SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 253

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 22, 2023 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 253 - Nov/22/23
Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)
  • Nov/22/23 4:24:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Canadian middle class was built on the union movement, and we can see the Canadian middle class rise with union density. To the extent that we have seen a decline in union density, we have also seen a decline of the middle class. The right to strike is fundamental to the union movement. If workers do not have the right to withhold their labour, they do not have leverage in bargaining. It is why unions have been calling for anti-scab legislation for so long and why they needed it not just in the case of lockouts, which is what the Liberals started talking about after decades, but also in the case of strikes. Therefore, I am very pleased today to see legislation that would ban replacement workers both in the context of lockouts and in the context of strikes, because that is how to fight for powerful paycheques for Canadians. However, I am concerned about an 18-month coming-into-force period after royal assent. We know that sometimes, government officials ask for a long time to implement things, but when pressed, can do it much faster. Indeed, when it came to Quebec and B.C., we saw relatively swift implementation of their anti-scab laws. Will the minister go back to his department and press it to ensure that we could put the law into force much faster than 18 months after royal assent?
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Context: House Hansard - 253 - Nov/22/23
Mr. Daniel Blaikie
  • Nov/22/23 4:40:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, now that the member has considerably less time, I wonder if he might hurry up in becoming relevant to the bill.
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Context: House Hansard - 253 - Nov/22/23
Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)
  • Nov/22/23 4:48:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in the fall economic statement yesterday, the government projected that, over the next year, unemployment is going to be up by 1% in Canada. I absolutely agree with the member that investments in battery plants have to lead to good union jobs here, although he did not say “good union jobs”. I will give him the opportunity in a moment. What I am concerned about is that he did not talk about the legislation, and he is using replacement workers in a very different sense than the sense relevant to the legislation. If the Conservatives want to coin a new term, that is their business, but they should not do it to conflate issues and distract from the fact that they clearly do not want to talk about bringing home powerful paycheques for Canadian workers by protecting their right to strike with anti-scab legislation. Would he now like to take a moment to talk about replacement workers in the relevant sense, who are people who take the job of someone out on strike or in a lockout, and tell us what the Conservative position is on this bill? He has not even talked about the content of the bill yet despite us being almost at the 15-minute mark.
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Context: House Hansard - 253 - Nov/22/23
Mr. Daniel Blaikie
  • Nov/22/23 4:57:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think that one of the important questions raised during this debate is whether the Conservatives actually know what a replacement worker is. We are starting to wonder whether they even understand the term. Perhaps our colleague could just reassure us that he does in fact know what a replacement worker is, notwithstanding the spin that the Conservatives are putting on the term today in the House of Commons.
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Context: House Hansard - 253 - Nov/22/23
Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)
  • Nov/22/23 5:20:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, earlier on we heard two Conservative MPs speak. For 30 minutes or so they had one job, and that was to state whether they were in favour of hiring scabs or not. They refused to do so. Does my colleague think that the MPs were on strike because they did not want to speak in favour or was this a lockout imposed by the Conservative leader?
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