Kevin Lamoureux

“Madam Speaker, I feel like I have been here before, because we debated a bill that was supposed to get things built about 18 months ago, and not only get things built, but get things built at speeds we had never seen before. Unfortunately, what we saw were things getting built at the exact same speed they have been built for 11 years under the Liberal government. Not a single new project was approved by the so-called Major Projects Office and not a single new shovel was put in the ground. Here we are again. We are back. We are looking at another Liberal piece of legislation that is supposed to accelerate building in this country, but if we go back to Bill C-5, let us also not forget that it was supposed to be the One Canadian Economy Act. It was supposed to remove interprovincial trade barriers, all of that by July 1, 2025. The last time I checked, we are in September 2026, and all of the interprovincial trade barriers are still there, which brings us to where we are today. The Liberal government is all talk, no results. I will give the Liberals this. They are very good at the talk part. There are lots of photo ops, lots of announcements and lots of fancy backdrops making it look like they are building something that get taken down a few days later. They are very good at all of that, but when it comes to actually delivering for Canadians, this is where the rubber hits the road and they significantly fail. What we have seen in this country is an inflationary and cost of living crisis that this country has never seen before. Every single day, Conservative members get up in the House of Commons to ask questions based on conversations they have had with real Canadians, people who are struggling every single day to put food on the table and struggling every single day to pay their rent or mortgage. That is the legacy of the government, not the fancy photo ops and not the fancy words that ministers get up to say in the House of Commons day after day. What I want to talk about in particular today is part 3 of this gigantic omnibus piece of legislation. I want to start off by saying this. Canada has never seen more labour disruptions in 40 years than it has under the Liberal government. Do members want to know why? A huge part of it is the cost of living crisis created by the Liberal government, with the terrible management of the economy over the last 11 years that has led to workers all across this country, our friends and neighbours, fighting hard for better wages so they can put food on the table. What we saw were labour and unions fighting for better wages, better benefits and things for their members, and fighting hard. Because of the ham-fisted approach of the Liberal government, labour relations in this country have never been worse. We saw record use of section 107 by the Liberals. I lost count of that. They used it 13 times in 18 months or something like that. They often used it pre-emptively. In fact, they used it pre-emptively on flight attendants who were fighting to get rid of unpaid work. Think about that for a second. An hon. member: Untrue. Kyle Seeback: Madam Speaker, the member is saying that is untrue. Let me take a moment to educate the member. I have met with flight attendants. I have met with flight attendant unions. They have unpaid work, unlike what the minister said in this House and at committee about looking into whether or not flight attendants provide unpaid work. Do members know what the head of the airline union said to that? He asked if they will look into whether water is wet next. This is legitimately where we are on that subject. The Liberals used section 107 to order flight attendants back to work, using the Canada Industrial Relations Board and their section 107 order before the strike had even happened, therefore effectively sending them back to work unpaid. That is their record. Now they are going to make more changes to section 107. Do members know what I and just about every single union in this country have to say about that? We do not trust them. We do not trust their changes. They are making changes to section 107 at a time when the use of section 107, the constitutionality of it, is being challenged in court. They know this, and they decided to go ahead and make changes anyway. The changes to the legislation are embedded in a giant omnibus piece of legislation in which one section has nothing to do with the other sections. There are significant changes to the Canada Labour Code. For example, my colleague asked about the changes to geographic certification. The Liberal parliamentary secretary had no idea what geographic certification was and could not comment on the changes to geographic certification. I can say this. The changes to geographic certification are significant. There used to be a process through the Canada Industrial Relations Board. It was a complicated change. It took time. Two businesses could now petition the Canada Industrial Relations Board to create a geographic certification. What will be the effect of that? We have no idea. Will it cause, in fact, more labour strife as some union locals are combined? Could a union local represented by one union be combined with a union local from another union? I do not know. Perhaps it could. Do the Liberals know? Have they looked into this? When we look at the omnibus nature of this piece of legislation, we have to ask ourselves why. Why have they decided to put these significant changes to the Canada Labour Code in a gigantic omnibus piece of legislation? I hope it is not because they plan to ram this piece of legislation through committee with their majority, as they have done with other pieces of legislation, so there is no proper study of the changes they are making to the Canada Labour Code. I do not know, but I will go back to what I said when I first started talking about the changes they are making to the Canada Labour Code. I do not trust them. I forget the number of pages in this piece of legislation, 425 pages or 285 pages, but I suspect that all of that is going to go to one committee. How long will it look at the changes that are being made? Is it one day, two days, maybe a week? Give me a break. The Liberals are doing this so there can be very little scrutiny of what they are doing. They are doing this so that union members will not have the opportunity to come to committee and make their case for why the changes being made are a problem. They are doing this to make it difficult for opposition parties, and members of the Canadian public when they get in touch with their members of Parliament, to put forward amendments to this piece of legislation. I do not play the lottery and do not bet on sports, but I will tell members this. I am going to bet on the idea that this piece of legislation will not get the proper study at committee. The Liberals will rush this through committee. They will use their majority in the chamber to make sure that the bill gets out of committee as quickly as possible and that it is not studied in detail. They think they can pull one over on Canadians. Well, we on the Conservative side are going to fight. We are going to fight to make sure that this legislation gets studied. We are going to fight to make sure that the people who are going to be affected by this legislation get to come to committee and that the Liberals hear what these changes are going to do to them. We will be with those people every step of the way.”