Heather McPherson

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Mr. Speaker, I want to talk today about workers who are working at a federal institution and have been on strike for 134 days. It is a federal institution that has twice been found breaking the law and the government refuses to take action despite the rhetoric that it is here for workers. Today marks 134 days since PSAC security officers in Ottawa have been on strike. These are frontline security officers. They are first responders. They protect Canada’s central bank, its assets and the people who work there. They deserve respect from the managers and executives whose safety it is their job to protect. Twice, the Canada Industrial Relations Board found that the Bank of Canada had broken federal labour law by using scab workers against these striking employees, and the Bank of Canada continues to use scabs even after being ordered to stop. I want to be very clear about this issue. The employees on strike are asking for one simple thing. They are asking to keep the wording in their collective agreement that they already have. The bank is demanding concessions on scheduling rights. That is it. If the Bank of Canada stepped back from that, the strike would be over. The PSAC workers have offered to go to arbitration, and the bank has refused. At a moment in time when workers’ rights across this country are under attack because of the tariff war, because of Bill C-39 and because of so many things the government is doing, the fact that the Bank of Canada is not negotiating in good faith with PSAC workers, who have been on strike for 134 days, is unconscionable. I want to bring this back to something that we have also heard from the minister. When I asked this question in September, the parliamentary secretary said, “Mr. Speaker, let me be crystal clear. We will always protect the rights of workers, and we will always support workers’ constitutional right to strike.” That was in September, but what we have seen is a pattern from the government of undermining collective bargaining, taking away workers’ right to strike and weakening the ability of workers to stand up for their own actual human right to withhold their labour. The Canada Labour Congress president, Bea Bruske, warned Parliament at committee on October 20 that employers who expect government intervention have less incentive to bargain seriously. The Unifor president, Lana Payne, told the parliamentary committee on October 26 that the national interest test in Bill C-39 is so broad that virtually every single strike could qualify, because every strike has an economic impact. I am looking at one side, and I see PSAC workers who are not being treated fairly by the Bank of Canada, which has been found guilty twice of using scab labour. Then we have a government that says it will continue to fight for the right to strike for all workers but brings forward legislation such as Bill C-39, and the government has been told by Unifor, CUPE, CLC, USW and so many labour leaders that it breaks the right to strike. This is a problem.