44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 14, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, it is clear, for those who are following the parliamentary calendar, that the government is making last-minute changes to the projected order of business, but I am nonetheless very happy to speak today to Bill C-58 and address the government's profound failures when it comes to workers, and talk about the excellent work that the Conservative Party has been doing and will continue to do to support workers here in Canada.
Our priority is creating powerful paycheques for Canadian workers, supporting jobs and opportunity for Canadian workers. In that process, our leader, the member for Carleton, has been travelling across the country meeting with workers, and hearing about their priorities and their concerns. I can tell members that the number one priority for the workers he meets with, and all of us on this side of the House are meeting with, is around jobs and opportunity. It is to have an economy that works for working people, an economy that puts the interests of working people ahead of those of the well-connected insiders the government has so persistently tried to prioritize.
We see this profound disconnect in so many different ways. We see the way that the Liberal government is focused on the interests of well-connected insiders and how it loves shovelling money out to consultants who specialize in encouraging companies to fire more people. These are the kinds of relationships the government is cultivating. These are the kinds of people the government is trying to serve, whereas Conservatives are focused on jobs and opportunity for workers, and creating the kind of economy where more people can work, prosper and succeed.
There are many different aspects in the government's agenda in this regard. We see the context, for instance, of its unjust transition plan. The government, in fact, is now admitting that its so-called just transition rhetoric is unpopular with workers. I was very struck by the fact that the labour minister got up in the House fairly recently and said they do not use the terminology of just transition anymore because workers do not like it. It is true that workers do not like it, but it was not the name that they had a problem with. It was the substance of the government's agenda.
The government talks about so-called transitioning workers as if what workers wanted was to be able to not work. A big part of the reason people work, yes, is for the paycheque, as that is a critical piece of it, but it also comes from the satisfaction they get from being able to accomplish something significant. This is what is so important about work for workers. They appreciate the ability to both earn a paycheque for their family and be able to participate in the creation of value. Both of those things together are important.
The government says to workers that it wants to transition them out of their jobs, but it will have social programs for them on the other end of it. First of all, I think members are rightly skeptical about whether those promises will be delivered on. Second, the people in my riding who work in the energy sector and other sectors are not looking for easy money. They are looking for the opportunity to be able to work hard and build themselves up, along with their families and their communities in the process.
This is the dignity inherent in work. The paycheque is critically important, but it is not just about the paycheque. It is about the satisfaction that comes from work, and this is something that the government just does not understand. This is an essential piece of why the government's unjust transition agenda is so unpopular with workers and calling it something else is not going to change the picture.
In the midst of this larger discussion about workers and the failure of the government to support or respond to the needs and concerns of working people, we have it bringing forward this legislation on replacement workers. I would say what is quite curious about the government's approach to this is that at the same time as it is championing its legislation allegedly dealing with the issue of replacement workers, the government is signing massive corporate subsidies to companies that are, in fact, bringing in foreign replacement workers. That is another example of the duplicity that we see from the other side.
We have been working on this issue at the government operations committee and wearing down a Liberal filibuster.
Conservatives came to the committee saying that we had evidence that over $40 billion in corporate subsidies was being used, not to hire Canadian workers, not to create jobs and opportunities for workers in Canada, but to subsidize companies that are bringing in foreign replacement workers. By the way, over $40 billion is a massive amount of money. It is a big number overall, but if we break it down it is $3,000 per family. That means that all the Canadians who as we speak are at home glued to CPAC, and I salute them for their dedication, and watching this are on the hook for $3,000 because of these subsidies.
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Mr. Speaker, I am particularly pleased and proud to be able to rise in this debate on Bill C-58.
It should go without saying in this country that workers deserve respect, fair wages and safe working conditions. However, success in achieving those things has depended largely on the free collective bargaining process. The success of every business, every enterprise and every government program depends on all the workers involved: Those who clean, those who provide security, those who drive and those who provide child care. None of our economy functions without all of us working together. In fact, I would speculate that if the top CEOs and directors stayed home for a day, their businesses would continue to function, because workers would carry on providing those services to the economy and to the public.
However, we should also recognize today that increasing inequality will eventually undermine social stability in this country. We have had the spectacle of Galen Weston, a CEO, appearing before a House of Commons committee and saying it is “reasonable” that he earns, in one year, 431 times his average worker's salary. I would say to Mr. Weston that it is reasonable only in some other universe than the one the rest of us live in. In fact, it is actually even out of scale for the top 100 CEOs, who only, on average, earn 243 times what their average worker does.
A study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives demonstrated to us that, in a typical year, and we have a new year coming up, before the end of the second day, the top 100 CEOs will earn more than their average worker in the entire year. By my own calculations, by the end of that year, the CEOs will have earned more than their average worker will earn in a lifetime. Therefore, we have a serious problem with growing inequality in this country, and one of the only ways that we can, on a practical basis, see progress is through free collective bargaining.
We face huge challenges in our society, and I could spend time talking about the challenge of climate change. We face huge challenges, as I said, in inequality. We face all kinds of challenges in our workforce, with labour shortages. How do we address them? We certainly are a wealthy and well-educated country. We have a dedicated workforce, and if we all work together, and everyone pays their fair share, we can meet those challenges. We know what we need to do.
