MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. We will begin the daily routine.
The honourable member for Richmond.
MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Mr. Speaker, on a point of personal privilege. There has been a very disturbing trend that has been followed in this House it seems in the last number of months, especially when there have been Nova Scotians who have come here to show some concern about a matter being discussed here. Clearly the increased presence of police officers has been very distressing, now with steel barricades put on the sidewalks in front of Province House. With all due respect, I feel more like I am going to Dorchester Penitentiary than coming to the House of Joseph Howe and the House of Nova Scotians.
Tonight, again, there is a disturbing trend. It has been the tradition that visitors coming to visit our House are permitted to come into the lobby and register, and once the House has begun, and you have instructed for the gallery doors to be open, they are then permitted to come upstairs. For some reason, this evening, Nova Scotians who came to visit this House were kept outside the gates of the parking lot and couldn't even get in, and were instructed by uniformed police officers that they were not permitted to enter Province House until being told so at a later time. I am extremely concerned about this.
Mr. Speaker, I have spoken a number of times about the issue of locking gates and other security measures here, which I felt were very oppressive, and I am wondering if you could apprise this House - I think as elected members here, we all have the right to know - why Nova Scotians tonight were once again kept outside the gates of Province House and not even permitted to come in and register. In fact, in checking before we began today in session, people were still lining up to register because they had been kept outside the gates and not permitted to come in. So I would ask you, as Speaker of this House, as the person who polices this Chamber I guess, if one could say, could you apprise members of this House why this action was taken and what the justification is for keeping Nova Scotians locked out of this House unnecessarily?
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, if I may rise to speak in support of the point of privilege raised by the member for Richmond, I too expressed some concern, having witnessed a guest to this House being kept behind the gates on Hollis Street, not being required in this House. I understand that you and other people responsible for security within the House of Assembly have been concerned and have heightened security, but I think surely we recognize that we need to balance this with the need to be accessible and to ensure that people have access. We can't get in this door, the door from Granville Street, and can only get in through the door from Hollis Street, and there are security guards down there to ensure that people register when they come in.
I don't understand and I would say, along with the member for Richmond, I question, Mr. Speaker, why we need to go so far to keep people out on the street when we should welcome them into their House, to watch the proceedings.
MR. SPEAKER: Are there any other interventions? Certainly I take very seriously the issue brought forward by the honourable member for Richmond, as well as the support from the honourable member for Halifax Atlantic. I want to assure the House and all members that by no means are we attempting to solely prevent Nova Scotians from entering the House, other than the fact that there are several issues before the House right now. You mentioned about the gates. The HRM police felt that because of the reported number we can probably expect in the near vicinity over the next few days, particularly for safety reasons, the Speaker has no control over outside the grounds (Interruption)
Order, please. I am trying to attempt to answer the question on behalf of the honourable member for Richmond, if the honourable member for Dartmouth North would give me the opportunity, please.
The issue of public safety is paramount and if we do see the numbers arrive here over the next few days as we anticipate and do expect, we want to ensure that those people have their safety protected as well, the people who want to visit this House.
The issue of coming into the building itself, I take that issue very seriously as well and we want to ensure that people enter the building in an orderly fashion, that they have the opportunity to come here. If they come here in the hundreds, we have to have some sort of way of at least processing in an orderly fashion. That's why this evening, I believe that you had seen that centre gate was closed, but when it was brought to my attention I went down to speak to the gentleman in charge. Obviously we don't have the numbers here tonight that we could have seen and people are allowed in, as you see in the gallery today, and the processes are as they normally have been.
What we are trying to do is to attempt to ensure that if the numbers do arrive over the next few days, as we expect they will, that they will be able to enter this place as they normally would and as the fire marshal will allow in a safe and orderly fashion.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: I appreciate what you have said and again I say that the need to be cautious, to ensure there is protection for people coming into the House as well as members, is important, but we also need to make sure there is access. One of the points that you made about worrying about great numbers coming in the days ahead - and I just want to urge some caution upon you and other people responsible that we don't overreact to what we think might happen, that we don't bring in measures that would exacerbate an already heightened situation with respect to relations between people inside and outside this Chamber. I would urge that we be careful, for example, that this whole place isn't locked down the way it was during the janitors' dispute a few weeks ago. All that did, I would suggest to you - I don't mean to be critical of the decision makers - what that did was that heightened the sense that people were being shut out, that they weren't being listened to, that there were barriers between the people that they elected and their House and themselves. I don't think we want to go there. I understand we want this to be orderly, we want to make sure that people inside and outside are protected, but surely, we need to be careful and balance the concerns here and make sure that we don't add to concerns or to problems that may arise.
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Richmond.
MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the explanation that you have provided. I appreciate the concern that there might be increased numbers arriving here, but with all due respect, I think it was very clear this evening that wasn't the case. There might have been 20, 30 people waiting outside and the idea that they are behind a locked gate and there are four or five uniformed officers along with our regular security here at the House and between them they weren't able to get them, in an orderly fashion, to come in and register, I think, is quite unnecessary to say the least. I do appreciate your comments that what takes place outside the Chamber is beyond your control. I understand that what you are saying is that the metal gates that have been put along the sidewalk were done so by HRM
and not a request of this Chamber. One thing, as the member for Halifax Atlantic pointed out, the appearances here of being open and accountable in this province - I found it extremely disturbing this evening that when I parked my vehicle in our parking lot tonight, that I had to park next to a HRM paddy wagon.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The honourable member for Richmond has the floor.
MR. SAMSON: As I was saying, I understand what you are saying. We can't control what happens outside the gates of this House, but as I said tonight, I was very disturbed to see that where I parked here within the gates at Province House, that I am parking next to an HRM paddy wagon. I think, that sends a very dangerous message to Nova Scotians to come visit this House. I think it is serious enough to see armed uniformed officers greeting them when they come here and then to see a paddy wagon parked in our parking lot here waiting and ready to go, I think is extremely serious and oppressive and I think as the member for Halifax Atlantic . . .
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Thank you. I have certainly heard the suggestion and recommendation by the honourable members and I will certainly take that into consideration in making those decisions in the future. However, I am ruling that it is not a point of privilege. It does not prevent the honourable member from doing his business in the House here this evening.
The honourable member for Cape Breton West.
MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON: Mr. Speaker, on a point of personal privilege. The fact if we watch the proceedings and being very cognizant of the concern for safety here, if we watch the proceedings in other provincial jurisdictions as well as in the Parliament of Canada, we will see that the Speakers of those respective jurisdictions allow sufficient time for the spectators to enter the galleries before the proceedings begin as well as to make provision for those to be able to enter on a regular flow basis during the course of the proceedings. I think the message being sent here is that the people of Nova Scotia are, in a very subtle way, being prevented from entering at the beginning of the proceedings, given the fact that there is increased security around. I can appreciate the government being a little bit apprehensive about security measures, because of some rather difficult pieces of legislation that they feel are before the House.
[12:15 a.m.]
I think we have to be very cognizant that we don't turn this into a police state. I would ask that we reflect on the fact that there is a balance between the needs and the eyes of a police officer versus the eyes and the needs of politicians, that we aspire to represent the people of Nova Scotia.
MR. SPEAKER: Thank you. As well, I appreciate the comments by the honourable member for Cape Breton West. I am certainly going to ensure that the members of the public are in the gallery before the daily routine proceeds.
PRESENTING AND READING PETITIONS
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce a petition. The operative phrase reads, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68, and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them." I have affixed my signature.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Lunenburg West.
MR. DONALD DOWNE: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition on Bill 68.
"Whereas in the Tory Platform John Hamm said health care workers: '. . . will not stay unless they have a rewarding professional environment'; and,
Whereas the Tory Platform commits to: 'Working with the nursing profession to make sure the work environment offers a rewarding and positive experience where nurses know they can properly care for their patients, where they know they are valued and where they are empowered to have input into influencing clinical practice outcomes.'; and,
Whereas the Premier and Minister of Health have continually shown their disrespect for health care workers, especially with the introduction of Bill 68;
Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68, and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
I have affixed my signature to the bottom of this petition.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Mr. Speaker, I, too, have a petition on Bill No. 68. The operative clause reads, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68, and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them." This is signed by 10 persons, and a number of them are RNs. I have also affixed my signature.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton South.
MR. MANNING MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition on Bill No. 68. "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68, and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them." This is signed by 14 concerned residents of Nova Scotia, and I have affixed my signature.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition that has been signed by some 14, 15 people involved in the health care sector. If I may, I would like to read the petition.
"Whereas in the Tory Platform John Hamm said health care workers: '. . . will not stay unless they have a rewarding professional environment'; and,
Whereas the Tory Platform commits to: 'Working with the nursing profession to make sure the work environment offers a rewarding and positive experience where nurses know they can properly care for their patients, where they know they are valued and where they are empowered to have input into influencing clinical practice outcomes.'; and,
Whereas the Premier and Minister of Health have continually shown their disrespect for health care workers, especially with the introduction of Bill 68;
Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68, and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
Mr. Speaker, I have affixed my signature to this petition.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Victoria.
MR. KENNETH MACASKILL: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition on Bill No. 68.
"Whereas in the Tory Platform John Hamm said health care workers: '. . . will not stay unless they have a rewarding professional environment'; and,
Whereas the Tory Platform commits to: 'Working with the nursing profession to make sure the work environment offers a rewarding and positive experience where nurses know they can properly care for their patients, where they know they are valued and where they are empowered to have input into influencing clinical practice outcomes.'; and,
Whereas the Premier and Minister of Health have continually shown their disrespect for the health care workers, especially with the introduction of Bill 68;
Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
Mr. Speaker, there are 14 names on this petition, including mine.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Dartmouth North.
MR. JERRY PYE: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition on behalf of 10 signatures and the petition reads:
"Whereas in the Tory Platform John Hamm said health care workers: '. . .will not stay unless they have a rewarding professional environment'; and,
Whereas the Tory Platform commits to: 'Working with the nursing profession to make sure the work environment offers a rewarding and positive experience where nurses know they can properly care for their patients, where they know they are valued and where they are empowered to have input into influencing clinical practice outcomes.'; and,
Whereas the Premier and Minister of Health have continually shown their disrespect for health care workers, especially with the introduction of Bill 68;
Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
Mr. Speaker, I have affixed my signature to this petition.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Glace Bay.
MR. DAVID WILSON: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition on Bill No. 68, which bears the names of 13 people from throughout the province involved in the health care industry, and the operative phrase reads, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them." I have affixed my name to it.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Speaker, I am submitting a petition signed by 10 people, including myself, the operative phrase being, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Richmond.
MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition here in regard to Bill No. 68 and the operative clause reads:
"Whereas in the Tory Platform John Hamm said health care workers: ' . . .will not stay unless they have a rewarding professional environment'; and,
Whereas the Tory Platform commits to: 'Working with the nursing profession to make sure the work environment offers a rewarding and positive experience where nurses know they can properly care for their patients, where they know they are valued and where they are empowered to have input into influencing clinical practice outcomes.'; and,
Whereas the Premier and Minister of Health have continually shown their disrespect for health care workers, especially with the introduction of Bill 68;
Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
Mr. Speaker, this petition is signed by 13 health care professionals and nurses, and I have affixed my signature to this petition.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to introduce a petition on Bill No. 68. This petition is signed by 10 persons, a number of them RNs, and I have also affixed my signature. The operative clause of the petition reads, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them." I table this.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, if I may, before I introduce a petition, I would like to introduce visitors to the gallery. There are two RNs here, I believe. One is from Lawrencetown and one from Hants East. I don't know exactly what gallery they are in. Karen Belfountain and Janice Nicholson. They are both here as interested observers and, of course, people who are directly affected by Bill No. 68. They are here at nearly 12:30 a.m., but that is not new for them, because, as we know, most nurses in the Province of Nova Scotia work pretty much around the clock. I would like to ask Karen and Janice if they would please rise and receive the warm welcome of the members of the Chamber. (Applause)
If I may, Mr. Speaker, I have a petition here signed by some dozen people involved in health care and the petition is again with respect to Bill No. 68, the operative clause is as follows:
"Whereas in the Tory Platform John Hamm said health care workers: '. . . will not stay unless they have a rewarding professional environment'; and,
Whereas the Tory Platform commits to: 'Working with the nursing profession to make sure the work environment offers a rewarding and positive experience where nurses know they can properly care for their patients, where they know they are valued and where they are empowered to have input into influencing clinical practice outcomes.'; and,
Whereas the Premier and Minister of Health have continually shown their disrespect for health care workers, especially with the introduction of Bill 68;
Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
Mr. Speaker I have, in the usual manner affixed my signature to this petition.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Dartmouth East.
DR. JAMES SMITH: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition on Bill No. 68, the operative clause is as follows:
"Whereas in the Tory Platform John Hamm said health care workers: '. . . will not stay unless they have a rewarding professional environment'; and,
Whereas the Tory Platform commits to: 'Working with the nursing profession to make sure the work environment offers a rewarding and positive experience where nurses know they can properly care for their patients, where they know they are valued and where they are empowered to have input into influencing clinical practice outcomes.'; and,
Whereas the Premier and Minister of Health have continually shown their disrespect for health care workers, especially with the introduction of Bill 68;
Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
Mr. Speaker, this is signed by 13 residents throughout the South Shore and the Valley of Nova Scotia and I have affixed my signature to the bottom. Thank you.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Dartmouth North.
MR. JERRY PYE: Mr. Speaker, if I may be permitted first to do an introduction. I want to introduce some people in the gallery who are here watching this evening the outrageous abuse of legislative power by a government in the Province of Nova Scotia. Those individuals are Carolyn Kunz, RN, Armdale; Susan Allen, RN, Chebucto; Maureen Landry, Clayton Park and Annette Ernest Lan, Timberlea-Lakeside-Beechville. I would ask the House to give them a warm welcome. (Applause)
Mr. Speaker, on the petition, I beg leave to present a petition on Bill No. 68 and the operative clause is as follows, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them." I have affixed my signature to the 10 names on this petition.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton West.
MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition with regard to Bill No. 68, the operative clause essentially states that the petitioners are opposed to Bill No. 68 on the principles of fairness and democratic rights and I have affixed my signature to this particular petition and would so table.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition. The operative clause is as follows, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
[12:30 a.m.]
Mr. Speaker, there are 10 names of health care workers, and I have attached mine. Before I sit I would like to do an introduction.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre on an introduction.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Speaker, in our gallery tonight we have Dean C. Smith, RN of Hammond Plains/Bedford; Joanne Kline, RN, ICU, from the Lakeview area; Janice Dempsey Stewart, RN of Wolfville; and Kate Dwyer, QE II, she lives in Halifax South. Could they stand and receive the warm welcome of the House. (Applause)
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition to present, but if I may be permitted an introduction before I proceed to that, I would like to draw the attention of the members of this House to the presence, in the gallery today, of a number of RNs who have come to watch the proceedings that they have heard so much about. I would like to call upon them to rise and be recognized.
We have present with us this evening, Marie Burden, resident of Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage; Carol Allen, likewise a resident of Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage; we have Skye Nicholson, a resident of Halifax Citadel; we have Mary Cromwell, a resident of Halifax-Bedford Basin; and we have Carolyn Doucette, a resident of Timberlea-Prospect. I wonder if these people would rise and receive the acknowledgement and welcome of the House. (Applause)
Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition having to do with Bill No. 68. It is signed by 10 persons, most of them RNs and I have affixed my signature as well. The operative clause of this petition reads, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, I want to table a petition, but first, if I may, with your permission, I would like to make an introduction. I received a note from a guest in our gallery opposite from a gentleman who has worked in the health care sector now for 27 years at the former Victoria General Hospital and the QE II Health Sciences Centre site now. He is a lab assistant at the QE II Health Sciences Centre for Shared Lab Services. His name is Matthew Dubois, and he is extremely upset about Bill No. 68, its implications and the way the health care workers are being treated. Mr. Dubois has taken time tonight to come down and watch the debate. I would like him to rise, and I would ask all members to give him the usual warm welcome. (Applause)
Mr. Speaker, if I may, I would like to table a petition dealing with Bill No. 68, that talks about all the bad things that the Tories have done, the Premier and the Minister of Health, and I would review the operative clause which says, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
Mr. Speaker, there are - I should count these - about a dozen signatures, on this petition, of health care workers. I have followed procedure and signed it as well.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Dartmouth North.
MR. JERRY PYE: Mr. Speaker, I have before me a petition as well, which I would like to table before this House. It has 10 signatures and I have affixed my signature as well. The operative clause reads, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Speaker, before I table this petition, with your indulgence I would like to do an introduction. I would like to introduce, in the gallery tonight, Bill Jewells, who works 6 Lane at the QE II and he is from the Fall River area; Bev Mercer, 9B, VG site and she is from Fairview; Hélène Berubé, 9B, VG site, and she is from Bedford; Melanie Murphy, 9B, VG site, from Dartmouth; and Jeannette Piché, 9B, VG site, Dartmouth. If they would stand and receive the warm welcome of the House. (Applause)
Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition that says, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition but, before I do that, I wonder if I might introduce a number of visitors to the gallery this evening? We have with us four RNs - I would like to introduce them by name - plus one individual who calls himself simply a "concerned citizen" and they are all here with respect to Bill No. 68. I would like to draw the attention of the House to the presence in the gallery of Ruth Downie, a resident of Halifax Citadel; Neila MacDonald, a resident of Halifax Needham; Catherine Butler, a resident of Timberlea-Prospect; Annette Ryan, a resident of Halifax Bedford Basin - these are all the RNs - and Paul Hebert, a resident of Timberlea-Prospect. I wonder if they would rise and be acknowledged by the members of the House. (Applause)
Mr. Speaker, I wish to table a petition concerning Bill No. 68. It is signed by 10 persons, a number of them nurses, and the operative clause of this petition reads, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them." I have affixed my signature to this petition.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, before I read my petition, if I may I would like to do an introduction and bring to your attention that in one of galleries, and we will know when she stands up, there is an RN from Spryfield, which is in the Halifax Atlantic constituency. Julie Allan-MacLean is here to witness the debate on Bill No. 68, a piece of legislation that deeply concerns Julie and her colleagues. She is here to not only listen to what is being said but, by her presence, to express her concern. I would ask Julie to please rise and receive the warm welcome of the Legislature. (Applause)
I take my glasses off, and not only can't I see, but I can't think.
Mr. Speaker, I have a petition here. It is with respect to Bill No. 68 and it reads as follows:
"Whereas in the Tory Platform John Hamm said health care workers: ' . . .will not stay unless they have a rewarding professional environment'; and
Whereas a Tory Platform commits to: 'Working with the nursing profession to make sure the work environment offers a rewarding and positive experience where nurses know they can properly care for their patients, where they know they are valued and where they are empowered to have input into influencing clinical practice outcomes.'; and
Whereas the Premier and Minister of Health have continually shown their disrespect for health care workers, especially with the introduction of Bill 68;
Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
Mr. Speaker, there are about one dozen concerned citizens, health care workers here, and I have properly affixed my signature to this petition.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Dartmouth North.
MR. JERRY PYE: Mr. Speaker, if I may be permitted, I would like to do an introduction before I present the petition. I would like to introduce from Dartmouth North Martha Brown in the west gallery, a staff nurse for 26 years; Kenda McKinley, a staff nurse for 16 years from Dartmouth North; Vicki-Lynn DeGazio, a staff nurse who has been there for 20 years in Dartmouth as a cardiac operating room nurse, where the procedures are cancelled on a continuous basis because of no nurses to open up the beds. I would hope the House would give those individuals in the west gallery a warm welcome. (Applause)
I also beg leave to table a petition on Bill No. 68 and I have affixed my signature to this petition, the operative clause is as follows, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition on Bill No. 68 and the operative clause is as follows, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them." There are 11 signatures and I have affixed mine.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition on Bill No. 68. It is signed by 14 individuals, some of them identifying themselves as RNs and the operative clause reads as follows, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them." I have affixed my signature to this petition.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, I will be tabling a petition that was submitted to me by a number of health care workers and the operative clause reads as follows, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
Mr. Speaker, you, I am sure can appreciate as can I how upset people are to fill out these petitions and to send them here to be read into the record. I have affixed my signature and do so table.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Dartmouth North.
MR. JERRY PYE: Mr. Speaker, once again I rise to table a petition on Bill No. 68, the operative clause reads as follows, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them." I have affixed my signature.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition, with the operative clause as follows, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them." There are 11 names and I have affixed my signature to it.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Mr. Speaker, I have yet another petition on Bill No. 68. It is signed by 10 persons each one of whom identifies themselves as an RN. The operative clause reads as follows, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them." I have affixed my signature to this petition.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: I am going to read a petition, but before I do I would like to make a further introduction. This person didn't send a note in, but I do know who he is and I am sure other members of the House do, as well. I am referring, of course, to Rick Clarke, who is President of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour. Rick, of course, represents organized workers in the Province of Nova Scotia, some 60,000 organized workers from one end of the province to the other. He plays a bit of golf from time to time up your way, Mr. Speaker, in Springhill and if he could get rid of that hook off the tee, he wouldn't be a bad golfer. Anyway, I know that Mr. Clarke is very concerned about Bill No. 68 and has come down here to indicate his concern to members of the government, in particular, and to show his members that he is here to do what needs to be done to make sure that the government backs off on this bill. So I would like to ask Rick to stand and receive the regular warm welcome of the Legislature. (Applause)
[12:45 a.m.]
Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition with respect to Bill No. 68. There are 10 signatures from health care workers around the metro area. The operative clause reads, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them." I have affixed my signature to this petition.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Dartmouth North.
MR. JERRY PYE: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition on Bill No. 68 and it states:
"Whereas in the Tory Platform John Hamm said health care workers: ' . . .will not stay unless they have a rewarding professional environment'; and
Whereas a Tory Platform commits to: 'Working with their nursing profession to make sure the work environment offers a rewarding and positive experience where nurses know they can properly care for their patients, where they know they are valued and where they are empowered to have input into influencing clinical practice outcomes.'; and
Whereas the Premier and Minister of Health have continually shown their disrespect for health care workers, especially with the introduction of Bill 68;
Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
Mr. Speaker, I have affixed my signature.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition. The operative clause reads, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."There are mostly RNs and LPNs on this petition, some dozen or so, and I have affixed my name in accordance.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Mr. Speaker, I have yet another petition on Bill No. 68 and essentially the same terms as the previous ones introduced. This one is signed by 10 persons, several of whom identify themselves as RNs. I will read the operative clause. It is, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them." I have affixed my signature to this petition.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, I believe this is the last petition that I have the good fortune to introduce today. This petition has 10 signatures, 11 including mine and it reads as follows:
"Whereas in the Tory Platform John Hamm said health care workers: ' . . .will not stay unless they have a rewarding professional environment'; and
Whereas a Tory Platform commits to: 'Working with their nursing profession to make sure the work environment offers a rewarding and positive experience where nurses know they can properly care for their patients, where they know they are valued and where they are empowered to have input into influencing clinical practice outcomes.'; and
Whereas the Premier and Minister of Health have continually shown their disrespect for health care workers, especially with the introduction of Bill 68;
Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
Again, as I indicated, 10 signatures, 11 including my own.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table this petition. The operative clause is, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them."
I have attached my name.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition on Bill No. 68, signed by nine concerned citizens of the province. The operative clause reads, "Therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned, call on this government to demonstrate their trust in, and respect for, health care workers in Nova Scotia by immediately withdrawing Bill 68 and at the same time, negotiating fair and decent settlements with them." I have affixed my signature to this petition.
MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, I just came into possession of a letter, which I believe it would be proper for me to read into the record.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. A letter, no. If it is a petition that is signed by at least three people.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Only one.
MR. SPEAKER: No.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: I will have to find another way to get this one on the record.
MR. SPEAKER: You will have to find another way.
PRESENTING REPORTS OF COMMITTEES
TABLING REPORTS, REGULATIONS AND OTHER PAPERS
STATEMENTS BY MINISTERS
GOVERNMENT NOTICES OF MOTION
INTRODUCTION OF BILLS
NOTICES OF MOTION
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the honourable Leader of the Opposition, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the Minister of Health has shown his complete lack of respect for health care workers of the Capital District Health Authority when he declared he had no confidence they would provide emergency care in the event of a labour dispute; and
Whereas at the same time, the Minister showed his complete lack of understanding when he admitted he didn't have the foggiest idea about what services health care workers would provide under CDHA's contingency plan; and
Whereas the subsequent release of the contingency provisions under the collective agreement show very clearly that health care workers would provide emergency services and a reasonable, timely dispute mechanism existed to resolve any differences between the parties in what services would be provided;
Therefore be it resolved that the introduction of Bill No. 68 to strip bargaining rights away from health care workers has nothing to do with protecting the health and safety of Nova Scotians.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton South.
MR. MANNING MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas on Friday, the Premier finally conceded that his draconian approach to negotiations will affect his chances for re-election; and
Whereas with the considerable amount of polling the Premier does, one would think he would have anticipated such negative reaction; and
Whereas the Premier must be very upset with the effect his Health Minister's incompetence is having on his own image;
Therefore be it resolved that nurses across Nova Scotia be encouraged to write or phone the Premier's Office or to visit the Law Amendments Committee to voice their concerns about this government's policies.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the honourable member for Halifax Needham, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the Nova Scotia Medical Society has come out against this government's regressive legislation introduced by the Minister of Health; and
Whereas the Medical Society feels the government should try to attract health care workers to this province; and
Whereas they feel that the introduction of this bill will in fact discourage health care workers from coming to this province;
Therefore be it resolved that since the Minister of Health advocates for evidence-based solutions, we suggest he listen to the Medical Society who know the health care system and how it works.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Lunenburg West.
Order, please. There is too much noise in the Chamber.
MR. DONALD DOWNE: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas nurses make up two-thirds of all health professionals in Canada; and
Whereas nurses are the people who care for our sick families, friends and loved ones; and
Whereas nurses are not the uncaring villains portrayed by the Tory Government newspaper ads;
Therefore be it resolved that this government show these hard-working nurses the respect they deserve and immediately tear-up Bill No. 68.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas Bill No. 68, the Healthcare Service Continuation (2001) Act, introduced on this House on June 14, 2001, allows Cabinet to by-pass the arbitration process and impose any non-collective agreement it wants on the members of health care bargaining units; and
Whereas Bill No. 68 further erodes the rights of bargaining units by expressly forbidding any form of appeal of unilateral, government authored collective agreements; and
Whereas Bill No. 68 is a thinly-veiled threat to all future collective bargaining in this province;
Therefore be it resolved that the Premier and his Minister of Health have failed Nova Scotians and have failed health care workers by introducing legislation that denies them their legal right to freely negotiate collective agreements with their employers without government intimidation.
Mr. Speaker, I would request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Dartmouth East.
DR. JAMES SMITH: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the United States is facing both a nursing and a health care worker crisis; and
Whereas nurses and other health care professionals know that when they go to the United States, they will be rewarded handsomely, not only with money but with respect; and
Whereas the nurses and health care professionals know that by moving to the United States, they will be able to enjoy flexible hours, so as to be able to spend more time with their families and friends;
Therefore be it resolved that this government realize that competing with other Atlantic Canadian provinces is simply a naive strategy that fails to recognize the global shortage of nurses and health care professionals.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Dartmouth North.
MR. JERRY PYE: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas Nova Scotia celebrates Seniors' Week from June 17th to June 23rd; and
Whereas seniors, through their hard work and diligence, have provided us with our high standard and quality of life and deserve the very best we can provide for them; and
Whereas seniors won't fail to see the rich irony of this government singing their praises this week while it guides through the House the very legislation that will rob them of their right to proper health care, Bill No. 68, because it will drive health care workers away;
Therefore be it resolved that this House condemn the Premier's blue book for singing the praises of seniors, while he stabs them in the back.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. That notice is out of order. It is unparliamentary.
The honourable member for Victoria.
MR. KENNETH MACASKILL: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas last Thursday, the Premier took the drastic step of calling this Legislature back to session in order to ram through back-to-work legislation; and
Whereas Premier Hamm did so because he claimed the health and safety of Nova Scotians was being threatened by nurses and health care workers; and
Whereas although the Premier claimed health care was in a crisis, he didn't have the respect to show up at Province House when the Legislature reopened;
Therefore be it resolved that the good doctor re-examine his priorities, dispense with Bill No. 68 and start showing nurses and health care workers the respect Nova Scotians believe they deserve.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed.
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas last Friday, over 100 clerical and administrative staff of the Cape Breton Regional Hospital staged a wildcat walkout; and
Whereas CUPE representatives acknowledge that health care workers are growing more and more frustrated and this government's introduction of Bill No. 68 may just be the icing on the cake for health care workers; and
Whereas national voices are speaking out against Bill No. 68, and opinion of the bill ranges from unconstitutional to the most regressive piece of legislation ever written;
Therefore be it resolved that this House acknowledge the incendiary qualities of Bill No. 68, and the government that would make us the backwater of labour legislation of North America.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Glace Bay.
[1:00 a.m.]
MR. DAVID WILSON: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas on Friday, the Premier finally conceded that his draconian approach to negotiations will affect his chances for re-election; and
Whereas with the considerable amount of polling the Premier does one would think he would have anticipated such negative reaction; and
Whereas the Premier must be very upset with the effect his Health Minister's incompetence is having on his own image;
Therefore be it resolved that the Tory Government be ashamed of their treatment of nurses and their inability to recognize the incredible harm they are doing to that profession in Nova Scotia.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: On behalf of the honourable member for Halifax Needham, Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the Nova Scotia Teachers Union has come out against this government's regressive legislation introduced by the Minister of Health; and
Whereas the NSTU feels this government is signalling that the collective bargaining process in this province is now dead; and
Whereas Bill No. 68 is just another example of Mike Harris politics with a Nova Scotia twist;
Therefore be it resolved that if the Premier and his caucus want to be like Mike, then we suggest they move to Ontario. (Applause)
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
I just want to remind the visitors in the gallery that I would ask them not to respond either positively or negatively to what is happening on the floor of the House, please. Thank you.
The honourable member for Cape Breton The Lakes.
MR. BRIAN BOUDREAU: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas on Friday, the Premier finally conceded that his draconian approach to negotiations will affect his chances for re-election; and
Whereas with the considerable amount of polling the Premier does, one would think he would have anticipated such negative reaction; and
Whereas the Premier must be very upset with the effect his Health Minister's incompetence is having on his own image;
Therefore be it resolved that the Premier recognize the sort of wildcat actions - such as those that took place on the Northside on Friday - that can come about as a result of these harsh measures.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas in 1999 the blue blood Premier promised in his blue book of sweetness and light - who writes this stuff? - to work with the nursing profession to make sure the work environment offers a rewarding and positive experience where nurses know they can properly care for their patients; and
Whereas the Premier promised a further lollipop by assuring nurses they would have a work environment "where they know they are valued and where they are empowered to have input into influencing clinical practice outcomes . . ."; and
Whereas the results of the RNANS online poll indicates that both nurses and the public now realize they were duped by the Premier;
Therefore be it resolved the Premier please drop the big stick of Bill No. 68 and extend the carrot of free and open contract negotiations with health care workers.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Richmond.
MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas Bill No. 68 is a terribly misguided piece of legislation which takes power away from Nova Scotians and places it in the hands of self-serving Tories; and
Whereas whoever advised the Tories on this legislation certainly misread the tea leaves; and
Whereas public dissatisfaction over this bill will hurt the Tories big time in the next election;
Therefore be it resolved that the Tory Government think twice - or even three times for that matter - before they ever produce another draconian piece of legislation as Bill No. 68.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Dartmouth North.
MR. JERRY PYE: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas this Premier promised input from seniors before any government decision-making affecting the future of our province; and
Whereas this government's failure to recruit much-needed nurses has already limited access for seniors to health care; and
Whereas Bill No. 68 will serve only to limit their access further, as it will drive health care workers away or out of the profession;
Therefore be it resolved that this House condemns the Premier for failing to consult with seniors before bringing forward Bill No. 68, a bill that will limit seniors' access to health care.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear several Noes.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Glace Bay.
MR. DAVID WILSON: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas there is a North American-wide shortage of nurses and health care workers; and
Whereas instead of creating innovative programs to attract new nurses and health care workers, this government introduces draconian laws that will only drive them away; and
Whereas unless this government starts acting sensibly, Nova Scotia will be in more of a health care crisis than it already is;
Therefore be it resolved that this bone-headed government dispense with Bill No. 68, and offer nurses and health care workers a contract that shows these invaluable members of Nova Scotia's health care team the respect they deserve.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear several Noes.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the honourable member for Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas Hiram and Kathleen Nelson, a couple formerly from metro and living in Victoria, B.C., have donated 100 hectares of threatened coastal wetland in Cole Harbour to the province; and
Whereas Hiram and Kathleen wanted the ecologically-sensitive property protected; and
Whereas this piece of property is one of the last undeveloped shorelines in the urban area of Halifax-Dartmouth;
Therefore be it resolved that this government send its thanks to Hiram and Kathleen Nelson for donating 100 hectares of threatened coastal wetland in Cole Harbour to the province, and commit immediately to giving it protection under the Special Places Protection Act.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Lunenburg West.
