that is, it is another Winnipeg riding—stood in this House and voted against the Liberal Party. That takes a certain amount of courage. He received accolades, well deserved, for his political courage.
I know a little about that, having been through it myself when I refused to sign an order in council that would have transferred land in a provincial park to developers to put in condos in Mont-Orford provincial park in Quebec. I quit cabinet rather than sign that, so I know that it takes courage.
What is astonishing today is to see the same member of Parliament for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley stand here in the House of Commons and vote against those same workers. Realizing he had created perhaps a bit of a conundrum for himself, he took to Twitter and other social media and started explaining that today's vote, in his view, was not that important because in third reading he could stand again and vote against the bill. The only problem is that, if the member of Parliament for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley had kept his conscience that he claimed to have had just a couple of weeks ago, then he would have managed to defeat the bill that he said was the problem. When he comes back in at third reading and votes against it as he claims he will, nothing is going to happen; the bill is still going to pass.
It is convenient to be a Liberal and to claim to have principles when it does not have any consequence, but when it could mean that a toxic bill from that same Liberal member's government that would be harmful to workers could be defeated, all sorts of rationalizations are found and that individual starts crowing on social media that he had no real intention of doing anything. That sort of hypocrisy deserves to be called out here in the House of Commons.
Let us be clear that the aerospace industry is the backbone of Canada's manufacturing sector. Because of the inertia, incompetence, and mismanagement of the Conservative government, which put all of our eggs in one basket, the oil and gas extraction sector, we lost hundreds of thousands of good jobs in the manufacturing sector.
All we have left is the aerospace sector, and the business geniuses in the front row on the Liberal side are telling us that they are waiting on a business plan from Bombardier. This is unbelievable. People who have never managed so much as the night shift at Burger King are saying they will demand that Bombardier come up with a business plan they agree with. Unbelievable.
I just want to say one thing: if the Liberals cared one iota about protecting and promoting Canada's aerospace industry, they would not be fooling around like they are right now. They would be standing strong and telling Air Canada, loud and clear, that the law was written and duly passed by the Parliament of Canada, that there is no escape clause for anyone, and that Air Canada must obey the law.
We hear the exact same argument from Air Canada in another field.
That is worth reiterating to the hon. member for Pierrefonds—Dollard, the hon. member for Mount Royal, the hon. member for Laurentides—Labelle, and the other members from Quebec who end up giving in and selling out Quebec every time. I am talking about systematic non-compliance with the Official Languages Act. We get exactly the same entitlement argument from Air Canada. The company wonders why it should be required to comply with the Official Languages Act because, after all, it is a matter of, you guessed it, being competitive.
What is the hon. member for Laurentides—Labelle going to serve up as an excuse to justify this non-compliance with the Official Languages Act? He is going to say this is about modernization. Members only have to look, as I do every day, at the number of answers given in English to questions asked in French to see the truth in the old saying that in Ottawa there are two official languages: English and French translated into English.
Here on the front benches of the Liberal Party of Canada, the government, French no longer has a place. Instead of requiring Air Canada to comply with the Official Languages Act, the Liberals are going to do exactly the same thing. The Commissioner of Official Languages will soon be releasing his report on Air Canada's non-compliance with the Official Languages Act.
Does anyone think that the people who just gave Air Canada a free pass when it comes to keeping jobs in the aircraft repair and maintenance sector here in Canada are not going to do the same thing? Get real.
I am wondering if they believe their own argument that this is simply a matter of modernization when that is clearly not the case. The Liberals are giving a company that is not complying with the law a loophole, and that attitude is not going to change.
I look forward to seeing how the member for Laurentides—Labelle will attempt to justify the failure to comply with the Official Languages Act. When people ask an Air Canada flight attendant in French where to catch their connecting flight and the flight attendant responds, “I'm sorry, I don't speak French”, will the member tell the House that it is no big deal, that it is modernization, and that Air Canada should have the right to do what it wants?
That is the free pass that the government has just given Air Canada. That is the precedent the government is creating with regard to Air Canada. It is shameful that a rich and well-connected company is being given the right to break a law of Parliament.
Rather than giving Air Canada a free pass, the government should be honouring its obligation to enforce the law. It should be strictly enforcing the law and imposing sanctions on Air Canada, rather than doing the company favours by saying that it is no big deal and acting as though the law never existed.
Tangible, solid commitment—horse hockey, as they used to say on M*A*S*H.
There is nothing on the table from the scofflaw management at Air Canada that we can count on. They do not even think they have to obey the law. They do not think they had to obey the law that they dealt to get the money from Canadian taxpayers. They do not think they have to back up and respect the Official Languages Act because they have all of these Quebec MPs, every one of them, standing up one after the other doing nothing.
We had one person from one of the provinces affected. He was from Winnipeg. He stood up and got accolades for his courage. What did he do today? He folded his tent, he threw in his lot, and gave them the one vote they needed so that the 2,600 workers who lost their jobs at Aveos because of the non-respect of this legislation by Air Canada are now going to lose all hope. It is because of people like the member of Parliament for Winnipeg North that they are losing that hope. There is a large aerospace sector in Manitoba, and it is shameful that the member is letting Air Canada off the hook.
I listened carefully to what the Liberal members had to say. Although there are 40 Liberal members representing Quebec, only one member from Manitoba had the courage to rise and vote against this bill. They should all be ashamed of themselves. Not one Liberal stooge from Quebec had the decency and courage to say, “Enough is enough. The law applies to everyone, including Air Canada.”
The NDP members are going to do the same thing that we did this morning. I am pleased that the official opposition, the Conservative Party, is standing with us on this. I am also pleased that the member of the Green Party, who is still here this afternoon, is voting with us. If any of our Bloc colleagues were here, I would commend them too. However—