I would cite the NDP dental care plan as an example of how we can meet the challenges we face. This is a health challenge, in particular, for many seniors I hear from in my riding. They worked very hard all their lives but did not necessarily have a job in which their health benefits continued into retirement, if they had them at all. I have had many people approach my office to say that the quality of their life is really impaired by their inability to afford dental care. How is this relevant? If everybody pays their fair share, we can afford dental care for all Canadians.
Some of my Conservative friends have said, “Well, you always support spending. Why is that? You will just support deficits.” I try to correct them by saying that, as a New Democrat, I do not support deficits; I support fair taxation. If we apply the principles of fair taxation, including a wealth tax in this country, we can afford to take care of each other, which is an important principle.
However, where did that principle of taking care of each other come from? It came from trade unions and collective bargaining, where workers joined together and said, “Let us not have some of us succeed at the cost of the rest of us in the workplace.” They negotiated contracts that provided fair benefits, fair wages and better working conditions for everybody in the bargaining unit, and the employers could not just reward those they favoured in the workplace.
I will tell members a door knocking story from an election campaign. I went out one Saturday morning, too early for me and obviously too early for some of my constituents. A gentleman came to the door and said, “Oh, you're the New Democrat. I can't support you.” I said, “Why can't you?” He said, “You're way too close to the unions.” I said, “What day is it?” He said, “What do you mean, what day is it?” I asked again, “What day is it?” He said, “It's Saturday”, and then he looked at me and said, “I see where you're going with this.” I said, “Yes, you're home on the weekend because collective bargaining got people weekends off, which made it a standard in our society.” He said, “Oh, next you're going to talk to me about health care and all kinds of other things unions got.” I said, “That's absolutely what I'm going to talk to you about.” He said, “I still can't vote for you”, and shut the door. I did not succeed in convincing him that day, but even he understood that a lot of the benefits he enjoyed as a non-union worker came from the work of trade unions.
Why am I giving all these examples when we are talking about anti-scab legislation? We know the importance of collective bargaining. We also know, if we stop to think for a minute, that most collective bargaining processes do not lead to strikes or lockouts; the vast majority of them do not. I have seen various statistics. In some sectors, up to 90% of contracts are completed successfully without any work stoppage at all.
What happens when replacement workers get involved? Again, the studies will tell us quite clearly that if replacement workers are hired by an employer, two things happen. One is that the strike, on average, will last six times longer than if replacement workers were not involved. The second thing the use of replacement workers does is to introduce an element of hostility and division in the community, because workers who are on strike see replacement workers as a threat to their livelihood. Quite often, replacement workers are hired through employment agencies or other ways in which they have no idea that they are being sent into such a position of conflict as a replacement worker.
What I think is really good about the legislation is that it would bank this practice. British Columbia and Quebec have already had this kind of legislation for years. Of course, the NDP has been trying to get it introduced at the federal level. We have introduced a bill eight times in the last 15 years. The last time we introduced it, in 2016, both the Liberals and the Conservatives voted against anti-scab legislation.
The Conservative Party leader likes to talk about working people and how he is a friend of working people. I would say that the bill gives him a chance to demonstrate that concretely. His previous record does not show that. His party voted against minimum wages. His party, I guess I would say, has never seen back-to-work legislation it did not like. The record is clear on one side. If the Conservatives want to change that record, the legislation before us gives them an opportunity to demonstrate that they really are friends of workers and friends of progress, in terms of our economy.
Who are the workers most affected by the use of replacement workers? I am going to make a strange argument here, but quite often it is actually the non-union workers, because it is unionized companies and unionized sectors that set the standard that employers have to meet, even if those standards are not legislated. When we talk about the people who work in the lowest-paid, non-union jobs, they would actually be protected by the legislation as well, because it would allow unions to have shorter work stoppages and to negotiate better conditions, which would eventually spread through our economy.
Once again, I am back to the point I want to make. We hear a lot about how society and Parliament in Canada are suddenly dysfunctional. I do not believe that is true. I believe what we have are the choices that we are making. We make choices in the economy. It is not inevitable that we have great inequality. It is not inevitable that we have homelessness in our society. We make policy choices that have real outcomes that disadvantage many Canadians. We can make better choices and we can make different choices.
When we are talking about whether the House of Commons can do that, if the House of Commons appears dysfunctional to people, I believe that it is currently the result of choices being made by one party in the House to make the House of Commons appear dysfunctional and to make sure, as the party's leader declared, that we cannot get anything done anything in the House. He said he is going to grind the House to a halt, and we have seen him trying to do that. What is the impact of that on workers? It means we cannot get to legislation like the bill before us. It means we cannot get to a fair bargaining process for workers in the federal sector across the country. I represent a riding where there are lots of workers in the federally regulated sector. I know that this is important to them because they know it would shorten labour disputes and result in less hostility around the picket lines.
One last thing I want to talk about is that the improvement this legislation would make over what exists in B.C. and Quebec is that it considers the issue of remote work. One of the challenges we have now is that, in many industries, if there is a picket line, there is no need for employers to get someone to actually cross a physical line; they can hire people to work remotely. The federal legislation would actually be an improvement over what exists in British Columbia and Quebec, and I look forward to being able to vote in favour of it.
