SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 256 - Nov/27/23

Mr. Luc Desilets (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, BQ)

Nov/27/23 12:55:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague is being very insistent. He is saying that this bill must pass, that it is important, that it is crucial and that it will make huge changes. However, why should it pass now, in 2023, when there have been 11 attempts over the past few years? Eleven similar bills have been introduced in the past, mainly by the Bloc Québécois. What is so special about our current situation for this to be so urgent and for the Liberal government to finally believe in it?

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Mr. Andy Fillmore

Nov/27/23 12:55:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleague will not mind if I respond in English. In fact, this commitment was in the Liberal Party's election platform in 2021, which flowed from an affirmation of the Supreme Court in 2015. Therefore, it has long been a part of Liberal DNA to protect workers and to make sure that they have access to the fair bargaining they deserve. As the member knows, the world has been very complicated for the last couple of years, with the pandemic and the interruption of Parliament. However, I think we are pleased to be coming to this very important legislation today.

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Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)

Nov/27/23 12:56:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a quick question for me is this: Does this include all unions not having anti-scab legislation? If it does not, why not?

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Mr. Andy Fillmore

Nov/27/23 12:56:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question. This legislation, of course, affects what is in the purview of the federal government, which would be federal employees. These changes to collective bargaining relate only to federally regulated industries. I can be more specific for the member: The federally regulated private sector includes the following industries: banking; telecommunications and broadcasting; air, rail and marine transportation; most federal Crown corporations, for example, Canada Post; and first nations band councils.

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Mr. Clifford Small (Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, CPC)

Nov/27/23 12:57:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the hon. colleague from Halifax leads right into my question. This legislation is going to apply to small airlines that deliver pharmaceuticals and fly air ambulances, as well as to firefighting, which could be very serious. Lives are going to be put at risk because small airlines are not going to be able to bring in replacement pilots in emergency situations. How is that going to be addressed in this legislation?

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Mr. Andy Fillmore

Nov/27/23 12:58:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the legislation is very clear that the elimination of replacement workers would not apply in certain specific cases. These cases include potential danger to life and safety, and that is what the member is referring to; damage to the environment; significant damage to private property; and some other very limited cases, which would be under the watchful eyes of the labour regulation board.

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Mr. Mark Strahl (Chilliwack—Hope, CPC)

