44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 26, 2024 11:00AM
- Feb/26/24 1:37:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader said that we have a minority government, but that is not true. We have a majority government since the NDP and the Liberals got hitched.
The Liberals keep trying to change the rules in the House. This is not the first time. They tried to do it in 2015, at the time of the infamous “elbowgate” incident. Now they are trying again.
I think that the government wants total control. What does the member think?
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- Feb/26/24 1:50:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order.
It was the current government that put into place the virtual application and voted with the NDP to keep it. Is it trying to create two classes of citizens, those who voted electronically and those who voted in person? I do not think that is appropriate; both are valid and we should not be calling out the difference.
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- Feb/26/24 3:56:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is clear that the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley is passionate about the legislation. He talked about how he was able to talk his coalition partners, the Liberals, into it, but I am interested to know why the Liberals did not include in the scope of the bill the federal PSAC workers. There were 120,000 of them who went on strike, and one would think that if the Liberals thought it was such a terrific idea, they would want to extend the bill to cover not replacing those workers.
Does the member have any thoughts on that?
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House to speak. Today, we are speaking to Bill C-58, which is the legislation that would ban replacement workers. I have some relevant experience on all sides of this issue, being the daughter of someone whose mother was a teacher who went on strike and whose father was a member of the Canadian Auto Workers union who went on strike. My daughter is a nurse. My other daughter is a teacher. I was married to a union welder, a proud member of local 663 and one of the 5,000 union members in Sarnia—Lambton. We are well known worldwide for our high-quality and high-safety performance, and it is certainly considered to be a union town.
At the same time, I worked for many years with Dow Chemical. In the late 1980s, there was a strike, and I was a scab in the strike. I did security and lab testing and had to cross the picket line. I had the experience of how things can escalate during those strike experiences. I bring all of that to my speech today.
I will start out by saying that I am very surprised to see the Liberal government come forward with this legislation. I think about how the Liberals handle their own business. They have increased the use of contractors and consultants by over 60%; it is in the billions of dollars. Is that not really replacement workers from the PSAC union workers who do the work? I think about the arrive scam situation. There is a whole IT department in the government that is full of federal union-sector employees, yet the government decided to get two guys in a basement from GC Strategies and give them $20 million so that they could outsource from other replacement workers. I think the ArriveCAN is to the tune of north of $60 million in costs, but the two guys in the basement, who did no work on it, got $20 million. Certainly, there are lots of people who can outsource and procure within the government; again, are they not replacement workers?
Further, I would note that the government has failed to include federal-sector employees as part of the scope of this legislation. There were 120,000 PSAC workers who went on strike. Therefore, if the government thinks this is a terrific idea, in conjunction with its NDP coalition partners, should it not have said that, if it is great for everybody else, we should put that in place here? Those are just some of the considerations that went through my mind when I started to think about what we needed to do here.
The other example that I would talk about would be the government's taking $40 billion of taxpayer money to put into the Stellantis plant and the battery plant in St. Thomas to create 3,000 jobs and then turning around and, as we found out in the contract, saying there are going to be 1,600 Korean replacement workers. Again, the hypocrisy of the government in the way it acts versus the way it brings this legislation forward makes me really ask the question of whether the government really does support this concept or just has to do something to pacify its NDP marriage partners.
One of the things that are missing in terms of what is in the legislation is something to do with essential workers. We have had a lot of strikes in Canada. There were 147 work stoppages in 2023 alone. It is to the point that we get rail strikes, port strikes and all these different strikes, and our partners in the U.S. are starting to consider that Canada is not a reliable supply chain. Therefore, something needs to be done to address that.
I am fully behind the right to collective bargaining. I am fully behind people having the ability to negotiate fairly, but what is happening is that people are not negotiating, and then, all of a sudden, at the eleventh hour, the impact is felt by everyone. It is felt by CN Rail, where strikes happened. It is thousands and thousands of dollars to businesses. It is inconvenience to travellers, in many cases. We have all seen empty shelves as a result of port strikes. The United States has legislation for essential workers. The way it works is it defines what is considered an essential service or an essential worker, including essential infrastructure for the supply chain and nurses and medical professionals.