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- Dec/14/23 11:30:49 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise to this morning to speak of workers, the labour context, industrial relations and replacement workers. One of the main factors to consider in today's debates is the Liberals' mismanagement over the past eight years. Liberal mismanagement has raised the cost of living for all Canadian workers.
The Liberals' disastrous mismanagement and astronomical deficits sent inflation and interest rates soaring to levels not seen in 40 years. All these factors combine to put pressure on Canadian workers. People have their working conditions and their wages to count on, but when everything is going up, when the price of rent and housing doubles, when people go to the supermarket to feed their family and are forced to spend $150 more each week for the same groceries but their pay stays the same, they can no longer make ends meet. The math is simple.
The Liberals constantly preach at us. My colleagues will no doubt remember how, just after it was elected, this government said it was there for the middle class and those working hard to join it. We even had the joy, the pleasure, of witnessing the creation of a new minister of middle-class prosperity. What a joke. That position no longer exists. As we can see, the government's actions yielded the opposite effect, making the middle class poorer. This is what is happening today.
Furthermore, during the past eight years of Liberal mismanagement, labour disputes in Canada have surged. In recent years, Canada has experienced over 300 labour disputes. This is unprecedented. All this was caused by current conditions. People are struggling to stay afloat. They are at their wits' end. Food banks are overwhelmed with record demand. Two million people are visiting food banks every month. I even see it in my region near Quebec City, where everything usually hums along and people have a good standard of living. Now, queues of people line up for food boxes every Thursday. This is unheard of.
There is so much pressure on workers, and that is causing tension and unrest. That is what we are seeing in Quebec nowadays, but that is a different debate. That is for the Government of Quebec to deal with. Public sector workers are striking, people like nurses and teachers. The same thing is happening at the federal level. The federal government created negative economic conditions in Canada that have led to unrest. Workers are struggling. They are anxious and worried, and for good reason.
I have no choice but to blame the government, because those are the facts. The facts are the facts. Certain actions were taken. The insane spending that has been going on in recent years has doubled the country's debt. As we know, we are going to have to pay $50 billion a year in interest on the debt, the equivalent of 10% of all federal funds. Ten percent of all federal revenues will go toward paying interest to banks in New York and London. This creates a situation where workers can no longer make ends meet. That is untenable, so workers ask for more. Employers are also experiencing inflation. They, too, have to cope with rising costs. The entire market, every industry, is affected by the decisions made in recent years by the Liberal government, decisions that have had a negative impact on everyone.
Other decisions that are entirely inconsistent with the current intention are those relating to Stellantis, Northvolt and Volkswagen. We have learned that Stellantis, which will receive $15 billion in public funds, will be using foreign replacement workers, most of them from South Korea. At first, there were supposed to be 1,600 of them. We now know that about 900 foreign workers are coming to work in Canada.
They are bringing in replacement workers from abroad to take Canadians' jobs. Some will say that these are specialized jobs. I understand that new technologies sometimes require workers with special knowledge to come explain how they work, but not 900 of them. The proof is that, when we first started asking questions, the Prime Minister said there would be no foreign workers. Then one of the Liberal ministers said that there would be a few, and then the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry said that there would only be one. At some point, they changed their minds. They realized that 900 Koreans would indeed be coming to Canada to take jobs away from Canadian workers.
Let us not forget that this is an investment of $15 billion in public funds. If a private company sets up shop in Canada and pays for staff from outside the country with its own money, that is its prerogative. However, this is taxpayer money that the Government of Canada is investing in a business with an unproven track record. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that it was going to cost far more than anticipated. They are not even sure that it will be profitable and that they will get their money's worth. Regardless, foreign workers are being brought in to work in Canada.
It is the same thing with Northvolt, the company that is setting up in Quebec, halfway to the leader of the Bloc Québécois's riding. This company is also going to bring in foreign workers. The situation is not clear and we are trying to find out more. We asked to see the contracts. We understand that contracts for services with governments contain business-related clauses and they have to be careful, but we are entitled to find out some basic information about the number of foreign workers and their conditions.
Let us not forget that it is taxpayers who are paying for this. We are investing tens of billions of dollars in these projects. These are not small investments. We should have access to this information. The government must find a way to give this information to the opposition parties so they can determine whether it is a good agreement or not. The government does not want to be transparent. This once again creates conditions that make Canadian workers turn around and ask for protection.
What is going on? On the one hand, the government says it wants to protect its workers. On the other hand, it brings in foreign workers, even paying companies to do so. It is being inconsistent. This creates conditions that make people suspicious about what is going on and the way the federal government operates in Canada. They are right to be suspicious.
That has repercussions on the Canadian economy. The COVID-19 pandemic caused severe supply chain disruptions, and the recovery has been difficult. Canada lacks synergy and efficiency in terms of rail, marine and air transportation. We need more consistency, efficiency and predictability. That is what is lacking now in Canada. Other countries are worried. Companies and marine carriers are wondering whether they should be going through Canada to reach the United States because they never know how the trip will unfold.
These worries were created by the government. We saw it during the strike at the Port of Vancouver. The government knew months in advance that there were issues to address. The minister was not able to foresee the situation and find solutions to avoid a conflict. The conflict caused half a billion dollars in losses. It could have been settled ahead of time, and all that could have been avoided.
