CPAC - Friday, May 24, 2024 - 10:00 a.m. (ET) - Segment #3

Mr. Speaker. I believe it will have a positive impact on labour here in Canada. You're telling me I only have about 30 seconds to go, Mr. Speaker. There's lots of details within the legislation. The Minister of Labour has highlighted it. We've had it go through second reading where that was highlighted. I would require another half hour or so to go through that detail, but I don't want to filibuster the legislation or ask for unanimous consent to have the leave to do so. So I'll leave my comments on that positive note. It's great to see members of all political parties unite behind good, solid labour legislation, Mr. Speaker. Thank you. >> The Speaker: Always great to start off the morning with the Honourable member from Winnipeg North. Questions and comments. The Honourable member for Edmonton West. >> Mr. Speaker, it is refreshing to hear the member from Winnipeg North speak in this House as opposed to one of the many, many other Liberals who are always up speaking instead. I want a couple comments. First of all, he talks -- he said himself such important issue. I talked about it so many years. The Minister of Labour has talked about it so many years. It's funny why it's so important it's taken nine years. I want to quote from the Canadian encyclopedia. He talked a lot on C-58 and the great strike in 1919, Canadian Encyclopedia said the cause of the strike was inflation costs, tuition, and food. How does the member feel about creating the identical situations in Canada under his government that caused the great strike in 1919? >> The Speaker: The Honourable Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader. >> Yes, in continuation of my speech and the spirit in terms of which the question is being supposed, I'm going to keep positive, Mr. Speaker, because I believe that if you take a look at Canada's interest rate or our inflation rate, what you will find in comparison so furtherly any other country in the world in particular let's say the G7 countries or the G20 countries, Canada is doing exceptionally well. And in fact our inflation rate now has dropped to 2.7% and we are on target for the last four months hopefully we're going to be able to see that decrease in interest rates. It's important that as a House of Commons not only should the government be focused on trying to improve the economic conditions even though we are doing much better than most of our peers, Mr. Speaker, it's still important that we focus our attention on that that a lot of the other more negative aspects of politics that we often witness on the floor of the House of Commons, and by doing that I think that we're actually helping Canadians. I think that over the next number of months and hopefully collectively we can come into an agreement that the inflation rate will remain in the direction that it is going and hopefully we're going to see more relief in regards to interest rates but we have to respect the independence of the Bank of Canada. >> The Speaker: [Voice of Interpreter]: Questions and comments. The Honourable member for Manicouagan. >> [Voice of Interpreter]: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Obviously I'm happy that my colleague on the other side of the House sees the glass half full and if I was on his side I'd probably try to do the staple thing. He also talked about the fact that it was really quick for C-58 with the government action to come through. The first bill was tabled by my colleague from [indiscernible] in 1990. We've had 30 bills since so also C-75 from my colleague was also tabled and at the Bloc as soon as this bill receives royal assent we'd like it to be implemented but we couldn't -- at committee other members wanted 18 months before it would come into force. So we'd like it to come into force quickly and with the upcoming election it kind of endangers the implementation of this legislation. So does he still agree that the glass is half full? How come we can't have it come into force the first day after it receives royal assent? >> The Speaker: [Voice of Interpreter]: The honourable parliamentary secretary. >> Mr. Speaker, I'm thinking in terms of when we first came into government back in 2015n2016, if you take a look at some of the substantive measures that we have taken, the first issue was dealing with Canada's middle class and giving them that tax break and I'm sure the member can recall that. It was very well received. Other legislation that is we did was to take back private members' bills that many perceived as antiunion bills. That was something that was again very well received in particular by our labour movement.

