Mr. Speaker, on October 5, I asked the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, and hon. member for Pontiac a question because this minister had refused to meet with the spokespeople from the Outaouais FTQ, led by Donald Roy, who wanted to discuss the anti-scab bill with the minister. According to Mr. Roy, the staff at the minister's office did not even return his telephone calls.
Allow me to take advantage of this adjournment debate to provide the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities and hon. member for Pontiac the arguments the Outaouais union leaders could have given him during this meeting that never took place, in the hope that the Minister's office is listening. These arguments are all the more significant since, just last week, the Minister of Labour handed out to all hon. members a short study that distorts statistics in order to destroy arguments in favour of anti-scab legislation.
These dirty tricks at the last minute—this study was handed out to the hon. members just a few hours before last week's historical vote at second reading on the anti-scab bill—had no effect. Twenty Conservative members, members of his own party, voted in favour of the anti-scab bill because these members know the benefits of this legislation and they hope to see it applied in their own ridings. By the way, 166 members of this House voted in favour of this bill at second reading. Members from Quebec and from all the provinces voted in favour of it, except the members from Alberta, unfortunately.
According to the Minister of Labour's study, and according to other public statements he made in this House and in committee, banning replacement workers would have no positive impact on labour relations and would provide no advantage, which is surprising because the Minister of Labour and member for Jonquière—Alma previously voted in favour of this bill when he was a member in 1990.
The department's analysis is built on very shaky foundations. The arguments are not supported by good statistics, and some of the numbers were distorted until they corroborated the minister's thesis, which tends to harmonize with that of the owners and executives. Clearly, this reflects the values of a Conservative government that rushes to defend businesses and oil companies while pulling the plug on community organizations that promote literacy and the status of women.
Here is the reaction to his pathetic arguments. Many of the figures, arguments and facts I am about to mention are from the Canadian Labour Congress's response to the minister's questionable logic. The Canadian Labour Congress and its president, Ken Georgetti, did a remarkable job and conducted a careful analysis of the labour relations situation. Their work enables me to respond accurately to the minister's statements today. These researchers rigorously compiled data that are not always easy to interpret. The analysis was cross-referenced and added to relevant data just as carefully collected and rigorously substantiated by Bloc Québécois researchers.
The statistics in the minister's study are at times false or incomplete. Furthermore, much of the data in the background document does not match up with data published by the Government of Quebec. The authors of the minister's study made several errors in comparing work stoppages in Quebec to those in the rest of Canada. The authors of the study claim that over the past few years, there have been more work stoppages in Quebec than in British Columbia or in federal workplaces, but this statistic is meaningless by itself.
I would have liked to have talked more about the benefits of the anti-scab bill, but I will have two minutes later on to do so.