There are several factors that must be taken into account when it comes to workers. Right now, the main problem is inflation and interest rates, which put pressure on workers, who are worried. Another problem is that the government does not appear to understand that it must ensure effective management and orchestrate public investments. In the case of companies like Stellantis and Northvolt, the government should avoid bringing in foreign replacement workers and give preference to Canadians who are willing to take on the work.
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Madam Speaker, this is the third time that my Conservative colleagues have mentioned the use of replacement workers, or foreign workers, in factories in Windsor or in battery factories.
Bill C‑58 deals with something else entirely. That is crystal clear. Although the bill refers to “replacement workers”, I think that the Conservatives know that it is intended to prevent the hiring of scabs in the event of a labour dispute. Its aim is to finally prevent employers from using scabs during a strike or lockout and allowing the dispute to go on forever. That is unfair. We have had anti-scab legislation in Quebec since 1977. The question is clear. We are talking about scabs.
Will my colleague vote for or against Bill C‑58?
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Madam Speaker, it is my first opportunity to speak on Bill C-58, so I will first put on the record that the Green Party supports this very important legislation. It is time for Parliament to act to protect workers' rights.
I used to practise in the area of labour law with a firm in Halifax back in the day that represented trade unions, specializing in labour law. I would ask the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot to clarify why we are spending so much time on this debate.
I know he and other Conservatives have been told by the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke and the hon. member for Thérèse-De Blainville that there is no connection in this bill whatsoever to having foreign workers come to any plant in Canada or any workplace in Canada. This bill is specifically to protect the right of collective bargaining and the rights of workers who have gone out on strike to not have what are called scab workers. That is a replacement worker. The workers at the Stellantis battery plant are not scab workers. Does the member agree?
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Madam Speaker, today we are speaking to Bill C-58, an act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Canada Industrial Relations Board Regulations, 2012, otherwise known as the anti-scab legislation that workers from across the country have been calling for since time immemorial.
The NDP has put forward this legislation eight times in the last 15 years, and it has been defeated by Liberals and Conservatives alike. We are very happy and proud that we have forced the Liberal government to table the legislation this year; we look forward to seeing it become law as soon as possible.
Workers around the world have only one power to balance the relationship with employers. That is their work, the labour they provide to make the products or provide the services that give their employers their profits. The withdrawal of that labour or even the threat of withdrawal is the only thing that levels the playing field in labour negotiations. When negotiations break down and workers feel that a strike is the only option left to them to obtain a fair collective agreement, if the employer brings in replacement workers to break that strike, the playing field is tilted steeply in favour of the employer. Employers have no real reason to bargain in good faith, or at all, with the workers.
Labour relations in Canada have a long and deep history, and some of the most important moments in that history happened in my riding of South Okanagan—West Kootenay, in the Rossland mines. In the late 1800s, there was a mining boom across my riding, with gold mines in the South Okanagan and silver in the Slocan. Some of the richest mines were in Rossland.
In 1895, the Rossland miners formed the first Canadian local of the Western Federation of Miners. That local went on to advance many of the first labour laws in British Columbia and Canada, laws that brought in the five-day work week and the eight-hour workday, as well as laws enforcing safe workplaces, the first workers' compensation act.
Unrest in the mining camps resulted in the Canadian government sending Roger Clute, a prominent Toronto lawyer, to Rossland in 1899. He reported back that compulsory arbitration would be less effective than conciliatory measures, and after another trip to Rossland, his reports led to the federal Conciliation Act of 1900. That helped create the Department of Labour and the Canadian system of industrial relations. Rossland, and the miners of Rossland, helped build our system of labour relations across the country.
When everyone in this place goes home for the weekend; when everyone in the country goes home at five o'clock, after an eight-hour workday; and when every worker in Canada knows they have the right to a safe workplace, they can thank the members of the Rossland local of the Western Federation of Miners.
That is the benefit of having a healthy and fair system of labour relations. At the centre of that system is the right of workers to withdraw their work. Replacement workers, or scabs, destroy that system. Not only does hiring scabs take away any power that workers have to undertake fair negotiations, but it also often tears communities apart, especially small communities that have few other opportunities for good work. If workers go on strike in that situation and the company hires scabs, those replacement workers are taking away jobs from their neighbours and relatives. This increases tensions within the community, sometimes escalating into violence.
Using replacement workers was common during early strikes, including in the mines of British Columbia, and there are too many stories of violence from those days. One of the worst stories, though, comes from relatively recent times, when the workers at the Giant Mine in Yellowknife went on strike in 1992. That gold mine had been the mainstay of the Yellowknife economy for many years, but a new owner demanded cuts from the union, then locked the unionized workers out.
The company then hired replacement workers to keep the mine going and to keep the profits rolling in. Hostilities quickly rose, pitting neighbours against neighbours; this culminated in a bombing within the mine that killed nine miners, nine replacement workers. It is one of the worst mass murders in Canadian history.
This is why we need anti-scab legislation. This is why British Columbia and Quebec introduced anti-scab legislation and have had it for decades. Critics say that this legislation may allow strikes and lockouts to drag on; in fact, it usually has quite the opposite effect.
What impetus does the employer have to end a strike if they can use workers to keep things going, to keep those profits rolling in? If anything, outlawing replacement workers speeds negotiations up because both sides are on an even footing. The employer is losing profits, and the unions are losing pay. They both want to end the dispute as soon as possible. Many of the longest labour disputes in Canadian history have been those involving scabs, because the employer has no reason to bargain with the unions.
