Wayne Marston

[Fair Elections Act, February 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order.

I find it strange that I am listening to a debate on the bill when we are supposed to be debating the motion on closure. In fact, we would be thrilled to have a full debate on this, spread out over time so that I can confer with the hundred thousand people in my community who are poor and who may be disenfranchised by the bill. However, to have it coming through when we should be debating the motion before us is just strange.

[Petitions, February 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition in support of a bill introduced by the member for Hamilton Mountain. Bill C-201 would allow tradespeople and apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable incomes when they secure and maintain employment at a construction site more than 80 kilometres from their homes.

[Foreign Affairs, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, Mohamed Fahmy, a Canadian citizen, is one of three journalists who has been imprisoned in Egypt since December 29. They have all been charged with spreading “false” information about the situation in Egypt. If convicted, this Canadian could spend life in prison.

Amnesty International considers these three prisoners as prisoners of conscience, imprisoned for the peaceful expression of their right to free speech.

Would the minister please inform the House what is being done to get this Canadian returned home?

[Employees' Voting Rights Act, January 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I stand corrected. It was the former minister of labour, now the Minister of Transport. I thank the member for pointing that out to me.

When I look at the bill, I am reminded of part of an old labour song, Solidarity Forever, that nothing is weaker than the feeble strength of one. That is one of the reasons that in the 1940s in Canada, we started down the road to unionization. Many of the fathers of the good veterans we have in this place today were probably part of that union movement when they came home from the war and did not like the imbalance in labour relations in this country.

To be clear for the record, I was the president of a communication workers local for Bell Canada. For a number of years, I was president of the Hamilton and District Labour Council. I was very proud to serve in those positions. For the record as well, those were non-paid positions.

Some people in this place like to refer to labour unions in a variety of disparaging ways, but I want to be clear tonight about Bill C-525. It is nothing less than a back-door attempt to weaken those organizations that protect workers every day in the workplace, the labour unions. Bill C-525 would do so by fundamentally changing the processes for certifying or decertifying a union under federal jurisdiction. I believe the sole purpose of Bill C-525 is to bring union organizing in the federal jurisdiction to a complete halt. It is nothing short of a very sly way to create a situation that the Conservative government hopes will lead to a drastic increase in union decertification. The Conservatives hope to succeed by bringing about a low turnout of members, and just as voter suppression has been taking place in federal voting, they plan on dealing with that same issue in the same manner of allowing fewer people to decertify a union.

Decades, or some 70 years, of business, government, and labour unions working together, have gone into the processes that we have today, and the government tends to leave out the fact that when a backbencher puts forward such a bill, it is adding to its own efforts. Another bill before this House is Bill C-377. Between the two bills, the goal is obvious: to set back labour relations in Canada to the bad old days of the 1940s.

Hamilton was one of those places in Canada where former veterans and workers banded together to get union representation. It was Justice Rand in his wisdom in 1946 who said that if a person was part of a union, they did not have to join it but had to pay for the free collective bargaining, which was not free. They had to contribute their union dues. Again, they did not have to be a member, but they were sharing the cost.

Where are the consultations, the due diligence, required for such a change? With Bill C-525 that simply has not happened. It was crafted without any consultation with the key stakeholders from either the union or employers' side.

I believe it is irresponsible on the part of the Conservative government to allow a private member's bill to amend Canada's labour relations legislation. If there were any case at all for changes to our labour relations legislation, then there must be consultations with all the stakeholders, and a full study before proceeding to draft any such bill. It should absolutely be done by a government bill, not a private member's bill.

These changes, as set out in Bill C-525, would weaken the ability of workers to seek union representation for collective bargaining, as well as advocacy on their behalf when disputes arise with their employers.

The bill would increase the number of membership cards needed to trigger union certification or decertification. It would eliminate the option to form a union through a majority card check, which would leave workers vulnerable to intimidation by employers, or worse, to those third parties hired.

I have stood before those third parties. I have been on picket lines many times where the third parties were hired and were standing on the other side of the picket line with baseball bats in their hands.

I am not sure, but I hope the member proposing this change simply does not understand or appreciate the risks that some workers face. It is their fundamental right to withdraw their services after a due vote, and when they do so they should not be put at risk.

Currently, if a majority of workers vote in favour of forming a union, then that union is certified. Under the new rules, a majority of the entire bargaining unit, not just those who turn out for the vote, must vote in favour of forming a union. Non-unions would essentially be counted, under this new proposal, as voting against a union simply if they are not in attendance.

Under the decertification process proposed in Bill C-525, the new rules would require a majority of the membership to vote in favour of continuing representation, to prevent decertification. In other words, it would make it almost automatic if there is no participation.

If we look at how low the voting patterns are in our elections and if rules like that applied, then MPs would wind up not sitting in these seats because the assumption would be against their being elected. It is the same thing.

For workers covered by the Public Service Labour Relations Act, the bill would require 55% of members to vote for continued representation, to prevent decertification. That stacks the cards against people's rights. It is their right to make this determination.