MR. DONALD DOWNE: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas on Friday, the Premier finally conceded that his draconian approach to negotiations will affect his chances for re-election; and
Whereas with the considerable amount of polling the Premier does, one would think he would have anticipated such a negative reaction; and
Whereas the Premier must be very upset with the effect his Health Minister's incompetence is having on his own image;
Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House condemn the Premier for being more concerned with his image than public policy.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable Minister of Finance.
HON. NEIL LEBLANC: Mr. Speaker, on the previous resolution put forward by the member for Cape Breton Centre on behalf of the member for Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage, I hadn't heard the operative clause and I denied unanimous consent. Reading the operative clause, if the member could get up and read it again I would be more than willing to offer support.
MR. SPEAKER: Is it agreed?
It is agreed.
The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre, the operative clause only, please.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister of Finance.
Therefore be it resolved that this government send its thanks to Hiram and Kathleen Nelson for donating 100 hectares of threatened coastal wetland in Cole Harbour to the province, and commit immediately to giving it protection under the Special Places Protection Act.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
It is agreed.
Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
The honourable member for Richmond.
MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas this government is using nurses and health care workers as scapegoats for their own incompetency; and
Whereas to attempt to sell this legislation as protection for the health and safety of all Nova Scotians is nothing but a red herring; and
Whereas this government has already closed hospital beds due to its failure to recruit nurses to Nova Scotia;
Therefore be it resolved that this government wake up and realize that it is their own failure that is threatening the health and safety of Nova Scotians, not nurses and health care workers.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
RESOLUTION NO. 1691
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the honourable member for Timberlea-Prospect, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas Bill No. 68 signifies the death knell for collective bargaining in this province; and
Whereas the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour, the Nova Scotia Teachers Union, the National Union of Public and General Employees, to name a few, have begun rallying in support of the Nova Scotia Government Employees Union and the Nova Scotia Nurses' Union and other unions representing health care workers; and
Whereas these groups representing dedicated Nova Scotian workers have resoundingly castigated the Premier and his Minister of Health for trampling on the legal right of workers to a free collective bargaining process;
Therefore be it resolved that the Premier and his Minister of Health admit that they have failed Nova Scotian workers and immediately withdraw this repugnant piece of legislation, and allow members of the health care bargaining units to proceed, unimpeded by this meddling government, towards a fairly negotiated collective agreement.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Victoria.
MR. KENNETH MACASKILL: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas Premier Hamm recently admitted the backlash from the public against Bill No. 68 will hurt him come election time; and
Whereas whoever advised the Tories on this legislation certainly misread public perception; and
Whereas this bill proves the Tories prefer dictatorship over democracy;
Therefore be it resolved that the Tory Government drop this piece of legislation and immediately apologize to the hard-working nurses and health care workers of this province.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the honourable member for Halifax Fairview, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas Premier Blue Book declared that "Nova Scotians want to know that if they need the health care system it will be there for them . . ."; and
Whereas Premier Blue Book went on to say ". . . I want them to know that under a John Hamm government it will be!"; and
Whereas the passage of Bill No. 68 will ensure that Nova Scotians will be able to access the bricks and mortar that make up our health care facilities, but access to adequate health care will be a much dicier prospect, as health care workers will be driven out of province or out of the profession;
Therefore be it resolved that the great tragedy of it all will not be the ouster of the Hamm Government at the upcoming polls, but the irreparable harm to our health care system that will be the Hamm legacy.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton The Lakes.
MR. BRIAN BOUDREAU: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas whoever advised the Tories to bring forward Bill No. 68 certainly misread polling advice; and
Whereas the good Premier recently admitted the backlash against Bill No. 68 will hurt him come the next election; and
Whereas the public backlash against this bill confirms Nova Scotians don't agree with the Premier and the Health Minister's unfair and selfish comments towards nurses and health care workers;
Therefore be it resolved that the minister and the Premier apologize immediately to the hard-working nurses and health care workers in Nova Scotia.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Dartmouth North.
RESOLUTION NO. 1695
MR. JERRY PYE: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the honourable member for Hants East, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas delivery of rural medicine in Nova Scotia is becoming increasingly difficult due to doctor shortages; and
Whereas doctors are hesitant to go to rural areas, partly due to the fear of lack of support; and
Whereas this government is further eroding those supports with its current mishandling of the health care workers' contract negotiations;
Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House of Assembly urge the government to step back, take a deep breath, and avoid the damage its callous treatment of health care workers will do to the recruitment of rural doctors.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton South.
MR. MANNING MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the honourable member for Cape Breton Nova, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas there is a continent-wide shortage of nurses and health support workers in North America; and
Whereas instead of attracting new health professionals, this government excels at driving them away; and
Whereas Bill No. 68 brings Nova Scotia another step closer to driving all health care professionals away from our province;
[1:15 a.m.]
Therefore be it resolved that this Tory Government drop its bone-headed mentality and embark on innovative methods to not only attract new health professionals but also keep our hard-working health professionals in Nova Scotia.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear several Noes.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the honourable Leader of the Opposition, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas nurses and other health care workers have endured the consequences of 10 years of political interference and mismanagement in health care; and
Whereas the Conservatives recognized that the result was poor morale and an unrewarding, negative work environment which contributed to the chaos in the health care system; and
Whereas the Conservatives are risking dire consequences for Nova Scotians' health care by launching a partisan campaign that attacks the workers instead of fixing the health care system;
Therefore be it resolved that to protect the health and safety of Nova Scotians, the government should end its divisive, partisan campaign and trust health care workers enough to meet them as equals and freely negotiate positive and lasting changes for Nova Scotia health care.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Dartmouth East.
DR. JAMES SMITH: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas on Friday the Premier finally conceded that his draconian approach to negotiations will affect his chances for re-election; and
Whereas with the considerable amount of polling the Premier does, one would think he would have anticipated such a negative reaction; and
Whereas the Premier must be very upset with the effect his Health Minister's incompetence is having on his own image;
Therefore be it resolved that the Minister of Health have the same revelation about nursing in Nova Scotia as the Premier has had about elections in Nova Scotia, and pull this bill, Bill No. 68, before it is too late.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the honourable member for Timberlea-Prospect, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas in an e-mail sent to our caucus office on Friday, June 15, 2001, Nancy Mahoney, who is not a nurse and not a health care workers, writes that she is "appalled at the government's heavy-handed manoeuvring . . ." in introducing Bill No. 68; and
Whereas after seeing a group of school children visiting the Legislature on Friday morning, she wrote "I don't want our children and grandchildren to grow up in a society in which they innocently believe that they have rights, that there are laws made to protect them . . ."; and
Whereas Ms. Mahoney continues ". . . only to discover as they grow up that those rights and laws are imposed or taken away whenever it is convenient for a government to do so - that their contracts are worth nothing . . .";
Therefore be it resolved that the Premier and his Minister of Health recall their appalling piece of unfair, undemocratic, anti-worker legislation and uphold the rights of the health care workers and future generations of workers in this province to a fair collective bargaining process.
Mr. Speaker, I seek waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The motion is out of order, it is too long.
The honourable member for Cape Breton South.
MR. MANNING MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the honourable Leader of the Liberal Party, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas this government has accused nurses and health care professionals of threatening the health and safety of Nova Scotians; and
Whereas the Premier and his MLAs don't seem to realize that our nurses and health care workers would be the last to abandon a patient; and
Whereas the attitude of the Premier and his MLAs will no doubt have a negative impact when they head into the next general election;
Therefore be it resolved that this government drop this piece of legislation and come up with a contract for nurses and health care workers that reflects the high level of dedication and commitment these workers show to the people of Nova Scotia every day.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear several Noes.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the honourable member for Sackville-Cobequid, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas a 1997 Canadian Nurses Association report concluded that one of the causes of a nursing shortage in the near future is an aging population, which will require increased nursing and other health care; and
Whereas Premier Blue Book promised in 1999 a PC Government would "ensure that input from seniors and the interests of seniors are at the forefront of all government decision making affecting the future of our province"; and
Whereas the exodus of health care workers from their professions and for other climes because of this government's draconian Bill No. 68 ensures seniors less and less access to proper health care in the future;
Therefore be it resolved that this Premier toss Bill No. 68 before he does irreparable harm to the health and safety of seniors in Nova Scotia.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton West.
MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas Canada's smallest province - Prince Edward Island - is investing $2.2 million towards an innovative nursing recruitment and retention program; and
Whereas under Nova Scotia's nursing strategy announced in April of this year that this government has pledged a measly $300,000 for recruitment and retention; and
Whereas P.E.I.'s sensible investment puts them head and shoulders above the pathetic recruitment and retention efforts of this Tory Government;
Therefore be it resolved that this government wake up, smell the coffee and start investing more resources to retain our hard-working nurses and recruit new nurses to Nova Scotia.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear several Noes.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Dartmouth North.
MR. JERRY PYE: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the honourable member for Hants East, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas nurses are essential support for doctors in rural areas as elsewhere; and
Whereas rural areas are having difficult times recruiting badly needed doctors; and
Whereas this government will make it even tougher to attract doctors to rural areas due to the flight of nurses and support workers from its Hamm-handed policies;
Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House of Assembly urge the government to back off from its current course of madness and treat health care workers with the respect that they deserve.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear several Noes.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton West.
MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas on Friday, the Premier finally conceded that his draconian approach to negotiations will affect his chances for re-election; and
Whereas with the considerable amount of polling the Premier does, one would think that he would have anticipated such negative reaction; and
Whereas the Premier must be upset with the effect his Minister of Health's incompetence is having on his image;
Therefore be it resolved that now that the Premier has realized the political price of his actions, perhaps he can recognize the unprecedented effect on labour relations that Bill No. 68 will have in this province.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear several Noes.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the honourable member for Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas in a letter sent to the Premier by the National Union of Public and General Employees, president James Clancy calls Bill No. 68 "unjust, undemocratic and anti-worker"; and
Whereas Mr. Clancy asks the question, "Why does your government feel that it can override fundamental right and freedoms of citizens of Nova Scotia?"; and
Whereas the letter further states, "If enacted, Bill 68 will do nothing to address the serious problems facing the health care system in Nova Scotia . . . Health care workers did not create the crisis in Nova Scotia.";
Therefore be it resolved that this House acknowledge the people who created that health care crisis in Nova Scotia today be named as John Buchanan, Donald Cameron, John Savage and John Hamm.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear several Noes.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the minister stated in this House last Thursday, ". . . that no government in Nova Scotia in recent years has done and taken stronger and introduced more innovative things for nurses than this one . . ."; and
Whereas health care workers certainly agree that this minister's crowning innovation is Bill No. 68 in which he rips away every shred of dignity left to them; and
Whereas if this government proceeds to impose a non-collective agreement on health care workers, our health care system will collapse upon itself as these essential workers find other opportunities;
Therefore be it resolved that this government come to its senses and toss Bill No. 68 before it dismantles our already stressed health care system.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear a No.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the honourable member for Halifax Fairview, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas the Minister of Health states in media reports that "our system needs every nurse and every health-care worker every day to care for Nova Scotians."; and
Whereas what the Minister of Health seems to forget is that even nurses and health care workers need days off to relax and recharge; and
Whereas it would appear the Minister of Health, if given the chance, would not allow workers days off and probably would legislate that if he thought he could get away with it;
Therefore be it resolved that this House instruct the Minister of Health to take a reality check now and withdraw Bill No. 68 before it completely destroys the health care system in this province.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear several Noes.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas while testing soil in and around the Whitney Pier area, government workers must wear rubber gloves so as not to touch contaminated soil; and
Whereas if government employees can't even touch the soil with bare hands, imagine how concerned it must make the residents of the area; and
Whereas the site of workers wearing gloves has residents' fears growing by the minute, rather than reassuring them;
Therefore be it resolved that instead of improving the situation of residents of the Whitney Pier area, this government, in conjunction with the federal government, is making residents of Whitney Pier even more nervous and upset.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear several Noes.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas this Premier promised in his blue book that "A PC Government is committed to ensuring health care resources are directed by real, measurable evidence"; and
Whereas the Premier's heavy-handed use of Bill No. 68 to legislate away years of collective bargaining rights for health care workers will cause their exodus in pursuit of opportunities elsewhere; and
Whereas Bill No. 68 provides real, measurable evidence that this government is prepared to trample all over health care workers to achieve its fiscal objectives;
Therefore be it resolved that in light of the upcoming exodus of health care workers from this province and their profession because of Bill No. 68, the Premier amend his blue book promise to state, "A PC Government is committed to ensuring health care resources are directed elsewhere by real, measurable evidence."
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear several Noes.
The notice is tabled.
The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.
MR. ROBERT CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the honourable member for Sackville-Cobequid, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:
Whereas Premier Blue Book stated in 1999 that "Our seniors are those members of our community who have contributed to making our Nova Scotian society the wonderful place that it is . . ."; and
Whereas Premier Blue Book then promised seniors that because they are building blocks of our society they "now have a right to live their remaining years in comfort, security and with the best possible health and quality of life . . ."; and
Whereas Premier Blue Book has welched on another promise, because with the passage of Bill No. 68 he will dismantle the very public health care system that would provide comfort, security and the best possible health and quality of life for our seniors;
Therefore be it resolved that Premier Blue Book issue an apology to seniors in Nova Scotia for failing to provide the health care system they so justly deserve.
Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.
MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.
Is it agreed?
I hear several Noes.
The notice is tabled.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
GOVERNMENT BUSINESS
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Government House Leader.
HON. RONALD RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, would you please call the order of business, Public Bills for Second Reading.
PUBLIC BILLS FOR SECOND READING
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Government House Leader.
HON. RONALD RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, would you please call Bill No. 68.
Bill No. 68 - Healthcare Services Continuation (2001) Act.
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Cape Breton South.
MR. MANNING MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, this is the second opportunity I have had to speak to this bill, Bill No. 68, and I can assure you that it won't be the last because we expect that this bill is going to be before this House for some time well into next week and with sufficient time, hopefully, to encourage as many Nova Scotians as possible to take a close look at what is happening here.
This bill should not be before this House of Assembly, Mr. Speaker. This bill is a betrayal of the health care workers and nurses of this province. It should not be here and we should not be standing in our places in this House debating such a bill.
[1:30 a.m.]
Mr. Speaker, this bill is nothing more than a new system of government evolving here in Nova Scotia, which is government by Cabinet decree, in other words, the powers of the Legislature are certainly going to be diminished in the future in favour of Cabinet decisions being made on just about everything from collective bargaining to the dishing out of patronage dollars to their friends in this province.
Mr. Speaker, our motion to refer this particular bill to the Human Resources Committee, perhaps, might be a way out for this government, because I am sure that as of last Friday, and over the weekend, that some of their members were home in their constituencies and no doubt have heard from health care professionals, nurses. I can tell you that I had the opportunity on the weekend to address approximately 300 nurses from the Nova Scotia Nurses' Union at a meeting in Sydney on Saturday evening. I outlined to that group the procedure in this House, and what we will be doing over the next few days to try to make Nova Scotians aware and make the nurses aware, the health care professionals aware, of what our responsibility is as Opposition members of this House.
Mr. Speaker, I was very frank with them. I told them that we would fight this bill to the end, but I also told them that this Tory Government is a majority government in Nova Scotia and unless the court of public opinion kicks in and some of these backbenchers in this government realize that they have made a mistake in acting like lemmings, just following the Cabinet decree that is before this House, then this bill will eventually go through, unfortunately, for health care workers in this province.
Mr. Speaker, noticeably absent at that meeting Saturday evening with the Nova Scotia Nurses' Union were the Tory members from Cabinet. Neither one of them were there. That meeting took place Saturday evening. There is a reason why the member for Cape Breton North wasn't there, because they couldn't find him. The nurses were looking for him all weekend, they couldn't find him. They left messages everywhere for him. They wanted him to come before that group and explain to that group why he supports this Cabinet decision on Bill No. 68, but they couldn't find him. No trouble finding him if there is a cheque to be given out down there, a federal cheque, that he can stand next to a federal member and
present a cheque. When it comes to a problem in that constituency or in Nova Scotia, he was nowhere to be found.
Mr. Speaker, the nurses from the Inverness area were also there. They were there to tell me how disappointed they were that they couldn't find their member, and he wasn't there Saturday evening. He wasn't there either. These nurses deserve better treatment than that. They deserve to have their government members there telling them why they are supporting this bill. I am going to tell you, they can't hide forever. They can't hide forever. In talking to nurses the other day - and that is why I think if we had this bill referred to the Human Resources Committee, they could go out and talk to the various stakeholders and have representations around this province on this particular bill. Perhaps common sense would then prevail, and this committee could report back to the House and say that Nova Scotians are not on side with this bill, and we should rethink the entire process, we should get to collective bargaining with these groups.
Mr. Speaker, here at the House the other day, I had the opportunity to talk to a couple of nurses. They told me that they were so upset with this particular bill, so upset with it that they didn't know what their options were going to be. They felt betrayed by this government; they felt worthless, because the Premier and the Minister of Health and the front bench and, yes, some MLAs have said, we couldn't trust these nurses to look after the people of Nova Scotia in a strike situation. That is a terrible indictment of the nurses and the health care workers of this province. A terrible indictment.
These people are caring individuals who would never let the health and safety of Nova Scotians be in any kind of jeopardy because of a labour dispute. They said that. The government chose not to listen to them. The reason the government chose not to listen to them is because they are not the main item on the agenda, they are being used in what this government intends to go down what they call a new direction in how to govern in Nova Scotia, government in the bunker by the Cabinet. They will decide in the future what raises are going to be given in this province; they will decide who is going to be able to have collective bargaining and for how long; they will decide the rules of the game.
This Legislature will be nothing more than a rubber stamp for the Lieutenant Governor to trot in here every once in a while and sign some bills, and we will all go to a reception and go home, because there will be no more decision-making in this Chamber here, the House of the people. Those decisions will be made in the Cabinet bunker, government by decree. The divine right to rule from this Tory Government.
As I have said here on many occasions, there were a number of different faces in those seats in the last seven or eight years, and I have been here to see them come and go. Some of them weren't even here long enough to warm the seats. I suggest to you that if those backbenchers keep following the direction of the front bench of that government, they will not be around after the next election.
Mr. Speaker, I spoke to another nurse the other day, who told me that in the constituency of Halifax-Bedford Basin there are over 600 nurses living in that particular area, all of whom are going to make sure that the member for Halifax-Bedford Basin, one of the people I am talking about, who will not be back here after the next election. If anybody wants to bet me money on that, I will take the bet. I will go through constituency-by-constituency and I will tell you which ones won't be back here after the next election, because we are now hearing from those people who are not, by the way, hearing from their MLAs.
Mr. Speaker, I said that many backbenchers returned home last weekend, but some didn't, some were hiding out, some couldn't be reached, but I will guarantee you, in the case of the two from Cape Breton that I had the opportunity to talk to some of their constituents about, they were telling me that the only time you see them is when they are trying to score some points. If there is any controversy, they are nowhere to be found. I think it is tragic that a wannabe Cabinet Minister could not go before that group Saturday evening and explain the position of his government and, worse than that, the Minister of Tourism didn't even do it. He couldn't be found either, Saturday evening.
Mr. Speaker, those members have a responsibility to explain to those people who they serve in this place why they are supporting Bill No. 68. The Human Resources Committee, if this bill should go that route and we sincerely hope it does, would allow the government to be open and accountable. It would give the government the opportunity, through that committee, to receive representation from Nova Scotians right across this province; to receive the kind of representation and the ideas and the discussion and the dialogue that could then come back in a committee report with some recommendations by both government members and Opposition members who would be on that committee.
Mr. Speaker, I think the committee should be empowered to travel the province. I say that because, what is the hurry? Why is the government trying to ram this bill through, meeting 24 hours a day to get this bill through the House? What is the hurry? Most people thought that if the government was concerned about a strike here in Nova Scotia, they would have suggested to the bargaining units, let's talk about binding arbitration, third party intervention, approved and supported by both Parties. That would have been an option. Maybe it wasn't an option that the union would accept, I don't know. But that option wasn't given to them. The option that is given to them now is no option. There is no more collective bargaining in this province with this group after this bill goes through. It is all over. Good night. Turn the lights out. It is all over.
The Cabinet will decide the worth of health care professionals in this province, nobody else but the Cabinet, out of the sight and the scrutiny of this Legislature, the House of the people of Nova Scotia, which is fast becoming redundant because of Bill No. 20, because of the Barrington bill, because of Bill No. 30 and now because of Bill No. 68. What bill is coming in next that is going to take the rights of Nova Scotians away from the visibility and the accountability of this House of Assembly? What bill is coming in the fall? More
draconian legislation? I believe that if we could afford the opportunity for interest groups on this particular bill to have their say in a public forum across the province, it would certainly relieve some of the anxiety that these groups are facing.
Mr. Speaker, in talking to the group that I talked to the other evening, before the meeting started, my colleague for Cape Breton The Lakes and I had a chance to talk to some of the nurses informally from the Nova Scotia Nurses' Union and they were telling me that the working conditions and the problems they are facing in the workplace were bad enough before this bill came along and now they find themselves getting up in the morning wondering why they are doing this work on behalf of their fellow citizens when the government doesn't have any interest in them or doesn't have any faith that they can do the job or, indeed, with a labour interruption, they would look after the people they were sworn to serve.
They don't understand why the government is taking this attitude, Mr. Speaker. They don't understand that because they thought they were doing a good job and Nova Scotians think they are doing a good job. So why is the government doing this? The government is using this group as pawns in a larger game here and the backbenchers of that Party haven't caught on to it yet. They haven't caught on to it. This is a full-scale assault on the collective bargaining process in the Public Service of this province. That is what is going on here, but they took on the wrong group when they took on the health care workers and the nurses of this province.
Some of their advisors probably told them, Mr. Speaker, let's take this group on and get the job done, go down that road by using this group because they are the most non-militant group that we know. That is what the government said. So let's take them out of the picture first and then we will set the precedent legislation and then we will go after bigger fish. But they made a mistake here. I believe that they under-estimated public opinion here as to the worth and the sincerity of the health care professionals in this province.
I believe, Mr. Speaker, that this government should now, before it is too late, withdraw Bill No. 68 and send it to a committee because I think that is the only way they can truly gauge public opinion. I know what the public opinion is. I was home on the weekend. I was available to people who wanted to talk to me and they told me, they gave me an earful about what is going on in this Legislature. They told me they didn't like this legislation and I told them that we wish this bill could go to a committee so it could receive the kind of airing it deserves. It deserves to be talked about, it deserves to be vetted right across this province because it is an important bill that I believe if it is not going to be pulled entirely by the government - and that is what should happen to it - that at least the government should send a committee across the province to gauge public opinion on this very important issue.
[1:45 a.m.]
But they are not going to do that unless there is a tremendous change of heart in the next couple of days, which I don't anticipate. I told the people that I was speaking with on the weekend that we can keep this debate going until we run the clock out, by legislative rules. The government is determined to do that by sitting 24 hours a day, trying to ram the bill through. We will send it off to Law Amendments sometime later this week or early next week and probably invoke closure there to get it back in here. Once it is back in here, we are down to 40 hours, no matter how we cut it. That will be the time at the Committee of the Whole House on this bill where we will be making a number of amendments to the bill that, should they be passed, would dramatically alter the intent of the bill and perhaps even make the bill not necessary.
I don't think the bill is necessary. My colleagues and our Party don't think the bill is necessary. The NDP don't think the bill is necessary. The Public Service doesn't think the bill is necessary, the editorial writers for the major papers in this province don't think the bill is necessary. The journalists I have spoken with and the electronic media that I have heard, don't think the bill is necessary. The Nova Scotians I have spoken with and other members in our Party have polled and talked to, they don't think the bill is necessary. Who thinks the bill is necessary? Prince John, the sheriff and his buddy over there, they think it is necessary. Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham, who have done nothing since they have come in here but taxed everything but the telephone poles and called them user pay services, instead of taxation. They think it is necessary.
They are tired of the Legislature. They don't want to have to come here and talk to Nova Scotians about bills or about the direction where government is going. They want to do it downstairs out of sight. By OIC - Order in Council. By Cabinet decree. We will be reduced to coming here once a year for a tea party and then sent home to tell our constituents that the Cabinet is running this province and not the members of this Legislature.
Nova Scotians aren't being fooled by this Premier or this Finance Minister who has already boldly proclaimed that this province is going to have larger debt payments in the future even though they have got a war chest full of money for the next election, a windfall that was given to them by the federal government. They are not going to spend that windfall on the public sector people, on the nurses, on the health care professionals. They are putting it away for the next election, that is what they are doing with it and letting the debt go up while they are doing it because they are socking some of that money away as well.
So, what does that tell you? It tells you they have nothing but contempt for the professionals who are working in this province. The other day, I stood in my place here and I asked the very first question the day after that bill was introduced. The Premier had the time out in the foyer to tell the press the reason that bill was here, only one day after a mediator was appointed, but didn't tell the members on this side of the House during Question Period
because he wasn't here. The Premier of this province was not even in the House to explain . . .
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Order. The honourable member for Cape Breton South knows full well that he is not to indicate the presence or the absence in this House of a member and I would ask him to refrain from that, please. The honourable member for Cape Breton South has the floor.
MR. MANNING MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, you are absolutely right. I will not mention anymore that the Premier wasn't in his place the other day.
Let me go back to the Human Resources Committee. We supported the NDP on the first motion that came through the House to hoist this bill and it got nowhere, but we ran the clock out on that and now we are on the motion to refer to committee and we had hoped by now that the Government House Leader might have come and talked to us and said look, you know there is a hope that we may be able to get a settlement here, so we don't see the reason to hurry this bill along. I think your idea of a Human Resources Committee is a good one and perhaps we should set up this committee and ask Nova Scotians what they think of this new direction in deciding what public servants are going to make, or the working conditions of those public servants.
We think it is a good idea to gauge public opinion on that, but you know what, Mr. Speaker? The government is not going to do that for the same reason they wouldn't do anything on the Barrington bill, because of pride. They introduced a bill, and Heaven forbid that the Liberal Party or the NDP would have anything useful to say in this place, or any suggestions to make that might be saleable to the government or to Nova Scotians because this Cabinet knows everything that is good for Nova Scotians. They don't need anybody in this Legislature telling them which direction we should be going in because they want to govern by decree.
Mr. Speaker, this is a government that seems to be heading down the road to its own self-destruction and, as far I am concerned about that, the sooner the better because this government has no shame; they have great difficulty with the notion of justice and truth. We have had other examples of that in the past few weeks in the last session of the Legislature. They fail to act in good faith. They broke faith with the health professionals of this province last Wednesday. They held three Cabinet meetings last week at the same precise time that they were appointing a mediator and giving Nova Scotians, concerned about this issue, false hope that a mediator was going to perhaps resolve this entire issue. What did they do, Mr. Speaker, the very next day? They called this House of Assembly back in session and introduced Bill No. 68, the most regressive piece of legislation to ever hit the floor of this House of Assembly.
The Finance Minister states that I have a short memory, the Sheriff of Nottingham over there. He tells me that, when he was part of the government that bankrupted this province in the 15 years that he sat in the Cabinet of John Buchanan. He, and the Government House Leader, those two, of all people, should not sit in their places in this House and talk about fiscal responsibility or what is good for public servants.
Mr. Speaker, I believe this bill is the ultimate abdication and an admission of defeat of this government. Much has been said about the past and the minister referred to it, that I have a short memory. I want to tell you that we, when we sat in government in this province, had difficult negotiations with public sector workers, but we settled those negotiations at the bargaining table. Sure they were long in some cases, and sure there was great difficulty in settling them, but we did not come to this House of Assembly with a bill that is going to wipe out public sector negotiations. That is what this crowd is doing, its a great deal different than what has happened before in this province. I must tell you, even the previous Tory Government in this province would never resort to this kind of action here.
Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to ask Nova Scotians, any Nova Scotian other than this government: Who would condemn individuals whose only fight is to care for other Nova Scotians? These people who are working in the health care system, who we are dealing with right now are not militant people. They are concerned professionals who want to get up and go to work on the long shifts that they do and look after people. They don't want to have to go to work every day and talk about this foolishness that we are going through here. They have a job to do and they want to get on with it and do it, but they would like to know that this government appreciates what they are doing and is not trying to design legislation and implement legislation that effectively takes away all their rights and puts it in the hands of self-serving Cabinet Ministers, whose only goal is to get their government re-elected by whatever means that they can put at their disposal.
I think, Mr. Speaker, that they really feel that the harder the line they take with the Public Service, the more Nova Scotians are going to thank them for it. Well, I have got news for them. I think that whoever told them that, the backroom boys in that Party that told them that, should be fired because, obviously, their political strategy leaves a lot to be desired. I am going to tell you, when you take on the health care workers, the nurses of this province, the caring professionals who look after their fellow citizens, then you have taken on the wrong group. If this government felt that by getting this bill through the House, that they are using these people as a stepping stone to more regressive legislation with other groups in this province, then they have picked on the wrong group.
Mr. Speaker, this bill is nothing more than a campaign of intimidation and manipulation and I have talked about that manipulation. If we had this bill on a road show across this province with a legislative committee, I think you would get very interesting dialogue from various sectors in Nova Scotia as to where they feel this bill should be going. I would suggest to you that most of them would say that this bill is not necessary. The
collective bargaining process in this province has never failed to succeed in the long run. If both sides could work at it, the collective bargaining process can work in this province, if both sides want it to work.
Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure that this committee, if it was travelling, would hear this. They would hear that what is happening with this bill is that when the Cabinet of the day decides that they have had enough negotiation with this group or any other group, they will simply go down into the bunker and decree what the result is going to be of those negotiations. They will suspend the negotiations, make a decision and that is it. Game over. Now, you have to realize that the Cabinet is the employer here. They are going to make a unilateral decision and they are the employer. So guess what side of the contest the decision is going to be made in favour of?
Do you honestly think, Mr. Speaker, that this Cabinet is going to make a decision in favour of the very people they are negotiating against? Not likely. So in effect, there is no more collective bargaining - none at all, that is it. You might as well just pack it in and throw yourselves at the mercy of the Cabinet. You know, that can't be allowed to happen. As I said Saturday evening in Sydney to the group that was there, we hope to be able to get a legislative committee to sit down with you, at some point in the future, and talk about this bill. I don't know if that is going to happen, but we are going to talk about this amendment and we are going to talk about it and talk about it until we can no longer talk about it because of legislative restrictions or the government decides to rule in favour of a committee to travel the province.
[2:00 a.m.]
Now I believe, Mr. Speaker, that what this committee would be told is that if this bill proceeds, we are going to set public sector government relations back a long, long time. I believe the morale in the health care field, as bad as it is now, will be much worse in the future. That is not a good working environment for those people and it is not a healthy environment for the people who must use that service. I believe, because of the strains, that the quality of health care will continue to suffer greatly in this province.
Mr. Speaker, I don't think you would argue, or anybody would argue, the worth of the health care professionals in this province. We all have a connection to the health care system. We all have people who are either employed in the system or we have relatives who use the system. As I said here the other day, in my own case, I have a daughter who is a nurse, who is now practising in Nova Scotia, who was away for a few years working in a very stressful environment with a Medevac team in the north and came home to what she thought was going to be a somewhat less stressful job here in Nova Scotia. Now she tells me she wishes she was back up north, flying around the frozen north with patients. She considers that a piece of cake now to the work that is down here and the stress and the strain in Nova Scotia.
So I believe that committee, if it went around the province, would hear from groups who will talk about the stress and the strain of that particular vocation. Twelve hour days are not uncommon. Lost weekends, not uncommon. Can't get vacations, not uncommon. A shortage of help is not uncommon in this province. So where is the grand plan that the government has to protect the health care professionals in Nova Scotia, other than taking their bargaining rights away from them? Who in the name of heaven is going to come to Nova Scotia on any recruitment program to work and help relieve the strain that our present- day health care professionals are under? Who is going to come to Nova Scotia with Bill No. 68 in place? Who is going to come to Nova Scotia when their only court of appeal on anything is the Cabinet?
My heavens, Mr. Speaker, they even put in the bill that there was no redress to the courts, that the Cabinet has the final say. They are the lord and master over this bill, not the courts. There is no redress to anybody. They have the final decision. What kind of democracy is that? It is not even the Legislature that has the final authority, the House of the people. The 52 MLAs in this House are not going to have the decisions on these bills in the future and on labour negotiations and on seeing the democratic process take its due course. This crowd has decided that they are going to do it by government by decree, by the divine right to rule. The front bench knows what is best for Nova Scotians. The health care professionals don't, the members of the Legislature don't, the people who use the health care services don't, but the Cabinet does.