Nov/27/23 12:58:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of my constituents in Chilliwack—Hope. I will be splitting my time today with the hon. member for Calgary Rocky Ridge. It has been an interesting debate this morning. We have heard the Liberals talk about how the legislation is long overdue. They have asked how anyone could not support this type of legislation. The fact is that over the last couple of decades, and even during the eight long years of the Liberal government, every member of that caucus has voted against anti-replacement worker legislation on multiple occasions. The last two Liberal speakers voted against anti-replacement worker legislation a couple of times each, both in 2016 and 2019. The Minister of Labour, who has been on a cross-country tour meeting with union leaders to extol the virtues of the bill, voted against similar legislation when it was introduced through private members' bills by the Bloc Québécois and the NDP. He has voted against it on numerous occasions. Therefore, everyone will forgive us if we take with a grain of salt the high and mighty words and condemnations of other members of Parliament when the Liberal government has members, including the Minister of Labour, who voted the other way on this type of legislation on multiple occasions. What has changed? We know what has changed. The government, which is continuing to make life more difficult for Canadians, owes the NDP. The NDP is back-seat driving for the Liberal government and it is quite happy to go along as long as it gets chauffeurs for their ministers and continues to enjoy the benefits of power. Multiple times the Liberal government voted the other way, so it is hard to take them seriously when Liberals talk about the urgency and necessity for legislation that they themselves railed against in the very recent past. Therefore, we will take no lessons from the Liberals on supporting union workers. We will take no lessons from the government, which hectors the official opposition on its support for Canadian workers. Not only is the government supporting replacement workers, but it is using taxpayer dollars to do it. Let that sink in. We are talking about union and non-union workers getting up before it is light out and going to do their blue-collar jobs, in many cases sending 30%, 40% or 50% of their paycheques to different levels of government, including Ottawa. The government is then giving that money to multinational corporations that are going to use foreign replacement workers to build the plants. It is bad enough that the government would bypass skilled Canadian labour to build projects such as the Stellantis battery plant, but to take the money those workers send to Ottawa and use it against them is the height of hypocrisy. The Liberals want to lecture others about replacement workers, but they are using foreign replacement workers not only at the Stellantis plant but at the Northvolt project in Quebec. We now know that hundreds of taxpayer-funded, which means worker-funded, foreign replacement workers will be filling jobs that should be going to Quebeckers despite over $7 billion in taxpayer subsidies going to this project. This is the record of the Liberal government when it comes to replacement workers. It is bringing in foreign replacement workers to do the work that we know Canadians can do. The Liberals have talked about the Stellantis battery plant not having the specialized skills available to set up the plant, that they need 900 to 1,600 foreign workers, depending on who one talks to, from South Korea. I have news for the government: We have the skilled labour that can set up those plants. We know that if we give them the plans and blueprints, they have the know-how and they will get the job done. However, the government is bringing in foreign replacement workers. Because the government refuses to release the contracts on these “investments” of workers' money into those projects, the Conservatives have demanded that the industry committee look at this. We are demanding the release of the contracts. How many foreign replacement workers did the government negotiate in these deals? There is $45 billion in major projects. We know now that two of them include foreign replacement workers, and we assume that the others do as well. We want answers. That is why the member for South Shore—St. Margarets has demanded emergency meetings on this issue. We will not allow the government to let this slide, at $15 billion a crack at these plants and bringing in foreign workers. This is supposed to be about Canadian jobs and Canadian workers, yet the government continues to provide the money that Canadian workers send to Ottawa for foreign replacement workers. That is absolutely shameful and reprehensible, and the official opposition is demanding answers. We want those contracts released. If the government is still proud of those contracts, it should have no problem releasing them. However, of course, we have to fight tooth and nail every step of the way, and we are up for that fight as well. The government continues to punish workers, not just union workers but all workers, with its carbon tax and its policies that are driving up interest rates, making it harder for workers to afford a home. It is hard to take the Liberals seriously. They feign how much they care about workers, but everything they are doing is punishing those workers who simply want to provide for their families. We heard just this morning that a record number of Ontarians are seeking help from the food bank. That is the record of the government when it comes to workers. People are using the food bank for the very first time. Two million people a month are using a food bank. People do not know how they are going to afford to live in their own home when their mortgages come up for renewal. More money is going to service the national debt than is going to health care facilities in the provinces. These workers have to wait eight to 16 hours for their kids to be seen when they have RSV or other seasonal issues. When they are sitting in the emergency room, they can know that it is because of the reckless fiscal policies of the government that punish workers, that more money is going to service the Prime Minister's deficits and debt than is going to our health care system. Therefore, we will take no lessons from the Liberal government on supporting workers. We will support workers by standing up for the jobs they need and standing up for the projects in which they work. The Liberal-NDP government has been the most anti-worker government in Canadian history, voting against, acting against and advocating against major energy projects, for instance, that give family supporting jobs right across the country. The government opposes those. The Liberals cannot tell me and other members of the Conservative Party that they are pro-worker. They are against the projects that workers need to put food on the table. They tax those workers and send that money to foreign replacement workers. Their policies are making the cost of living for those workers out of reach. Interest rates are going up and up. Inflation is going up and up. The government is not only doing nothing, it is making it worse.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Nov/27/23 1:08:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is hard to believe the member has the temerity to say that the Liberals and NDP are anti-workers. It causes me to think about the fact that there is labour component in the Canada-Ukraine trade agreement. Is that the reason the member opposite voted against it? If that is not the reason, could he have the courage to tell us why he voted against the Canada-Ukraine trade agreement?

