This is the message the government pressed upon the public on the first day back from the Victoria Day break week. This was the message delivered a few minutes before question period by five separate ministers, who stood at the lectern and dourly informed Canadians that the trains must get going and the striking CP Rail workers have to get back to work. The wheels have to start turning. Things must run on time. Jobs must be created.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird noted the reason for it all. Standing in for the prime minister in question period, he told the House the government’s planned changes to the structure of the nation’s employment insurance program is an “important part of our jobs and growth agenda.”
“Every Canadian wants a job and we are working hard to create an economy that will do just that,” he said.
This is economic creation. This is, as Baird put it a few minutes later, wanting the same as “what Canadians want for themselves” – a Canada “with a growing economy, with more jobs, with more hope and more opportunity.” Employment insurance changes will do just that, he said.
Skills? They’ll be matched. Jobs? Connected.
“Every single Canadian who is on unemployment insurance wants to get a job and this government is committed to moving them into employment so they can provide for themselves and their families.” It is, after all, he said, so that people can have “the dignity of a job and the pride of independence.”
So, the trains must get back on track. The economy has to grow. Things must go forward, not backward. Upward, not forward. And so forth.
The opposition parties weren’t necessarily convinced.
The Conservatives are attacking workers’ rights, New Democrat leader Thomas Mulcair told reporters in the Foyer after question period. The decision to force back-to-work legislation for CP Rail employees, he said, shows the government is against collective worker’s rights and their capacity for collective bargaining.
The CP Rail back-to-work legislation is “irresponsible and unnecessary,” NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice echoed for reporters not long afterward. The Conservatives say they’re defending the economy, Boulerice told everyone. Well, the economy is the workers who spend money in their communities, he said. If their salaries and pensions are cut, that too, can hurt the economy.
Earlier, the government made it known to the House that it wanted its legislation to move quickly. The motion Labour Minister Lisa Raitt put to the House harkens back to another back-to-work issue from just a year ago, when the Canada Post edition of the bill was designed to be fast-tracked, hitting all the procedural steps in one fell swoop.
Last year, it prompted a filibuster. This year, NDP House leader Nathan Cullen suggested the same will not be possible. No stalemate, no standoff. Not this time. Instead, we’ll just watch a bit of legislation passing through, on its way to work.
Source: iPolitics
Author: Colin Horgan
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