This bunch of politicians has only one goal, and I said it before in this House, to get themselves re-elected so they can look after all their rich and powerful friends in this province that they missed in the last 15 years that they were in government. We see signs of that every day. All you have to do is look around this province and see what is going on with their friends, privatizations coming, public servants being jettisoned in favour of part-time workers, give-aways to large corporations. You are seeing that happen, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I would think that this government would realize that they were, perhaps, getting away with some of it until they tried this draconian legislation on the House. If I was a Cabinet Minister in that government and some strategist suggested to me that this was the way to get re-elected, by bringing Bill No. 68 before this House and ramming it through, then the first thing I would do is fire that strategist because he obviously doesn't know what he is talking about, because he is grossly underestimating the opinions of Nova Scotians, as it affects their health care workers and their nurses and everybody who works in the health care system in this province.
Mr. Speaker, what kind of insanity would allow a government to come with a bill that takes all bargaining rights away from this group, with no redress even to the courts of this province? It can't be just because they are worrying about a strike here, because the health care people, the professionals, have told this government they would ensure that the people of this province would be protected in any kind of a work stoppage situation. But the
government said they didn't believe them; the government said they couldn't be trusted. Can you imagine, people who work 12 hours a day, work weekends, working in terrible conditions, can't get vacations, but yet are giving quality care, they cannot be trusted.
Mr. Speaker, the people who can't be trusted are the people on the front benches, across this floor. I am going to tell you that this government has made what I consider to be their biggest mistake since coming into office. They have taken on the one sector of our society, I believe, that enjoys universal acceptance by all Nova Scotians. As I said before, there are a lot of one-termers in this House, and as I look over there, there will be empty seats, there will be new people in those seats after the next election, but they won't be over there, they will be over here, but there will be empty seats. Some of the smugness on the faces of those people while we are debating this very serious bill, that smugness will go away very soon, when they get the reverberations from their constituents as to what is happening in this House and the role that they have played in it.
Mr. Speaker, the Premier has said, often, that he would favour having his MLAs vote their conscience on a number of issues. Well, here is an issue, when this vote comes eventually, in a couple of weeks' time, when this vote comes, I want to see where those members stand. Are they going to stand up for health care? Are they going to stand up for the nurses? Are they going to stand up for health care workers and professionals in this province? Or, are they going to follow the lead of the front bench? No one expects any Cabinet Minister to change his mind on this bill, because that means instant expulsion from the Cabinet if they do that. But, there are backbenchers here who have an opportunity to do something.
It is bad enough that this bill takes away the right to strike, but a wage settlement without negotiations - Mr. Speaker, I might ask, if the Finance Minister wants to get on his feet when I am finished and take part in this debate, I would welcome that. In the meantime, I would hope he would afford me the opportunity to complete my remarks without having to compete with him. Get up on his feet when I am finished. Let him get up and tell Nova Scotians, when I am finished, why he supports Bill No. 68. Get on the record. When I sit down, let him get up and speak.
Not too many of them want to get on the record, including the Justice Minister, who thinks this is nothing more than a joke. That is what he thinks, nothing more than a joke. (Interruptions) That is all he thinks it is, nothing more than a joke.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Order, please. Again, just to remind the members in the gallery, I would ask you to respect the rules and regulations of this House, that you not respond to what is happening on the floor of the House, please. Thank you.
The honourable member for Cape Breton South.
MR. MANNING MACDONALD: They may not be able to speak, but I can. When I look over there and see that smug face and what has been going on his department, I take exception to what this government is doing and how they are treating this bill, treating it as some kind of minor piece of legislation, and that we are occupying useless time in here debating it. They think that because they feel they have a divine right to rule that all of this is for naught, that we shouldn't have to listen to the Opposition in this House, they should just ram the bill through and go home for the summer, and then just legislate everything they want with these workers in the future.
Mr. Speaker, I am going to tell you that this group, this so-called Tory Government here, has made a tremendous mistake. I think they didn't think this through, but they still have an opportunity to do the right thing here. They still have an opportunity to withdraw this bill and let the collective bargaining process finish. I know from what I speak, because there are tough bargaining sessions in the public sector, there have been but they have all been successful in the end, they have all been settled. We didn't stand here and start battling about taking the right to bargain away from people. That is a basic right, the right to dictate working conditions, the right to bargain their rights of hours to work, their rights to a decent wage.
All of that is going out the window with this bill, and there is no redress. Once the Cabinet makes a decree, that's it, there is no redress to the courts. Did you ever hear of anything where the courts cannot even be brought in to play in this to help resolve something that may arise as a disagreement?
Here we are, we have the employer going to make the decision unilaterally. The Health Minister will stand in his place here and he will wax eloquently about how we are not the employer, the health boards are. Well, who gives the health boards the money? The Cabinet; the taxpayers of Nova Scotia through the Cabinet are the employer here. Unfortunately, the Cabinet can do what they want with the money once they get elected. Do you think they are going to reward these workers? They are going to reward themselves. They are going to call the game in the future, and they are going to call it the way they want to call it.
They are going to end up destroying the health boards, as well, and they are going to end up operating the entire Department of Health from the deputy minister's office and, by the way, the dozen or so people who are paid more than $125,000 to $130,000 a year in that department. That is who is going to run the show in the Health Department, as it is going to be in the Education Department and every other department of government. This government doesn't believe in any participatory democracy here, or anybody else making any decisions by consensus. This government believes in making decisions by divine rule of the Cabinet.
When you have that situation allowed to happen, you don't need a Legislature. You don't need a Legislature here. The rest of us might as well go home because the 12 or 13 Cabinet Ministers are going to run this province, and they are using the backbenchers who,
by the way, are not members of the government, some might think they are but they are not. They are no different than we, except they happen to sit in the government caucus. They are sent here to represent the wishes of the people who elected them. Those people, hopefully, will send a clear message to those backbenchers when the vote comes on this. When the vote comes on this bill I want to be here to see each and every one of them stand up and support this draconian legislation that will alter the collective bargaining process forever in this province.
I want to see the looks on each and every one of their faces when they get up and toe the government line. Some of the Cabinet hopefuls are going to do it, but there are members over there who have no chance of ever getting in the Cabinet, so they have an opportunity to do the right thing, and they are not restricted. They are not restricted by Cabinet solidarity. There are backbenchers who can do the right thing here, for once. They haven't done it on bills so far, but they have an opportunity to do it. The Premier has said that he wouldn't chastise anybody who did that in his caucus. He thinks it's a very free and open Party. Well, we will see when the bill comes here, we will see how open and accountable this government is.
[2:15 a.m.]
I go back to the amendment that our Party made on the Human Resources Committee. I believe that an all-Party committee should take sufficient time to canvass this whole bill throughout the province. Don't get me wrong,- my preference is to toss the bill right now and go back to the collective bargaining process that was employed in this province for the last 100 years, and it has always worked. That is my preference, but if this government is not going to do that, then this government should allow the three Parties of this House to go across this province and find out what Nova Scotians think about this bill; not five minutes each in Law Amendments, but go community to community on a bill of this importance. Find out what Nova Scotians think about this bill.
I am surprised that some of these health care professionals have put up with this to date. This problem that they are experiencing now is something that has been building for the last year or so, or probably longer than that, and it hasn't really been addressed. If you want good health care professionals to stay in this province, you have to pay them; you have to give them good working conditions; and you have to tell them that they do have the right to bargain.
They do have the right to go into negotiations for better working conditions and for better wages. But this government is circumventing that by saying there will be no more of that in the future, because we don't think you are responsible. We are going to tell you when to work, how long to work, and your working conditions, because we don't think you are responsible enough to do that. We are going to tell you that we are going to cut out the right to strike for you because we don't think you would act responsibly in a strike. That is what
they are telling these people, we don't trust you. The Premier said that the other day. He is going to have to say it to us, Mr. Speaker, this week. We will have Question Period Tuesday and we will be asking some questions that will be on the record as to why this bill is here. The Health Minister doesn't know why it is here, he just shakes his head.
He is not running this show. There are three people over there running the show and he is not one of them; by the way, neither is the Premier. But I am going to tell you that the agenda of this government is not an agenda that was born yesterday. It is a typical Tory agenda, conquer and divide; knock the Public Service down; build up our powerful friends in high places; make sure that they are looked after. You watch over the next few months what is going to happen with some of our provincial establishments. They are going to end up with some of the high-powered friends of this government. We know that; Bill No. 20 will tell you that, and Bill No. 30 told you that. Those are bills that are already through this House, but Bill No. 68 is not through this House yet.
I want to quote the Tory blue book regarding this particular issue. In the Tory blue book, the Tories promised that they would work "with the nursing profession to make sure that the work-environment offers a rewarding and positive experience where nurses know they can properly care for their patients, where they know they are valued and where they are empowered to have input into influencing of clinical practice outcomes." Those aren't my words. They are the government's Tory blue book promises; the Premier's promises, "where they know they are valued" - and this is the clause that I want to talk about again here - "where they are empowered to have input into influencing clinical practice outcomes." Well, translated, they are going to take all the rights away with this bill, a direct contradiction of a promise they made to Nova Scotians when they got elected, to get them elected.
Mr. Speaker, you have to say - there is no other way of saying it - when you look at this and look at Bill No. 68, the government lied to the people of Nova Scotia to get elected.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The honourable member for Cape Breton South knows full well that to use the word lie in this House is unparliamentary and I would ask him to retract that, please.
MR. MANNING MACDONALD: Well, I wasn't referring to an individual, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The word is out of order and I ask him to retract it, please.
MR. MANNING MACDONALD: I will retract the word, lie, and perhaps insert, misled, instead. Is that okay? Misled is okay, is it? A rose by any other name, I guess. Anyway, Mr. Speaker, can you tell me how much time I have? (Interruption)
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member has about nine minutes.
MR. MANNING MACDONALD: The good member for Preston over there, every once in a while, gives a helpful interjection. It doesn't mean very much, but he is a good timekeeper, anyway. Mr. Speaker, I am concerned about my time here because I have so much more to say about this particular amendment that we have put but I know that I'll be back again, at least three more times and perhaps will have the opportunity to say some more things about this draconian legislation that is before the House.
Mr. Speaker, I quoted directly from the Tory blue book, which turned out to be another Tory promise they had no intentions of keeping. Now given that Bill No. 68 does absolutely nothing to honour the blue book promise, perhaps the Human Resources Committee, which is an all-Party committee of this House, it is not controlled by the Cabinet, it is not controlled by the three wise men over there who are sitting alongside each other there and who think they are running this show, it is not controlled by them, and I use the word wise very advisedly. I don't want to take that out of context, but the three persons over there who are operating this government.
It takes it out of the power of those gentlemen. It takes it out of the power of the lady and gentlemen who are on the front benches. It takes it out of that power and gives the power to this House, Mr. Speaker, all members of this House, except the Cabinet. The Human Resources Committee is a committee of MLAs, a standing committee of this House. I believe that if the government would pull this bill back and let it go to this committee, that we would be able to gauge public opinion and have a full dialogue over the summer and into the fall, before the fall session of this House, as to whether it is advisable by virtue of public opinion and by virtue of the kind of input that Nova Scotians would then have on this bill, whether or not it is advisable to bring it back to the House at all or whether it is advisable to bring it back in an amended state.
I talked about militancy a little while ago and the lack of it in this particular group. I think this group of health care professionals in this province have not been heard of very much in the past because, Mr. Speaker, they don't want to be heard. They want to be listened to in terms of their work. They are not trouble makers. The ones I have talked to just want to get on with doing their job on behalf of their fellow citizens. I believe they should have the opportunity for their fellow citizens to tell them that. The Human Resources Committee would give that opportunity to Nova Scotians to come before this committee and tell this committee of the worth and the value of the work that is being done by these professionals in Nova Scotia.
We shouldn't be trying to chase these people away. We should be bringing more here to relieve some of the burden on the ones already working in the system. But the ones who are working in the system, Mr. Speaker, have to be looked after, have to be rewarded beyond the rewards they have been given to date.
As a matter of fact, I believe the problem has been that not only are they not being rewarded, but it is going the other way. The pendulum is swinging away from the kind of health care system that we have become accustomed to, because of the professionalism of these people, because of the stress and the strain that they are presently under. Now it is not bad enough that we have this bill coming before the House, but you see other measures creeping into the picture, measures of absenteeism where health administrators employed by the government are now keeping tabs on the employees about absenteeism. It is not bad enough that they are stressed to death, but now they are going to keep a record on them every day so if they are stressed too much, they have the evidence to get rid of them.
It is not bad enough that they are taking their bargaining rights away, but now they are going to take their working rights away because of the fact that they are stressed out, they are missing more time and now the administrators have served notice that they are going to document those statistics on a daily or weekly basis and when you reach the magic number, you are gone. What will our protection be then? There are no bargaining rights left. There is no agreement procedure left. So who do they go to for redress? They go to the Cabinet, their bosses. They write a letter to the Minister of Health, would you please ask the Cabinet to deal with my position because I have been wrongly dealt with. Now if there is anything more laughable than that, in terms of meting out justice in this province, it is this bill and it is this way of doing business.
Mr. Speaker, we would be derelict in our duty as Opposition members of this House if we sat back and let this bill go through without doing everything humanly possible to stop this bill. The only people I feel I can get to on that side of the House are the backbenchers, some of whom, I hope, have a conscience here, a conscience enough to see this bill for what it is - a manipulative piece of a bill that is only here for one reason. They picked on this group to set a new standard in this province. This crowd is determined to destroy relations between bargaining units, public sector units and the Cabinet, because the Cabinet feels that there should be no discussion in this province of anybody's rights except the rights of the Cabinet decree and that is what we have here.
Democracy is out the window. You tell me in that bill where there is one hint of democracy, where there is one hint of any kind of a situation in that bill that would give anybody any comfort except the Cabinet. The clause in the bill . . .
AN HON. MEMBER: Hamm's hammer.
MR. MANNING MACDONALD: Hamm's hammer, that is right. The clause of the bill, Mr. Speaker, that deals with redress to the courts. Now I never thought I would stand in place and see a bill come before this place that the courts would ultimately not have a say, would never have a say in determining any litigation, that the Cabinet is now above the courts in this province. The Cabinet knows what is best, not the courts. We had similar situations of this before where Cabinet Ministers blamed the courts for not imposing fines
in another bill; blamed the courts. They said, it is not our fault. The courts weren't doing their jobs. So now the court is not going to be able to do their job on this bill because they are not going to be allowed to. This group of professionals has nobody to go to if this bill goes through, absolutely nobody. They are at the mercy of this Cabinet now and forever when this bill goes through.
What is interesting, Mr. Speaker, is they put a time frame on it. They said there will be no strike action allowed and this will be in effect until 2004, I believe. That happens to coincide with the next provincial election and that is why that date was put in there.
Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have left?
MR. SPEAKER: Your time has just expired.
MR. MANNING MACDONALD: My time has expired. I will back. Thank you.
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Minister of Justice.
HON. MICHAEL BAKER: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in my place tonight and speak to the motion that Bill No. 68 should be referred to the Human Resources Committee of this House. This House is the birthplace of responsible government in our country. This historic Legislature is the crucible in which some of the most fundamental elements of our democratic system have been debated and ultimately resolved.
[2:30 a.m.]
I would argue that in each instance, despite the divergent views that we hear expressed, it has been for the good of all the people that have been served to the end of the day. I want to remind my good friends across the aisle of that. It is for the good of all the people, every single Nova Scotian that must be served here this evening. It is difficult to balance between individual rights, minority interests and the greater collective good that must be achieved as the result of our work and the end of the process.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge the comments of the member for Glace Bay. He stood in this place well after midnight last Thursday evening and shared some very poignant words with the members of the House. The member for Glace Bay told of his mother, who was a nurse, a widow and the mother of a large family. Her dedication to her children was equalled by her dedication to caring for her community. Mr. Wilson honoured his mother on Thursday night and I believe she would be very proud of her son's words. I want the member for Glace Bay to know that my wife and I are fortunate to be blessed with two children and I also want Mr. Wilson to know that my sons' mother is, as his was, a nurse.
There are many members on this side of the House who understand the difficulties and duties that are part of the everyday life of health care workers. We know, not because of an ad in a paper, not because of a protester or a letter written to us, we know because we share these challenges every day because members of our families are helping carry what we all accept is a very heavy burden. I speak for everyone on this side of the House when I say we realize that health care workers are a dedicated and caring group who put the patients' needs first. This has never been questioned.
But, Mr. Speaker, our health care system only functions because of the structures and the processes that are put in place to ensure that patients can access the care they need when they need it. There is no doubt that while health care professionals will continue to do their best in the event of a strike, the structure and the processes that are designed to make the system work will be fractured and that will impact patient care. We can argue until the cows come home over whether or not there is a plan or not, but that is not the issue. The issue is that any reduction in health care services will bring a risk to life and limb to Nova Scotians.
That is not acceptable, Mr. Speaker. This government is not willing to risk the health and safety of Nova Scotians. The truth is that any reduction of service will in fact do just that, place health and safety at risk. We believe that Nova Scotians have a right to quality health care and they have a right to quality health care 100 per cent of the time, not part of the time. A system that is cut in half is not an acceptable level of treatment for Nova Scotians. We believe they have a right to expect the system to operate at 100 per cent.
Mr. Speaker, we have tried to recognize the importance of health care professionals. We have put $53 million on the table for nurses and health care workers and we have done that in the context of being $91 million in the hole. There has and will be a lot of debate over this bill, but let me make this commitment - our offer stands. This bill is meant to ensure that Nova Scotians will be provided with the health care services they need. It will not be used to rescind or diminish any offer that has been negotiated and is on the table.
Before we introduced this bill, the government was committed to ensuring that Nova Scotia nurses were the highest paid in Atlantic Canada, paid on par with Manitoba and Saskatchewan, two provinces that are in much better fiscal shape than we are. Our commitment is that once this bill passes, they will be in a position of being the highest paid in Atlantic Canada, paid on par with Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Mr. Speaker, as Chairman of the Law Amendments Committee, I would like to make some comments on how the process going on in this House is likely to impact the public. Let's be honest, what we have witnessed over the past two days is a concerted effort to stall passage of this bill. I accept that this process is part of the balance of holding government accountable, an important process that was first brought into fruition in this House. I have and was proud to participate in that process as a member of the Opposition. While such tactics, filibusters, are a recognized and valid part of the process, I believe we need to
carefully examine whether or not they are being appropriately used now. By that I mean, are the best interests of all Nova Scotians being served; is the collective good seen as the key priority?
Mr. Speaker, let's look back for a moment to the debate on the infamous harmonization of the goods and services tax with the provincial sales tax, the BST. That action by the government was debated as long and as hard as the rules and our endurance as Opposition members at the time would allow. Eventually, it did pass and, I would note, there were some time limitations imposed on those who attended the Law Amendments Committee at the time. Even recently, on Bill No. 20, the Opposition made use of the rules to ensure that government was held accountable for a bill that was designed to create greater accountability for the spending of taxpayers' dollars.
Mr. Speaker, that was fine with us. That is the system of government which we have developed over almost two centuries, and it has proven itself the best option, by standing the test of time. But I want to consider one very important distinction between those bills I have mentioned and the one before us today in the House. In neither case did the deliberate tactics of delay hold the potential of endangering the health and safety of Nova Scotians or of jeopardizing the democratic rights of the public to express their opinion to the government. (Interruptions)
Mr. Speaker, this is not the case this time, because both of those rights, the right to health care and the right to speak to government, are potentially going to be muted. Why is that the case? It is because the government has a deadline of 12:01 a.m. on June 27th in order to avoid the effects of a stroke, a strike rather. Well, perhaps, a stroke is better as far as the health care system is concerned. I quote the President of Nova Scotia Government Employees Union, Ms. Joan Jessome, ". . . a strike that would devastate the health care system."
This government intends to do all it can to beat that deadline, because if we don't, health care workers will be in a legal position to strike. Nova Scotians in the metro area and those critically ill who come to Halifax for treatment will face the prospect of a health care system running at half its maximum capacity. This is unacceptable to the government, and I believe it is unacceptable to all Nova Scotians. We have calculated the time needed to pass the bill. We waited until the last possible moment to act, in order to protect the health and safety of Nova Scotians.
Mr. Speaker, we waited in hopes that the collective bargaining process would resolve the issue. Unfortunately, it did not. As Chairman of the Law Amendments Committee, I intend to do everything within my ability to ensure that we meet the deadline, that we protect the health and safety of Nova Scotians, that we recognize the right of Nova Scotians to receive 100 per cent of the health care system, not half of a system or 30 per cent of a system,
but 100 per cent of our health care system. I also want to provide as much opportunity to the public to speak to this bill as possible, while still meeting this deadline.
Mr. Speaker, that is now in the hands of the Opposition. Each hour my colleagues in the Legislature speak, and I think it is fair to say that very little in terms of original thought is being said at this point, each hour they speak is eating the time away from the Law Amendments Committee. At this rate, the debate on second reading will last until midnight on Tuesday. I invite my friends to do the math. In order to avoid a legal strike, the Law Amendments Committee will need to be limited to a single day.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.
MR. JERRY PYE: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. Can I ask the Minister of Justice if he is implying that because each and every member speaks on this bill that is before this House now that it is going to take away from the rights of individuals' time to present themselves before the Law Amendments Committee. I want to hear the minister openly say that.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The honourable member rose on a point of order and that is certainly not a point of order, but it is a question. If the honourable Minister of Justice would like to answer? The honourable Minister of Justice.
MR. BAKER: I want to make it very clear to the honourable member. He is absolutely right. Every moment that he and the members opposite delay the passage of this bill from second reading is limiting the amount of time that the members of the public have to speak.
I will ask that the day be as long as possible so that as many people as reasonable can speak before Law Amendments, but I will not risk public health and safety by extending those hearings to the point where health care workers are in a position to strike. If there is any member in this House who wishes to stand in his place and tell Nova Scotians that he or she is willing to allow the withdrawal of health care services, even for a day, then I suggest they do so. Make the case for deliberately denying Nova Scotians the right to health care. Make the case for providing less than 100 per cent of our health care system to Nova Scotians. I can't and I don't, stop the Opposition from exercising their right to stand here and settle for less than 100 per cent of a health care system, but I would ask them to judge themselves and to do so for the benefit of the public.
Is what is being said here this evening of greater weight than Nova Scotians who wish to attend Law Amendments Committee? I ask you, are your words more important than a nurse or a lab technician who is waiting for a chance to express their views? If they are, then I invite you to continue and we will do our best to listen. If not, then I ask you to refer this bill to the Law Amendments Committee at the earliest possible time. Let Nova Scotians who are not privileged to sit in this Chamber have their say as well. When the time comes, the
members of our caucus will be there to listen for as much time as the Opposition permits within the time necessary to protect Nova Scotians.
Regardless of how the Opposition proceeds, the health and public safety of Nova Scotians must be protected and it will be protected. That means that the government must meet its deadline. That it is paramount to protect Nova Scotians. That is our responsibility and I sincerely hope that members Opposite take this opportunity to refer the bill to the Law Amendments Committee. Thank you. (Applause)
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.
MR. FRANK CORBETT: The last speaker, the one thing he has done, he has changed my focus on this speech. I couldn't believe the unmitigated gall for him to come up and threaten the members of this House that if you don't do what I say, I am going to invoke closure across the way. This is the same government that locked the citizens out on the street until you took your place tonight, Mr. Speaker. Then you have the unmitigated gall to say to us that we are usurping time from them because you don't like the timeline. This is the government that wasn't factual enough, wasn't straight-laced enough, was two-faced and wouldn't stand in its place and negotiate with the unions when the unions were in mediation. This government knew that mediation had a deadline of midnight. While those people were trying to find a resolve to this problem, what did your bully government do? It called the House back to bring in Bill No. 68, Mr. Justice Minister. That is what you did. You are the guys that are causing the panic. It is nobody else.
If you listen to what you just said, it is clear. Bill No. 68 - you should probably take away the sunset provision of Bill No. 68 because what you have said when you stood up is, health care workers in this province do not have the right to strike. That is what you said because you said that their contingency plan didn't work, contingency plans that were in collective agreements, but you will find that that doesn't work. You have unilaterally decided that that doesn't work.
[2:45 a.m.]
You tell us that we will take time away from health care providers, every minute we speak in here. That is what he says. Well, where is he coming from? He is taking valuable time away from Nova Scotians by playing the silly bugger game in introducing this piece of legislation. If he was serious about health care in this province, he would allow the negotiation process to take place. Do you think that this weekend's rejection, by health care workers in the Capital District, in large part was the reaction of thumbing their noses at this government for its heavy-handedness? This government doesn't get it.
Outside this House tonight, the Premier says that the rejection is proof that you needed Bill No. 68. Well, I would put forward that the reality is that Bill No. 68 caused the rejection
of that tentative settlement. This government is meddling; this government is willing to get involved with something that it had no business getting involved with in the way that it did. Yet, the minister will stand in his place tonight and blame Opposition politicians because they are trying to say, look, we don't want Nova Scotia to be a banana republic.
Mr. Speaker, you look around this Chamber tonight, and I suspect these circa 1940's fans serve well here, because that is what it looks like. It looks like some Ecuadorean third world dictatorship. This is what this government wants. This government wants to take away the rights of workers. I think it finally admitted to it tonight, that this is not a one-shot deal, that this legislation, and if this group was ever to stay in power long enough, beyond 2004, you would see the complete wiping out of collective bargaining in the health care sector. That is what you are facing with this government. That is what that minister admitted to today, when he said that no contingency plan can work.
Mr. Speaker, if he is worried about having 50 per cent of the workers in and around the hospitals, all he has to do is go ahead with this silliness, and what you are going to have is 50 per cent of them, at least, resigning and leaving this province. That is what you are going to have. It is not our fault. The gall of him blaming it on this side of the floor. It is unbelievable for him to get up there and piously state that the reason we are in this mess is because the Opposition took what means it had to slow this process down. What this government should be doing, instead of pushing these things, is helping them find a collective agreement.
Mr. Speaker, in standing in his place - and he has every right to do that - and unlike that side of the floor I agree with the ability to get up and say it. I don't have to agree with it but I agree with him getting up and saying it, but then for him to say, well, look, I have had my say, now you guys better be quiet and go home or we can't hear from anybody else. They have invented a timeline that was imposed because of their inability. We have seen this crowd's inability to handle workplace stoppages before. We saw that in the fall of 1999, with the paramedics, and the overreaction.
Mr. Speaker, what was interesting was when push came to shove on those options, it was binding arbitration. I haven't discussed this with any of the members of the bargaining units, but I know it has not been explored with any members of binding arbitration for these folks. It is a Cabinet-imposed settlement. Now, how on earth can this minister and that Cabinet know what is best for the working conditions in and around hospitals and hospital workers? They don't. Certainly, one could screen from one end of this province to the other about forming the district health authorities. The very people that they put together - the district health authorities - any little power they did have, they are taking away from them. Let's look at it. They want to take away the power from the workers, they want to take away the powers from the DHAs, now they want to take the little power Opposition members have. They want to consolidate it downstairs here in the Cabinet Room and say, no, this is not the way government works. Government works with us around this table and that is it.
The member for Cape Breton South, when he was up speaking on this bill and referring it back to the Committee on Human Resources, said that very same thing, that the role of this group - and I didn't believe him when he said it - was that they were going to consolidate power truly within Cabinet. But now they are by threatening us here tonight and there is no other way to put it. They have threatened every member on the Opposition benches tonight by saying you either sit in your seats, don't say another word and we will quietly push this off to the Law Amendments Committee. If you don't agree with us, if you don't agree with my threats, then anything that happens within the health care system will be on your head. That is what the minister is saying.
And, he is wrong. We aren't the ones imposing anything. It is his government that is imposing. They are the ones that want to take away - and I would assert by his comments that they want to take away the right to collective bargaining and the right to strike from these workers in the health care field for good. Hansard will show what he said about 20 per cent, 30 per cent, 50 per cent, Mr. Speaker, that if they are left, if they are gone, then we don't a health care system in its totality.
Funny that nobody, none of the hospitals was offended when you talked about a contingency or an emergency plan, if you will. What would be interesting is, I wonder what the minister's feeling is when from time to time hospitals have bed closures. I would make the assertion that if this bill is passed, there will never be a bed closure again in this province, there will be no layoffs or anything in the health care system if you take what the minister has just said because everybody in that system is needed and will never be displaced. Because that is in essence what he said.
We know that there will be layoffs. We know there will be bed closures. Where will the great hero of the health care system be then? Where will he be to protect the good women and men who work in the health care system?
This is fundamentally the taking away of rights. When I heard that speech, it was devastating, you think that there are motives behind certain actions, and you think, well, no, I am misreading the situation, that they are not really motivated this way. They have, by virtue of where they sit, more information about this situation than I. So you tend to want to give them the benefit of the doubt, you don't think that their motives are pushed just by a false financial statement.
This is what is happening here. This is not about health care. This is not about the health and safety of Nova Scotians. This is about the ability for this government, that front bench to go and say that we have secured our finances in such a way that we are going to be able to produce a surplus in our last year and make us look good. It is not about protecting
health care, that is the furthest thing from this.
We are talking here about not only what happens with this collective agreement, but the ripples after you have it. Mr. Speaker, does this government honestly believe that when this legislation is passed, and if it is passed unamended and it has given the rights to Cabinet to do what they will, if that is a right that is given to that group, do you think that those workers are going to be a happy and productive workforce? Do you think that they feel respected and needed by their employer? I will submit to you that that won't be the case, and I think you will see a rash of those who can leave this province, will.
I heard the Premier talk on Friday and say people want to stay here in Nova Scotia. Well, certainly they do. That is motherhood, Mr. Speaker, but they don't want to stay in a second-class health care system. They are getting tired of working excessive hours. I don't know how many times we have to read letters into the record about people who are overworked and stressed and just had enough of it. Now we hear about employees having their sick time being monitored. That is, again, something out of the 1920 style of labour management. I know the employers have rights - I think more than they should - over innocent absenteeism and I think that is unfair, but nonetheless it is there and that is a hammer that the government is willing to use and the employer, being DHAs, from time to time, will use.
Mr. Speaker, we have to get the debate back to what it is about here. It is a basic, fundamental right. There are very few rights that workers have in this province. One of the most fundamental rights is free and unfettered collective bargaining. That shouldn't be a notion so foreign as it is to some on the benches across the way, but it is. For some reason they find it extremely offensive. This group - we are not talking about a group that is looking at just putting down their tools and walking out and not telling anybody - what they are is a group of workers that I would say do care about Nova Scotia. I think they care a lot more about Nova Scotia than some on that front bench I would tell you, and probably more than most in this House, not just to pick on the government side.
Mr. Speaker, you probably have seen what they do up close in your former life, and you probably were called upon in situations that weren't very nice in emergency medical situations and you saw the professionalism and I am sure you appreciated it. I think of just recently, Saturday night, at a wedding in Cape Breton where a family member of the bride died at the wedding reception. She took an attack and fell on the floor. Can you imagine the events from the family and the EMTs, and then they take them down to the hospital to try to revive the person. You know, you have been in those emergency situations, how complex they are. You know how tense they can be and you know that the job of the medical team when they get to the emergency room is not just that they put their focus on the patient, but you know that kind of fans out. You know that their job is just not to do the best they can for the patient, but to be cognizant of the loved ones who are out there and the response they have for them. They have to be extremely professional, is the point I am making.
[3:00 a.m.]
This government doesn't seem to realize that that is the type of job these people do. They are that caring. These people aren't going to walk out and leave us high and dry. I know there are more health care workers than just nurses involved here, Mr. Speaker, but we will go back to the 1975 strike. Nurses provided care in each and every ward. I know at the New Waterford Consolidated Hospital, I would categorize it as a full service hospital back then, it had obstetrics, it had pediatrics, it had surgical, it had medical and so on. Those health care professionals did go on strike and there was some tough bargaining, but they provided care on every one of those floors and I will tell you something more, they provided care free of charge because that is the type of people they are. But this government doesn't want to respect that. This government thinks we can't trust them. So I have to make the assertion the other way and say, why should the workers trust this government?
In the midst of mediation, the government gets ready to call the House back to introduce this bill we are debating, Bill No. 68. Mr. Speaker, had the government waited, they would have found out and I am sure it would have had a different outcome on Saturday's vote than what we saw. I would say that they hold a large part of the responsibility because they stuck their nose in a place where it didn't belong and they found out two things, that these people had enough and part two of that is they weren't going to take it any more from these guys.
Had this government stayed away from it and allowed the bargaining process to take place, when one of the finest mediators in all this country - he brought parties together, Mr. Speaker, such as the Air Canada situation, which was just a mess, to say the least, and they were much further apart than the health care workers here in the Capital District Region. So I have to contend that it was a concerted effort by this government to derail the collective bargaining process to bring us to this. I think they are playing a game of brinkmanship, which does not do anything to help the process. Now they can blame us all they want for standing here and debating and we will continue to debate. I will put the government on notice that we are not going to back down our debate over an assertion by the Minister of Justice and by virtue of that, Chairman of the Law Amendments Committee, that we will fight this bill.