This law would take effect in federally regulated industries, such as ports, railways, airports, telecommunications and banks.
We recently had a dispute at the Port of Vancouver, and we are studying that issue in the international trade committee right now. Some witnesses have tried to paint a picture that labour is the cause of a declining reputation in Canadian supply chain reliability, that the unions dragged out negotiations and caused this strike. What we have heard at committee is exactly the opposite.
First, this is the first strike at the Port of Vancouver since 1969. Most people in this chamber were not even alive then. The collective bargaining system has been working very well there.
Second, delays in bargaining were clearly the fault of the employers or, rather, their association, the BC Maritime Employers Association. The BCMEA represents the employers at the bargaining table, but it had no mandate to make decisions. The union would respond with a counter-offer to the employers' offer within a day, but the BCMEA would take a week or 10 days to come back with its counter-offer.
Negotiations dragged on. The strike began, and it took 13 more days to come to an agreement. If it were not for the delays and intransigence of the employers, we could have easily reached that agreement before strike action was necessary.
We must remember that there are two sides to every labour dispute. The best, fairest and often shortest negotiations are those in which both sides have an equal balance of power. That is what Bill C-58 brings to the federal labour scene.
The NDP is, of course, very much in favour of this legislation. We have worked hard and long to improve it and will continue to do that when it goes to committee.
Our big concern now is the provision, within this bill, of a delay of 18 months before the legislation comes into force after passing through Parliament. We have heard no good reasons for this delay, and we will be making the case in committee to amend that part of the bill.
If the use of replacement workers is illegal, that provision should come into force immediately. I can see no reason that corporations or unions need 18 months, a year and a half, to get their heads around this change to Canadian labour law.
I remember one of the first debates I took part in in this place, a debate on an NDP private member's bill, in 2016, that was essentially the same bill we are debating today. I was so encouraged that we could be making such a big difference for workers, but I was profoundly surprised and disappointed when the Liberals and Conservatives defeated that bill.
I have since, unfortunately, gotten used to disappointments in this place. However, with this bill, we have the opportunity to take a step toward hope. I hope we can pass this bill at second reading quickly, have the committee debate it in detail and pass it so that all Canadians can enjoy better labour relations across the country.
With that, I would like to wish everyone here and everyone in the wonderful riding of South Okanagan—West Kootenay a very happy Christmas and a peaceful holiday season full of love and good cheer.
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- Dec/14/23 12:50:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, with the labour shortage right now, having a stable workforce is seen as one of the best assets going forward. This would help provide some more strength to having a stable working environment and strong conditions to attract investment. In fact, that is one of the cases we are hearing significantly from areas of labour shortages, so I would like my colleague to reflect on that. Reducing labour shortages and actually having less turnover and more stability in the workplace is a competitive edge for all of Canada. Could my colleague provide a sense of how important this is for the economy?
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- Dec/14/23 12:51:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I totally agree with my colleague from Windsor West. I tried to make the point in my speech that this legislation, getting rid of replacement workers, would speed up labour negotiations, shorten strikes when they happen and really balance the system, so we have labour peace in this country. That is what we need.
I was very disappointed when the Canadian Chamber of Commerce came before our committee and asked us to vote against this. It did not seem to understand it was voting for more and longer labour disputes, which is something it does not want. We do not want that either, nor do workers or corporations. Therefore, let us get this bill passed.
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Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this place and talk about the issues of the day. I understand that Bill C-58 was not originally on the agenda, but it is still a great opportunity to speak about it.
Prior to becoming the critic for the Conservative Party on housing, I had the honour of being its critic on labour. I worked directly with our current critic, the member for Essex, who, I think, is doing an amazing job. I was reflecting on the comments he made about this particular bill. Of course, in his riding of Essex, there is a lot of organized labour and skilled trades, and he talks to a lot of people in his constituency. Talking to real people is a great way to learn what is really going on, and I am not sure enough of that has gone on with the current government.
I think about the importance of workers. Any great business owner will tell us that it is the people who make their business work. The best businesses take care of their workers. Of course, Conservatives believe in the right to collectively bargain, which is an important part of the process, but what I am more concerned about than anything is the need for this legislation right now. One of the situations we are seeing in this country is that there is an awful lot more labour disruption and more strikes, whether at the Port of Montreal or in Vancouver, and one has to ask why that is happening. I know, from talking to leaders of the labour movement, skilled trades and business, that a big part of the problem facing workers in this country is the cost of living, which is getting out of control. Inflation is driving up the cost of food and the cost of heating our homes, or even of getting a home.
We know that the labour situation affects the housing situation as well. This is one of the things we have been focusing a lot on. CMHC has told us that we need to build 3.5 million more homes in the next 10 years than we would normally build. That is a total of almost six million homes, which works out to 750,000 units a year. The most we have ever built in a year is about 260,000, which was in the seventies, when it was very easy to get things like permits and approvals. Today, the most difficult part of building a home is getting permission to build it. One of the major barriers to getting homes built is labour, the skilled trades. We need more electricians, plumbers and other labour. We have a government that, I guess, did not understand the demographic shift that was going on in our country and did not really prepare for it, but we have a situation today where there is a desperate need for more people to help us build the homes people need.