As I indicated earlier, Bill C-525 would throw the Canada Labour Code out the back door. It would forego the dialogue and the consultative processes developed over seventy years that have made changing labour legislation a progressive practice where the rights of workers are always a major aspect involved in any discussion with employers and workers.

It is clear to even a casual observer that this private member's bill is gerrymandered for union busting. It would make it nearly impossible for Canadian workers in the federal jurisdiction to form a union. Like Bill C-377 last year, the Conservative government is using the back door by way of a private member's bill to open the labour code instead of admitting that it is simply a Trojan Horse piece of government legislation.

If the government truly feels that legislative change is necessary—and that is a possibility—the Minister of Labour should bring it before the stakeholders in the business and labour community and consult with them and then do due diligence by way of a study before drafting changes to our labour relations act.

Failing that, the government needs to understand that the opposition now sees this legislation for what it truly is. Soon all Canadians will understand it is yet another example of the Conservatives' agenda to drive down the wages of the middle class and make Canadian workers work for less.

Bill C-525 is a reckless and radical piece of legislation taken straight from the Republican playbook in the United States.

Contrary to the rhetoric of the extreme political right, attacks on collective bargaining do not promote economic growth, but rather they drive income inequality and create toxic work environments that turn Canadians against each other.

Organized workers in Canada have delivered results: better wages, more rights for workers and a more secure future, not just for union members but for all Canadians.

There is a bumper sticker that says, “Unions: the people who brought you the weekend”. That is a bit light for this occasion but it is a fact. If it were not for unions in this country, people would be working six days a week, twelve hours a day, for next to nothing.

Some people work very hard in this country and they happen to be members of a union. They are proud of the work they do, and I am proud of them.

[Employees' Voting Rights Act, January 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-525.

Earlier, in question period today, the Minister of Labour made a statement that I would not mind having attributed to myself. She called the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie the MP for CUPW.

Where I come from, we stand up for all the people in our community, whether they happen to be in CUPW or any other union. I want to commend that member for the good work he is doing.

I am reminded, when I look at this—

[International Day of Commemoration of the Holocaust, January 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, on this International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom Hashoah, we join Canadians in paying tribute to the millions of innocents who died during this dark chapter in history. We remember not only those whose lives were so brutally taken, but we remember and pay tribute to the survivors. Equally important is to remember and honour those who helped save lives during this massive-scale human tragedy.

Today as we remember, we must remind ourselves of our duty to teach our children and generations to come that it is our solemn responsibility to combat racism wherever we find it. We must fight discrimination whenever and wherever we find it. History tells us those who promote bigotry for political advantage plant the very seeds for the crimes against humanity that in the past led to atrocities of such a massive scale.

When we say “never again”, that is our pledge to ensure that such seeds of bigotry and hate never, ever flourish again.

[Business of Supply, December 9th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the parliamentary secretary for his question because, yes, some of the things that the government has done have been reasonable. However, I was trying to remind the government of a promise it made in 2009. Conservatives said, in response to a unanimous motion, that they supported it. The reality is that going forward, it is going to take time for this to evolve. It will be seven years to put it into place, and before it will be of definite value to people, we are talking about 30 years.

This is not going to be a remedy for people today at this point in time. We are talking about the 12 million souls who do not have any savings and do not have any opportunity.

We are not meaning to minimize any other programs the government may have. That is not the point of the exercise today. The point today is to bring us back to understanding that we have a chance to protect future generations and allow them to live in dignity.

[Business of Supply, December 9th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to speak on this, particularly after some of the comments of the last speaker and some of the people asking questions.

Back in June 2009, the House unanimously passed a motion. I hope that the Conservatives are paying attention to this, because part of the motion that they on the government side voted unanimously for included expanding and increasing CPP, OAS and GIS, establishing a self-financing pension insurance plan, ensuring workers' pensions go to the front of the line in the case of bankruptcy proceedings, and in the interest of appropriate management, stopping the bonuses that went on with the CPP. That passed unanimously in the House. It served as a road map for the next three years.

In fact, I was the critic who put that motion before the House. I went to over 50 town hall meetings across the country from B.C. to the east coast. The reason we did all of that was the 12 million working people in Canada who have no pensions and no savings.

Now, we hear all of this talk about the PRPP. The fact of the matter is that the PRPP is nothing more than a fancified RRSP. The real flaw with the PRPP is that it is not mandatory. One of the points that was made was about the disposable income of Canadians, and we are very concerned about the disposable income of Canadians.

One of the things that members might want to know that would be helpful is that a person with a $30,000 annual income would pay an annual increase of $117.86. That is $0.06 an hour, or 0.43% of their income. If they made $47,000 a year, that would equate to $185.43 a year. Yes, it would be matched by the employer. We are not trying to hide anything from Canadians.

We talked about a phase-in period. The purpose of the phase-in is a sensibility to the tenuous nature of the economy at this point in time, so we would take some time to develop this.