What the Americans put in place is this. They have, say, four years between every negotiation. One month before they would go into a strike action place, they have to go to binding arbitration. That causes people to get more serious about negotiating early on and not waiting until the eleventh hour. Think of the parents who every year are threatened with strikes by teachers. All of a sudden there is no child care. It is fine to say we have $10-a-day child care, but if the spaces do not exist, that does not help them, and if the kids cannot go to school, that does not help them either. There are huge impacts that we are missing, and I would have liked to see something in this legislation to address them in a similar way to how they are addressed in the U.S.
The second thing I would say is that there are a couple of technical things I do not think have been well considered. I have worked at chemical and petrochemical facilities and with nuclear and the mining sector. These facilities cannot be shut down on a dime. When it comes to the strike date and time to shut them down, it is not safe to do that. The language in the bill talks about how the only time replacement workers could be used in the case of a strike would be if a specific harm was identified that would occur. The problem with chemical plants, nuclear facilities and whatnot when there is a strike is that we do not know exactly what is going to leak, catch fire, impact the environment or whatever. Something will go wrong; we just do not know specifically what that is, so it would be impossible, then, with the current phraseology, to justify any replacement workers. I think that is something that will definitely need to be addressed.
I would say, as an improvement to the bill, that there are ways of carving out the manufacturing and transfer of substances that are covered under the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act. That would really take care of this whole area where what it is going to go wrong or what the impacts would be cannot be defined exactly. If exemptions could exist if there was a harm related to the manufacture or transfer of substances covered under the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, that might be a reasonable amendment to see.
Hopefully, when this bill gets looked at, people will weigh the balance of things and try to come to a place where we are protecting workers' right to collective bargaining, but I think we need to make sure that we are protecting society and the public from undue harm. The supply chain issue is a real and present danger, with the number of disruptions that we have had. We already lack capacity at our ports. We are lacking rail connectivity in this country. It is not getting better; it is getting worse. With all of those kinds of disruptions, we need to find a way to incorporate “essential worker” and “essential service” as part of this legislation.
Hopefully, at the end of the day, what we would find is that people are bargaining in good faith and bargaining faster. If they do not bargain in good faith, then before they are in a strike position it goes to binding arbitration, which will come to a resolution that maybe neither party will be satisfied with but at least will not have an impact on families, Canadians, businesses and our export partners.
I look forward to the debate and listening to the ideas my colleagues have. I am from a union family. I support union workers. I support the rights of people to collectively bargain. I have been on the other side and can say that it is no fun crossing a picket line.
With that, I look forward to the comments and questions from my colleagues.
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- Feb/26/24 4:10:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I can tell the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, first of all, is that I did ask the Minister of Labour when this bill was first introduced whether the federal sector was included, and he indicated it was not. I think that is an opportunity. If it is sauce for the goose, it should be sauce for the gander.
The Conservatives are going to look at what amendments are put forward. As I said, there are some areas where I think the bill needs improvement, so we will be looking for that. At the end of the day, we will look forward to what happens at committee.
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- Feb/26/24 4:12:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member knows full well that I worked hard to bring in a bill seeking to protect the pension plans of unionized and non-unionized workers. I really want to have a strong bill.
However, there are problems. I agree with eliminating the 18-month delay, because if something is good, it is good immediately. That is my opinion.
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- Feb/26/24 4:14:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I said, I absolutely support workers and people's right to collectively bargain. What I have a problem with is that, when people do not come to the table in good faith, things go on and on and, all of a sudden, there are impacts on Canadian families, Canadian businesses and our export partners. These are things that could be eliminated. There are better ways of doing it. We need to look to other countries that do it better.
I am very interested to hear about Quebec's legislation and what exactly it has done. I know there are some facilities, such as chemical facilities, etc., that would need that kind of protection.
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- Feb/26/24 4:43:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, although I have the utmost respect for the member opposite, I want to clarify something for her. In my riding, with respect to the Stellantis deal and the 1,600 replacement Korean workers, workers went to see what was being done. It is carbon steel welding, which all of the welders in my riding can do, so it actually is replacement workers, which is contrary to what the members opposite would say.
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- Feb/26/24 4:57:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my question has to do with the government's departments. It has a whole IT department. It has a whole procurement department that outsources and that looks for help if it needs it. Therefore, with respect to the ArriveCAN app, I want to know why the government decided to outsource the procurement of IT when it has a whole IT department and a whole procurement department.
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