He can try to invoke closure over at the Law Amendments Committee and he can try to tell people that you have this many hours and that is it. Well, the one thing we know about being on this earth is that everything is measured by time and nobody knows the finiteness of that more than probably governments. I am telling you, Mr. Speaker, this government, if it shuts down the Law Amendments Committee in the prescribed period of time that the minister said, then I will say that this government's days will be numbered because he may have made a blustery speech about being on the right side, but he is wrong. Again, this bill is not about public safety, it is about financial measures that they have to own up to.
Mr. Speaker, I want to get back and speak a bit about why this bill should go back to the Human Resources Committee. It's what this minister is saying, and I think he is bringing our point forward for us in a kind of different sort of way than we would, but it is the ability for the public to have a say on this. There is nothing stopping that minister or the Government House Leader to enter into debate and say, look, we agree. We will send this off to the Human Resources Committee and strike them and get them. We will carve out a mandate. If we can stay here for 24 hours, we certainly can get together and carve out a mandate for that committee and start travelling across this province and find out what is going on. If that is what the minister wants, if the minister is tired of hearing the Opposition people cluck on about this, then strike this committee. Go out and do it. Then maybe he can work in parallel with the HR committees out there and the Law Amendments Committee. We are hearing from Nova Scotians then.
Certainly, that is what he was doing. He was couching his words, in that as long as the great unwashed over here in the Opposition are talking about this bill it prevents health care workers from having their say. Well, Mr. Speaker, it may prevent them for a short time in having their say at the Law Amendments Committee but I will tell you something, it won't stop them from having their say from one end of this province to the other when it comes time for the next general election. The member for Cape Breton South kind of laid out the fact that there probably won't be some people returning, and I think that is something that the backbenchers have to really worry about.
What are they going to do? How are the backbenchers going to support this bill? Is this bill really and ultimately a bill to protect the health and safety of Nova Scotians? I think if some of those backbenchers could be put on the Human Resources Committee, they would hear from Nova Scotians. They would hear first-hand. They wouldn't hear from the MLAs on the Opposition side. No, Mr. Speaker, they would hear directly from Nova Scotians. I wonder if that then would have an impact? That would be a real bonus, having this bill go to the Human Resources Committee.
I think it would be interesting to have this bill go to the Human Resources Committee because then this government can hear about - they beat their chest about being the highest paid workers in Atlantic Canada, Mr. Speaker, they know darn well that that doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean anything because they are losing the majority of their workers to Ontario, B.C., Alberta and the United States. That is the market. As I said in an earlier speech, they want us to live in a global economy but they want to pay them back-home rates. Well, that doesn't work. You can't have it both ways.
In another aspect of the health care industry, there is another crisis, a crisis facing pharmacists in the health care industry, Mr. Speaker. The same thing applies, there is a shortage of pharmacists across this country and in the United States. What happens is that the drain is made worse because areas like Nova Scotia can't compete or won't compete with
other parts of Canada and the United States; the United States is draining some of our brightest and our best.
Mr. Speaker, these are real problems facing us. The minister talked about the future, and I will tell him the future is leaving us; 53 graduates from this year's class at St. F. X. University, in nursing, are leaving this province. The average age for a nurse is 47 years old. What kind of future? If the government wants to freeze wages again or roll them back, we don't know. It's hard for me to take the minister at his word when he says we are not going to go below or not.
Is the minister now speaking as the Chairman of the Law Amendments Committee; was he speaking for the Premier? Maybe there is a group within Cabinet that really runs Cabinet and the Premier and the Minister of Health have nothing to say. (Interruptions) I wouldn't even know if it is five. Maybe there is a group that does policy and that's it; that they have such clout within Cabinet that there are two tiers of Cabinet, if you will. Is that what that minister is saying today, that he can stand in his place without the assurance of the Minister of Health or his Premier and say we will not go back here.
Mr. Speaker, the workers can't take that to (Interruptions) Yes, that is the line from Bill No. 20. The workers can't take that to the bank, I am sure. If this was truly a bill about the health and safety of Nova Scotians do you think the Minister of Justice, with his political clout within Cabinet, would have had a resolve to the homecare workers' strike in Queens? I see the member for Queens over there. I would advise him then that if this minister has that much drag that he should go over and talk to him and he will resolve it for you, because he is worried about that. He is worried about home care.
We are now at the beginning stages of single entry. We all know what single entry is in the health care system, and a vital part, in order for single entry to work, a vital part, is home care. Yet, we have seen a home care strike drag on needlessly while this government twiddles its thumbs, while the member for Queens sits there and, I would say, has gotten little or no response from his own government.
How can a member of that government's Executive Council get up and say the health and welfare and safety of Nova Scotians is paramount? It is misleading at best. If a patient is important in the structure of a hospital, a patient surely must be just as important in the structure of their home, because it's all part of what is supposed to be a comprehensive medical care system within this province. Yet, this minister, in his own backyard, wants to see that strike drag on as if it has no consequences, as if there is nobody suffering.
When pressed on it, they will say, that's not us. Ultimately, it is them, because all the health care dollars roll back and it comes from the government, we all know that. They don't take that same approach when it comes to health care workers who work in hospitals. They are taking a very intrusive way. Maybe if we took the HR Committee across the province and
got input and found out what the differences were. In order for the new system of health care delivery to work, the very vital component is home care, yet this government allows that to go on.
[3:15 a.m.]
Mr. Speaker, it was the same thing this past week where members of the Nova Scotia Government Employees Union rejected the last offer from another group involved with home care. This government is so riddled with inconsistencies when it comes to the health care of Nova Scotians, if it wasn't so serious, so tragic, it would be laughable. Where are we going to go? Where does this government plan to take us? When the sun sets, they go down in the bunker and put together a collective agreement. Who is going to be there? Who is going to be there advising them? Is it going to be the Minister of Health, or the deputy?
Mr. Speaker, as I said before, if this government is allowed to enact Bill No. 68 without any amendments, what is going to happen is interesting, you are going to have someone like the Deputy Minister of Health, the highest-paid bureaucrat in this province, deciding what they are going to make. Well, I would also ask the Cabinet to be cognizant of another thing, that if he is making recommendations, I hope you will give them - the workers who leave this province because of this awful collective agreement, not a collective agreement, this awful agreement you are going to stuff down their throats - the same remuneration package for travelling out of province as you gave to the Deputy Minister of Health, that very well-funded relocation program you gave to him. Maybe you can offer the same thing to the health care workers as they leave this province because of this heavy-handedness of this government.
Maybe that is something this government could do. Maybe by going through the Human Resources Committee, there are some other things we could find out. Maybe we could find out, really, what kind of remuneration the Deputy Minister of Health received from this government. We are also dealing with an unknown quantity here, and maybe by holding this bill up a little bit and going to the Human Resources Committee we would finally get how much and what the budgets of the DHAs are. Nobody knows. Maybe the minister knows and maybe a few people in Cabinet, maybe that little inner circle who spoke tonight. I would suspect the sub-Cabinet, we will call them, the Minister of Justice spoke for them tonight. Maybe he could come in and enlighten us on some of those things. Maybe he has that information. We have health authorities trying to negotiate and bargain in good faith without knowing what their budgets are. Maybe that is something we should be looking at.
Mr. Speaker, whatever happens; whatever the outcome, whatever the Cabinet imposes here, you have to ask yourself, how does this help the health and safety of the province? I can't see - I certainly would be happy if someone could come and tell me - where I am wrong on this. I couldn't believe that the health care workers were going to go back and be in a better frame of mind, they are going to say, look, wow, the stress I have been working under
for five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten years now has been lifted, that they are going to hire new people. No, it is going to be more of the same with less. You are going to have really stressed-out people working longer hours and, indeed, doesn't that pose a health threat in itself.
What happens to that health care professional who doesn't operate the MRI machine properly because they are on the 19th hour of their shift, or, a nurse who may have misread meds because she is on the 23rd hour of her shift? Who will bear the ultimate responsibility there? Maybe if we went around with the Human Resources Committee we could find those things out.
By imposing an agreement on these workers, that is all you are doing - you are delaying the inevitable. I have noticed quite a few young people from my home town that have left nursing and have left. Is this bill going to bring them back to work in Nova Scotia? No. How does that help the health and safety of Nova Scotians? Maybe if the HR Committee on the road, gave some time, what you would see is these people probably come before the committee and explain why they will not come back to Nova Scotia. It is 2001 now, if you let this collective agreement run to its end, three more years, 2004, what you are going to end up with is the average age of a nurse is 50 years old. Let's assume that they went into nursing right after high school and they graduate by the time they are 22 - let's say 23 - they have now been 27 in that profession. I would say they would be facing considerable burn out. After years of rollbacks, freezes, now an imposed settlement. What does that tell you? If you were working in that situation, would you say, jumpings, my work is valued.
I think there comes a time when they say, look, I have to get out of here. I talked with nurses the other day and the spectrum is great. I talked about the St. F.X. graduating class, but I am talking about nurses that are senior, who say, this is it. I am leaving, my husband and I are going to Saudi Arabia. We can go over there, we can work six months, build up a nest egg, fire some money back to the kids to help finish university. The idea of working long hours, no benefits because - one nurse I know in particular who worked in the profession, left for a while to help raise her family, came back into the profession and has worked basically full-time, but it is full-time casual, no benefits and she may be the first to be called in for relief shift.
You probably know your way around that a bit, Mr. Speaker. You know that these shifts aren't the best shifts usually. You work all the holidays, you work all the midnight shifts and so on and you don't have any benefits. You don't have dental coverage, optical, vision wear, Pharmacare coverage, all of these things. So, what entices you to stay, except your sense of duty?
There is a double whammy with what is going on here for the Cape Breton perspective. The Cape Breton Health Care Complex, which includes hospitals in various areas of industrial Cape Breton, is now the largest employer in Cape Breton. The health care facilities
in New Waterford, Glace Bay, Sydney, North Sydney and Sydney Mines are now the largest employers in Cape Breton. Provincial and federal governments have put the nails in the coffins of steel and coal, so what do we have now as the largest employer? What you have is most of the people within that industry are now the sole breadwinners, if you will. This is going to add more stress to an otherwise very stressful situation as it is.
You have to look at it in that context, but this government fails to do that. This government looks at it in a fiscal context only and under the guise of a health and safety one. Again, if we were to take it to the Human Resources Committee and took it to Cape Breton, we would probably find that. We would find horror stories, the reality of what goes on in the night shifts, we could find out. We are not just upset because we got called back.
MR. JERRY PYE: That's our job.
MR. CORBETT: Yes, as the member for Dartmouth North says, it is part of our job. Sometimes legislators are called back for what I would consider very legitimate reasons, from time to time, to deal with the problems of an emergency nature.
This problem, I think, has been exacerbated by this government; it hasn't been helped by this government. This government stuck its nose in it. It is almost like the "many faces of Eve" with this government, because you don't know which one you are talking to. One time you are talking to them and they are saying, when it comes to dirty classrooms, filthy classrooms, the Minister of Education would say, oh no, no, that is the school boards' responsibility. Now, the government, when there is not even a strike, at this point in two of the three situations conciliation hadn't even finished, this government is bringing in this huge hammer to beat these workers down in the guise of Bill No. 68 and there is no reason for it.
The government, for some reason, has gone out and picked this fight, they have picked this fight with these people and decided this is the proverbial hill we are going to die on. Well if that is the case, I would advise them to make some funeral arrangements, because I believe they are going to die on this hill. They have taken on a group that has the public support. A member of an agency that the Premier himself is a member of, or was a member of, the Medical Society, have denounced this legislation; most right-thinking people have denounced this legislation as being over the top.
Mr. Speaker, why is it? What would the argument be today, we will say, if this government, instead of putting in I believe it is, Clause 6, the wording around it, Cabinet will invoke a collective agreement, or an agreement - it is not collective - when all else fails? Why wouldn't it simply say we will take it all to binding arbitration? Quite honestly, because it knows its position is unreasonable. I have said here that I know when the contracts were going on with NSNU that the Department of Health sent their minion over. He was over there, and accounts from both sides told me that he almost put the process off the rails,
sticking his nose in, because he didn't know what was going on. They had been working late hours and trying to bang out an agreement.
Maybe somewhat in his support, it can be kind of confusing when you come in the middle of something like that, but instead of sitting back and trying to absorb the situation, how it was proceeding and how it was going on, he started meddling and was kind of causing some problems for both sides. Yet they got past that and got a tentative agreement, but it was rejected, but nobody from the inner Cabinet there to find out what was going on, why that was rejected. They would rather invoke this Bill No. 68 on them rather than sit down and talk to the parties and see if this is tweaking, do we have to put a bit more money in it? What is the root of the problem?
[3:30 a.m.]
I believe the NSNU situation - it was 75 per cent rejection. That usually tells you a couple of things. One of them is usually that there is a huge item on the table that the negotiators thought would fly and it didn't. It didn't fly for both parties so they have to go back and say, we went from bargaining team to bargaining team and told them what was going on and here is what we heard back and this is probably why they rejected it. So, let's sit down and see what we can do, see if we can - as they say - tweak this or get rid of it or whatever because this is our stumbling block. But, the government didn't do that. This week that group was due to get back to the table with a conciliator again. This government wouldn't wait for that. If this government was honest, they would tell us, as bad as it is, we are going to cut a piece of legislation to deal with just the ones at the capital district that are due to go on strike June 27th. Is that what this bill says? Oh no. This bill goes after the ones that are in that group, the NSGEU nurses, the NSNU nurses, the employees that are represented by CAW, the employees that are in bargaining, that are represented by CUPE, SEIU, all these other groups.
For the minister to stand here and say that this threat is looming over us is hogwash. It is sheer and utter nonsense, but yet he wants to try to blame us. For some reason, they want to pick a fight that they can't win. Whether there are some internal conflicts going on within Cabinet and this is why this is going on, I don't know. It makes absolutely no sense because if you follow line by line what the minister said when he got up, it was so inaccurate as to be laughable. One side, we agree with free and collective bargaining. The other side, two health care workers out, we can't have, so we can't allow any of that. So what he is telling me is that he wants to at some point get rid of the ability for workers to strike in the health care system. He wants that taken away altogether.
Why doesn't he say that? Why does the minister say that there is an emergency here. We have until midnight on June 27th. Why wouldn't this legislation solely deal with that group? Why would he take this broad brush? Because they are not being open and honest with Nova Scotians.
That is not what is happening here at all. What is happening here is government trying to be tough. It is a government born from day one on their election campaign to election victory for them and on through living in awe of the Harris Regime in Ontario.
MR. JERRY PYE: What are they saying at the Northside General?
MR. CORBETT: I just heard my friend, the member for Dartmouth North, ask the member for Cape Breton North what they're saying at the Northside General. He took much acclaim for himself when he said he recruited the emergency room doctor. Well, I am sure they could use his abilities here to settle this agreement. If he could come in and do things better than John Malcom, the CEO of that health district, or the Chief of Staff, Dr. Naqvi, if he is better than those guys, why not put his abilities in here? Obviously, he is a learned man around the medical industry and he should do that. Yet, he will sit there in silence.
AN HON. MEMBER: I believe he is writing a note right now, as we speak.
MR. CORBETT: It's a prescription for disaster. Mr. Speaker, what we have seen here tonight, when the minister rose in his place, was a threat, was a threat to democracy, was a threat to workers, was a threat to the well-being of all Nova Scotians.
AN HON. MEMBER: Told us to shut up and sit down.
MR. CORBETT: One of my colleagues in the back said he told us to shut up and sit down. Well, sometimes you don't have to say that, you can infer that, and I think that was clearly inferred, that the whole idea is that our summer is being displaced and we can't be bothered by these workers who are exercising their democratic rights. We have to take that democratic right from them. It will be interesting in a week's time or so, whenever that is, to see the backbenchers get up and say, we agree. We agree for three years. These people do not have the right to free and fair collective bargaining. It is our contention that these people are second-class citizens in Nova Scotia. That these Nova Scotians who work under some of the worst conditions imaginable are going to be legislated in such a way that they will probably have 85 per cent less rights than most unionized workers in this province.
Why would you do that? Why would you, as a backbencher, sit there and say yes, it's more important to balance a book than to worry about the health care. I guess a simple way of putting this is, who would you rather have looking after a loved one? Would you rather have someone who had the ability to vote on and work towards a fairly bargained collective agreement or would you rather have someone who has been marshalled back by a group of overbearing Cabinet Ministers who think they know what is best for all of Nova Scotia? Who have proven over and over again that this bill has a whole lot less to do with what is best for Nova Scotians and what they want to do is what is best for the bunch of loot they have hidden so they can make themselves look good in the final fiscal year.
That would come true if this bill was put on hold and taken to the Human Resources Committee and taken from Yarmouth to Glace Bay and allow people to come in and speak to it. Let's not limit the debate to health care workers. We should talk to the patients and we should talk to people who use the system. Let's find out if home care is working. Let's find out when these people who are being taken out of the hospital - I had a call to my office last week from a gentleman who said he has been hearing complaints about home care workers who are so tightly scheduled that people will say, look, I usually take my meds at 11:00, can you come after 11:00 after I take my meds? And they say, no, sorry, we would love to do it but our schedule says we have to be here at 11:00 and out of here by 11:15 and that's it.
We could use that opportunity to find out if single entry can work. I think it can. I think funded properly, and with the right amount of employees put in the system, home care will be a cost-effective way for health care to work, but not the way this government is going. This government is very heavy-handed in what it does. How can you take what they say as having any value? I keep harkening back to the Minister of Health when he told us the infamous "doctors are refusing to treat people who smoke," and then he came in and admitted it was an urban legend. He said the people in Whitney Pier want to stay there when 65 out of 68 homes, people living in those homes said they wanted to be moved.
We have to wonder where the minister is getting his information. We have to wonder when the minister said there was no contingency plan and we have clearly shown and tabled documents from the union saying there was a contingency plan. There has been a contingency plan both in the collective agreement and the ones that couldn't be agreed on would go to expedited arbitration with the 24 hour period, but you really find out what this group is all about when the Minister of Justice stands up and says it doesn't matter, I don't care if you had a contingency plan that keeps 98 per cent of the workers on, we don't like it. That is what he said here tonight. He said we are not taking any reduction.
So that is the problem, you cannot trust these folks. They are going to go behind closed doors and decide on an agreement. They are cooking a recipe for disaster. If they, in their wisdom and, like I said, I don't whether there is an internal palace coup within Cabinet that is trying to do the Premier in, if it is them or whether it is the Premier who is misguided, I don't know, but I am telling you they picked the wrong hill to die on here, folks, because they are going to die on it. They should realize what they have done, put this bill in abeyance, take it out to the Human Resources Committee, allow people from all walks of life, even the business guys here in Halifax who run this government, allow them their chance to say it.
Mr. Speaker, this government is way off base in trying to force this down the throats of Nova Scotians. Thank you.
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Cape Breton West.
MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON: Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this particular referral to a committee, Bill No. 68. I do so with a little bit of consternation because of some of the comments that were made by the honourable Minister of Justice in his dissertation a little earlier in the evening - or I should say a little earlier in the morning - it was quite apparent from his comments that he wasn't fully alert as to what the democratic process is all about, as we know it here in Nova Scotia. For the Minister of Justice to stand in his place and suggest that it is the Opposition's fault if the government can't succeed in having Bill No. 68 approved in a timely fashion is utterly ridiculous and absolutely irresponsible.
This is the same minister who stood in his place on several occasions in the spring sitting of the Legislature, who had ample opportunity with his Cabinet colleagues to prepare any number of measures to bring before the spring sitting, and could have very easily included such a draconian measure as Bill No. 68 represents, encompassed under Bill No. 20. Then, for him to turn around after a little bit of criticism from one of my colleagues on the haphazard manner in which the government has presented this bill and try to blame the Opposition for preventing the nurses from coming before the Law Amendments Committee is absolutely ridiculous and irresponsible.
[3:45 a.m.]
Then again, we wouldn't expect anything more from a Rambo-style Justice Minister who seems to be more concerned with his extreme right-wing agenda than he is in representing the views of all Nova Scotians. For that reason, I believe that the record should be set straight as to what the Law Amendments Committee process is for. It is not a lottery, as the Minister of Justice has suggested. It is not a lottery to determine which nurses will have an opportunity to come and speak in a 24 hour period. It is a democratic right for every Nova Scotian to come before the Law Amendments Committee and make his or her voice heard, as has been proclaimed under the principles of responsible government, long before that member came before this House, long before he was born, and long before his father and his grandfather were born.
It would serve the honourable Minister of Justice very well to understand what the mosaic of the democratic principles of responsible government are here in Nova Scotia. Yes, if that requires him to go back to the year 1215 when the Magna Carta was signed by King John, so be it. Maybe that is what he needs, to go back and learn about the history of Nova Scotia. Let's not get side-tracked. There are a couple of important points I would like to make on supporting this particular referral to the committee. I was going to leave it until later in my presentation, but the Minister of Justice has aroused my excitement to rise in defence of the nurses in Nova Scotia, the teachers in Nova Scotia, the medical profession in Nova Scotia, all three major organizations which have come out, clearly, in opposition to this bill,
and many other Nova Scotians who are incensed, absolutely incensed at what this government is trying to do.
Let's look at the measure of the mindset that comes from within that Cabinet Table; let's go back and look at Bill No. 53, on October 29, 1998, when the good member for Lunenburg introduced Bill No. 53, an Amendment to the Trade Union Act. What does that amendment do? Let's read it, because it goes right to the heart and soul of what the government is trying to do in Bill No. 68, and why we would support such a deferral. Yes, in essence, it is a bill to amend the Trade Union Act, and I will quote, Clause 2, "Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, no police constable or officer or member of a police bargaining unit has the right to strike." That is what the member for Lunenburg advocates. He advocates eliminating the democratic rights and principles for all collective bargaining units in this province. It is not just the nurses, it will be the nurses today and this week and next week, but that is the thin edge of the wedge. That is really the mindset that exists, and this is when he was in Opposition. God forbid, what we are going to be faced with over the next number of months and years ahead.
The good Minister of Justice didn't seem to mind when the House of Assembly, this hallowed hall of justice, as one of his colleagues has referred to it, is completely surrounded by police officers because they feel the need for it, but yet, lo and behold, don't give them any rights. It is all about principle; it is all about fairness, it is all about justice. Yes, and let's reflect on what some of the members in the government have said on these very issues, their own speeches in the House of Assembly completely defy the principles of Bill No. 68. Yes, they haven't learned from the mistakes of previous governments and, yes, Liberal Governments who have made equally as many mistakes, which is why - yes, the Minister of Justice laughs, he is such a cavalier, chauvinistic entity into the political process, it is amazing. He is like a reincarnation of a previous autocratic style minister who sat in the previous government, sitting where the Minister of Economic Development is, and I will leave that to the imagination (Interruption) That's correct, and he will go the way of the dodo bird, like the last one.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, he may think it is funny to mock and laugh at the nurses, because it is not just the nurses, it is all about the basic rights of fairness and justice and the ability to stand up for what you believe in. I could certainly appreciate in the absence of any collective bargaining process, I could appreciate in the absence of the binding arbitration, which the Minister of Justice in his previous life supported in his Private Member's Bill, but now he doesn't seem to see fit that that would be even a consideration. He would rather support Clause 13 that takes all those rights away. They're not even allowed to go to court.
When in the history of Canadian Government, particularly in Nova Scotia, which is the oldest seat of responsible government, did we start to initiate and implement laws that prevented people from having a recourse to justice? What special power, what special mindset, what was he injected with that gave him that super mind power that put him above
all the rest of Nova Scotians, Mr. Speaker, two weeks after they just closed the House of Assembly? I daresay it is nothing but a haphazard, dysfunctional government that is trying to find a way to whip up in a frenzy-like fashion some Machiavellian-style government to rally the people of Nova Scotia against one interest group because that would be the thin edge of the wedge.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, we saw what the Minister of Education did with the teachers last year. That didn't go anywhere. Puff, up in a powder of smoke. She had to backpeddle and they had to dip into the Minister of Finance's slush fund, which seems to be doing very well, much better than they are doing in New Brunswick. At least in New Brunswick you have to give them credit, they came out and said they are putting $100 million in the slush fund.
Here they are trying to slowly siphon it off and put it away, but not tell anybody, see, and you've got to give the previous government of John Savage credit for one thing, as wrong-headed as it may have been in some of the initiatives, and I have always said it is a question of attitude and process, but at least I will say one thing for that government, Mr. Speaker, they told the people what they were going to do. They weren't sneaky and underhanded in the fashion of this particular piece of legislation. That is very unfair to the people. The intelligence of the people of Nova Scotia deserve much more than that. Why do you think the medical profession came out on Friday past? They knew it was patently unfair. They knew it was underhanded. As they said, it is the wrong legislation at the wrong time and for the wrong reason. That is what is wrong with Bill No. 68.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, you wonder why we would be suspect. Let's just look at some of the comments that have been made that would precipitate such an outcry of opposition and a request for deferral to a committee and perhaps maybe a wide-scope examination of exactly what the government has accomplished in health care since it came to power. The Premier, himself said in the election - yes, in his blue book, in his election commitment - they would correct all the problems in health care for $47 million. My gosh, it is $0.25 billion later the first year and another $200 million the second year. That is almost $0.5 billion more than they said they were going to spend. What happened? And now they are going to blame the nurses who are overworked and in some cases well underpaid for the amount of stress and the strain.
I hear some members moan and groan about being forced to come to the House, members of the government, work around the clock, isn't it terrible. They have an opportunity to come in and sleep in their chairs, well, well, well, I am so brokenhearted for them. Well, listen, we have nurses, we have health care workers (Interruption) There goes the cavalier Rambo Justice Minister once again, typical of the arrogance of that government. Yes, Mr. Speaker, that is the arrogance that we would expect and none less given the tone of the dissertation that was provided by the Rambo Justice Minister. These individuals, while we are in the comfort of our homes knowing that family members, loved ones and friends who might be in a hospital, or some type of a health care facility, or on a home support
program, we know that these individuals, whether there is a strike or a no strike situation, they will protect the critical health needs of all Nova Scotians. Yes, they have even offered that in writing, but yet at the eleventh hour, for whatever reason, the government through its hospital organizations, through its regional health authorities, has refused to sign it.
Why, why in the absence of anything but good logic, would the government in a veiled attempt to whip up public frenzy against a particular organization, do such a thing? Are they that desperate for public support? Is it clear that they are on the wrong course? Yes. You know, Mr. Speaker, what is developing here is a government so far removed from the people it is scary. It is the worst.
MR. SPEAKER: I just want to remind the honourable member for Cape Breton West that there is an amendment before the House at this time that the subject matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources and I don't know if once since he stood up, he has even mentioned that. So I would ask the honourable member if he would bring his comments around to the motion that is before the House and his support or non-support for that motion, please.
MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Speaker, actually if we check Hansard, you will find that on three separate occasions I made reference to that deferral. Perhaps I used the wrong terminology. If you want to use the word committee, I will use committee, but deferral to that committee I thought was one and the same. Now, that having been said and I do appreciate your guidance, but you wonder why we would want a deferral.
Let's look at the individual members and that is what I am absolutely astounded at, you know, aside from - well, I don't know, let's be kind - the silly comments from the Rambo Justice Minister, silly, that's about all. It didn't engender anything in terms of why he didn't think we should have a deferral. It didn't engender anything in terms of even focusing on the principle of the bill because his comments only addressed half measure one of the two points that the Premier was discussing in one of his media scrums on Friday past which contradicted the Minister of Health, which contradicted the Minister of Environment and Labour who I sometimes refer to as Dr. Seuss, whether that is appropriate or not, I will leave that for the open mind, but given the distorted, dysfunctional approach that the government has towards labour management issues in the province, one can only be somewhat drawn to some satirical tones on the attitude and the tone of this government.
Let's look at the good member for Dartmouth South. Well, we know, Mr. Speaker, from media reports the contempt that he has for the nursing profession. The media reports of August 26, 2000, and I will quote The Halifax Daily News, Mr. Olive obviously does not understand the skill level needed to work in different areas of health care. That pretty well summarizes a rather difficult situation that he found himself in in Dartmouth with the LPNs a little less than a year ago. Then if you look at his maiden Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne, he is chastising the previous administration for not listening to the people.
The audacity of that member to chastise the previous administration, congratulate all the people in his riding for putting him here because he was going to listen to them and then the first available opportunity he gets, he chastises them. That is not the type of government that I think the people involved with Bill No. 68 are really looking for.
[4:00 p.m.]
Let's look at the good member for the Eastern Shore. You wonder why we would want this deferral? Because the silence of the Hamms over there is just spellbinding because there is quite a list of members over there. There are dozens of them over there so you would expect at least 2 or 3, maybe 5 or 10 per cent of them at least would stand up and defend Bill No. 68. As I read through all their speeches and replies to the Speech from the Throne when they first came to this House, now I understand why they don't. Why they can't defend, not only the bill, but the deferral or the actions of the Minister of Justice. The good member for the Eastern Shore congratulates the people for their confidence in sending him here because he will represent their interests. He congratulates the Conservative Government for having the foresight to invest in the offshore gas for which Nova Scotia is now reaping benefits. Now, what is the correlation there? The key phrase there is the foresight to invest.
If they had the foresight to invest in the offshore, they should have the foresight to invest in the nurses of Nova Scotia. In health care workers. We believe the deferral is important because the government has not lived up to its billing. It has not lived up to its commitment, it has not lived up to its expectation on the fact that it was going to clean all the problems out of the health care system with an investment of $47 million. Now, almost $0.5 billion later, they are blaming the health care workers. They are going to take away their rights. Ironically, when there was a collective bargaining impasse back in 1998, the government of the day didn't resort to back-to-work legislation. Not at all. They sat down and they listened, with the appointment of a mediator, and people who were willing to listen to some of the key arguments that were made. Not just on the nurses' side, but on the government side. Because of its obligation to the taxpayers but also to the hospital organizations and, yes, to the citizens of Nova Scotia.
We can see again the good member for the Eastern Shore and Dartmouth South, poof, up in smoke. That is why they won't stand and defend this bill. Or, support the deferral - or oppose the deferral for that matter - they are absolutely dumbfounded on this issue.
Let's look at the good member for Kings North. Let's look at what the good member for Kings North said, on Page 80 on October 8, 1999, I want to assure each and every person in Kings North that I will serve them to the best of my ability. Well, why isn't he standing in his place making some observation on this rather complicated, historic piece of legislation? What happened to the individual who believes in expression of free speech, speaking from the heart and the soul? What happened? What went awry that forced that honourable member to be so silent and not support this deferral?
Mr. Speaker, I could go on about some of the other comments he made about health care but it is absolutely mind-boggling about what he said then and what he is not saying today, as opposed to what he should be saying.
AN HON. MEMBER: Shame on him. Shame on Mark Parent.
MR. MACKINNON: Yes, shame on that member. As a member representing his constituents, not just the nursing profession, not just the LPNs or the doctors or the teachers, but his constituents.
Let's look at the good member for Sackville-Beaver Bank and why he is not supporting this deferral when he should be; I will always strive to uphold the best interest of the constituents I represent. Well, Mr. Speaker, what happened? Are there no nurses in his constituency? Are there no health care workers? Are there no doctors? Are there no LPNs? Are there no custodians who work in some of these health care facilities, nursing homes? There must be because he describes some of these health care facilities in his speech. What happened? Did he swallow a muzzle pill? Shame on that member. What a dichotomy of action and behaviour as opposed to when he was a member of the Halifax Regional Council. Yes, shame on that member.
Let's look at the good member for Kings West. What was he going to do? Well, I will just paraphrase the fact that he was so honoured to have been supported by so many citizens of Kings West and he goes on and on about how he will represent their interests and that he won't get caught up in a lot of the frivolous debate here in the Legislature that seems to add so little to the process but his constituents will be number one. What happened that they slipped in the polling? They are not number one anymore. What happened? Why is the Tory Party number one and the constituents number two? Again, another book of dismal failure.
Let's look at the good member for Preston who is sometimes referred to as the Wal-Mart greeter from Preston. Mr. Speaker, this is the one that I find extremely interesting and if anyone should support a deferral, it should be the member for Preston. As a backbencher on the government side, I quote the member for Preston: We cannot reply to any inquiries or accusations made during Question Period, nor do we have a fair opportunity to report or retort any accounts that may be portrayed to us in the media. The members of this House do not and will not get a fair chance to defend themselves if need be. Why not? Why can't he simply rise in his place and defend the rights of his constituents? What happened? You hear the catcalls from over in the corner. Is he now saying that the Premier has put a muzzle on him or senior members of the government? Is he saying now that he has been relegated to the backbench, next to the door, to be an apologist for the Tory Party over the people of his constituency? Is that what he is saying?
I go on to say, I quote the member for Preston as he says: Our rights and privileges of free speech have been reduced to nothing more than more mere edited and at most distorted sound bites.
MR. DAVID HENDSBEE: That's the truth.