We know that 93% of working Canadians today are in the Canada pension plan. We are saying to them that the OECD looked at the Canada pension plan in 2008 and said it was funded for 75 years. We agree with that. We think that it is in good shape and that it has been well managed over the years. It is a vehicle that is very important to Canadians. If we modestly increase that over seven years to phase in the payments, it is not going to double anyone's pension plan today. This is putting money away for the future.

One of the things that it does, which is very important, is it allows Canadians the vehicle to put some of their money in. These 12 million people are putting no money aside at this point in time. They are not able to, for whatever reason, or choosing not to in most cases. They are not able to participate. In 30 years' time, if we do not have a vehicle that gives them the kind of protection that the major increase to the Canada pension plan would, what is going to happen? They are going to hit a wall. They are going to hit 65 and they are going to have very little. Even if they participate in a PRPP, what good is the $100,000 or the $60,000 that they manage to save there, relative to the outcome that could arise from a well-invested Canada pension plan that would provide security for them and their families?

This is critically important. We are talking about future generations. We are talking about our own grandchildren here. We are not talking about today's workers to that degree. This is down the road, but it is so vitally important to people.

When I crossed the country and talked to people in towns, from Thunder Bay to the east coast. I think Barrington was the name of one community that I was in on the east coast. I was in the member for Victoria's riding for two meetings as well. Today, he has the file on behalf of the NDP and has put today's motion forward.

What is sad is that we had to reach the point of putting today's motion forward to once again push a party forward that had already agreed with us. It agreed with us in 2009, even after we had the major downturn in the economy where people understood that going forward would be somewhat difficult.

How difficult would it be for families if we do not do something?

We saw circumstances in the past where we, the NDP as a party, proposed non-profit daycare for families. The response from the other side was $100 a month. Do members know what the cost of daycare is? It is in the hundreds of dollars per week. That would not even touch it.

Now we have another band-aid solution from the government in the PRPP, which does not even remotely come close to what would be needed.

I want to take members back to something I said a few minutes ago. There are 12 million working Canadians who are not prepared for the future. It is the current government's responsibility to help them prepare through the vehicle they already have.

The Canada pension plan is portable right across the country. It is a completely open vehicle. What is crucial about the Canada pension plan is that it is mandatory. How many times have members here, when they were 25, 35 or 45 years old, said that they were going to save x amount of money to prepare for this contingency, and once they got there, had only saved half or a quarter of it? That is where the mandatory part comes in.

The employer community has a responsibility as well. That is something that some people call into question. We have to make sure it is open so that they can also take part in the Canada pension plan. We have to ensure there are vehicles within the Canada pension plan to allow everyone who works, including employers, in. We have to look at the possibilities. There is a great number of business people out there who are relying totally on the resale of their business to supply their retirement. How many businesses have we seen where, because of changes after 40 years, may not be viable or have the cash value they anticipated? Therefore, they are in a tenuous position relative to the future as well.

This is a model that could be put in place for all Canadians, for the benefit of all Canadians, to ensure dignity in retirement.

I know it is not part of today's motion, but back in June of 2009, we talked about an increase to the guaranteed income supplement. I am saying that because I want to talk again about the desperate situation some people find themselves in. There are many senior citizens who live on about $1,400 a month. In the 50 town hall meetings, I had four occasions where I had people take me aside after the meeting and tell me that they ate cat food to get protein. That is no way for any of our seniors to have to live in this country. I am not saying that to embarrass anyone. That is a cold, hard fact of what people face who are not prepared for their retirement. Many of these people are not sophisticated in their approach to retirement.

Just before I finish, I want to stress once more that the cost of increasing the Canada pension plan benefit to the point of dignity for someone whose salary is $30,000 would be $117 per year or 6¢ an hour.

In closing, I would ask members one last time to take the time to look back to the June 2009 motion and to what the government unanimously supported at that time. It is the very issue we are talking about today.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, December 3rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the health and safety legislation of this country was put together through tripartite negotiations among government, employers, and labour. A consensus was reached, often after fatalities and after very serious issues with respect to industrial-related diseases.

All of those things that have brought us to this stage of protection for workers are crucial every day. I do not know if the House is aware, but a worker is killed in Canada almost every day of the workweek. Roughly 300 workers are killed a year. Anything that could potentially impede that should certainly not be in a budget bill.

If it is deemed urgent that we talk about that issue, the human resources committee should look at it and study it in depth, because if we are going to make changes, we should be including all three players at the table when we discuss it.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, December 3rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, if members listen to the tone of my voice they will know that I definitely have a cold which, as a result, is causing a bit of a distraction.

I do agree with the parliamentary secretary that there has been a review. I should have said that there had not been an effective review relative to the problems that have been raised.

For the continuation of this program, I would suggest to the parliamentary secretary that from the indications coming to us, there is more work to be done. I see the parliamentary secretary is nodding his head. Again, I would be quite satisfied if his committee were to look at this and review it. That is the point we are trying to make: it should not have been part of a budget bill.