The inflationary spending of the government is a big part of the reason why we are behind the eight ball on the housing issue. It is why people cannot afford to pay rent. Rents have doubled. In the eight years of the photo-op-happy, talking-points government, home prices have doubled and rents have doubled. With respect to mortgage rates, over this last year, we have seen the fastest increase in interest rates that we have seen in 40 years. Of course, the impact of this is that the people who were hoping to get into the market are now that much farther behind and are never going to have a chance.
What the people who own a home are struggling with, and I can see the member is going to rise on a point of order, because—
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Madam Speaker, I will explain to the member, because he clearly does not quite get it. Part of the reason we have more labour strife in this country is, in fact, the inflationary spending of the current government. The excessive borrowing is causing everything to go up in price, and people in organized labour, like everybody else, are struggling to put food on the table. That is why I am referring to these issues. It is why I am referring it back to an issue that is completely connected to organized labour, and that is housing, which is the foundation of society: a warm, safe bed to sleep in at night. There are people working all across this country, whether they are in a union or not, who are struggling to make ends meet. That is causing labour strife.
My point about Bill C-58 is that it is the government's attempt, along with its coalition partners, to deflect from the real issues and from its failures as a government, including the massive borrowing and spending it has done for the last eight years, that is causing everything to go up in price and causing labour strife. If the Liberals understood the impact of their inflationary policies, things like Bill C-58 really should not be the top priority. It is an important discussion to have, but what we really need to do is get the cost of living down in this country. We need to make life more affordable for Canadians. Whether or not it is their inflationary borrowing and excessive spending, I know that the Liberals believe that the best way to solve any problem is to hire more bureaucrats and make the government bigger. However, in fact, the best way to make life more affordable for Canadians is to get out of their pockets and give them a break.
Bill C-58 is—
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Madam Speaker, absolutely I will.
I would like to point out that the cost of living issue that I have been talking about is directly related to Bill C-58 and the fact that there is more labour strife in this country. We have seen a lot more of it. Obviously, I am just trying to make the point, tie in the point and help them understand, across the aisle, that, in fact, the Liberals' inflationary borrowing and spending and their big-government solutions to everything are part of the reason we are having more labour strife in this country. If the Liberals understood the implications of their disastrous policies, they would understand why it is important to point that out when discussing things like Bill C-58.
It is also interesting to note that Bill C-58 would ban the use of replacement workers in federally regulated workspaces, such as banks, airlines and rail, which are all very important. Of course, the government is making sure that this would not apply to federal workers, just federally regulated workspaces, so it is one of the classic double standards of the Liberal Party where it wants to make sure that it looks to be doing the right thing, but we are not sure that it really is. It is just one more example of a government that is good on talking points and long on photo ops, but not really great at delivering results.
I am sure there will be some really insightful questions from across the aisle.
I would just say, in reference to the cost of living and the issues that Canadians are facing today, that, as this will be the last time I speak in the House before the Christmas break, I would like to wish everyone a happy Christmas and a happy holiday, and remind them to be thinking about their neighbour this holiday season. Lots of people are struggling. If people can support their local food bank, I ask them to please do that. Our neighbours need our help, this year more than ever.
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- Dec/14/23 1:06:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the labour strife that exists in this country is, in large part, because life is too expensive. While the rights of workers to bargain collectively are important, it is also important for workers to be able to afford to put food on the table, heat their homes and drive to work if they need to do that, and the government is making these things more expensive with its inflationary spending and its carbon tax on everything.
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Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House. I am certainly very proud to rise on Bill C-58, an act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Canada Industrial Relations Board Regulations, to end the practice in federally regulated workplaces of being able to bring in scab labour. This is something that New Democrats and the labour movement have fought many years for, and we are determined to make this a reality.
At the outset, I want to thank the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay who spoke about the history, because history is important. He mentioned the history of the Rossland miners and the Western Federation of Miners, and the transformation they brought across this country.
I am proud to be from Cobalt where the 17th district of the Western Federation of Miners was formed under Big Jim McGuire. The fact that the fight for the eight-hour day began in the mines of Cobalt on April 28, the international day of mourning for workers killed on the job, relates directly to the Cobalt Miners Union winning the right to workers' compensation in 1914.
My grandfather, Charlie Angus, died at the Hollinger Mine, and my other grandfather, Joe MacNeil, broke his back underground at the McIntyre Mine. Both were members of Mine Mill and then the Steelworkers. When I was growing up, anybody who came from a mining town had a relative who had been injured or killed on the job. However, organized labour fundamentally changed that.
The right of labour to organize, the right of labour to fight for a better future, is the history of our country and of the United States. They talk about the birth of the middle class in the United States as being the 1938 sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan where the auto workers were not going to put up with precarious work—
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- Dec/14/23 1:09:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am not surprised that they are trying to shut down a discussion on labour rights. We know the deep, anti-labour history of the Conservatives. If they do not want to know history, they can go have a walk around the block.
We know that the modern middle class was formed in Canada in 1945 at the Ford Windsor strike. That was a follow-up to what happened in 1938 in Flint, Michigan. What happened in Flint, Michigan, matters to Canada. Conservatives do not understand that, but it matters because it was the piece of Detroit that established the post-war consensus of labour, capital and government that started the biggest transformation of wealth and success in the history of the world. The movement of the working class from precarious crap jobs to stable housing, proper wages and pensions, came out of out those strikes.