MR. MACKINNON: The good member for Preston says that's the truth but yet he won't stand in his place and defend his constituents. He would rather be an apologist for the Tory Party under that guise of being open and accountable and responsive and responsible for his constituents. Now, you have a better chance of getting an Easter egg on an Easter hunt than you do of finding some of these Tory members on the weekend when the nurses are trying to call and express their concerns. Thank heavens for telephone recording machines. At least that way they can leave a message. Now whether they listen to it or not is another thing.
What happened to the member for Preston? If anyone should stand in his place and support this deferral, it should be the member for Preston because he, himself, in his own speech, Mr. Speaker, is complaining that he doesn't have the right to speak in the House of Assembly. He is now saying, in essence, his own government will not allow him to speak; his own government is against free speech.
Well, that is not what the Premier said when he ran for election. That is not what he said when he was on a local talk-back show in Sydney several years ago. To paraphrase what he said, I will allow members to vote according to their conscience, vote according to their own free will. Well, what happened? It is the first time I ever saw as many as 30 individuals come in here and all of a sudden have an equal mindset on everything and vote the same way on everything. They will vote against this deferral and support Bill No. 68, taking away basic democratic rights. Have we gone that far back? Have we begun the process of regression in democracy that much that they cannot understand that what they say is what they should do? Have they become mere puppets and apologists for a political entity. It doesn't matter whether it is the Tory Party, the Liberal Party or the NDP or banana republic, this is a much bigger issue, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, it is absolutely shameful when the Minister of Justice would stand in his place and blame others because his government is now going to refuse people the democratic right to express their opinion in a fair, open and accountable forum, something that we took over 250 years to put in place. It is not just shameful, it is downright disgusting. I am sure Joseph Howe must have rolled over in his grave three or four times in the last week since Bill No. 68 was introduced, Mr. Speaker.
To quote the honourable Joseph Howe, as he once said, "I know the value of education by the lack of it." I daresay that they are words that perhaps this government would take heed to. He may have been a feisty, little, crusty orator from down in the wonderful Colchester-
Musquodoboit Valley area but like the member for Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley of today, they believe in representing their constituents. You have to give credit where credit is due. That honourable member for the beautiful Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley will, at every available opportunity, given the restraints of that regime across the floor here, do his level best to represent his constituents. Unlike the silence of those other members who have sworn an oath to come and represent their constituents. And they are not doing it. Why not? Why will they not support such a deferral?
[4:15 a.m.]
What is the value of having all these individuals over there? Are they so enthralled, are they so enamoured, are they so pleased with the speeches that the Opposition is making? Not at all. Some things they will agree with, some things they will not agree with. Some are good speeches, some are not good speeches. Some are designed to offer substantive value, some are designed to be downright filibustering, with no sense of purpose other than to make things miserable for the government; doesn't matter what government it is. Anyone who has been in the House long enough will know that Bill No. 68 is not good. It would be well advised for the Premier and his Cabinet colleagues to stop listening to Mike Harris, stop listening to Ralph Klein and Peter Lougheed and start listening to the people of Nova Scotia; start listening to the people of Nova Scotia and that is what they are not doing.
The member for Halifax Bedford Basin. What did she say when she came to the House of Assembly. I am not going to go to great lengths quoting what she said and what she was going to do for her people. Suffice it to say, her silence is a complete contradiction of what she swore an oath to do. And that is what I find shameful. If anyone should support a deferral on this bill, if anyone should even oppose this bill, for some of the reasons that I stated and perhaps for some that I haven't stated, it should be that honourable member; not just to cater to one particular interest group or another, but for the very oath that she took when she came before the House of Assembly; for that reason and no other reason.
Again, let's look at the member for Guysborough-Port Hawkesbury. What happened to him? One thing that is a common thread for all these members when they stood up to speak was that they are so grateful to the people who sent them here. They were so grateful and they thanked them and they were going to do all these wonderful things. Why the Dear John letter today? What happened? Are they only there for one term? Maybe they don't want to run again. Maybe they don't care what the people have to say in their ridings. But this is a government, through its own document, "Strong leadership . . . . a clear course." The underlying principle in this whole document is that they would listen, they would consult, they would have input from the stakeholders of the province; not haphazard, loosely worded legislation designed only to remove accountability from the people.
At the rate things are going, deferral or no deferral on Bill No. 68, this government will have absolutely little or no need for anyone in the House of Assembly other than the ones who are sitting at the Cabinet table.
Look at the amendments to the Education Act; look at the amendments to the Health Act, of previous sittings; look at the amendments to the Financial Measures (2001) Act, that now puts the Minister of Finance with his two Cabinet colleagues in the position to take over school boards and essentially drive all the major policy and funding operations within the Departments of Health and Education from the central politburo, for the lack of a better phrase, because that is the type of politics we are getting, that centralistic, authoritarian-style government. That is what we are getting. Look at Bill No. 20. Well, that is licence-to-kill democracy if we have ever seen it.
The Premier, on Friday past, said, it is an issue of safety, it is about safety for the people of Nova Scotia. Well, let's look at that. Notwithstanding the fact that the nurses from the various organizations have offered to sign a document entitled Patient Care Services Continuation Plan, which was a contract, a legal, binding contract between the Nurses' Union and the various hospital organizations, to guarantee that type of service, much as they have done in other provincial jurisdictions, in at least five, perhaps, six other provincial jurisdictions. There is a significant difference in what even essential services legislation provides for in Bill No. 68, which is something entirely different. It is something entirely different.
It goes too far. It is not about protecting the health care system of Nova Scotia, or the health care needs of Nova Scotia. It is much more than that, Bill No. 68, because if the government was just concerned about that one issue alone, there would be very little difficulty for them to adopt similar-type legislation that is in other provincial jurisdictions. That is not what is in Bill No. 68. It is not. Let's not be fooled by the propaganda put out by the Premier or the Minister of Health stating that. It is not true. I don't care what any of them say.
Read the legislation. Go to the Legislative Library if you can't talk to some professionals in the system, and find out for yourselves. You will find that Bill No. 68 is not essential services legislation. It is draconian, autocratic, heavy-handed politics designed to beat up on one particular interest group because it serves as a first step in what this government stands for in its relationship between labour-management relations, as it comes on the issue of organized labour.
They don't have the intestinal fortitude to bring in a new Trade Union Act, and deal with some of the substantive matters that were put forth in various commissions and reports that were commissioned by that Conservative Government on a previous day. Members of that government, a Conservative Government, they won't even adhere to their own recommendations. I would suspect the reason for this deferral is an opportunity for perhaps
members of that government and the backbenchers to at least go down to the Department of Environment and Labour's legislative library, and find out for themselves how wrong the government is in what it is doing.
I would be willing to bet - and I know we are not allowed to bet literally, but figuratively . . .
MR. JERRY PYE: I'll take it, what's the bet?
MR. MACKINNON: A cup of coffee for the member for Dartmouth South - or North.
MR. PYE: North, please!
MR. MACKINNON: Maybe a cup of coffee for the member for Dartmouth South would help bring him to his senses, bring him to his feet. They seem to be asleep at the wheel in what they are doing to the people here.
Mr. Speaker, I would venture to say there hasn't been more than one government member, maybe two - I will give the benefit of the doubt because the Government House Leader, he was a Minister of Labour on a previous day, he would know what I am talking about, he would know exactly what I am talking about, about those reports and recommendations to deal with labour-management issues. Bill No. 68 skirts all of that. Under the guise of essential services legislation, this government purports to do much more.
The Minister of Environment and Labour, well, I am almost embarrassed to read what he said when he came to the House of Assembly to represent the good constituents from down in Kings County. I really am, I am embarrassed, because what he says and what he does here on Bill No. 68 is a total, total contradiction to everything he said and stood for. I don't know if sitting at the Cabinet table has insulated him from the real world; I don't know if it is a buy-in to some secret pact.
HON. NEIL LEBLANC: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I have been listening with great intent to the honourable member opposite talking about the member for Queens and what he said. I want to quote the honourable member opposite who supported a wage roll-back for health care workers back in 1993. (Interruptions) Mr. Speaker, you can realize that the money simply is not there. People like the Minister of Finance are going to need our full support and understanding and co-operation in terms of working through these very difficult times.
Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that before he starts quoting the member for Queens that he look at his own record and what they did to health care workers back in those times. We are giving them a raise. They rolled their wages back. (Interruptions)
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. That is not a point of order. (Interruptions) No, it is not. (Interruptions)
Order, please. The honourable member for Cape Breton West has the floor.
MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Speaker, I thank the honourable Minister of Finance for bringing that up, because I am very proud of those comments that I made at that time, not because I was proud of what we had to do but, see, he was part of a government that bankrupted the province. He bankrupted the province so much so that the creditors, the bonding agencies from the United States were about to put this province in receivership. Do you know why? Because he and his government were more concerned about supplying lobster dinners to butter them up. Yes, put the whole thing in context; put the whole speech in context. Is that the best that he can do on my 10 years of dissertation in this House? Is that the best he can do?
I am trying to help a government bring this province back from bankruptcy, and that is why we had money back in 1998, to negotiate, not legislate, not like this heavy-handed, autocratic government and the Rambo Justice Minister who is only here for a couple of years, and all of sudden is an expert at everything. Well, I will tell you that type of logic, you would have to be as thick as a two-by-four to buy into that. Why would those honourable members stand up and try to defend it? That honourable member knows when the good government of which he was a part brought in a deficit for that year, that dying year, of $584 million, but, yet, when it was recalculated under the same terms of reference that he is using in today's accounting principles, it was over $1 billion.
Never mind his voodoo economics and his silly rabbit tracks. I will debate the Minister of Finance on that stuff any day. He stands up and says, oh, we had a $500 million deficit, not a $1 million surplus, but yet he will stand in his place on another day and say, oh, well, about $230 million was set aside for Sysco; well, that really wasn't dollars, that was just paper talk, so it really wasn't a $500 million deficit. Never mind that foolish diatribe from the minister . . .
[4:30 a.m.]
HON. NEIL LEBLANC: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, if the member wants to talk numbers, we will talk numbers because the number that he talks about, the deficit that was at that time, it was over $500 million in write-offs of Sysco and also of NSRL at that time. So if you want to talk numbers, let's talk real numbers, but in your speech you also said there was a $7 billion deficit in this province . . .
MR. MACKINNON: Debt.
MR. LEBLANC: Debt, and that is why we had to deal with it. Well, Mr. Speaker, we have an $11.5 billion debt and the problems aren't there. We're giving a raise and you cut them back and you froze the wages. So don't stand here and tell us that we're not treating them fairly.
MR. SPEAKER: That is not a point of order, but certainly a disagreement on the facts between two members.
MR. MACKINNON: We are getting a little closer to the bone, Mr. Speaker, and do you know why? Because it is starting to hurt that all his voodoo economics and the . . .
MR. LEBLANC: Facts.
MR. MACKINNON: And the facts, yes, let's go with the facts and what the Auditor General says. It doesn't matter if they have a balanced budget, the debt will still continue to grow for generations. Why? Because of what that government did from 1978 to 1993, of which he was a part. He was part and parcel of bankrupting this province and he expects us to believe him?
Hogwash, Mr. Speaker, that's all that honourable Minister of Finance is putting before this House. He and the Minister of Transportation and Public Works are a licence for the destruction of government in Nova Scotia because they don't like democracy. They don't like accountability. They don't like people coming and voicing their opinion. They would rather have a police state, put the barricades up; how dare those people come and express themselves. Shame on those two ministers and those sleepers, those blind sheep that follow, who gave an oath to the people of Nova Scotia and, in particular, to their constituents that they would come and uphold the principles of responsible government.
Yes, and where was the good member for Cape Breton North this weekend when 300 nurses called him for an accountability session? Where was he to be had? He never returned his phone calls, not according to the 300 nurses. What happened? Is it DOA - dead on arrival - is that what the message is from this government? Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance should be ashamed of himself because he knows much of the money that is going for what raise is being offered to the nurses, or to any other sector in this province, is because of the increased transfer payments from the federal government but, oh, he forgot to say that, oh, no. You see, that is the way he operates, just like the Minister of Community Services when he made the $66 million announcement on this new home income support program. But what he forgot to tell the people of Nova Scotia is, it was all federal money. (Interruption)
Well, the Wal-Mart greeter is back from Preston and he wants to know what that has to do with Bill No. 68. Mr. Speaker, I would invite that honourable member to stand up for what he said when he came to the House of Assembly, that he was going to represent his constituents. Stand up. Don't be bullied by the Government House Leader. Don't be bullied
by the rather somewhat heavy-handed Minister of Finance, the prima donna of the Hammites, who sees himself as the visionary for the resolve of all the problems in Nova Scotia when he, himself, is one of the chief architects who inflicted this on the people of Nova Scotia. (Interruptions) Oh, yes, Mr. Speaker, I will take a question from Dr. Seuss.
HON. DAVID MORSE: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As long as we have the former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee there and we're talking about financial matters, perhaps he could tell us the story about how he proposed that we would solve the deficit problem by borrowing the money. Could he explain that to the House and the people of Nova Scotia?
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. That is not a point of order. It is merely a suggestion to the honourable member for Cape Breton West and he is under no obligation, but he certainly could respond to the question if he so desired.
MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Speaker, I will take that as a question because the honourable minister doesn't seem to know the Rules of the House. So we will guide him a little, okay. If he would read Hansard, it was a proposition based on the logic of the Minister of Finance himself which the Deputy Minister of Finance, who appeared before the Public Accounts Committee, agreed. He didn't agree. His corporate assistant who came before the Public Accounts Committee - and if you will read the transcript very closely, as I noted, your colleague is shaking his head yes and you are shaking your head no. See, that's what (Interruption) Not at all.
Their proposal was they had to borrow all this money to be able to meet their financial obligations. In other words, they could go to the bonding market, they could increase the debt based on the logic that was presented that day, but yet they could have had a balanced budget, no deficit, but an increased debt. That was the logic and the Minister of Environment and Labour, well, that's absolutely silly; look what he proposed with his logic when he brought the topic of Horton High before the Public Accounts Committee. That was probably one of the most asinine suggestions that was ever brought because in the final analysis he ended up praising the government for the P3 process.
I mean that's how silly and dysfunctional this government is, Mr. Speaker. They grab onto any teensy-weensy bitsy thread and distort it to make it look like everybody else doesn't know what they're talking about, just as they can go on in their autocratic-style, non-accountable government process. Well, I am sorry, it doesn't work that way, guys and ladies, sorry for your troubles. (Interruptions)
Yes, Mr. Speaker, we know what happens with government members when they speak out. Look what happened with the good member for Kings North, the Chairman of the Human Resources Committee. He got axed for telling the truth. They don't like that. Look on February 28, 2001, you wonder why we would appreciate a deferral to a committee when
the financial statements were recalculated, restated by the Minister of Finance's own officials. He sat on this for months, suppressing this from the Opposition and from the people of Nova Scotia. That is the type of politics that we get from that member. We don't put a lot of stock in the frivolous diatribe that comes from the Minister of Finance because it just doesn't add anything to the value of what Bill No. 68 is trying to do to the democratic rights of people in Nova Scotia.
That's right, Mr. Speaker, democratic rights, because the Auditor General and the bonding agencies stated that they were going to put the province in receivership. I don't know how slow or how long it is going to take for the Minister of Finance to absorb that; maybe that little hiatus from 1993 to 1998 didn't do him any good. (Interruptions) In a lot of ways he did and if you ask the Auditor General (Interruptions) At least we got their attention.
Do you know what, Mr. Speaker, another half hour, they will be awake. They will be coming up like the roosters. They will be up. They will start to crow. They are not saying a lot, but they are starting to crow. (Interruption). The Wal-Mart greeter from Preston, he will be quite happy. In another month's time the flowers will be blooming, and he can go back to sleep, out in the courtyard.
The people of Nova Scotia, the nurses, the health care workers, they don't appreciate the government - you know, rather than deal with substantive issues, at every available waking opportunity they've got their researchers in the library trying to find any thread, any little measly morsel that we can use against those honourable members to throw them off the beaten trail, because that will help us get our job done, we will do what we want to do, but it doesn't work.
The good Minister of Environment and Labour won't even talk to the people in Annapolis County while his waters down there are being polluted; 20 per cent of all the boil orders in the province are in the Annapolis County, in Kings County, by his own documents. What does that have to do with the deferral? A lot because it is about accountability and how we allot our financial resources. We will be spending more money cleaning up the mess that he will leave behind because he doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to go and meet with the people as he sells out the member for Annapolis and the people down there. He doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to live up to the obligations of his oath as a Minister of the Crown. He would rather beat up on the health care workers because they are so dysfunctional, so irresponsible in the way they manage affairs. They are going to rob Peter to pay Paul, that is what it is all about. Absolutely shameful.
The same minister stands in his place and says he doesn't answer questions from members in the House of Assembly. Yes, the Minister of Environment and Labour doesn't feel that he has a legal obligation to answer questions from the Opposition or any other member for that matter. That is quite apparent, but I will tell you, you can go in the Cabinet
door, but you can come out pretty darn quick. It is a privilege, not a right. (Interruptions) The Rambo Justice Minister says, just like you.
Do you know what? I was proud for what I did as a minister. I didn't roll back the occupational health and safety laws. I didn't bring in regressive legislation to prevent the policemen of Nova Scotia the right to vote like the Minister of Justice did. He doesn't want our good peace officers to have the right to speak out on behalf of their membership. (Interruption) Well, that is not what is stated here. It says Michael Baker, Lunenburg. That is not what is stated in his remarks. So, really, it represents the mindset of the government. They are against police officers, let's put it that way, and the right to represent their interests.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is very disappointing that the government would grapple at such thin threads to weave an argument against the member for Cape Breton West. They know that we make some excellent points. We will just leave it to the people of Nova Scotia to decide.
As things were going along on this collective bargaining process, there was the appointment of a mediator, which makes good sense. I am sure the Minister of Environment and Labour got good advice on that, but he got terrible advice to support a piece of legislation, cutting the legs from under the mediator the day after - tell me that is a good, sound, business initiative. It is like hiring a manager to run your trucking operation and then the next day telling him he is only allowed to polish the chrome on your truck. Doesn't make sense, does it? All that talent, all that trust. As I said on a previous day, this Bill No. 68 says a lot, with lot being more literally defined as lack of trust. That is what it is all about and that is why we would support the deferral.
[4:45 a.m.]
Yes, the frivolous arguments about the debt and the deficit and how the Opposition portrays things. They tried to spin that out to the public and even the public were too smart for them. Yes, and they always are. In the final analysis, that is where this government will go down, because they always underestimate the intelligence of the general public. They underestimate the resolve of the nurses and the health care workers in Nova Scotia and I dare say this is not just about essential services legislation. This is far worse.
For any government to think that any individual or group of individuals does not have the right to appeal to a court - whether it be at the local county court level, provincial, Supreme Court of Nova Scotia or the Supreme Court of Canada - for that lot over there to say that they can't appeal to a court of the land, how many of them are qualified to make those decisions? Not too many. More like the cast from Taxi - a lovable bunch of losers when it comes to representing the interests of Nova Scotians.
I am very disappointed, but not surprised. We see that every member on the government bench who stood up to represent his or her constituency when they came before the House has failed on that. We have demonstrated quite clearly that they have fallen on the job. Now they are too scared to stand up because they are not allowed. See, there is a very quiet hush. How many government backbenchers, how many Conservative backbenchers have stood up? Not one.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I think maybe the Speaker was asleep at the switch. The honourable member's time has expired and then some. On a point of order?
MR. MACKINNON: No, Mr. Speaker. I know that you were so captivated by the speech that you just allowed me the extra 10 minutes and I appreciate that. Thank you.
MR. SPEAKER: It would be four minutes. The honourable member for Dartmouth North.
MR. JERRY PYE: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. Does that detract from my hour of speaking?
MR. SPEAKER: No. The honourable member will get 60 minutes.
MR. PYE: I rise to speak on the amendment that is before us and I don't think there has actually been a clarity on what the amendment really says. The amendment really states that this bill be withdrawn and that the subject matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources. That is what I am going to speak about, that this subject matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources.
I believe that this is such an outrageous abuse of legislative power by a government that I have seen in my period of time sitting in this Legislative Assembly. What I will say to you is that I stood before this Legislative Assembly before and we have debated bills and we have debated some very serious bills by this government. Bill No. 62, which is a bill which was very near and dear to my heart, we stood in this Legislative Assembly and debated and we referred that bill to a six months' hoist. We referred that bill, I believe, to the Standing Committee on Community Services and also to Law Amendments. Again, Bill No. 20, we stood in this Legislative Assembly and went through the same process: a six months' hoist, a referral to the Standing Committee on Human Resources and the Law Amendments; then only to have it enacted and passed as legislation by this government.
We are standing here again today and make no doubt about it that the government has the numbers to count in Bill No. 68. The government will - by one, by one, by one - count in on that recorded vote, and you can be rest assured that they will count in in support of Bill No. 68.
The point that is really gone to the arrogance of this is that the Government House Leader has decided that this bill - not that it is such an important bill and that this bill ought to be done in a normal time-frame so that many Nova Scotians who are directly or indirectly affected by this bill, can come before this Legislative Assembly and stand in the public gallery and watch the proceedings take place in this Legislature. The government has decided to ram this through the Legislature by forcing a 24 hour period of debate every single day until this bill gets through. That is what the government has done. The government has no compassion or understanding. It has violated its blue book, Strong Leadership . . . . a clear course, which it said that it would be open, transparent and accountable.
There are many people who can't be here to see this process for one reason or another, but had it been done in a timely fashion, then you can be assured that there would have been a number of Nova Scotians present here to listen to this debate, but I must say that I am pleasantly surprised at the number of people who actually come here in the late evenings and the early mornings and listen to this debate as it goes across the Legislature floor, albeit a one-sided debate.
Then the Minister of Justice stands before this House and takes the opportunity to speak on Bill No. 68 and, Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if the Minister of Justice was speaking for the government or not, but I do know that it was a prepared text and if it was a prepared text, then he obviously had the authority to speak before this Legislative Assembly on that. What was most galling and what was most arrogant was that the Minister of Justice challenged or even threatened the members of this Legislative Assembly, who are the Official Opposition and the Opposition of this House, to sit down and shut up or else you know what will happen, if we don't sit down and shut up and if we continue to drag this bill out, or filibuster the bill which is a part of our process in this Legislative Assembly, that he is going to take away the rights of Nova Scotians who want to have representation before the Law Amendments Committee.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Justice, of all people in this province, should retract that kind of a statement. What kind of a message does that send out to those Nova Scotians who will possibly read that tomorrow in the newspaper, or probably have seen this on the Legislative TV tonight? What kind of a statement does the Minister of Justice tell Nova Scotians with respect to that? I don't even know whether this bill should go to the Standing Committee on Human Resources anymore because the Minister of Justice has just said, look, I push the threat of closure on this, I will close representation in the Law Amendments Committee. I will invoke closure is what he is saying because if it doesn't meet a finite period of time, then the Minister of Justice will just simply impose how many people will speak before the Law Amendments Committee.
Mr. Speaker, I would say to you and I would say to Nova Scotians, I stand here to be accountable and because the Minister of Justice puts a threat over my head that, in fact, I will be denying people the right to speak before the Law Amendments Committee, I will not back
down. I will not back down, nor will members of this Opposition Party or members of the Opposition back down, because we have a right in this Legislative Assembly to cause debate so that the government will know that its actions are wrong and that the government will recognize that through this debate there are avenues which we can pursue.
Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that this very government decided that it would not entertain a six months' hoist. As a matter of fact, you were in the Chair when I spoke on that six months' hoist and I can tell you that, in fact, we had hoped that the government would go for a six months' hoist because that would have given everyone the opportunity for sober second thought. It would have given the government side, it would have given the Opposition side, an opportunity to see just exactly the contents of this legislation, Bill No. 68. It would have also given us the opportunity to probably reach a compromise if, in fact, the government had felt that those people who are working in the health care services would not provide a continuum of health care.
Mr. Speaker, I will tell you that I am appalled at this government that it does not have the faith and trust in all those individuals who work in the health care system and provide health care services, that they are going to jeopardize the health and well-being of Nova Scotians. They are truly professional individuals and individuals who, in fact, will guarantee and who have actually said that they would guarantee, and I do know that I cited from the Nova Scotia Nurses' Union back during the hoist that the essential services agreement was out there and that, in fact, the essential services agreement told government what government could expect. They told those regional health authorities what they could expect from the unions with respect to providing a continuum of care while there was an interruption in the workplace.
Now, Mr. Speaker, make no bones about it, a part of the collective bargaining right is for a person to withdraw the rights of service. That is an essential component of the collective bargaining Act, the Trade Union Act as well, but particularly the collective bargaining Act because it allows people the right to withdraw their services in the event that they feel they are not being treated as the human resource and with the value that they ought to be and with respect to benefits and wages.
Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that when those individuals know full well that is the kind of level of service that they have to provide, then they are not going to contravene the Trade Union Act. They are going to provide that service even though there may be disruption in the service, you can't ignore that.
For the Minister of Justice to insinuate that we in the Opposition do not care about the effects that may happen to Nova Scotians out there in the event of a strike and someone happens not to get the kind of essential services needed and they die as a result of not having 100 per cent of the health care service, that somehow we are the fault of that, Mr. Speaker, is totally wrong. It is irresponsible of the Minister of Justice to imply that anyone who has
been elected to this Legislative Assembly should actually conduct themselves in such a manner. Certainly the minister ought to apologize to every Nova Scotian, in fact, for making that kind of a statement to the members of the Opposition in this Legislative Assembly.
Mr. Speaker, on the weekend, I know that I spent approximately 12 hours here on Friday night. I came in here at about 11:00 o'clock and I think that I left about 11:40 p.m., on Friday evening. I think the House adjourned for the weekend, or at least until Monday morning, 12:01 a.m., and during that period of time I received a number of faxes, I have listened to a number of individuals in the health care service talk to me, and they told me about how they felt that the government had undervalued them, how the government didn't appreciate the professionalism of their services, that for some apparent reason the government felt that they weren't valued in relation to British Columbia, in relation to Alberta, in relation to Ontario, and in relation to the United States with respect to wages and benefits.
In fact, when I think about it, this is a government that talks about a global community and that we are living and working within a global community and that, in fact, it is a true fact that we will lose nurses. As a matter of fact, the honourable member for Halifax Fairview, the honourable Graham Steele, indicated that in the year 2000 there were 79 nurses graduate and out of the 79 nurses who had graduated, only six of them stayed in the Province of Nova Scotia. That demonstrates the kind of global community, Mr. Speaker, that we are in. What we have to do is be competitive with wages.
[5:00 a.m.]
For this government to simply say that it cannot provide the kind of wages and benefits that the health care professionals are looking at, I would say it is a matter of priorities. The members on this particular side of the floor, as the Official Opposition, recognize that there are some financial difficulties with this province. We are not in a position to put this province into debt any more than what it is. That debt was created by the Tories and the Liberals before.
Mr. Speaker, we understand, though, that the priorities of Nova Scotians are that they value a health care system, and they value a competent, complete health care system, one that they can be assured of when they wake up in the morning that they are going to get health care. That is essential and it is important. It is not only essential and important in Nova Scotia, but it is the basic foundation of all of Canada, that people receive quality health care. The nursing profession provides that quality health care.
Mr. Speaker, another reason why the government wants to rush this bill through is, this bill isn't about - as far as I am concerned - collective bargaining rights. This bill is all about money; this bill is all about a Tory agenda. It is all about an agenda that is three years down
the road, approximately two years down the road now, in the year 2003, when this government promised every single Nova Scotian a 10 per cent tax cut.
Mr. Speaker, Nova Scotians that I have talked to, and according to the Corporate Research poll, indicate that only 9 per cent of all Nova Scotians value a 10 per cent tax cut over a quality health care system and a quality education system. That should tell the government that its priorities are wrong, skewed, that, in fact, the government's priorities are off the agenda of what Nova Scotians elected this government for.
This government, as a matter of fact, promised Nova Scotians, in its blue book - and I won't go back to that at the present time - that it would provide a quality health care service to Nova Scotians. It criticized the Liberal Government for the $640 million health care investment, that it was going to provide to Nova Scotians. That government said it could do it better and there was some talk around $47 million. I don't think the talk was around the $47 million, in my opinion it was that this government said it would provide a better health care service for less than the cost of the previous Liberal Government that was in this province.
Mr. Speaker, I recognize when I was standing here speaking last Friday that the Liberal Government is, in a sense, partly responsible for the reduced wages that people in the health care profession receive to this day, simply because after 1992 under Donald Cameron and receiving a wage freeze, in 1993 that was not good enough. The government of the day, the Liberal Government, the John Savage Government, which is now ousted, decided that it would cut 3 per cent of the wages.
I know you must have been affected by that 3 per cent wage cut as well as I, and many thousands of Nova Scotians, particularly Nova Scotians who were employed in the Public Service sector. Not only those who were employed in the Public Service sector, but also those individuals who were directly or indirectly receiving funds from the Province of Nova Scotia at that particular time, as well, received a 3 per cent cut in their wages providing their incomes were $25,000 a year or more.
That affects those salary ranges today. That also affected their benefits and their future pension plans. The Liberal Government cannot and should not get off the hook for that. By the same token, that is nothing compared to the draconian legislation that has been brought in here by this particular Tory Government. Where else can you possibly go in the world where the Cabinet can circumvent the collective bargaining process, and turn around and tell people, look, we are going to impose a settlement? We don't care if you negotiate, there is no need to negotiate anyway because now the collective bargaining process has been thrown out the door. As a matter of fact, if you want to, you can take it to court but it will do you no good because the courts can't address the issue.
Mr. Speaker, where in the world do you get that kind of legislation? I have been told that the only place in Canada that resembles or comes anywhere close to that is in New Brunswick, however, this is Nova Scotia, and Nova Scotians have already spoken out, and Nova Scotians have told this government what they believe is important to them with respect to the delivery of health care.
When we look at the nursing profession and the number of years that it takes, approximately four years to receive a Bachelor of Nursing degree, the cost is some $40,000 to $60,000. Then you wonder why nurses don't stay in the Province of Nova Scotia. It takes approximately 10 to 15 years to pay off that debt that has been incurred. Mr. Speaker, if it is $40,000 to $50,000 for that cost, over a 10 year period, that is approximately $500 a month, not including interest and the like. It is a tremendous cost that is coming out of their wages.
That is the kind of thing that the government has to recognize. The government has to recognize that there is a specialized field out there today; there are highly-trained, highly-skilled nurses who are graduating here in the Province of Nova Scotia. If, in fact, they can compete in the open market, like the United States, British Columbia, Alberta or Ontario, then they have a right to compete in that marketplace. We also have a right as a province to make sure that we ante up and we are able to be competitive by providing them decent salaries and benefits to stay in this province. After all, every time we walk into a health institution, a hospital, we see the importance of having nursing and health care professionals there.
When I visit the intensive care unit of the IWK Health Centre, I know the kind of stress that goes on in bringing those young children into this world of ours and making sure that they have the kind of health care services that are needed and the specialized treatment that is needed, particularly to those children who are born premature or some with particular diseases and disabilities. Many of those children cause a tremendous amount of stress on nurses who are in the workplace. That, in itself, ought to measure for something.
Our seniors, many of us have known loved ones who end up in hospitals and who need special care and treatment, particularly seniors in acute care centres, in hospitals with acute care beds. They are looked after. Some of those individuals are in there for three years or more. All of those individuals are well taken care of by a specialized group of nursing staff and health care workers within those hospitals.
Mr. Speaker, we talk about not being able to provide or have the financial wherewithal or the financial resources to pay the nursing profession the kind of dollars that they are asking for. All that happens through a negotiated process. If, in fact, the Minister of Health were to sit himself at the negotiating table - which is highly unlikely because he will allow the individual health authorities to deal with that, but if the minister were to do that himself -
I just wonder what kind of a negotiated settlement the Minister of Health would make with those within the nursing profession.
Mr. Speaker, we know that this province is on the cusp of some wealth. We know that if the Minister of Economic Development is diligent in his field that he will make sure that there is growth in the IT sector in this province; he will make sure that industry is going to stabilize and locate in this province; the industry that is already here will stabilize and stay in the province, and it will attract new industry to this province. He also knows that if, in fact, he puts his efforts into the offshore development and the potential wealth of that offshore that many Nova Scotians will benefit from that and there will be revenue in there to provide the kind of salaries that are needed for the nursing profession, not only the nursing professions, but should also enhance the economic wealth of many Nova Scotians and all Nova Scotians I would like to think, but that is not the case. That is not the case here.
The Minister of Economic Development is the same as the rest of this government. They have a one-track mind with respect to how they are going to address the issues of Nova Scotia and that's to get rid of the deficit and the debt. There is nothing wrong with getting rid of the deficit and the debt, but one has to remember that the debt had been created over a 20 to 25 year period and a good $7 billion of that debt had been created by the former Tory Government under John Buchanan.