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Labour
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Mr. Mark Strahl

Nov/27/23 1:09:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I understand why that member does not want to talk about his voting record on anti-replacement worker legislation, because he too voted against anti-replacement worker legislation in 2016 and again in 2019. However, he is good company, because so did the Minister of Labour. It was not an urgent issue until it was urgent that they get the support of the NDP to maintain their power-sharing agreement in Ottawa. Now he has seen the light, and the light comes from the NDP, which is demanding this is the new way things are going to go. The NDP-Liberal coalition is alive and well. I understand why that member does not want to talk about this legislation or the fact that he has consistently voted against the interest of workers in our country.

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Mr. Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, NDP)

Nov/27/23 1:10:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy these sessions in the House, where the Conservatives and the Liberals compete over who is the worst at things. Whether it is the worst at supporting Ukraine, or the worst at supporting housing or the worst friends of workers, it is nice to hear that debate between the two of them. I have a very serious question. The Conservatives like to talk about powerful paycheques, and we know what made powerful paycheque, the trade union movement. It was the trade union movement that raised wages. It was the trade union movement that set the standards for leave, including parental leave and sick leave, and even weekends. It was the trade union movement that set standards for occupational health and safety. Does that mean, if the Conservatives really are the friends of workers and better friends than the Liberals, that they are going to be supporting this legislation in order to make paycheques more powerful?

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Mr. Mark Strahl

Nov/27/23 1:10:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for recognizing it is the Conservatives who are fighting for more powerful paycheques, and that would start by getting rid of things like the NDP-Liberal carbon tax, which drives up the cost of everything, including groceries, gas and home heating. We certainly want to have more money go to workers. As well, when the workers' money is taxed, we do not expect that money to go to foreign replacement workers, which is what we have seen under the Liberal government with the Stellantis battery plant and the Northvolt project in Quebec. The Conservatives support workers, whether they are in trade unions or not, and workers support the Conservative Party, as we have seen from the bring it home events that the Leader of the Opposition has held right across the country. The polling certainly shows workers are on the side of the Conservative Party, just like we are on the side of workers.

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Mr. Pat Kelly (Calgary Rocky Ridge, CPC)

Nov/27/23 1:11:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Chilliwack—Hope has made an important point about the job-destroying track record of the government when it comes to energy policy. These are unionized workers, non-unionized workers and indigenous workers. These are every kind of worker in some of the highest-paying, best jobs in the Canadian economy. Could he comment on the government's track record on jobs in this industry?

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Mr. Mark Strahl

Nov/27/23 1:12:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is abysmal. The Liberals have not only driven out hundreds of billions of dollars in investment in our country, but they have driven away the jobs that go with that. Whether it is in forestry, mining or oil and gas, the Liberal-NDP government consistently opposes those projects that put people to work, that give them economic opportunity and the opportunity to provide for their communities and families. Instead, it advocates against those projects and gets them shut down. Then when the workers send their hard-earned money to Ottawa, the government turns around and gives it to multinational corporations to hire foreign temporary replacement workers. We will never support that kind of a plan.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Nov/27/23 1:13:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties and if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion: That, notwithstanding any standing order or usual practice of the House, during the debate pursuant to Standing Order 66 on Motion No. 42 to concur in the third report of the Standing Committee on National Defence, no quorum calls, dilatory motions or requests for unanimous consent shall be received by the Chair and at the conclusion of the time provided for debate or when no member rises to speak, whichever is earlier, all questions necessary to dispose of the motion be deemed put and a recorded division deemed requested and deferred pursuant to Standing Order 66.

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Motions

The Deputy Speaker

Nov/27/23 1:14:02 p.m.
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All those opposed to the hon. member's moving the motion will please say nay. It is agreed. The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.