In my region in 1941, the Kirkland Lake gold miners' strike was a brutal strike that won the right to collective bargaining. In 1973, it was the steelworkers going on strike again and again, and the wildcat strikes. Those were illegal strikes in Elliot Lake that forced fundamental changes to the workers' compensation acts everywhere. Health and safety became a fundamental issue because workers were dying on the job and they were not going to take it anymore.
This is our history. This is the history of New Democrats. This is the history of my family. The other history is a dark history and it begins in 1980 when we saw the planned destruction of the modern working class, middle class that was put in place by the gurus of the Conservative movement, like Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. Friedrich Hayek was so opposed to the growth of wealth of the North American working class that he wrote an essay calling for a planned depression. He wanted to force a depression on North America in order to break the backs of the working class. That was picked up by Ronald Reagan. That was picked up by Paul Volcker of the Federal Reserve. It began in January 1980 with massive increases in interest rates that led to millions of jobs lost across the United States, and that spilled over into Canada.
What we saw then was that Ronald Reagan targeted the union movement and from then on, we started to see the loss of rights of workers, the loss of wages and the loss of security. In Canada, that effort was undertaken, but thankfully, we had the solid backing of some very strong labour leaders. At the time, Bob White and United Auto Workers, before it became Canadian Auto Workers, came out with a no-concessions policy. Under no circumstances were they going to give concessions. They stood up to Chrysler. They stood up to GM. They stood up at factory after factory to defend the rights of workers. We know that modern Conservatives would not support that. Bill Davis, who was an old-style Conservative, actually sided on a number of occasions, with the auto workers along the 401 belt to say that they did have rights, even at a time of massive job losses.
We saw the damage that was done from the 1980s on. We can count it in the lost wages and lost security. The neo-liberal attack on worker rights was so overwhelming. Let us talk about the RAND Corporation. Under the present Conservative leader, one might think the RAND Corporation is a rabid lefty, but it actually usually works for the U.S. military. The RAND Corporation did a study of economic inequality to deal with the issue of democratic instability in the United States.
Certainly, we have seen what is happening with MAGA, and the issue of economic precarity, the loss of the North American working class, and the creation of economic instability and political instability. From the period around 1980, when the attack on organized labour in the United States began, to what followed in Canada, we have, in the United States today, a Black worker making $26,000 less than they would if the 1980 wages remained constant. A college-educated worker is earning between $48,000 and $63,000 less a year. All that wealth, according to the RAND Corporation, was plundered directly for the benefit of the 1%.
What we are seeing is that it identified the loss of wages, pension security and benefits to be in the order of $50 trillion of lost money that belonged to the working and middle class. It was then was hoovered up and put in the pockets of the 1%. That is what created the political and economic instability of our age. In the United States, that loss of income means that for every worker, it lost $1,114 a month, for every single month for the last 40 years. That is what created MAGA.
Although we hear the Conservatives talking about inflation and how hard it is, we have seen no efforts by the Conservatives, ever, to stand with workers, ever to stand up on these issues, but this is the issue that has to be dealt with. This is why workers came to us again and again, to talk about anti-scab legislation so that we could restore the balance of negotiations with labour and management, the right of workers to have a seat at the table.
I want to quote Paul Mason from his book, Postcapitalism. This is a really instructive statement that:
the destruction of labour's bargaining power - was the essence of the entire [right-wing] project; it was a means to all the other ends. Neoliberalism’s guiding principle is not free markets, nor fiscal discipline, nor sound money, nor privatization and offshoring – not even globalization. All these things were byproducts or weapons of its main endeavour: to remove organized labour from the equation.
That was the whole Milton Friedman, Stephen Harper, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan agenda for the last 40 years. Guess what? Those days are over, because what we have seen in this past year is unprecedented victory for workers' rights.
Remember, just a few years ago, Bill Morneau, the privatized pension king in Canada, “bill no more”, told young workers to get used to it and that they should suck it up as precarious, crappy, gig jobs are the new normal. That was the new normal for Bill Morneau. Then what happened? We got COVID. We had to break up supply chains and we had a young generation of workers who said they were not going to put up with crappy work. They started to walk off the job, to refuse to take the job or to organize.
In this past year, the UAW, in their strikes against the big three, ended the tiered wages that were forced on them in the eighties and the nineties. Unifor won the biggest wage increase in their history of negotiations with Ford. When the Hollywood writers went on strike, everyone they thought they would cave. They did not. They won three times the original offer that was put on the table.
We are seeing young people organizing at Tesla, Amazon and Starbucks. They know they cannot count on right-wing governments to protect their interests. They are going to organize; they have a right to be at the table.
The worst thing that we can do is to allow scab labour to come into our workplaces to try and undermine their rights to restore balance and to have proper wages, proper pensions and proper housing. That is going to be fought by organized labour. This bill has to pass. We support it as New Democrats.
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- Dec/14/23 1:17:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I believe that anti-scab legislation will promote more harmony in our labour force, which will help out in terms of issues like inflation. I know the member is concerned about inflation because earlier today he posed a question in regard to inflation. I did not quite catch the reference he was making. Could he expand on the reference when he was talking about the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle and the issue of inflation?