Mr. Speaker, there are members of the John Buchanan Cabinet who are here this very day in the Legislative Assembly. As a matter of fact, I believe the Government House Leader, who is supporting this bill and ramrodding this bill through, was a member of the John Buchanan Government and he knew how they spent money. So that money had been spent and it was spent foolishly. I recall electronic toilet seats as a matter of fact. There was a huge purchase of electronic toilet seats. I will bet you none of those are in a health care centre. I bet you there's not a single one of those electronic toilet seats in a health care facility across this province, but I will bet you there has been some good bidding on them and that there has been some good money and some of those are probably located as items of historic value in some people's homes.
Mr. Speaker, I can assure you that was a colossal waste of money. There has been a colossal waste of money on Mercator I, some of those kind of ventures. I don't know if people still remember or recall those kinds of ventures that happened by government, but that was a tremendous waste of money and we know what governments have created that. It is a matter of both of these governments, both the Liberal and Tory Governments, being responsible for that kind of economic loss to the Province of Nova Scotia and the kind of debt that we are faced with now. If we didn't have that kind of a debt, surely the government wouldn't be in the position where it is today, but even with that kind of a debt, the government does have the financial resources to at least negotiate a reasonable wage package for those people in the health care services.
Mr. Speaker, I sometimes wonder if, in fact, this Bill No. 68 wasn't actually dreamed up - you know, there is a fishing cottage on a river in Guysborough County that the Premier and his buddies sit down and meet and they have a talk. I believe it might have been with the Sobeys. Can you imagine, the Sobeys' boys, and the Premier sits down and drinks his little glass of milk while others may have a little stronger sip from time to time, but I can assure you that that would be the ideal location for dreaming up some kind of a bill like this. Bill No. 68 sounds like it ought to be right there with the rest of the fishing stories and I can tell you that the seriousness of this bill could have come from nowhere else but those individuals.
I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that some of those individuals, who in fact had a very significant role to play in Bill No. 20, are the same individuals who sat down and helped write this Bill No. 68 and those are the business people in downtown here and some of those individuals who visit the bunker because they get the special invitation to visit the bunker down there and speak with the minister and have the minister's ear. As a matter of fact, they probably have the ear of the entire Cabinet, but some of those people probably have gone down there and did that little fishing and talked about how we are going to take away the right to collective bargaining from nurses in this province.
Nova Scotians don't believe for a minute, Mr. Speaker, that the nursing profession or the health care professionals are incompetent. They believe that the health care professionals will provide that continued level of services they have said under the essential services agreement. It is this government that is fear-mongering Nova Scotians by implying to the seniors and to those people who may need health care tomorrow that somehow they won't get it if there is a withdrawal of services by health care workers. That is the problem. It is this government because it is this government's agenda that we have seen since they took power in 1999.
Mr. Speaker, in reference to the Human Resources Committee, I want to read an e-mail that was sent off to me and to all MLAs, as a matter of fact. I think the reason why I will say this is because it will tell me exactly why these people should go to the Human Resources Committee and why these people should have the opportunity to speak before the Human Resources Committee.
Mr. Speaker, for the record so that it goes in, and I will table it as well. It is from the Colchester Regional Hospital and it comes here on Sunday, June 17th. I don't know if anyone has had the chance to read it or to see it, Mr. Speaker, but you certainly would know where Colchester Regional Hospital is and a number of your colleagues would as well. It says:
"To All MLA's: DICTATORSHIP: autocratic rule, control or leadership; a form of government in which absolute power is concentrated in a dictator or a small clique; a government organization or group in which absolute power is so concentrated.
DEMOCRACY: a government by the people, a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly through a system of representation involving periodically held free elections.
We, as nurses, have chosen to work and live in our respective communities, to take care of those who need the medical attention we have been educated to provide in a professional and caring manner. We are proud of our profession and feel we deserve fair compensation for the work we do. We also have personal lives, families, responsibilities which sometimes get lost in the shuffle when we are mandated to work overtime after already putting in a full shift or work week.
TORY PLATFORM JOHN HAMM SAID health care workers 'WILL NOT STAY UNLESS THEY HAVE A REWARDING PROFESSIONAL ENVIRONMENT'
This is becoming more prevalent everyday. Why would nurses' choose to work in Nova Scotia as there is no incentive now and none in the proposed contract. RN's are leaving to go other places where they are treated fairly and with respect.
We would like to know which way you plan to vote on BILL 68 and the rational behind your decision.
Nurses' did have a contingency plan in place that management agreed with where we would provide essential care in the event of a strike.
Please remember nurses' are a strong body in the province and you yourself will need votes someday! Please make the right decision and support nurses' right to negotiate a fair and equitable contract so we may do our job proudly and competently."
Mr. Speaker, as I go back it says, "We would like to know which way you plan to vote on BILL 68 and your rational behind this decision." That is very well and good because if, in fact, this bill is referred, or the subject matter I should say, not the bill, because stated in the amendment, the bill is stated to be withdrawn and the subject matter referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources. If that is the case then these individuals would, in fact, have the opportunity to go before the Standing Committee on Human Resources and present themselves before the Human Resources Committee and present their concerns and would be able to get a hearing.
I want to tell you that that is Barbara Lewis, an RN; Janet Hutchinson, who is an RN; and Gloria Falle, who is an RN. Mr. Speaker, they are all from the Colchester Regional Hospital. It just goes to show that there has been some talk, not only in the metropolitan area with respect to the way contract negotiations are going, but all across this province. Those individuals are quite concerned with respect to how the government is addressing this particular issue.
Now, I don't know, Mr. [Deputy] Speaker, if you have had any calls, any e-mails, or any faxes on behalf of members of your constituency, but I do know that the beautiful Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley must have nurses who are quite concerned about what is taking place. Surely, they can expect a call in return from their MLA who represents them.
Mr. Speaker, the same can be said for everyone who sits in the Legislative Assembly on that side of government. One would hope that that side of government would take the opportunity to stand there and speak on behalf of their constituents and let them know that their voice is going to be heard in this Legislative Assembly. Despite the decision, that this government has their lips sealed, one would think that they would have the opportunity for a free voice on this, as Premier John Hamm had indicated during the 1999 election campaign when he handed out the book, Strong Leadership . . . . a clear course.
When I look across that legislative floor and see a number of people who have the opportunity to speak on behalf of their constituents and they choose not to speak on behalf of their constituents, then I know why I am here. I am here because they call me, and because they need to have a voice in this Legislative Assembly because their elected representatives will not speak. There is this attitude that says, you know, if you sit there and you say nothing, two years from now that will be blown over. I remember that kind of talk when I spoke with the MLAs of the Liberal Government of 1993. They just went on their merry way, doing whatever they felt, and they turned around and imposed the 3 per cent wage cut. Then, a year and a half prior to election they imposed municipal amalgamation. It never went to any Human Resources Committee; it never went through any committee, they just simply imposed it.
What happened? In 1998, it just happened to be a Liberal minority that hit this province. Then Nova Scotians did the final blow and the final thrust in 1999. Now the Tory Government comes into this Legislative Assembly with exactly the same arrogance. It has exactly the same arrogance. It has turned around and stood in this Legislative Assembly and it read the budget books, much the same as we did in Opposition, they read those budget books, they knew exactly how much debt this Province of Nova Scotia was in, and if they did not know how much debt this Province of Nova Scotia was in, then the Finance Minister, who wants to be a real Finance Minister someday, ought to recognize that now is the time for him to be a real Finance Minister. It should have been the time when, in fact, he was out there on the election campaign, because that minister certainly has a handle on economics and I am sure that he has been introduced to economics 101. You don't have to go much
farther than that to know, after reading budget books, just exactly how much debt the Province of Nova Scotia has.
Mr. Speaker, just to come in 1999 and to imply that they didn't know the financial position of this province, and that this province was in deeper financial difficulties than what they thought - I do agree that even we did not believe that, in fact, there was a $1 million surplus . . .
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.
HON. NEIL LEBLANC: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I just want to bring to the member's attention that he said we did the same thing the Liberal Government did before, and I want to point out that I did know the situation of the province was serious. We, as a government, have put negotiated contracts which have increments. People are getting raises in this province. Would the member not agree that for the health care workers who are in the gallery and the health care workers who are home that this government, though we have a deficit problem, have still put increments on the table for those health care workers far and above what we have offered other workers in this province, which has basically been two, two, and two? Would the member not agree and say that that is different than what the previous administration did, which was a roll-back and actually, unpaid leave? Those are two completely different things.
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Dartmouth North.
MR. PYE: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member has stated exactly what he had felt about the position and the financial position that the Liberal Government of the day in 1993 had taken. The honourable member also indicated that at one time during the debate, I believe on Friday, I indicated that that was one of the very reasons why I entered politics, simply to make some sane changes in this province's way of delivering politics to Nova Scotians, and that, in fact, I did not support the 3 per cent wage cut that was imposed by the Liberal Government at that time.
Mr. Speaker, what I am saying here is that this Minister of Finance and his government knew very well what the books were in the 1999 election campaign, and said nothing, absolutely nothing about making tax cuts, creating tax cuts - excuse me, not giving tax cuts - but said absolutely nothing about the financial status of this province with respect to where they were going. They simply made it very clear that they were going to introduce a 10 per cent tax cut in this province, and they did not imply that they were going to do that on the backs of Nova Scotians by, in fact, introducing user fees to the point of $118 million a year. Each and every year from here on, those user fees will be in place.
That Minister of Finance is very much aware. Those are the kinds of costs that Nova Scotians are now subject to. They are not only subject to user fees, but they are also subject to a reduction in the level of government they are receiving, as well. That is significantly important. I think the Minister of Finance needs to tell Nova Scotians that, in fact, the health care workers need to have a wage that is competitive across this country. They are competing in a global market, as I said earlier, and the wage and the salary benefits have to be competitive. If not, we are not able to compete in that marketplace. Mr. Speaker, what I am saying here is that they have to be competitive.
We know that the people who are negotiating these collective agreements know the financial status of this province. They are not demanding that it be exactly the same as Alberta; they know that. What they are saying is that they want to be recognized with a decent wage package. That is what they are saying. That is absolutely what they are saying. The government says that they will be the highest paid in Atlantic Canada. As I understand it, that is only for a short period of time while Newfoundland's collective agreement is under negotiation. Then, there is the opportunity for the Nova Scotia people in health care services will fall further behind.
When I look at this, and I look at the way the government has put the gun to the heads of the health care workers in Nova Scotia, it is no wonder, it is absolutely no wonder there is no room for negotiations here. The government holds the gun and it holds the bag of money. It says I will dispense the amount of money that I am going to introduce into the health care service, and it holds the gun and it says this is the amount of money you will take. That is the way the government is doing business here.
Mr. Speaker, I knew, when we stood here in this Legislative Assembly and we debated Bill No. 20, that Bill No. 20's mirror would be reflecting across this legislative floor. Bill No. 20's mirror is reflecting across this legislative floor through Bill No. 68. Government now has the ultimate power to turn around and strip people of the collective bargaining rights within the health care services. Absolutely no need for negotiations. If there were, they would have waited until at least the negotiating process had been completed. First of all, they went into negotiations, then they hired a mediator, then they hired a conciliator, and then if talks broke off they could impose binding arbitration.
They chose not to do any of that. They chose instead to continue to take the gun and have their bag of money, and say this is how much money you are going to get, and we are going to do that through no other means but through Cabinet because now we have the power to do that. We don't care how hard you negotiate, we have already determined what kind of an increase you are going to receive.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Justice almost implied that there was absolutely no need for negotiating a wage package here, by the health care profession. He automatically implied that it was already set out, that there was no room for movement, and that if you didn't agree
to this settlement what we will do is we will legislate you back to work. It is as simple as that. We will legislate you back to work without even imposing binding arbitration, that we will impose the kind of salary package that we think is of benefit to you.
[5:30 a.m.]
The problem with that, Mr. Speaker, is that it goes far beyond the health care workers in this province. It goes far beyond the health care workers. This is just a step. The health care workers are the first people. There are other people within the public sector who could be directly affected by this as well. All those collective agreements that come up by the year 2003, when this government's mandate is up, can very well feel the strong arm of government because government will say there is no money and this Bill No. 68 will just be a duplicate of what comes across the Legislature floor for each and every bargaining unit that is represented by this government.
Mr. Speaker, it is a sad day for collective bargaining in the Province of Nova Scotia because this government has chosen not to allow the collective bargaining process to take its course. We recognize that this is an essential service, but yet people do have the right to negotiate a collective agreement. They do have the right to negotiate a fair collective agreement and they do have the right to continue that process through what is called the collective bargaining Act of the Province of Nova Scotia. They do have that right.
Mr. Speaker, one thing about this being referred to the Human Resources Committee as a subject matter, is that not only will, in fact, the nursing profession, or the health care professionals be the people who will be coming before the Human Resources Committee to speak on this bill, but there will be people from all professions across this province, maybe even very well across this country, who will be speaking on this kind of legislation that takes away the rights of workers that have been truly fought for in this province. It takes away the rights of workers and not only that, these workers have absolutely no recourse with respect to the courts.
So, Mr. Speaker, I am just wondering what kind of action is left to the individuals other than to accept a collective agreement that is imposed upon them by government. Government can very well say that we have decided that this will be the last time you really negotiate a collective agreement because from now on we will be setting the wages, we will be setting the benefits, and it will be based on a decision of those individuals down there in the bunker, those special members of Cabinet who, in fact, have the power and the authority to do that. I am just wondering how many members of that Opposition will actually get up and speak on government's imposed power to do that.
Mr. Speaker, I do know the member for Pictou East is, in fact, a former member of the NSGEU, who is a retired member of the NSGEU, and hopefully that member will get up and speak on this bill and he will give his impression of just what kind of power and authority
the government has taken with respect to this bill. That member will do justice to the organization of which he was a former member, he will do justice to those individuals who now find themselves part of Bill No. 68 and the implications of Bill No. 68.
Mr. Speaker, we have witnessed the government's propaganda with respect to putting out ads in the paper implying that Nova Scotia nurses would be the highest paid nurses in the country. We recognize that the government has placed those ads. There are many levels of classifications within the nursing profession. Not every one of those nurses will receive that salary level that the government is implying. The minister is very much aware of that. So the ad was misleading in itself. It gave the impression to Nova Scotians that all nurses will receive that $26 an hour, I believe it is I am not sure, I don't have the chart in front of me right now - which will make them the highest paid in Atlantic Canada - but the government didn't say that that would be only for a short period of time until negotiations with the Newfoundland professionals in health care become negotiated very soon.
The government also fear-mongered and implied that many Nova Scotians would be without the essential health care service. On the weekend I had the opportunity to speak to many Nova Scotians and many Nova Scotians said to me that they would believe the nursing profession, a highly professional group of individuals, before they would believe government, but that is just simply the cynical attitude that many people have about governments and politicians. They don't believe them anymore.
They campaign on one issue and once elected, they organize themselves in another manner. Mr. Speaker, I would say to you that that is one of the reasons why, in Nova Scotia in the 1999 election, we actually saw voter turnout less than 70 per cent in this province, because people gave up on the cynicism of politics and the cynicism of government promises and commitments to them as voters. I want you to know that when we were out there asking the voters for our support, we had genuinely told Nova Scotians they could count on us when we got to the Legislative Assembly. Now, when I stand in this Legislature and I speak, I speak on behalf of those individuals who have elected me into this Legislative Assembly.
Mr. Speaker, I would hope that the members on the government side would speak on behalf of the members who have elected them to this Legislative Assembly. So far, we haven't heard a single word except from the Minister of Justice who, in fact, implied and threatened the Opposition that if they didn't adhere to what government was dictating to them across the floor, to sit down and shut up, if not, people would not be able to make representation or citizens of Nova Scotia would not be able to make representation to the Law Amendments Committee. Shame on them, it is absolutely shame on them and shame on that Minister of Justice, who is to see that justice is fair and just in the Province of Nova Scotia. Shame on that Minister of Justice to imply that if we stand in this Legislative Assembly and use up, or filibuster so that we can make sure that a draconian bill does not pass this Legislature that, in fact, we are going to impinge upon the time other Nova Scotians will have to make representation before the Law Amendments Committee.
How dare that minister stand here and talk like that, Mr. Speaker, how dare that minister. It just demonstrates the total arrogance of that Tory Party. That Tory Party has absolutely lost all sense of direction with respect to what its mandate is from Nova Scotians. I just want to say that this blue book on which they campaigned, A Strong Leadership . . . . a clear course, had 243 promises from that government across the floor, 243 promises. One of the most single major promises, and I believe it actually started on Page 3, health care, which is the initial page, the very first page, health care; that was a priority with this government - the delivery of health care services in this government.
Well, Mr. Speaker, allow me to tell you something. There is a very serious issue with respect to home care. Do you know that the Minister of Health is very much aware that there is an acute shortage of caregivers within the home care services and they contract out that service to four contract providers in the Province of Nova Scotia and there is a shortage of caregivers within the health services of Nova Scotia.
Mr. Speaker, the reason for that is because they are competing in a marketplace, as well, and many of them are taking $10 an hour jobs at call centres and the like and the government has chosen not to up the ante for those individuals who need the care services by those providers.
Mr. Speaker, allow me to tell you there are people out there who, in fact, are being released from hospital as we speak, who have to wait approximately two weeks after they leave the hospital, two weeks, in order to be assured of a caregiver to come. Sometimes the wait is even longer, sometimes it is a month. I can tell you this is consistent right across this province. I have received a number of calls, and I do know the member for Dartmouth South has received a number of calls on this very important issue of home-care providers. I don't know how many times I have called and I have seen individuals who are 70-some years of age, 80-some years of age, and even one person who was 93 years of age, who had to wait two weeks after they got out to have home-care service delivered to them. One, who, even a month after they had gotten out had still not had home-care services.
I would hope that the government would recognize that issue as a health care issue, and maybe when this goes to the Human Resources Committee that, in fact, this will be addressed as well. That will be one of the components of health care, as well as providing the benefits and increments to those individuals who are in the health care service; that we will look at the holistic part of health care; that we will look at it in its entirety; that we will look at making sure that when it goes to the Human Resources Committee there is not one single component of health care that is not looked at and addressed.
Mr. Speaker, I do know that the member for Kings North happens to be the Chairman of the Human Resources Committee. I do know, hopefully, the member for Kings North, who has actually not said one single word on this issue with respect to Bill No. 68, and what that member believes or possibly believes, if this bill is as draconian as we, on this side of
the floor think it is, then that the member will speak out, and that member will speak out about this bill. That member, on that side of the floor, knows full well the likelihood of Bill No. 68 ever getting to the Human Resources Committee is very slim. We would have to catch the government off guard with not enough members in the House in order to pass such a motion. I don't think that is likely to happen. That member for Kings North knows full well that that bill is not likely to get to the Human Resources Committee.
But, Mr. Speaker, that does not stop that member for Kings North from standing here and speaking in this House about his thoughts on this Bill No. 68. That member can stand here and that member can speak to this Legislative Assembly on how he feels or the impression that he thinks this Bill No. 68 sends out to Nova Scotians. That member can do it here in this Legislative Assembly now, or that member can turn around and he can make representation before the Law Amendments Committee. I am sure that as a member of government making representation before that Law Amendments Committee, he would get the opportunity to speak at the Law Amendments Committee with respect to this bill.
Mr. Speaker, that goes for every member on the government side. They don't have to wait for this to go to the Human Resources Committee, those members can speak now. If they choose not to speak now, they can also line up - and I am sure the Minister of Justice will have something to say about that - and put themselves forward as representation before the Law Amendments Committee, each and every one of those members. Colchester Regional Hospital is not the only hospital, and if this subject matter were referred to the Human Resources Committee, we have approximately nine district health authorities across this province and we could send that standing committee across this province to those nine district health authorities.
They could speak to the health care professionals at Fishermens Memorial Hospital, the South Shore Regional Hospital, the Queens General Hospital in the District Health Authority 1; they could speak in the district health authority to those individuals who are affected by this legislation at Roseway Hospital, Yarmouth Regional Hospital, and the Digby General Hospital in District Health Authority 3, Annapolis County Health, the Soldier's Memorial, Western Kings, Valley Regional, they could all speak about this.
[5:45 a.m.]
I have already said about the district health authority, which in fact Colchester is a part of. But that goes for all district health authorities across this province. As a matter of fact, I know the honourable member for Cape Breton Centre implied they could even go to Cape Breton, where there is a very serious health issue, and certainly look at the delivery of health care services and the compensation that ought to be paid to health care providers and professionals in those hospitals that are in the Cape Breton region, as well.
There are nine district health authorities, and each one of these could be represented by simply not having the Standing Committee on Human Resources stay here in the metropolitan area, but have that Standing Committee on Human Resources cross this province, each and every district health authority would then have the opportunity to make representation to them.
Mr. Speaker, I want to see the government just simply carry out and take that kind of a commitment that we have offered to them, to refer this subject matter to the Standing Committee on Human Resources.
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Cape Breton The Lakes.
MR. BRIAN BOUDREAU: Mr. Speaker, good morning.
MR. SPEAKER: Good morning, honourable member.
MR. BOUDREAU: It is certainly a great day for many of us to be in Nova Scotia, except of course if we are a health care worker. It is certainly satisfying to me most of the time, when I rise in this House because I feel very privileged to be part of this House, especially as a member of this House. It usually is a pleasure for me to rise on occasion to speak within the boundaries of these doors. However, today, it is a little disappointing, to say the least, to have to stand here and debate this type of legislation that is before this House.
Mr. Speaker, it is bad enough that this bill takes away the right to strike for the nurses, but it also gives the government powers by allowing Cabinet to impose a wage settlement without negotiation. That is scary, it really is. In a democratic society, in which we have had many of our citizens who came before us fighting wars for the democratic cause, to give all our citizens equal rights, to stand here today and debate a bill like this is very scary for myself. I know that this particular legislation scares a lot of people in a lot of different sections of our society, because this bill is wrong.
A lot about this bill is about money. This bill also means that the already overworked and underpaid workers will know that their employer has no respect for them or for their years of training and their years of dedicated service to health care in this province. That is not a very good message to send, I would suggest. It is not right; it is not fair; it is downright mean. It is mean; it is nasty; it is just direction from a government that is obviously out of control.
Mr. Speaker, I have been in the House all evening this evening, I have been fortunate enough to be here to listen to the debate. I saw the good Finance Minister stand on his feet and rise to the occasion and brag that the nursing profession and the health care workers are getting a raise.
That minister has no room to speak, at least in my opinion. This bill is all about attacking the integrity of nurses and other health care workers. It is as simple as that. By doing bills like this, this government is going to drive our nurses and our health care providers out of Nova Scotia and they will seek somewhere where they are at least appreciated.
In the Tory blue book, the John Hamm Government will, one of the things he indicated very clearly, "Stop spending taxpayers money on politically-motivated advertising;"Mr. Speaker, all weekend and in every newspaper in the province there are ads being paid for by this government and one price, in one of the Halifax papers late last weekend, or early on Friday actually, the price of an ad was approximately $5,000. That hardly sounds like a government in need of finances that can go out and buy $5,000 ads on a daily basis plus pay for very expensive radio advertisements, particularly when we listen to the message that this government is trying to tell Nova Scotians who don't work within the health care field in this province. They are trying to preach the fact that they do not trust nurses. That is what the messages are about. In fact, both the Minister of Health and the Premier of this province are on record as indicating publicly that they do not trust nurses. Mr. Speaker, that is shameful to say the least.
I have been in conversation with several of the backbenchers and even the Cabinet Ministers, and during the night I had a Cabinet Minister indicate to me that he met with nurses over the weekend within his community and they indicated their support for this bill. I am very much in doubt because I have yet to run across a health care provider in this province who supports this legislation and I would challenge that good minister to table some names of nurses, wherever they live in this province, so I could at least contact them and ask them if they are in support of this bill. I can certainly tell you that the people - and not necessarily health care providers - the residents that I represent totally, in no uncertain terms, have made it very clear to me through various telephone calls, e-mails and conversations that I have had in my constituency office, on the street and even in my yard. At my residence this morning, before I returned to Halifax, I had probably the busiest driveway in Cape Breton because I had residents who took issue with the fact that this government was placing such an assault upon the nursing profession, in particular, in this province.
My memory is not that bad, Mr. Speaker, and just a short couple of months ago, in March during the by-election in Cape Breton North, we had a Minister of Health and a candidate who did win that by-election victory and I recognize that, but these two individuals went about Cape Breton North and boosted about the strong support that they were providing and were willing to provide in the future the health care, in particular, on the Northside and, in fact, throughout Nova Scotia.
Well, Mr. Speaker, the good member for Cape Breton North, a lot of eyes are watching that individual, particularly the people in that community want to see how he is going to vote on this bill because he is the one who is on record as saying he was going to huff and puff
and blow all the houses down in Halifax if need be, don't think about John Hamm during the election campaign, think about me, the candidate, because if I go to Halifax and things get out of hand, well, I will straighten those people out and I will huff and I will puff and I will tell John Hamm.
Well, Mr. Speaker, everybody is waiting for that individual member now to rise to the occasion and tell John Hamm just exactly how he is treating health care workers in the Province of Nova Scotia. This bill is all about limiting the salaries of nurses, nurses in the Northside General Hospital, for instance, who are underpaid, and overworked. In fact, there are nurses at times in that facility who are working two floors on one shift. I had a conversation with one of those nurses just a short time ago and there is no time for them to ride the elevators. There is no time. They rush up and down the stairs and the fire exits because they don't have the amount of time that it requires to push a button and wait for the elevator to come. They can be up the stairs or down the stairs by the time the elevator gets there.
This is what kind of working environment we have created for our health care workers in this province and it is shameful, Mr. Speaker, shameful, just for the environment, for the stress that is being created in this workplace by a government that claims to be responsible and caring for the people who they represent.
Mr. Speaker, I recall as a municipal councillor, many of the backbenchers on that side of the House, when they were former municipal colleagues of mine, when they boasted at UNSM meetings and at various meetings throughout the province when I had the occasion to run into them at these meetings, they boasted that they were the government closest to the people, the individuals who know the issues that affected Nova Scotians most and, more importantly, were committed to ensure that those issues were debated in a public forum to ensure that our society would not be served with any injustice, but yet today those same individuals are sitting in the back rows of this government, a majority government, an iron-fist majority government, and they won't open their mouths. They will not bring the issues to the floor of this House.
It is disappointing, Mr. Speaker, I may add, for myself to be here and to see my former colleagues sit like mice and say very little and allow the front row gang, who are being coached by John Buchanan graduates, a direction taken with the same mean, nasty leadership that we were accustomed to from 1978 to 1993 in this province. It is disappointing I would suggest not only for myself, but for my other former colleagues who are watching. I am sure it is very frustrating and disappointing for the people who they represent today because it is obvious that they had some success in the municipal world, or I would suggest they wouldn't even be here today. They rolled that success into becoming members of this House. However, that very activity that provided them an opportunity to serve in this great House has now left them, it has left them and they sit silent. They sit silent, they do nothing but look at each other and wonder if Cabinet is telling them the truth.
[6:00 a.m.]
If I was a backbencher over there I would want to know from those ministers, the nurses who are supporting this bill because I would want to talk to those nurses to ensure the government is going in the proper direction with this bill. I know how the political process works and every time one of us stands on this side of the House, there is baffle back and forth and whatever. You can fool some of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. This government is fooling nobody, no one. It is a very dangerous precedent, that this government is setting and it is beginning a trend of destruction. It is not self-destruction entirely, it is destruction of the very backbone of our society - the health care system in this province.
Without a strong and vibrant health care system in this province then we cannot attract business to locate here and provide opportunities for Nova Scotians in high unemployment areas, such as Cape Breton and other parts of the province where jobs are desperately needed by our residents. We need a strong health care system in order to attract the best teachers to teach our children. Think about it, Mr. Speaker, without a strong health care system, who would bring their children into this province.
One of the first things many of the specialists we try to attract to this province look at is the health care system and the second thing they look at is education. Without those two strong identities then we are not going to attract the people we require for our province to move forward.
Mr. Speaker, this kind of activity, of course, does attract a certain amount of people, such as the deputy minister, who the good minister imported from British Columbia. The last time I checked out British Columbia, health care was in shambles in that province. In fact, people are very concerned, the general public holds almost regular marches in the streets and public meetings to encourage their political leaders to solidify the health care system in that province. Yet we, as a province and this government, go to British Columbia and hire one of the highest-paid individuals the Department of Health has ever seen.
There is no money for nurses, very little, minimal. We are going to give you this little piece here and if you don't take it the alternative is jail, basically. What a way to work in this province. It is amazing that these former municipal colleagues of mine are standing back and
allowing this to take place, it is scary. It is scary to think we are going to direct our health care workers, many of them the best at what they do in that field, many who are well-trained and educated in health care on a daily basis, operating nurses vital to the well-being of our communities each and every day. We are going to dictate to those individuals that they are going to get a minimum amount of money for a raise and you are going to work because if you don't, we are going to fine your union and your union leaders each and every day. I guess the alternative to that is jail, if you can't pay the fine. Now $50,000 a day is a fair amount of
change to have walking around in your pocket, I would suggest. I don't know too many individuals who carry that kind of change on a regular basis.
There is no money for nurses but let's look at other employees this government has hired since it came into power. A Deputy Minister of Health, $188,000 a year; Associate Deputy Minister of Health, $100,000 a year; Assistant Deputy Minister, $100,000 a year; Chief Information Officer, and we are not sure yet why that title is on this individual, however, he does earn $100,000 a year. The CEO of the Capital Health District earns $350,000 per year, and this government has no money for nurses. Then the Vice-President of Human Resources, Capital Health District, $145,000 a year; Vice-President of Administration, Capital Health District, $165,000 a year.
There are three pages full of salaries and the lowest on there is $80,500. To date the Minister of Health has spent over $300 million in that department since he took over, less than two years. He has a bigger mess created today than he did last month. It seems that he is out to destroy the very system we rely on in such large detail. There is nothing but chaos within health care in this province. Doctors are leaving. The nurses are leaving. Out of 79 graduates, when you get six to stay in this province, then honourable gentlemen on that side of the House, I would suggest there is a message here, there is something wrong. Why are these nurses leaving? Why are the doctors leaving? Where is the recruitment for new doctors and where is the support system you promised nurses before you were elected?
You don't have the money? It is no wonder you don't have the money. The Finance Minister should hang his head in shame when he stands up in this House and says, we offered the nurses a fair settlement - I don't know, 2 per cent or whatever it is. And paying the likes of somebody that another province discarded, $188,000 per year.
We have hospitals, and one is the Strait-Richmond. As I indicated the other day when I was on my feet, Richmond is the sister constituency to Inverness, of the Minister of Tourism and Culture. Many of his residents actually are served by that hospital, the Strait-
Richmond Hospital, yet, the emergency department remains closed. Why? There is no effort whatsoever in recruiting a doctor for that area. And that is a Cabinet Minister, for his own people. He hasn't even got the spunk in him to put the pressure on the Department of Health and the Minister of Health to get a doctor for the residents he represents.
Mr. Speaker, they didn't take long putting a doctor in the Northside General Hospital when that doctor crisis came up, because it was this caucus that reminded the Minister of Health and the newly-elected member for Cape Breton North of the comments and the commitments that were made to the people of Cape Breton North just a few short weeks ago. Didn't take long for them to get some action then. In fact, on that very day, after the department in that hospital was closed four or five days, immediately following Question Period, that minister was on his feet and right out to the phone. Within two to three hours, we had a replacement; pretty odd.
The Finance Minister says this is about money. It is about money. That is coming from a Minister of Finance who has successfully increased the debt in this province by $3.5 million a day since he became Minister of Finance, at a cost that we now pay the banks $70 million more per year in interest. What an amount of money we could have to spend in health care, if that debt was not accumulated. Imagine if the Minister of Health had $70 million that he could sit down and negotiate fairly with the nurses. The nurses are not big, bad wolves. The nurses work in the health care field because they care about people, and they want to care for them. They don't deserve to be treated like this. All they need is to sit down on their fair terms, fair negotiating rights, and they are very reasonable people, very reasonable.
Mr. Speaker, we need fewer spin doctors and more nurses. There is no recruitment going on, none even planned, there is no activity whatsoever in the recruitment of nurses for our health care system in this province. We don't see any activity whatsoever, other than what they say they are doing. It is invisible, it is an invisible effort, just like the Minister of Tourism and Culture fails to recognize that his residents deserve the same type of attention from that Minister of Health as the people in Cape Breton North receive from a newly-elected MLA.
[6:15 a.m.]
Mr. Speaker, as I indicated before, I don't believe he has the spunk or the courage to stand up to the Minister of Health. As a result, the very people he represents are hurting on a daily basis. We don't need any spin doctors; we do need more nurses. We have to, I would suggest, support the nurses we have, at least, now. Those nurses who are doing, in some instances, the work of two individuals, on a shift. They work very hard for the people they care for; they work very hard for the communities in Nova Scotia. They deserve better than this bill. They have earned the respect of people in our communities and they don't deserve this type of slang being slung at them.