And we have been very much proactive in terms of providing for supports in things such as Prentice ship training, looking at ways in which we can promote and have more harmony within the labour force and of course there's always a consultation. You have to factor in that there's also a worldwide pandemic that was -- had to be dealt with. There's all sorts of things. But even having a very busy legislative agenda over the years, the ministers have in fact been working with labour in particular but others, other stakeholders and ultimately I think it's great that we have the legislation at the stage that we have it, and let's acknowledge if, and we've built that consensus because we did it right we now have the type of consensus we have today and hopefully we'll see it pass through today. >> The Speaker: Questions and comments. The Honourable member for Edmonton Griesbach. >> Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Today is a good day for workers. It's a good day for New Democrats, and it's a good day to make certain that unions can participate in making sure they have powerful paycheques because powerful paycheques come from powerful unions. Mr. Speaker, this is an incredible success and a testament to workers and their exercising of rights across the country. It's immensely disappointing to know both the Liberals and Conservatives, when New Democrats tabled this bill 15 times, they voted against. Mr. Speaker, it's incredibly important that we acknowledge the hard work of the unions who have been pushing this for generations now. I'm proud to be part of a party that forced this government to bring this legislation to a vote. I'm proud to be part of a party that's going to ensure that unions actually have the power to make sure that their material conditions are improved. Mr. Speaker, why has it taken the Liberals so long to participate in making sure that unions are more powerful? >> The Speaker: The Honourable member for Winnipeg North. >> Well, Mr. Speaker, you know, it's really encouraging to recognize that for the first time we have a very much a progressive Prime Minister that understands and appreciates the importance of supporting Canadians and labour. We haven't been -- this Prime Minister has not been in government for 15 years. I can understand the frustration because as I made reference to Howard Pauley's promise of anti-scab legislation many, many years ago, well over 30 years ago, and 30 years ago we could have had final offer selection. And we've been waiting for the longest time for that. But because we now have the federal legislation, because members of all political parties are likely going to be supporting it, Manitoba, Mr. Speaker, is likely going to be getting anti-scab legislation. In other words, let's not necessarily look at patting on the back but let's put the union worker and the workers across Canada, even nonunion workers, let's recognize the many contributions labour has had that goes far beyond just the working environment and wages and so forth. Think in terms of the social programs that have here today and the contributions that the labour movement has had in making those become often a reality and the endless lobbying they do and I do thank the New Democrats and others that participated in making today possible. >> The Speaker: Questions and comments. The Honourable member for Nepean. >> Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the trade union movement has played a key role [indiscernible] the working life of the workers. I think trade union movement has ensured that as the country's industry [indiscernible] as the countries develop the standard of living all the people in [indiscernible] is good because of the agreements that they were able to strike with the employers. This legislation is [indiscernible] federally regulated industry with 22,000 employers and about 1 million employees. I'm glad the member talked about his experience in Manitoba when the final offer selection could not go through. And he's right in one way that while it gives a benefit to 1 million employees from the federally-regulated sector, much more responsibility is with the provinces. I would like to ask him his opinion -- his suggestions on how we can influence provinces to take measures in the same way that now the Federal Government is moving. >> The Speaker: The Honourable Parliamentary Secretary. >> I think the most important thing is that the Federal Government has recognized that anti-scab legislation is good legislation, and the reason why

we brought it forward because it's good for Canada, it's good for our economy, it's good for the workers, what's good for the workers is good for Canada. So that's the most important thing. The second thing that Ottawa can do is doing what we're doing today. We've now appeared to have a consensus where all political entities in the house are going to be voting in favour of that. To me that sends a very powerful message to all the different provinces. The reap why I brought up the Manitoba situation is it was because of political partisanship that Manitoba never got anti-scab legislation. It was because of political partisanship that final offer selection was killed. Here today we are demonstrating that if you put the political partisanship aside, good legislation can pass for the betterment of our country and our workers. >> The Speaker: Resuming debate. The Honourable member for Kelowna Lake Kelowna--Lake Country. >> Thank you, Mr. Speaker, it's always an honour to rise on behalf of the residents of Kelowna lake Kelowna--Lake Country. I rise today to speak on Bill C-58, an act to amend the Canada labour Canada Labour Code and the Canada industrial relations board regulations. This legislation passed at second reading with support of the Conservatives and was recently scrutinized at the standing committee on human resources, skills, and social development and the status of persons with disabilities turned the human resources committee where I'm proud to serve as vice-chair on behalf of the Conservative caucus. I'd like to thank all Conservative members but in particular the Conservative member for Dufferin--Caledon for his work on this legislation and for attending our committee meetings on this. The human resources committee heard from a wide variety of relevant witnesses to this legislation and to the issue of replacement workers at large. The committee heard from many labour representatives and business industry stakeholders. We also heard testimony from the Canada Industrial Relations Board whose work will be affected by this legislation. From my observations there seem to be a lot of interest from all parties to ask questions and to delve into the work they do and how this legislation could potentially affect their workload and operations. For myself I had a much better understanding of their internal processes once they had answered all of our questions. Many witnesses at committee spoke of the importance of the board. It is the Federal Government that has the responsibility for this national Canadian industrial relations board. While the legislation before us intends to encourage faster decision-making at the board, ultimately it is on the Liberal government to ensure it is properly operating to resolve labour conflicts that come before it and to meet the needs of those involved. Representatives of both employers and labour said that the Canada Industrial Relations Board needs to be operating faster now and moving forward. And in fact an amendment at committee, which is now in this legislation, reduced the number of days the Canadian Industrial Relations Board is required to render decisions. One other point I'll note in this legislation is there was an amendment at committee supported by all members to move up the coming into force state for this legislation. I'd like to bring to the House some of the important feedback we heard from various stakeholder witnesses on C-58. Several points were raised during the committee's study of this legislation. While the Liberals may trumpet this legislation as focusing on replacement workers, they have been replacing workers in government workplaces with Liberal-friendly external contractors. Mr. Speaker, it is a fact that this government has spent more on expensive external outsourced contractors than ever before. We know this affects workers in many ways. For example, the president of the customs and immigrations union appeared before the standing committee on public accounts. He said that when it came to the role of the disastrous 60 million-dollar ArriveCAN app, quote, we believe the goal of the app is to replace officers, unquote. He spoke on how he believes that had his workers been listened to during the ArriveCAN process instead of being replaced by a two-person IT firm at the cost of $60 million to taxpayers, then, quote, a great deal of what happened would not have

Copyright protected and owned by broadcaster. Your licence is limited to private, internal, non-commercial use. All reproduction, broadcast, transmission or other use of this work is strictly prohibited.

Transcripts