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- Dec/14/23 1:20:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to wish my colleague and his family a very merry Christmas.
He does ask a legitimate question. How can we trust the Liberals? I do not know how many times, on anti-scab legislation, it has been like Lucy and the football. The Liberals would come out and tell everybody in the labour movement to not worry and that they had their backs, and then my God, as soon as the vote came, they would all sneak out by the backbench and leave.
That is a really important question. How can we trust Liberals? We cannot, but the great thing is that, as we are in a minority government, they are going to have to work with us if they want to keep their jobs, so we got dental care. I know the Conservatives do not want dental care, but we got that. We got anti-scab. We are going to get pharmacare. It is a good point that one cannot turn one's back on them for a minute. If one falls asleep in the boat with the Liberals, one will be waking up swimming with the fishes. However, we are going to hold them to account.
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- Dec/14/23 1:21:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, history is important. It tells us how we got here, and I certainly we remember Stephen Harper and his continual attack on workers.
What worries me today is that, when we see investments such as those in the Stellantis plant, the Conservatives are always speaking up about it as though it is scab labour. Investments at Stellantis are not scab labour. We need to invest in a new battery economy or it is all going stateside to the United States. If we do not invest in this new economy, we are going to be left behind, so I am always shocked the Conservatives are undermining the new EV technology, which is going to have a big transformative effect, and the Conservatives are using it in speeches on scab labour. Someone is going to have to give them some basic lessons in labour.
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- Dec/14/23 1:44:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, once again, I find it very hard to connect the member's speech to the subject in front of us. I suspect that is because the Conservatives do not really want to take a position on the anti-scab legislation because they are busy posing as friends of labour.
By talking about inflation, is the member actually saying that it is workers' wages that are driving inflation? The Conservatives have been arguing all the time that it is the carbon tax. When we look at what is driving inflation, we find it is the war in Ukraine and the increasing greed of corporate profits in the gas and oil industry.
Is the member, by focusing on inflation, saying it is the workers' fault inflation is happening?
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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Madam Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House of Commons today to speak about Bill C-58, the bill that would ban the use of replacement workers.
What this legislation would really do is strengthen workers and unions by strengthening one of the pillars of people power, the bargaining table. I come from a proud union town, a proud union town that knows how to build things. For over 100 years, we have been building cars and machines and tools for Canada, and we are darn good at it. What our unionized workers, brothers and sisters, have also built is a strong community of resilient and caring people who look after each other, and not only look after each other but fight for one another.
One of the ways we have been able to build this caring and generous community is through the bargaining table, with hard-won victories that improved wages, working conditions, health and safety and workers' rights and that provided time off to be with families.
In 1945, 14,000 Windsor auto workers at Ford went on strike. For 99 days they protested layoffs, unfair wages and working conditions, and after 99 days, they prevailed. Those Windsor workers stabilized the labour movement in Canada and provided the labour movement in Canada with a gift. It is called the Rand formula, which establishes and protects a union's right to collect union dues.
Every September, thousands of residents march in the Labour Day parade to celebrate all of the hard wins of the past and all of the hard wins of the present, while also recommitting to the next fight on the horizon to improve the lives of workers. I was proud to walk with Unifor, LiUNA, IBEW, the millwrights, teachers, nurses and so many others who work hard to provide for their families but also work hard to build their communities.
I want to take a moment to thank the Unifor bargaining committee that entered tough negotiations with Ford, Stellantis and General Motors just this October. Those were tough negotiations, tough bargaining, and our unions came away with the largest wage and pension increases in generations. Those hard-fought and hard-won improvements not only lift our auto workers but they lift our entire community.
That is the power of the bargaining table, and that is the power we are protecting here today with Bill C-58. It is the power of the bargaining table that we are strengthening.
In the last two years, our Liberal government has worked hand in hand with unions and workers to deliver some of the biggest wins in the history of our community of Windsor—Tecumseh. It is true solidarity. Together, we delivered the EV battery plant, which is just one example, the single-largest auto investment in the history of our community of Windsor—Tecumseh.
To understand the significance of the battery plant investment and to understand the importance of labour and the bargaining table and working together in that partnership, one has to understand the road my community has travelled—
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- Dec/14/23 1:50:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I was saying, to understand the significance of the battery plant investment and to understand the importance of the partnership with labour and the importance of the bargaining table, we have to understand the road that my community has travelled these last 10 years. It was a hard road.
Eight years ago, when the Conservatives were in power, Windsor had an unemployment rate of 11.2%. Unemployment for young people was in the high twenties. Families were leaving Windsor for Alberta to find work in the oil sands. Under the Conservatives, Canada lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs. Of course, our community was ground zero for that devastation.
I remember those days. I remember the shuttered storefronts, the empty downtown, the “for sale” signs everywhere and the not-for-profits and charitable organizations struggling because they could not find volunteers because the donations had dried up. The Leader of the Opposition also remembers because he was the employment minister at the time, or as I like to call him, the minister of unemployment.
The battery plant that our Liberal government delivered, together with unions, workers and industry, is the single most important investment in the history of our community, with 2,500 full-time jobs for workers, 2,500 Canadian, local, unionized workers. It is our future. It is our hope. It is powered by strong unions. It is powered by strong workers. It is powered by—
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