Mr. Speaker, I am not optimistic because it is the same old story, the front bench is just telling the backbench, well, the nurses support this. This is what I was told during the night by one particular minister, the nurses in my area support this. Table their names so I can call them, I want to talk to those nurses because I haven't talked to a nurse yet, in this province, who is in support of this bill. In fact, in District 8 in the Cape Breton district, there was a meeting called, which I attended on Saturday evening. My colleague, the member for Cape Breton South was in attendance, also.
There was hundreds of nurses, hundreds of nurses at this meeting. Not one took the opportunity to indicate that they support this bill. That is why I am challenging the government members, over there, any one of them, particularly the Cabinet Ministers, to table the names of the nurses who support this bill so we can talk to them. At least I would welcome the opportunity to talk to them. There are people in my constituency who are calling me who are not associated with health care other than when they need to use it, when it is a
requirement. They don't have a daughter who is a nurse; they don't have a son who is a nurse; there is nobody in their immediate families who works in the health field, but they still support nurses. They still support the nurses because they recognize the efforts they put into their profession.
That is what that government over there, that gang over there refuses to recognize. They refuse to recognize the efforts of the nursing profession. They tried to be the best that they can possibly be for the people they serve. That is why we in this House will rise to the occasion and speak; at least I will take every opportunity I can to speak against this bill. I know the colleagues in my caucus feel the same way, because we respect nurses. We recognize the hard efforts they put into their daily responsibilities, just like the good member for Cape Breton North. Our statements are no different than what that honourable indicated to the health care workers in the Northside General Hospital during the by-election. That is what he indicated to them personally, the same as what I am saying today.
What happened to that theory? What happened to the huffing and puffing? He was going to blow all the houses down, when this government went berserk or wayward. I can still hear him telling one crowd, don't look at John Hamm, don't think of John Hamm, think of Cecil Clarke. That is exactly what they did, because they trusted that member, just like they trusted the rest of the backbenchers. They trusted those backbenchers, my former colleagues. I can understand why they did that, particularly since I have seen some of their efforts over my years as a municipal representative.
Mr. Speaker, now, what they fail to recognize is that the people they represent will now be able to judge them on their performance over there. I would say it won't be a Tory day, it will be a sorry day. Sooner or later, like all members of this House, it will be knock-knock time, back on the same doorsteps that you were able to con the people in 1999, with garbage-like statements. I can list many of the statements that the Premier indicated not only in his blue book of promises but in various speeches, publicly, commitments that he made and is not fulfilling. It is becoming pretty much of a burden to the people of Nova Scotia, to have that government running the affairs of the Province of Nova Scotia.
Health care workers deserve respect. They have earned that right, through their hard efforts, through very difficult times, I may add. For the Premier, of all individuals, to stand in front of a camera and tell all of Canada that nurses in this province cannot be trusted is a disgrace. It is a provincial disgrace; it is a national disgrace. A doctor at that; a medical doctor at that. He, above many members of this House, has seen first-hand the efforts of those health care providers. The gall of that Premier. He is an insult. Nothing short. Can you imagine what people in Quebec, in Manitoba and, yes, even our friends in Newfoundland, what they believe, the very foundation of our health care system is in this province after hearing comments like that from a doctor-turned-Premier?
Mr. Speaker, I know and am fully aware, as are all Nova Scotians, that the Health Minister made the same comments, but he can be excused, a little bit, in my opinion at least, because he has no knowledge of the health care system. I base that opinion on the direction the health care system has taken in the last two years, $300 million spent in that system, with no improvement, not one improvement to boast of, doctors leaving, seniors having to pay $50 a day while they are waiting for a nursing home, $300 million is half of the Liberal health care plan that they proposed to the people of Nova Scotia.
This minister, if he continues with the trend to spend money, and I believe the figure at $300 million is approximately $12.5 million per day in his department, but if he continues on this trend he will have spent well in excess of $900 million over four years. Doctors are leaving; nurses feel like they are not wanted, and that nobody cares about them. Is this what my former colleagues wish for the people they represent, for all of Canada to look down on our health care providers and say, well, they are no good anyway, that is why the government is treating them this way. The Premier himself said it. They are not to be trusted. These nurses can't be trusted.
Mr. Speaker, the problem with that government over there, in my opinion, is there are too many John Buchanan graduates making the decisions and the rest of them are just the followers. Then they go about and they provide misinformation, not only to the backbenchers, because I was provided that misinformation last night, when a minister indicated to me that nurses in his community supported this bill.
[6:30 a.m.]
Mr. Speaker, I would have to question that statement, particularly from the message I am getting from the residents I represent. The comments I get are that the people don't have confidence, the community members do not have confidence, but it is not in the nurses, it is in that government over there. There is no confidence in that minister or that Premier. For a doctor-turned-Premier to stand on his feet in front of national TV and tell everybody that he does not trust nurses. I don't know what to say, I really don't, I really don't know what to say but I can tell you one thing, I am proud of the fact that I am on this side of this House because I would never participate in such an operation. It is activity you would see in foreign countries where people have no choices, different societies than we are accustomed to. It is policies like this, bills and directions like this that has seen this world go to war during the 1940's. This is dangerous. This is an assault against the very society that we know, that our forefathers have fought vigorously for for years and years.
Mr. Speaker, $300 million, think about it. I would just hope that I would have the opportunity some day to have $300 million to give to the nurses and ask them to go out and correct health care. I can assure you, I know that, at least, the people who I represent certainly have much more confidence in the ability of the nurses to repair health care than that minister because he is obviously out of control. Anybody to come in and bring and pay the
administrative salaries that he is in his department; the highest paid EA of all the ministers, $77,000 per year. Yet all he does is create confrontation. They fight with the doctors, the Northside General Hospital issue with the emergency ward, with the doctor, that is what it was about, bickering with local doctors down there who are overloaded with work. The overload of work on those doctors is creating stress they can't handle and it is heavier for the nurses.
Now he is creating this fiasco with the very foundation of health care, nurses and health care providers, the very foundation on which our health care system is based upon. This government is acting more like a government from another country where we don't have as many rights as we enjoy in this country. What a message we are sending to our young children and to the students who are in our universities when you tell them, well, when you graduate, you know, there are going to be no collective bargaining units. We are going to tell you how much you are going to earn. The nurses are only the beginning, I would suggest that it will spread rapidly, especially with that majority gang over there.
Imagine the message to the university students. They probably can't wait to get out of Nova Scotia now. Who would want to invest a large amount of money in their education in this province, whether it be training at the university or at the college level, or at the community college level for that matter, who would want to invest not only through their efforts and their learning abilities, but financial, and then leave the facility to be governed by the likes of this?
Mr. Speaker, it is issues like this, as I indicated before, in my opinion, that in the 1940's, you know that World War II, the last war that we had, it didn't start overnight. It started with stuff like this for years prior and that is why we are fortunate in this province perhaps that we only have at least two to three years left to put up with that gang over there. It is quite obvious that the front-liners over there, who are being led by the John Buchanan graduates, they are not going to budge on this. The only hope we have is that former municipal politicians over there are going to stand up, if not publicly - I am not suggesting that they embarrass anybody or any of their ministers - but they have to stand firm. They have to remember where they came from. They have to remember who they represent and they don't represent a doctor turned Premier who is obviously out of touch with the very system in which he worked within this province.
A doctor, think about it. I had many doctors call me over the weekend, Mr. Speaker. In fact, I met one on the street who indicated very clearly to me that they support the nurses and they do not agree with the comments of that Premier. Nurses in this province can be trusted. They are trustworthy and all you have to do, if you don't believe the comments in this House is go out - and don't go to the health care centres - go to your residents who recently left the health care facility and ask them about the nursing profession in this province. Let them tell you. Let those people who benefit from the service that the nurses provide, let them tell you how they feel about nurses and I will guarantee that you won't find
any individual out there who would agree with that Premier. No one who has ever been affected by the health care system in this province will ever agree with that Premier or that minister, never.
That government is out of control, Mr. Speaker, it is out of control big time. Imagine a Finance Minister who is adding $3.5 million on the debt, $70 million more a year we pay in interest because of the activity going on in that department. That's $70 million more in interest this year, $3.5 million a day. He doesn't know about bracket creep. He didn't know what that meant until just recently when my colleague, the member for Lunenburg West, educated him. He didn't know that the debt would increase on a yearly basis to the year 2007, and I base that on the fact that the Premier didn't know because he didn't know to tell him.
Mr. Speaker, that's who you have making decisions that affect all Nova Scotians everyday and I guess the creature from the red ink lagoon. (Interruption)
HON. NEIL LEBLANC: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I just want to ask the member to expand on this because he is saying that we are increasing the debt and we're reprehensible by the fact that we are doing so and I agree that the debt has increased because when we took over office, there was a deficit of $500 million. We brought that down to $91 million. Can you explain to the House and perhaps to the gallery as to where these cuts would have been made so that we wouldn't have been adding onto the debt? Would it have been, in fact, the same sectors of these nurses who are in the gallery today or listening to this debate? Is that where you wanted us to cut the money because I think you should explain that because we have put provisions in this budget for wage increases and we have made an offer to them. Why don't you tell them where the money would have come from or where you would have cut it because I think you should.
MR. BOUDREAU: The problem is you guys don't have the answer. That is the problem. The money would have come quite simply from the health care plan the Liberal Party had put in place in the last provincial election. That gang over there spent one-half of it already. That gang over there would have spent $900 million which will be $300 million more than the Liberal plan which would have hired nurses and not only hired them, Mr. Speaker, they would have provided retraining. They would have made sure they would have provided the support that they deserve and it wouldn't be something like this minister is doing.
He has got money, $188,000 a year to pay an import from British Columbia. I would suggest he should pay his own first. Pay the people who work in this province and create the very foundation our system is built upon. The minister is quick to jump on his feet and talk about financial issues. That question was directed toward me, but I already indicated to him one day if he wants to ask financial questions back and forth, my Finance Critic, the member for Lunenburg West, would be more than pleased to debate him any time he wishes inside or outside the House.
If he wants, Mr. Speaker, to rise on his feet and ask me about Municipal Affairs, which I am the critic for, then get up and ask me the questions, but I don't have to worry about that because he doesn't know anything about municipal affairs.
HON. NEIL LEBLANC: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. As my colleague, the Minister of Education, has said, far be it for me to pick a fight with the honourable member opposite, but I do want to say I asked the question because you spoke about the financial affairs of this province and you spoke about the budget. You spoke that there should be more money paid. At the same time you were saying that the debt of this province was rising and because of that there are consequences. That is the truth.
That is why this is a serious problem and why we have limited fiscal capacity to pay the wages that some would like us to pay. At the same time, we have put an offer of 10.5 per cent on the table and if you want to compare that to your Party, what did you do? You rolled back wages 3 per cent and you also forced them to take unpaid leave. We have put an offer on the table that is fair and reasonable. It doesn't meet every ask of the people who work in that sector, but at the same time it is an increment and an increase.
MR. BOUDREAU: Mr. Speaker, the honourable minister seems to be quite upset with the truth. He doesn't like to hear the truth. He has increased the debt. He has increased the bank payments on a monthly basis. It is $70 million per year and he knows that. He is trying to create a smokescreen so Nova Scotians don't understand between the debt and the deficit. There are two different issues and he doesn't even know that and he is the Finance Minister. He knows nothing about anything in my opinion and anybody who would do this, or even suggest to do the likes of this to the nurses of this province, is an insult to be in government, he is an insult to be a backbencher, let alone a minister of a gang over there, I don't know what to call it and neither do Nova Scotians.
[6:45 a.m.]
For him to stand here and say he has to put an amount of money in that budget for the nurses is unacceptable because the last time I checked the nurses voted twice and were not accepting that amount of money, but they are trying to dictate the amount of money that nurses must take. They have to take it or else and if you don't take it, we're going to fine all your union officials and if that doesn't work, we are going to fine you, a nurse, $500 a day. If that doesn't work, we will take you and put you in jail. Is that the way those backbenchers want nurses treated in this province? The minister is out of touch. He is out of control and do you know what else, Mr. Speaker, in two years he will be out of government. Thank you.
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Halifax Chebucto.
MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Mr. Speaker, good morning. I think if anyone in the Chamber wasn't awake a moment ago, they are probably wide awake and alert at the moment. It is nice to see you, Mr. Speaker, looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed; well, at least looking awake.
I think what we're learning here, at least as a first step, is what shift work is all about. It is a salutary lesson for all of us in this Chamber and something that is very familiar as a working condition for the health care workers who we are discussing today. It is a strain. We all know it is a strain to go through that, to go through long hours. What they have in an advantage over us is that in general, of course, they're working as a team. Here it is far from clear that that's the case. What we're working towards is not so clear, especially when we consider what it is that this legislation seems to be about.
At the moment what we are considering is an amendment to the legislation that would, in effect, take the whole of the bill and refer it to one of the Standing Committees of the House. This referral motion would take Bill No. 68 in its entirety and essentially send it to the Standing Committee on Human Resources. Well, normally, of course, this kind of amendment is the sort of amendment that we would be tempted to support. I suppose we will have to make a decision about that in due course because I am just a little curious as to whether this is the right committee that the bill ought to be directed to. I suppose the spirit is essentially one that says the bill needs further study. That is really I think the spirit in which the motion has been made and I understand that. I understand that the mover of the motion really had that intent.
Yet when I consider what it is that the Rules of the House actually say and I have looked at the Rules and Forms of Procedure of the House of Assembly just to see what it is that the Standing Committee on Human Resources has as its mandate. It is not at all clear that really it is within the defined mandate of the committee as it stands at the moment. So we have to consider whether that, in fact, is the case. I will just remind members of what it is that the mandate is. The document, the Rules and Forms of Procedure of the House of Assembly, says: "the Human Resources Committee is established for the purpose of" I see you are reading along, Mr. Speaker, (i) considering matters normally assigned to or within the purview of the Departments and Ministers of Education and Culture and of Labour,"
I will just pause at that and say clearly we are not dealing with something that is within the purview of the Minister of Education or the Department of Education, or the Department of Culture, or the Department of Labour although to a certain extent there is a labour relations matter here, but it was the Minister of Health who introduced this bill and clearly, although it is labour relations, it has to do with the health care sector. I will get back to that in a moment.
Subsection (ii) continues with part of the purpose of the Committee on Human Resources. Its purpose is for "reviewing and approving or not approving candidates for appointment to agencies, boards or commissions where the Governor in Council has, pursuant to an enactment, the sole discretion to make the appointment or where the Governor in Council makes the appointment by choosing from a list of nominees provided to the Governor in Council pursuant to an enactment." At that point there are a couple of other purposes laid out in the document, the Rules and Forms of Procedure of the House, that define what it is that that particular committee does in the normal course of events. None of it really is exactly what the spirit of this amendment seems to have to do with, the spirit being, of course, to put over a bill for further study.
The tradition of that committee, its emphasis has really been to look at appointments to agencies, boards, and commissions. I think we are all familiar with the process in which nominees come forward, their names and CV's are put in front of the committee along with certain information that the booklet, Rules and Forms of Procedure of the House of Assembly specifies as being necessary, and then the committee deliberates. It hasn't necessarily been an entirely satisfactory procedure, I know that people who have had dealings with that committee have had criticisms about it. I think even the chairman of the committee has had some criticisms of that committee and, of course, that is a government member who chairs that committee, but that is fair criticism. If there is a problem with how it is that appointments are handled through that committee, so it should come.
The motion that has come to us is to take a bill which is clearly a bill about bargaining in the health care sector and refer it to that committee, well, I find this a little problematic. I find it perhaps not the correct committee to refer it to and I think there is an alternative. We know that there is at least one other possibility, which is to set up a select committee. Now, this is something the House does from time to time when there is a question to be looked at.
I will just read into the record, if I may, as well, an abstract from the member's manual that we all have, that describes what a select committee does. "Select Committees are committees appointed by the House to inquire into specific matters. The resolutions by which they are appointed set forth in detail their terms of reference. After their assigned tasks are completed, these Committees report back to the House, through their Chairpersons, and their reports are tabled in the House."
That rather sounds to me, like what at least the spirit of the amendment probably should have been about. It might have been that a select committee is really what it is, that is appropriate as the place to look for a further examination of Bill No. 68 because that is really what the thrust of such an amendment must surely be designed to do. It must be designed to allow an opportunity for further and detailed examination of the bill that is in front of us.
It is obvious the government intends that this bill go through in the most expeditious fashion possible. So I can well understand that the government is not going to be enthusiastic about referring Bill No. 68 to any kind of committee, be it the Committee on Human Resources, or be it a select committee in fact, a few hours ago we had in no uncertain terms, from the Minister of Justice, that he wasn't all that keen on seeing this bill spend very much time in front of the Law Amendments Committee.
I have to say this was a very disappointing intervention by a member of the Cabinet of the Government that introduced Bill No. 68. What the minister said was that every moment used by members of this Assembly in debating the bill on motions, on second reading, ringing the bells, calling for recorded votes, whatever, every moment that is used, said the Minister of Justice, would just diminish the amount of time his government was prepared to allow for hearings at the Law Amendments Committee.
The Law Amendments Committee, of course, if one of those wonderful opportunities for the public to come and make submissions about the bill. That is exactly what the motion is all about that we are debating at the moment, the motion to allow the Committee of Human Resources to have hearings; I think that is really the implication of the amendment. So one has to wonder why it is the government is so reluctant to allow any kind of detailed public input, public examination.
I know they think they are under a tight timetable and, indeed, the honourable Minister of Justice said that was the prime consideration. He said it was the consideration in terms of the date Bill No. 68 was introduced, he said that it was the prime consideration when he looks at the total amount of time the House is sitting, of course, we are sitting 24 hours a day and the government can take control of it.
Clearly this is designed to get the matter through as quickly as possible. The countdown, I suppose, the government has in mind is the countdown toward the possibility of a strike. Yet, how premature this seems to have invented a timetable like that. I know the minister referred to the 27th of this month as being a date for a strike. Yet, that is a date that is a possibility for a strike by one group of health care workers, not necessarily the nurses, by any means. It is also not necessarily the case that even where a date comes and it's a date by which workers may legally strike, it doesn't always happen that that is the date they choose to strike. It is up to them or it is up to the employers to lock them out.
I am assuming that a lockout is just not on. Perhaps we could hear, explicitly, from the government that they are going to tell the regional health authorities that a lockout is not on. I am sure that is logical because the government has said, regularly, that it doesn't wish to tolerate, it is not prepared to tolerate and it brings in a bill that sanctions to say it won't tolerate any cessation of services in the health care sector. Clearly, a tool that is sometimes available to management, in the same circumstances a strike is available to labour, that of a lockout, won't be used. But, I have to say it would be entirely appropriate for the
government to specify that. That it is probably a safe assumption, there will be no lockout. So if there will be no lockout come June 27th, then, of course, the government is wondering, will there be a strike. Well, there might be a strike or it might be delayed. Again, that is only by some health care workers. It is right, that the hospitals are doing some preparation and planning for the eventuality.
The important point, especially with respect to the nurses, is that they are still in bargaining. There has been no conciliation, let alone any mediation, let alone any extraordinary efforts made to reach a settlement; that is yet to come. So the timetable that the honourable Minister of Justice outlined to us is a very theoretical timetable. I am not saying there is no possibility that it might come to pass. What I am saying is that there is no necessity to panic.
I believe there is time to look into what it is the public has to say to us and it would be the well-informed public, I expect, who would come. It would probably be health care workers; it would probably be their representatives; it would probably be them as individuals. We could well expect they would come along and talk to us in a lot of detail about their concerns about this bill and about how it is that they think that work in their sector might be improved. I will get to that in a moment.
[7:00 a.m.]
My initial point is just that we have tothink carefully about exactly what mechanism it is that we are going to use in order to invite commentary by the public. It might be the Committee on Human Resources is an appropriate tool; it might be a select committee, but in any event even if we don't chose as a whole in this House to go with either of those options, we have the regular Law Amendments Committee. It is there. It is built into the process. It is going to happen.
What the minister suggested, so far as I can figure out, is that there is likely to be only enough time for one 24 hour sitting of the Law Amendments Committee. I think what the minister said, and I am having a look at the unedited copy from Hansard, but, really, here is what it says, "Each hour my colleagues in the Legislature speak" - then there was a gratuitous comment from the minister - "and I think it is fair to say that very little terms of original thought is being said at this point." Not a kind (Interruptions) This was not a kind observation. In any event, in my case I reject this entirely. "But each hour they speak" - the minister continued - "is eating the time away from the Law Amendments Committee. At this rate the debate on second reading will last until midnight on Tuesday. I invite my friends to do the math" - of course, he meant the arithmetic - "in order to avoid a legal strike, the Law Amendments Committee will need to be limited to a single day."
A single day, clearly what the minister contemplates, and he is the Chairman of that committee, is probably a 24 hour sitting, just as he and his colleagues have imposed on all of us here, making us very familiar with shift work. I suppose, since the health care workers are already pretty familiar with shift work, they will turn out anyway. I am sure they will.
MR. ESTABROOKS: They'll have to keep the member awake though, to ask questions.
MR. EPSTEIN: Well, that might be a problem. What is being suggested by the honourable member for Timberlea-Prospect, my colleague, that the problem may be keeping the members of the committee awake while that is going on.
This isn't productive; this isn't a good way to go about doing our business. There it is; that is the suggestion; that is what it is we are hearing from the Minister of Justice as Chairman of the Law Amendments Committee. Clearly, speed is the order of the day. Clearly, the government is not interested in exploring other ways of hearing from the public. Well, I heard from the public this weekend and I want to tell the minister and his colleagues a little bit about how I spent some of my weekend, because all of us had a couple of days off, in this case literally 48 hours, no more.
I got around my constituency quite a bit; I got around the city quite a bit. I will just give you a brief outline of where I was. I went to three big grocery stores over the weekend. I do this, I was just doing a kind of normal rounds. It is a nice, convenient way to meet people, say hello, see what is going on, buy a few items, stimulate the economy. I went to three large grocery stores, two in my district, and one in the district of the honourable member for Halifax Needham. I went to the Halifax Farmers' Market, and in my district there is a very large annual event of a three or four street yard sale that takes place, this is the Duncan, Lawrence Allan and Harvard Street yard sale. This is a nice event in the middle of my district, three or four streets all get together and everyone in the community who wants to has their goods for sale in front of their homes and in their driveways. It is a yard sale. A wonderful event, well-advertised, well-attended. You have to use your elbows to fight your way through the crowds. People from all over metro turn out to it.
So, I went to that, and the last thing I went to was a family wedding last night. There were not only people there from Halifax, but from Montreal and Ottawa, South Africa as it happens, the United States, a large gathering. That is where I spent my weekend. Those were the social parts of the weekend. I got out and I got around my district. I had the opportunity to talk with a lot of people. I am sure that unless they were hiding out somewhere, all the members of this Chamber had the opportunity to be out and about in their constituencies.
Well, let me tell you what I heard. In each and every place, at the Farmers' Market on Saturday morning where I spent about two and a half hours, going around, also sitting on a bench, people pass by. Everyone who stopped and talked to me or pulled me aside and
wanted to chat wanted to talk about Bill No. 68. Let me tell you, they all knew about it. Universally, this is what they said, that they had a huge amount of respect for health care workers; universally, they said that they had scorn for what the government was doing in Bill No. 68. They could not think of any rational reason for the government proceeding the way it is proceeding now with Bill No. 68. I talked with probably a couple of dozen people at the Farmers' Market about this.
Now in the three large grocery stores that I went to, the story was exactly the same. Not only did people I ran into want to discuss Bill No. 68, one of them even wanted to discuss Bill No. 20. They made the linkage between Bill No. 20 and Bill No. 68. Here is the point that that resident made to me. He said, well, wait a minute, Bill No. 20 seemed to be about centralizing power in the hands of the Cabinet, and now we see Bill No. 68 doing exactly the same thing and worse. What is going on, I was asked. What is the government trying to accomplish here? What do they think they are up to?
Well, I could offer no good explanation. Clearly, the government didn't run on this platform. They didn't run on a platform of centralizing government in power in the hands of a few, of interference in free collective bargaining. I don't remember that being part of the platform, yet here it is. That is exactly what it is that a member of the public said to me. They pay attention, they watch. There are probably people sitting at home watching now. We certainly know that they are reading it in the papers, they are following this, and that the many thousands of people who are health care workers, who are directly affected by the bill that is going through this House at the moment, are following it in a lot of detail.
I can guarantee that in addition to those thousands, there are many thousands of public sector workers outside the health care field who are watching what is going on in a lot of detail. I would expect that every organized and even unorganized workers in this province are following what is going on, and thinking and worrying, and not liking what they are seeing. I expect that this is exactly the kind of message that the government would hear if they referred this bill to some form of committee.
If the amendment that we are considering now, to take this bill and just pause long enough to allow the Committee on Human Resources to hold hearings, this is exactly the message that they would hear. Do you know what? It is important that this message be heard by the government, because if they are out of touch, it is an opportunity to get back in touch. I probably shouldn't have said if, quite clearly they are out of touch.
I have news for the government, about the extent to which concern over this bill has spread. It is not just in my district; it is not just on Duncan, Lawrence and Allan Streets; it is not just in the grocery stores I frequent or at the Farmers' Market; it is not just in the Halifax peninsula that there is such concern; it is not just in metro. Don't forget, I attended a family wedding last night where people came from Ottawa and Montreal, from elsewhere in Canada, Vancouver, and they all knew about it. They all read about it in the newspapers
when they came here, a couple of them were health care workers themselves so they had been aware of it before. It has been on the national news, so they knew about it. They knew. This bill is national news. This bill has been covered in the national press because it is so extraordinary and they were concerned. Family members, friends, people came up to me at this wedding and wanted to talk about it. People from Ottawa, people from Montreal, they were aware of it.
In fact, interestingly enough, Mr. Speaker, one of my cousins, a physician, who is a classmate of the Premier's brought this up last night at the wedding. He was a classmate of the Premier's and he brought it up. I can't say he sends his greetings but he brought it up as a matter of concern. There were other family members who worked in health care or had worked in health care and are now retired, who were very much aware of this going on because, you know, it is such an extraordinary measure. That is why it bears examination. It bears careful thought. It bears giving the opportunity to the public to come forward through the mechanism of some form of committee to tell us what they think, to tell us what they know, to tell us what their experience has been because the government is going to get an earful. The government is really going to learn and so the government should learn.
Now we really have to ask ourselves, just what exactly is it that this bill is about and why is it that we sometimes run into this kind of measure that is brought forward. I want to just refer to some transformations that are going on in the health care sector and how it is that we are trying to deal with them. You can't take labour relations in any workplace at all and concentrate on that without an understanding of what it is that is actually going on in the workplace. If this were the aircraft industry or cars or mining, you would have to understand it. You couldn't just look at the industrial relations and say, oh well, it has nothing to do with what they do. If it is mining industrial relations, you have to think about mining and changes that are going on there or if it is trucking, you have to kind of understand labour relations within the context of that particular activity and so it is with health care. We have to ask ourselves what it is that is going on.
I see we have some Pages. Perhaps I will just table something, if I may, Mr. Speaker, and ask one of the Pages to assist me here.
AN HON. MEMBER: They are all running to you.
MR. EPSTEIN: Well, they are alert. I am glad to see that they are alert, as well.
What I have just tabled is a couple of pages, an extract from an article that deals very directly with this whole question of industrial relations in health care. That is its title, Industrial Relations in Health Care. It is subtitled, Regulation, Conflict and Transition to the 'Wellness Model'. This is an article published a couple of years ago by Professor Larry Haiven. It is interesting about Professor Haiven. You may have noticed that he was quoted in the local press a couple of days ago and he was described as an expert in industrial
relations in the health care sector and he is. Do you know what? He lives here now. At the time he wrote this article, he was a professor at the University of Saskatchewan but he is now a professor at Saint Mary's University where he teaches industrial relations. He has moved here and we have right here in our community one of Canada's experts on industrial relations in the health care sector.
I just want to read a couple of extracts from his article because I think it will help us understand the context within which we are working and why it is that this question bears a more detailed examination than I think we have seen so far and why referring it to some committee would make sense.
[7:15 a.m.]
So here is the section that struck me, really, in Professor Haiven's article, The nursing profession has been subject to major transformations over the past decade and a half that have created substantial friction. To name only a few; changes in technology resulting in greater nursing specialization and alienation from the bedside, increasing patient loads and increasing acuity, concerns about hazardous conditions and increasing ambiguity about the role of the nurse and division of labour, about responsibility and authority within the health care team and about control of the nursing labour process. All of these were intensified in the 1980's by the particular combination of fiscal crisis and a nursing shortage. That is the end of the passage.
Although the main focus of that passage that I just read was on nursing conflict and transformation during the 1980's, this article was written in the mid-1990's or late 1990's and it was still true then and in our province it is true now. It is particularly striking, that last passage about conditions of fiscal crisis and a nursing shortage. Well, nursing shortage certainly hasn't gone away has it, Mr. Speaker? We know that that is the case and it is a national problem, in fact a North America-wide problem that we have to deal with. In terms of fiscal crisis, I don't know if crisis is the right word to describe what we have here but we don't have as much money as we would like to have. That is certainly the case and government has been talking about that a great deal. When you look at this list that Professor Haiven gives us, all of it really describes the nature of transformation in the nursing workplace, its transformation in the health care workplace, although his main focus here is on nursing.
I suggest that what the government has to bear in mind is that that is the context within which they have approached - in this very high-handed, very aggressive, and as I said the other day, very disrespectful way - their current small problem in labour relations. Unfortunately, what is happening is what can only be characterized as taking a small problem and making it worse. Professor Haiven has a lot of wisdom that he could offer us in person through his experience and study if, indeed, we choose to refer this bill to hearings. Because I am a little apprehensive that that might not occur, I am going to just read a couple of other
short extracts from his article because if the referral to committee does not take place, we won't get the chance to hear in more detail from Professor Haiven. So what I am going to give you are some small samples that tend toward the essence of his thinking but I certainly can't purport to give you the full range of his experience which no doubt has deepened and matured since he wrote this article.
The next extract I want to read discusses the role of government in the health care sector, particularly when it has to do with bargaining and labour relations. It is the words at the end of this paragraph that I particularly suggest that members ought to pay attention to. So let me just quote one other paragraph from Professor Haiven. He says, "Governments play a number of potentially contradictory roles in health care collective bargaining. First, if they are not the direct employer, they are assuredly an inescapable 'ghost at the bargaining table'. Second, as legislators, governments also make the rules by which the game of collective bargaining and dispute settlement will be played. If the parties reach an impasse, governments play a third role, that of peacemaker, through their offices of mediation. And governments also play the role of enforcer and punisher if the parties (and especially labour) break the rules of the game. The more closely government is involved in the role of employer, the less credibility it will have in these other, very important, roles."
It is that last sentence that is particularly important. The closer the government gets to the bargaining table, the more hands-on the government, Professor Haiven is telling us. The more it chooses to interfere with what should otherwise be the free collective bargaining system, the less credibility it will have as the rule maker, as the peacemaker. In the end there is no way the government can escape from these multiple roles. Government has to play them. Potentially contradictory roles are what Professor Haiven calls them. The objective should surely be to minimize the contradictions. The objectives should surely be for the government to be as hands-off as possible just as the industrial inquiry commissioner, William Kydd, told the predecessor PC Government a decade ago when it asked him to report on bargaining in the health care sector and I tabled the other day the extracts from Bill Kydd's report.
Well, I don't know if we will get to hear from Professor Haiven if we don't refer this matter to a special committee and we certainly should hear from Professor Haiven because he is the expert on this subject. He has in his article a very useful table that tells us how it is that essential services, the matter that the government has said it is so worried about, is dealt with in other provinces across this country. It is a wonderful table because it makes it clear what the mechanisms are in each province for dealing with essential services.
In some circumstances, of course, if strikes are not allowed, if they are outlawed completely and that's part of the basic bargaining mechanism, then the question of essential services doesn't arise, but for the most part Canadian Provinces have chosen to allow the possibility of normal labour relations, including strikes, in the health care sector but, of course, everyone recognizes that in the health care sector you can't suddenly go out of
business. Everyone recognizes that you have to make some kind of provision for what happens if you move to shut down or partially shut down some of your services in the course of a labour dispute.
So what do you do about essential services? Well, in some provinces there is a board that has jurisdiction to decide over essential services. Sometimes it is the Labour Relations Board. They have the power in some provinces, for example in British Columbia, to actually decide, if there is an impasse, as to how to set up an essential services regime. In Quebec there is a special council known as the Essential Services Council and it operates in that province subject to predefined statutory minimum numbers of people who have to be on duty and if the Essential Services Council makes a ruling, it can only increase the numbers of people, not decrease the numbers of people, to be on duty. Well, there is another model. In other provinces, like ours, it is just left to the parties to work out on their own and, indeed, as we pointed out the other day, the parties have moved to work it out on their own. There are provisions in place.