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Mr. Pat Kelly (Calgary Rocky Ridge, CPC)

Nov/27/23 1:14:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, since I was elected in 2015, I have spent most of my energy speaking up for the workers I represent in Calgary. They have been systematically crushed by the government, its NDP coalition partner and, sadly, from 2015 to 2019, by a short-lived NDP government in Alberta. Therefore, this bill is not one that is going to be a great prescriptive answer for workers in my riding. They have been punished by the government and it appears they will continue to be so. I am passionate about the freedom of workers in my riding to work, about their freedom to organize and to bargain collectively through union membership. I am passionate about freedom of association. It is an essential and foundational freedom on which our country was built. Let there be no doubt about that. Also, let there be no doubt that there is only one party in the House of Commons that supports worker, which is this party. The other three parties in the House have never supported the workers in my community. Everything the NDP-Liberal government and its fellow travellers in the Bloc do, every instinct they possess runs counter to the interests of the workers in my riding. Let us examine the track record of the NDP-Liberal government as it relates to the workers in my community. The very first thing the government did, even before Parliament met for the first time, was to cancel the northern gateway pipeline by an order in council. This decision instantly killed thousands of jobs, union jobs, non-union jobs, indigenous community jobs, every kind of job one can imagine. The people who would have been employed by that project were among the highest-paid workers in the Canadian economy. Had that critical infrastructure actually been built, it would have led to thousands of new jobs in extraction projects that never materialized for the lack of infrastructure that the government deliberately killed. It was literally the first thing it did when it took office. It also denied the world access to Canada's energy products, leaving it vulnerable to dictator oil, much to our folly and what we see tragically happening in the world today as Putin funds his war machine with energy exports that could have been displaced by Canadian exports. The Liberals passed Bill C-69, which ensured that no major project would ever be approved again. They used to have talking points that tried to deny that was case, but when the Minister of Environment was a candidate, he let the mask slip and admitted that killing the energy industry was exactly the purpose of Bill C-69. Who is paying for this? It is the workers who are paying for the destruction to the Canadian economy that has happened in this sector under the government. That bill ruined the lives of thousands of workers and their families. Under the NDP-Liberal government, 200,000 energy workers lost their job. I say that deliberately. Let us not forget that before the federal NDP-Liberal coalition took place, there was a different alliance between the NDP and the Liberals, and that was the Alberta NDP and the federal government. Together they destroyed thousands of jobs and the lives that depended on them. Again, these were union jobs, non-union jobs and indigenous community jobs. The callous way in which the NDP and the Liberals threw away all these jobs and made sure they would not come back is shameful. Therefore, we will take no lessons from them on protecting jobs for workers, whether they belong to a union or not. I have said before in the House, especially between 2015 and 2018, that I had grown men in their fifties reduced to tears in my office over the loss of their livelihoods. These are highly paid, professional, proud people. Some of them were old enough that they had entered the workforce when Pierre Trudeau was prime minister. They told me that they had even managed to survive the NEP, but now they did not have a job. Women, who had reached the senior levels of corporate Calgary, were suddenly without a job. I have knocked on doors. I knocked on one door where a mom said their family came to Canada 20 years ago. Her husband was working in the Middle East and her son was working in Texas. They had to leave the country for work in the energy industry. I will take nothing from the government on jobs. What are the Liberals doing now? They are subsidizing replacement workers from foreign countries to come and take work away that should be given to Canadians. There was $7 billion for the Northvolt project with foreign replacement workers. There was $15 billion to Stellantis for foreign replacement workers. It is disgraceful and it is shameful the way the Liberals come here and try to lecture Conservatives on supporting workers. We are now at the end of the year. The NDP-Liberal government tabled this bill banning replacement workers in federally regulated industries as per the demand put upon the government by the NDP. This is not what the Liberals campaigned on. This is something the Liberals voted against. The NDP has tabled this very policy in the House through private members' business. The same Liberals who are speaking this morning in debate, who voted against this, would now have people believe that this is somehow part of their policy and what they ran on. This is clearly a long-standing NDP policy, but this is nothing more than the NDP tail wagging the Liberal dog. That is exactly why we call it the NDP-Liberal government. The bill would ban workers from working in federally regulated industries if the workers who belong to a union go on strike. It is a bill that risks pitting workers against each other. Workers who choose not to join a union are workers too. Workers across picket lines are workers too, but not to the NDP-Liberals. I even heard this morning the use of dehumanizing language. The Liberals referred to these workers as “scabs”. Let us think about that. It is a degrading, humiliating and dehumanizing word they used, not because this is about power for workers. It is not. It is about control and that is why they use this type of language. The market is an amazing and undeniable force of nature, and it does tend to sort things out quickly. It allows the best decisions to be made at the bargaining table and incentivizes agreements. The government is presiding over a cost-of-living crisis where rent has doubled, mortgage payments are up 150% and a generation of young Canadian workers have given up on the dream of home ownership because they cannot afford to live in this country. We have seen food inflation. We have seen every kind of inflation fuelled by taxes paid by workers. The NDP-Liberal government has nothing to teach Conservatives or tell Canadians about supporting workers. There is only one party that is supporting workers, the one party that stands for powerful paycheques that can be used to buy homes that people can afford in safe communities. That is what the Conservative vision is for this country. It is not spending billions of tax dollars, paid for by workers, to pay foreign workers to come and take their jobs away from them and bid up the price of homes in their communities. It is shameful. I will take no lessons from the Liberal-NDP government on support for workers. The workers in my riding have seen the sharp end of the Liberal government. I saw desperation at people's doors, especially in the 2019 election. The community I represent is full of talented, hard-working, ambitious workers who have been crushed by the government. The good news is they see hope. They know workers are increasingly turning to the Conservative Party, and it is the workers in Canada who are going to elect a Conservative government that will deliver powerful paycheques that Canadians need to be able to afford to live, and rein in the wasteful spending and corporate welfare that has become endemic under the government. It is only the Conservatives in this place who are standing up for workers in Canada.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Nov/27/23 1:24:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member is saying to support workers and jobs. Trade agreements support workers and jobs, yet we saw just last week that the Conservative Party, en masse, voted against the Canada-Ukraine trade agreement. Can the member indicate why he voted against the Canada-Ukraine trade agreement?

