Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to participate in this debate on Bill C-360. I will be brief, but a few words are better than nothing at all. This bill introduced by my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville is called an act to prevent psychological harassment in the workplace. Like my colleague from Drummond, I would like to congratulate her, not only for her initiative in terms of the legislation, but also for all her political and social animation work in this area.
We have seen this phenomenon develop in the province of Quebec in the last years, but the world of work has not completely accepted these new provisions for the fight against psychological harassment in the workplace. We know that some complaints have been made. However, Quebec's National Assembly has already showed Canada the way.
My colleague is echoing the efforts made in Quebec to ensure that the Canada Labour Code, where the federal laws apply, including in the federal Public Service, contains provisions against psychological harassment. It is extremely important that we see this debate in the present context, which is two-fold: on one side the positive and negative effects of globalization and on the other side the trivialization of the ideas now in circulation, making us think that all opinions are equal.
I cannot help but mention the horrifying remarks the pseudo-doctor Mailloux made last Sunday on the show Tout le monde en parle . He made statements that have now achieved scientific notoriety. However, we thought that such rhetoric had disappeared over 50 years ago. He said that blacks and aboriginals in Canada had a lower IQ than everyone else. We are familiar with pseudo-professor Mailloux; he has been poisoning the airwaves at CKAC for years. So his comments came as no surprise. However, I still cannot believe that Guy A. Lepage, the host and producer, and Mario Clément, programming director of Radio-Canada, have trivialized his comments.
Imagine an employer who is already prejudiced against one of his employees, who is black or aboriginal, or even co-workers who already hold such prejudices. We know that they are minorities. This is also true in English Canada. I know that people are prejudiced against Quebeckers, who have also been the subject of similar remarks by commentators in Canada. I am thinking in particular of the English version of CBC's Hockey Night in Canada , where one such commentator has been spreading poison for many years. In passing, we have spoken out against him numerous times here.
If the employee is already the victim of prejudice, the attitude of his harassers will be reinforced on a much-watched program like that one, by Guy A. Lepage, whom many of our young people look up to. There must be a counter-balance to this. When something like that happens during a program and the interviewer has no legislated counter-balance, an extremely difficult situation ensues.
The bill before us is intended as that counter-balance. It would not have prevented what happened last Sunday. It is too late for that, anyway. They will try to remedy things on the next program, but the harm is done, and the way they reacted made things worse. A counter-balance like this bill on psychological harassment in the workplace is therefore necessary so that the individual, who has already been victimized and then sees credibility lent to his harassers by the reaction of someone like Guy A. Lepage, will have some recourse.
I spoke of globalization. Interestingly, on that level we are seeing polarization. On the one hand, some jobs require a new way of organizing one's work. That is why there is increasing discussion of psychological harassment in the workplace taking place in symposiums on work organization .
Smart employers—which most of them are, but not all—are well aware that psychological harassment not only has economic costs related to health—as my colleague from Drummond has so aptly pointed out—but also affects productivity. The ones responsible are not the victims of the harassment but the perpetrators of it.
Smart employers, often those in developing new sectors of the economy, want to effectively counteract psychological harassment. This bill will help them do so. Economic activity will benefit as a result.
On the other hand, in all sectors where jobs are becoming more precarious and their quality is deteriorating: declining sectors of service and activity getting very little government assistance—I am referring here of course to the industrial sector—psychological harassment is constantly on the rise.
This bill is needed in order to improve the quality of working life and our collective well-being, as well as to counteract complacency toward racist and prejudiced comments, which are unfortunately still far too common, even on our state-owned television network.