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Support

Mr. Pat Kelly

Nov/27/23 1:25:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am sure that question was out of order for relevance, but I can understand why this member would not wish to ask a question relevant to the speech that I just made; he knows he is one of the members who has already voted against anti-replacement worker legislation in this House more than once. Therefore, I fully understand why the member will not talk about the bill or ask me a question about this bill. It is because his flip-flop that he is undertaking right now is not something that he wants well understood by his constituents, perhaps.

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Speech
Ask

Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Nov/27/23 1:25:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, just following up on some of the remarks that the member made about Canada's oil and gas industry, I wonder if he can confirm, as I believe is true, that the Canadian oil and gas sector today extracts more barrels per day than at any other time in Canadian history. I wonder if the member wants to confirm the number, above and beyond the over $30 billion that the current Liberal government has put into the TMX pipeline and the amount of public subsidy for the Canadian oil and gas sector. While he is at it, perhaps the member has numbers for temporary foreign workers who work in the oil and gas industry because it has certainly made use of TFWs and workers under the international labour mobility program as well. Perhaps the member would like to comment on those phenomena.

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Mr. Pat Kelly

Nov/27/23 1:26:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is demand for the product that the energy industry produces. Despite everything that the current government has done to kill that industry, the billions and billions of dollars that the businesses lost and the hundreds of thousands of lost jobs, we are a long way from catching up to where we could have been and the promise that existed. With respect to the TMX, the member is right to bring up the waste on that. This is a project that should have been built with private capital. We had a private proponent who was going to build the TMX with its own money. If it ballooned from $4 billion to $30 billion, that would be on the proponent and its shareholders to worry about. However, it is the people and the workers of Canada who are paying for the overage now that the government has been put in a position to nationalize it after it chased private capital out. With respect to the member's third question, I oppose the subsidizing of any industry where the crown is subsidizing a private business on the promise of creating jobs when it is really just importing temporary labour, bidding up the cost of housing and making the taxpayer, the workers in Canada, pay for the jobs for the foreign replacement workers.

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