I think it is more detail like this that we need to hear, that especially the government needs to hear before they proceed with this bill because I am reminded that this is not the first time the government has brought in legislation to deal with their fear of withdrawal of services in the health care sector because, of course, they did it a year and a half ago with respect to the paramedics. Now, they did it with a different model at that time. The model they used at that time was the model of binding arbitration. The essential difference between what was an objectionable piece of legislation with Bill No. 9 and the paramedics and this even more objectionable piece of legislation, Bill No. 68, with respect to nurses and other health care workers, is that in Bill No. 68, this bill, the government is giving to itself the power to set the terms and conditions of employment. That means the money, it means the non-monetary terms, it means that there will be no independent party determining the differences, making a ruling on the differences between the government and the unions. It means that the model of binding arbitration has now been rejected by the government.
A bad idea from start to finish but, you know, you have to ask yourself just how far is it that the government is prepared to go with this kind of legislation and is it really all about risk. Every time we hear an attempt at justification of this bill, or read an ad in the newspaper, it's framed in terms of risk; it's framed in terms of risk to the public safety; it's framed in terms of protecting lives; it's framed in terms of a level of zero tolerance. We keep being told the health care system is already stretched, we can't afford to lose one person.I suppose that means next we will be hearing that nurses and health care workers can't have vacations, can't reduce them, but surely there have to be some limits to what they are doing here.
But, you know, a person has to be skeptical when they hear talk about risk, especially in face of the agreement that the nurses and the NSGEU have entered into with the hospitals. They have already agreed to cover this off. If the government wants more, let them say more.
Let them say what they want. Let them come up with some details but, do you know what, dancing in and out of this is another layer of concern that seems to be much more fundamental and seems to be really the prime mover and that's money.
It was interesting to see the honourable Premier go off-message the other day. The basic message is that it is all about public safety. The Premier clearly let the cat out of the bag. Here is what he said, it is about money. We can't afford it. We just can't afford to pay any more. That's what it is about. That's what this bill is about. This bill is about money. This bill says our final offer is on the table, if you don't like it, we are going to lump it for you. We are going to make you take it. That's why the Minister of Finance is jumping up and down at every available opportunity choking about money, talking to members in the form of purported interventions on rules of order, points of order, asking if he can ask a question, it is all about money he is saying. We can't afford it.
Well, they went off-message. They forgot to say and keep saying it is all about public safety. They put their foot in it. They lifted the curtain. There it is. It's not about public safety and now everyone knows it. If they didn't know it before, they sure know it now because the Premier and the Minister of Finance have laid it out in no uncertain terms that this bill is about money. This bill is about keeping on track with the one and only overriding policy objective that that government has which is to balance the books and to do it in the harshest way possible. That's their plan. That's it. Nothing else really counts. Balance the books, that's it. They're not about to mess around and listen to an arbitrator. They're not about to go to an arbitrator and make their case about what is fair or make their case about their ability to pay because, of course, ability to pay is one of those factors that arbitrators look at.
[7:30 a.m.]
I think that this is exactly why it is we need to go to a public hearing process so that people can come and talk about the myth of risk and the reality of fiscal constraint. That is exactly what it is that we ought to hear and when I asked earlier how far will they go, I have to say what employer would not like to be in this position? (Interruptions)
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Honourable members, the honourable member for Halifax Chebucto does have the floor and it seems as if he is in competition with other honourable members.
MR. EPSTEIN: Mr. Speaker, I was just asking, will this mechanism apply to other employers? Now, I and several other members of this House used to be in municipal government. I can well imagine how happy the Halifax Regional Municipal Council would be in their negotiations with their firefighters if they could be in a position like this government to say, well, we have negotiated with you, we are kind of fed up now, that's enough, we've had enough, we are now just going to impose the settlement. Firefighters are pretty important. We don't want them to go out on strike. Will we see the government bring
in bills that give the power to HRM Council to step in and say you can be high-handed just like us, you can do it. You don't have to negotiate and if you are fed up negotiating, you don't have to go to binding arbitration either. You can just impose the settlement.
I can just see HRM Council lining up now. Well, heck, there are three former HRM councillors over there as part of the government. Maybe they will be the conduit for that kind of a request or a suggestion and if the government is going to do that with respect to health care workers, are there other kinds of sectors that they're thinking that they might want to do it for? I mean if it is finance that is at the heart of this, will they do it there as well? Will they evade the normal route, normal if you are going to interfere with collective bargaining, to go to binding arbitration? Are they going to continue to evade that.
Well, you know, this in fact now looks to be a pattern because I pointed out that the government has done this twice with respect to health care workers. They did it with the paramedics and now they're doing it with all health care workers. A person could look at this and say, well, the government has just made two big mistakes. That is one way of thinking about it. They made a mistake about the paramedics and, heaven knows, that they got an earful when they went to open sessions with the paramedics.
I am sure you remember, Mr. Speaker, the vivid stories that the paramedics brought. They came and they won the hearts of Nova Scotians if, indeed, Nova Scotians weren't already on their side. They came with their detailed stories of what life was like for them on the firing line delivering the emergency health care services for so little pay and that was vivid. That happened at the Law Amendments Committee. That happened in a public process so it is no wonder the government doesn't want to refer this to committee and it is no wonder that I suppose in the end, even though it might not be the right committee, this is a sensible kind of amendment to have seen come forward.
So it was clearly a mistake to bring in Bill No. 9 a year and one-half ago and I suppose we could also characterize it given how extreme the criticism has been to bring in Bill No. 68 but, do you know what, there is a pattern and it is not just two mistakes. The essential pattern is the ratcheting up of the degree to which the government is prepared to take away bargaining rights of workers. So first they start out by saying we are going to take away your right to strike because we don't like it and in the first instance binding arbitration is the dispute resolution mechanism, and of course binding arbitration worked very well for the paramedics because they deserved it. They got 20 per cent because, of course, they had been underpaid for years. They were underpaid and they were able to make their case and an independent party heard submissions from the employer, that is the government, and from the unions, and they awarded a decent catch-up.
The government looks at this and they are saying no way, we are not prepared to pay that much money, we don't even want to take the risk. So the essential difference is the ratcheting up. Now, from my perspective, it is great that the government is making two such
horrendous mistakes, but it would be inappropriate for anyone observing this process to think that the government is just bumbling around. This is a deliberate process of ratcheting up how aggressive the government is prepared to be about bargaining in the public sector and when they are doing that they are sending a signal to all employers. They are sending a signal first to the public sector and after that to all employers, because it is precisely this government and its predecessors that have been prepared to interfere time and again with normal collective bargaining regimes. It is the predecessor to this government that gave us the amendments to the Trade Union Act known as the Michelin Bill. It is this government that is prepared to interfere with collective bargaining in such an objectionable way.
We've heard hints that they are prepared to be generous to the employees here, to the nurses. Well, do you know what? I have had a note from a nurse who asks the question, if they're prepared to pay the nurses the best in Atlantic Canada, will they write that clause into the collective agreement because it has been suggested and pointed out that other provinces in the Atlantic Region are going to be ahead of our nurses here very shortly? If they want the nurses in Nova Scotia to be the best paid in the Atlantic Provinces, will they write that clause into the collective agreement? I don't hear the Minister of Finance, or the Minister of Justice, or the Premier saying that, let alone the Minister of Health.
What they say is there are going to be 24-hour-a-day hearings at the Law Amendments Committee. We have a financial problem. We are not prepared to give any more than this, and by the way we are being very generous and so you should be thankful for it. Well, I am getting a note from nurses saying if they want Nova Scotia nurses to be the best paid in the Atlantic Provinces, be the equivalent of Saskatchewan and Manitoba - as I think we were told a little earlier this morning in the debate by a government representative - how about them writing that into the collective agreement, that the salaries of all nurses here will always be the best, or during the life of this collective agreement always be the best in Atlantic Canada?
I don't hear them volunteering that, but it is the kind of argument that could be made in front of a labour arbitrator, an arbitrator who had powers to deal with this, and if that is the position of the government they might have to pay a little bit more than they are saying they are prepared to do, and this is exactly the kind of thing that might get worked out in a little more detail in public hearings if this matter were referred to a committee. Again, I have to kind of ask a question that I am sure the public is asking itself, and would ask the government if they got the chance to make a submission, and it is this model of unilaterally imposing a solution. Is that a model that the government can use or chose to use in another context? Arbitration exists for a reason. It exists because it is effective; it exists because the people who do it have a lot of expertise and it exists because it is seen to be fair. And unilateral imposition by one side or another of its side as the result in a dispute is inherently unfair.
Nova Scotia, and this government, happens to have a dispute right now with the Province of Newfoundland over a boundary. Well, we didn't send ships out to pick a fight with Newfoundland and they didn't send ships out to pick a fight with us. It is going to arbitration, that is how the matter is being resolved; that is how it is being dealt with.
Now you might think that well, this is international - not quite international law but inter-provincial law and there is another legal entity there and so, of course, we have no choice and we couldn't throw our muscle around. Well, you know what? This government has another dispute going on right now that is within its jurisdiction. That is the dispute with the franchisee for gas distribution in our province - Sempra - they are having a fight with Sempra. Sempra is thinking well, conditions have changed, we don't think we can meet the terms of what we agreed to previously. The government says no, we want you to hold to those terms, we are not sure we want to make changes.
Now technically, the government could impose a solution, if they want to pass the laws again, but they are not doing that. In the commercial sector they are not standing up to Sempra and saying, this is the way it is going to be. Do you know where it goes? If there is a dispute, it will go to the Utility and Review Board. That is the normal model if there is a dispute - you go to some entity that is seen as independent, at arm's length, that has expertise, that can listen in detail, that can hold hearings, that can consider all the factors, not a question of unilateral imposition of some kind of bottom line that one Party wants. It is the virtue of this kind of dispute resolution mechanism that the government would hear about if they were prepared to go to hearings through the Human Resources Committee or any other standing committee, or if they were prepared to hold long sessions for the Law Amendments Committee. By long I mean you listen until people have finished coming to talk to you. That is what Law Amendments Committee is all about.
In fact, my colleague, the member for Timberlea-Prospect and myself sit on that committee. We are happy to hear from people; we are prepared to listen and I suppose it is an alternative to what it is that is proposed by the Third Party in their amendment to Bill No. 68. Well, it makes sense.
If the government is not quite prepared to go through that process, then at least we might put on record a couple of comments right here and now, today, in the hopes that it will give them a sample of what it is that they might beneficially hear if this matter were referred to committee.
Mr. Speaker, may I read into the record a letter I received from a physician in Halifax. Now, I said I received it, in fact it is directed to the Minister of Health, with copies to other members of the Legislature. This is a letter from Dr. Michael Buss, of Halifax. Here is what Dr. Buss has to say: "I agree with Mr. Muir that protecting the health of Nova Scotians is the primary duty of this government during the current crisis. I question, however, whether alienating the nursing profession is the best way to carry out your responsibility. Legislating
away the right to strike and imposing an inadequate settlement will only drive away even more nurses from the province. We cannot afford to lose more nurses than we already have over the past two years. This will change an acute crisis with achievable solutions into a protracted crisis of nursing shortages with no simple solutions. This protracted crisis will endanger Nova Scotians' health for years. Please reconsider your approach to this situation." Signed, Dr. Michael Buss.
Mr. Speaker, this is but a sample of the kind of support that our health care workers have and it is but a sample of the kind of public input that would no doubt come if the amendment that is now made to refer this matter to a public hearing, to a committee hearing, were to go through.
So, Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your attention, I thank the honourable members for their attention and I will conclude my remarks at the moment. Thank you very much.
[7:45 a.m.]
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Lunenburg West.
MR. DONALD DOWNE: Mr. Speaker, I stand here again today. I think we are into almost 32 hours of debate on this bill, but still this government hears nothing. Still this government listens to no one and hears nobody, whether they are nurses or health care workers or members in this Legislative Assembly, they are deafened. You have heard the expression, hardening of the heart - their hearts are hard, they are cold, well, their ears and their minds are becoming the same way because they do not want to listen to the logic and to the expression of frustration that nurses and health care workers in this province are saying across one end of this province to the other.
On the weekend, when I was home, I had a chance to talk to nurses and health care workers and I had a chance to talk to constituents in my riding. They are mad, they are frustrated and they are wondering why would this government do what it is doing. The government is saying they are doing it to be proactive or to be on the side of safety.
You would think these are the only negotiations that ever went on with health care workers in the history of the Province of Nova Scotia. You would think that never before has there been negotiations with nurses and health care workers in the Province of Nova Scotia. You would think that there was never a time where a process allowing nurses or health care workers to sit down and hammer out a fair deal ever happened before in the province.
You ask, why have they taken away the rights of the workers to negotiate a fair contract? I fail to understand the fact that they have lost faith in democracy; this government has lost faith in a democratic process of a fair, negotiated deal. We have said they have lost
their nerve. I think what they have done is lost their ability to understand the rights of individuals in the collective bargaining process, in negotiations.
Some people across the way say this is all about the safety of Nova Scotians. Their worry, whether it was in the Cabinet Room or the caucus room, was that somebody might get hurt, and that by bringing in this legislation they are going to protect Nova Scotians. I think that is a failed veil they are putting across the eyes of Nova Scotians, as they speak because the process was still ongoing. So, they were surmising, that no matter what they are going to say, this is a deal, this is what we are offering and we are not going to bargain in good faith. They had no intention of bargaining in good faith.
What they are saying to the nurses and the health care workers is that they do not trust them. I have had nurses say to me that in the emergency back-up plan, they had agreed publicly and to the people, that if somebody came in who was sick, they would look after them; they would leave the picket line to go into the hospital to look after those who needed help. These are the nurses and health care workers - some members over there laugh at this. If they want to laugh in this House, shame on them; if they want to laugh about what is happening to Nova Scotia, shame on them. This is not a laughing matter; maybe it is to some people on that side of the government. It isn't to the nurses in Nova Scotia and it isn't to the health care workers and it sure as heck isn't to Nova Scotians who are concerned about health care delivery, long term, and yet they want to laugh about what is going on. They have no shame.
Maybe the people who are laughing hadn't gone home to hear what Nova Scotians and what their constituents are saying. Maybe they never went home to hear what their health care workers were saying, the nurses were saying, because I am sure if they did, they would have heard a message and if they haven't heard it on the weekend, they are going to be hearing it this week.
If they listened to this debate in here today and on Thursday night and Friday and as the days continue to flow through this week, they will hear it. They will hear it in this committee or they will hear it across over in the Red Chamber, but they will hear the message loud and clear that the nurses and the health care workers in this province are disappointed. They're mad and they're frustrated. They are frustrated and mad because this government has said they do not trust them. They do not trust that they would leave the picket line to look after Nova Scotians and, as I said the other day, on Friday, you know, being a nurse or a health care worker is not just a job, it is a way of life. These people have entered this profession because they care about what they do. They care about looking after those who need help. This is their way of life. They believe with passion that what they do is right and they gave their word.
These are the people who have been working for this government through the health care system for 5, 10 and 20 years and more. They have been good employees. There is nobody in this Chamber, I am sure, who has never had to go to a hospital or had a family member go to a hospital and while you are in the hospital, who is it that you're dealing with on a regular basis. The front-line workers are the nurses and just behind the nurses or with the nurses, but in another location, just as active, just as caring, just as compassionate, are the health care providers. Whatever technical background they have, they are in those hospitals providing that service for our family members, our loved ones and our friends.
How often have you on the other side talked to the nurses and expressed some gratitude for their compassion and their caring and their professional qualifications? How many on that side of the House have said personally to nurses and health care providers thank you very much for looking after my mother or my father or my family member or a very close friend? Thank you for going beyond the call of duty to do the extras to help make their stay more comfortable. How often have they said to nurses after a person has gone through a very grieving time, or a very stressful time, thank you for being there to help me get through this.
I remember when my mother was in a hospital. She had open heart surgery for the first time, she has had it twice, and her stitches let go right after the operation and she almost died. It was the nurses who came to us, as a family that was worried and scared, and they came into the room and they comforted us. Those are the people we are talking about here, people with a heart and compassion. They were there professionally. They knew exactly how to look after my family, but they also knew how to go one step beyond the technical and academic and trained level to have a side that cared about what we were going through.
These are the people that you on that side of the House say do not care about the patients in Nova Scotia. By bringing in this bill and saying you don't trust what they are saying when they gave their word, you are saying to them that you don't believe them. You don't trust them. How shameful you must feel when you reflect back at the time when you're in a hospital and you're dealing with them on a daily basis. This government has gone to great lengths to disappoint Nova Scotians, primarily because they have no shame. This government has great difficulty with the whole notion of justice and truth. We talk about democracy in this House and for many years in this House politicians have gotten up and talked about the freedoms and the rights we have.
Well, these are very dark days because we are not going through a democratic process of negotiation. We are going through a period of dictatorial rule. We are going through a time when we're talking about the inability for health care workers to have a voice and a say and yet only a few months ago, 20-some months ago, that was the group that was on the campaign trail saying we want you to be involved in the process. We trust your judgment. We trust your views. We believe in what you're saying. We need your input to build a stronger health care system in the future of Nova Scotia and then they turn around and they bring in Bill No. 68. They bring in Bill No. 68 that takes away the rights of our health care
workers and says no matter what you think you should have, no matter what the rest of the country is doing, no matter what is happening in the United States with a nurse shortage, or what is happening in nursing shortages throughout this country, and I mentioned on Friday that Ontario is losing 3,500 nurses every year and they are having work fairs in Ontario to bring nurses back, to keep them in Ontario to be able to provide health deliver and what do we do?
We don't have a work fair. We have Bill No. 68. We bring in legislation. Our government brings in legislation, Bill No. 68, that says to anybody in the health care system, hang on, we not here to make you feel better, we are not here to show any compassion or caring, we are here to tell you what you are going to do and how you are going to do it and by the way, if you don't conform to what we're saying, we are going to charge you. So, you know, I wonder how many nurses and health care workers in this province are seriously considering moving out. I think of the young ones who are just going into the profession, how they must feel. They might have decided to stay in Nova Scotia because their families are here. They love the province. They care about where they live, but how can they stay when their employer is saying to them before they start, we do not trust you. We are not going to allow you to have a fair deal. You don't have any rights in Nova Scotia any more.
So the Government of Ontario is saying please come to us, we will pay you more and you don't have to work as many hours, there is less stress. What are they going to do? And they are not necessarily new nurses or new professionals. I talked to a professional who has been in the business for a long time, in excess of 20 years, and she is saying she is so mad, she is so frustrated, she is so hurt by what this government has done, she is considering moving because this government has given her no reason to believe that the health care delivery system in Nova Scotia is going to work. She is considering moving because she is so disappointed in what she believed in. She is a Nova Scotian. She was born in Nova Scotia, she loves this province and she loves her profession.
I don't know if the government doesn't believe that, but they are going to see it at some point in time. All they have to do is start calling and talking to the health professionals who are in the province now. What about the fact that this government said they were going to do all they can in nurse recruitment to bring nurses to Nova Scotia. Well, what a joke. What an absolute joke. Is Bill No. 68 your enticement? Is that the carrot you're waving in front of nurses and health care workers across this country saying, here, this is our sweetener, this is our top-up, this is what we are prepared to offer you as a professional to come and work in Nova Scotia. This is what we are offering you, Bill No. 68. Isn't that enough to want nurses and health care workers to literally get here as fast as they possibly can to work in Nova Scotia?
[8:00 a.m.]
Well, I say no, absolutely not, because what you have done, this message has gone right across this country. It is on national news every day and nurses and health care workers, students who are going into those professions are hearing this every day, what this government is doing and the message they are sending across this nation. What long-term implication is that going to have for the health care workers in the Province of Nova Scotia?
There are already lab technicians of 25 years who are planning on going to take a look at job opportunities in other provinces. I just got a message here. This just came down from the gallery I take it, somewhere up in the gallery. Good to see you here. They are talking about opportunities in Alberta. Look at these people. They are Nova Scotians and they are looking at moving to Alberta because of what you are doing with Bill No. 68.
So there, you don't even have to go talk to your constituents, just sit here in the House and listen. Don't laugh, but listen to what is being said and then go talk to the people up in the audience. Whether it is the east gallery or the west gallery, go upstairs and talk to them. Get off you chairs for a minute and go up and ask them the questions that we are posing on the opposite side of the House here. Ask them to tell you what they feel and what they believe. I dare you to go. There are enough in there - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 - one of you can go up at a time, there are 17. (Interruption) Yes, you can take turns. Go up and talk to the people. Go to talk to Nova Scotians. Go talk to the health providers in the Province of Nova Scotia. They are here and they will be here every day that they can possibly be here. Even when this House doesn't want them to come in, they will be here.
Last night I talked to a number who were outside the fence, nurses from Windsor to wherever in the province came last night after a shift. Some came right from their homes. They are going to be here every day because they want you to see what you are doing. They want you to see the looks in their eyes and what is in their hearts and their frustration. They want you to go and talk to them about what they are believing and feeling about Bill No. 68. It is like you have horizontal neurosis syndrome. You want to sit there, barely awake, and not do any more than just be there, just sit there and grunt. (Interruption)
We have a live wire over there. We have a laugher over there. We have a heckler and a laugher over there. We have a laugher and heckler over there, and you know it is interesting that the laugher and the heckler, the member for Pictou East, is talking about ringing a bell, wake up. Why don't you wake up, member, and go talk to the Nova Scotians who are in the galleries today.
AN HON. MEMBER: The nurses, yes.
MR. DOWNE: Go ask the nurses and the health care providers in this province what this is all about. You know all the answers to Bill No. 68. You can tell them what is in the bill. You can explain Clause 12, you can explain Clause 13, and you can explain the fact that you brought this in because you didn't trust them. Go, we won't call the vote. There are enough of you here, go upstairs and talk. (Interruption) Well, there are enough of you here anyway and if there aren't enough of you here, that is your business. You brought the bill in, ladies and gentlemen, not us. You are the only government in the history of the province dealing with health care workers in this province that brought in, I think, this legislation dealing with nurses and health care workers in this province.
AN HON. MEMBER: I don't think so.
MR. DOWNE: Is that not true? Well, we will check it out. Anyway, I take it that the members do not want to leave their chairs and that horizontal neurosis syndrome has set in. (Interruption) Go member, go upstairs and talk to the people who are here; talk about the bill that is before the House right now. If you want to talk about the history, go ahead, but talk about what is going on right now. We never brought in back-to-work legislation; you brought in legislation before the collective bargaining process even began.
The Premier realizes that this could be a fatal blow. He talks about the fact that this could very well affect his election in two years. Well, you know, quite frankly, the people who are in the gallery right now - although if they stay, they will be able to do their thing in two years, or whenever the next election will be - are mad and frustrated today.
Do you know what is going to happen? I told you when I spoke on Friday, the reality of what is going to happen is that all the rest of the people who work for government could be deemed essential services, whether they are nurses or teachers or paramedics, all of a sudden, you, in the Cabinet Room, could turn around and say, we are worried about this negotiation, we don't want to pay them what is being paid in other jurisdictions so we are going to bring in this legislation or allow this legislation now to cover these workers. I understand that is what this bill can do - whoever you deem to be essential services in Nova Scotia.
What you have done, you have said to Nova Scotians that we will not respect your rights. Do you know what is going to happen? People are going to raise it, whether it is today or tomorrow or whenever, and they are going to say to you, how dare you have so much power. If this bill was back-to-work - this bill is more than back-to-work legislation. This bill has taken away not only the rights of proper negotiation, but you can define whatever you want in this bill, any employee of government, to be what you want it to be and nobody could take legal action against you.
I think the courts will be making that decision. I am sure there will be some very bright lawyers in this country who would like to challenge what you think are your rights, as a government, to impose in Nova Scotia.
Our Leader had an article in the paper recently and Dr. John Hamm should know the value of nurses and health care workers in our province but the attitude of his government, and especially the Health Minister, proves that he doesn't give health care workers the respect they deserve. If the Premier and the minister are not showing respect, why don't you members on the backbenches go upstairs and talk to Nova Scotians about this bill? Maybe the Minister of Justice would like to go upstairs; he had something to say this morning, didn't he? He said as long as we are here standing and speaking on behalf of Nova Scotians we are going to cut in to the ability of them to speak. Another hammer, another sledgehammer - John Hamm's hammers.
The Minister of Justice is saying that we, as elected representatives, who are being told by our constituents back home to stand and fight for the rights of the health care system and the nurses and the health care providers in this province, he is now saying to us, no, we don't want you to do that because whatever time you take, it will be less time for us to debate this or hear what Nova Scotians are saying in the Chamber. That is the Minister of Justice.
I think he said, Mr. Speaker, now in the hands of the Opposition. Each hour my colleagues in the Legislature speak, and I think it is fair to say that very little in terms of original thoughts are being said at this point. Now there is an interesting one. He is saying what we are saying doesn't matter. His judgement of what we are saying is that he doesn't think it makes any sense to him. Well, knock, knock, wake up. Are you awake, minister? Each hour they speak is eating time away from the Law Amendments Committee. At this rate, the debate on second reading will last until midnight on Tuesday and I invite my friends to do the math, in a very cynical way. In order to avoid a legal strike, the Law Amendments Committee will need to be limited to a single day. So they are now going to say that they are going to limit the ability for health care workers, for family members or parents or patients or nurses to come into the House of Assembly. Nova Scotia's people, this is their House, it isn't ours. We are here to represent the people of this province. This is Nova Scotia's House. They won't be able to. They are going to be restricted in the Law Amendments Committee to come forward and be able to voice their concern.
Now why would the government want to restrict that? Are they scared that there is going to be a groundswell of frustration in this province? Are they afraid that people are actually going to leave their homes or their jobs to come to Halifax to express their frustration, their bitterness toward what this bill is all about, their concern to hear what people are saying are their democratic rights being taken away again.
Mr. Speaker, this government seems to operate on the attitude of threats to the rights of individuals, threats to Nova Scotians. I wonder, in a backbench, you know this government is putting you guys and the backbenchers through a fairly big pace right now and what are you hearing when you go home? I wonder what the member for Queens heard when he went home on the weekend? He must know this issue pretty well. I understand the member for Queens must know this issue pretty well and he must be hearing some messages when he goes home. I bet you when he goes and gets tucked in at night he has probably has heard the odd message about what this bill is all about. That member for Queens County, he didn't have anything to do with putting this bill together. He is going to be a recipient of what this bill is all about. He is an honourable member in this House and I wonder what the people in Queens County are saying to him. I bet you he had a message.
The members for Kings West has been known to be outspoken on what he believes as being right. In this House and in this Chamber, when he believes in something, he has had the strength to stand up and fight for it. Well, here is an issue where that member can do the same thing. Go home and talk to your people. Go home and talk to the nurses and health care workers in your riding. I will be anxious to hear what the member will do when this comes to a vote because I have seen him buck the system over there. He stood up for what he believed.
[8:15 a.m.]
We have Pictou West, and I wonder what they are saying in Pictou West. I wonder what they are saying to the honourable member for Pictou West. Are they saying to her that this is a great bill, we want you to support this? I wonder if the nurses and health care workers in Pictou County are going to the honourable member for Pictou West and saying, yes, drive this thing through; yes member, we want you to stand up and fight for this bill. I say not. If she hasn't heard it yet, she will be hearing it this week, what the people who elected her to this House are possibly saying to her about this bill. There isn't necessarily just health care workers and nurses, they could be teachers, they could be any government employee and they could be family members who have had their hearts touched by the nurses and health care workers in this province, and they could be people who needed hospital care who have been helped and saved by people in the audience today.
We have other members in this House. We have the honourable member for Annapolis. He has been here most of the night. I was here until 1:30 a.m. or 2:00 a.m. this morning and back early this morning, and I think he has been here about the same period of time. I wonder on the weekend, what did he hear? I wonder if people phoned him up and talked to him about what this bill is all about? We have the honourable member for Shelburne. The honourable member for Shelburne who was in this House not too long ago saying that he is worried about health care, and he brought in a Private Member's Bill that talked about municipalities now paying for doctors. He might want to put an amendment to that to pay for nurses as well, because nurses will not be around this province with this kind
of a bill that is in place and before the House of Assembly right now. He might want to amend that Private Member's Bill to allow for municipalities to start paying and top dressing or top loading the salaries of nurses and health care workers in this province
What this bill is doing is taking away the ability for us to be able to hire these workers. It is great having doctors, but if you don't have nurses and specialists to do the work, the health care system falls apart. I had one nurse express to me, and she said very strongly that this bill will cripple the health care system in the Province of Nova Scotia. I wonder what the honourable member for Shelburne, who seemed just a few weeks ago to be so compassionate and caring for the need for health delivery in his area, he seemed to be very strong in fighting for the health of his people, yet he thinks that Bill No. 68 is the answer to his problems. What an awaking he is going to have in his own riding. He must be frustrated by what is going on because he understands, he is bright enough to understand what this bill is all about.
The honourable member for Yarmouth, the poor member for Yarmouth. I don't know, he is probably wondering, why has this government forsaken him? Why have they brought in this bill that means nothing except insult and lack of respect for nurses and the health care providers in the Province of Nova Scotia? The honourable member for Kings North, I wonder how he feels about this bill; I wonder how the health care workers in his area are expressing their concerns to him? He is an honourable man; he is an honourable member. He has to tell the truth all the time because he believes in that. I wonder how he feels about that issue? I wonder what people are saying to him and how he will vote on this issue? We have the member for Guysborough-Port Hawkesbury. That is a beautiful part of this province as well. The member is here and not that long ago that member understood the role of nurses and health care providers in his own life. I wonder how he feels about bringing in Bill No. 68 that is forcing him, no matter what they vote on, the negotiations are stopped.
We had the vote on the weekend. What did you expect that vote by 3,000 employees to be on the weekend? Now what logical vote would you think is going to - people are so mad and frustrated, that vote is a reflection of their anger towards you. It doesn't matter to them any more. They can vote whatever they want, it doesn't matter because you are going to do what you are going to do.
It is no surprise what happened on the weekend. Go talk to them in the gallery today and they will tell you why that vote went that way on the weekend, because they are mad and frustrated and hurt and embarrassed because this government has said to them, you don't care. You don't care that they have worked extra hours, they have given up lunches or coffee breaks or they have gone to university and school and they are professionals, they are experts at what they do. They go beyond the call of duty many times by providing extra services and help; you know, the holistic issue of health care.
You want people to be motivated and positive about going to work, this bill is not doing it and this bill was never intended to do it. This bill was there to do one thing, to send a message that this government has no heart for the people on the front line of the health care delivery system in the Province of Nova Scotia. All the words that were said during the election campaign and all the rhetoric and all the comments, whether it was to do with the health investment fund or where we stood, now you see. So your answer to the problem is one of a cold-hearted government that has no care.
They say, we are doing this because we care about the health of Nova Scotians. Well, let me tell you something, you know . . .
HON. NEIL LEBLANC: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I take exception that the member says we have no heart. The member opposite is the one who is saying that. This is the same member who was part of a government that put forward a piece of legislation that brought about Savage days, whereby they had to take vacation off and not get paid for it; it is the same member who put forward a provision that had a rollback of 3 per cent, and he has the audacity to sit here and tell us that we have no heart, when we are putting an offer on the table, though it doesn't meet all the expectations of the nurses, it does bring them a long way and is a fair and reasonable offer. For him to say that is ludicrous.
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Lunenburg West.
MR. DOWNE: Mr. Member, your are protected by your members around you. You go up in the gallery and talk to those people, Mr. Minister, you go upstairs if you have any guts to go up and talk to the people. Go outside and talk to Nova Scotians, Mr. Minister, don't get huddled by your own little pack of supporters back there. You go out there in the real world and talk to people. You go out there and talk to the real people. (Interruptions)
MR SPEAKER: Order, please. I must ask honourable members to bring themselves to order.
The honourable member for Lunenburg West does have the floor. I would ask him to speak to the amendment, referral to the Standing Committee on Human Resources. Thank you.
MR. DOWNE: The member sits in his little group here, his little therapy group, to get that support he needs to stand up and make fun and ridicule the people who are here in the gallery. (Interruption) That is why we said it should go to . . .
HON. NEIL LEBLANC: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I did not make fun of the people in the gallery. For the member opposite to say that is a falsehood. I would ask for a retraction.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. That is not a point of order, it is a dispute between two honourable members. I would ask the honourable member for Lunenburg West to please direct at least some of his commentary to the amendment before the House.
MR. DOWNE: Mr. Speaker, that is why I think going to the Human Resources Committee for six months, for some period of time, so these members can go and talk and hear what Nova Scotians have to say. If they refuse to do it now - it would allow them to hear first-hand what Bill No. 68 is all about. They don't have to go very far to go upstairs and talk to health care workers and nurses in this province, right now. If you cannot get off your chair today, then allow this to go to the Human Resources Committee to hear what Nova Scotians have to say.
You are going around the province to hear about an energy policy. You are going around the province to try to figure out an economic model and so on and so forth. Why not go around the province and talk about health care which is the number one issue in this country today and go around this province and talk about Bill No. 68? Is that the direction that you want to go? Is that the priority of this government, Bill No. 68? If that is the priority of this government, Bill No. 68, well then I say you are going to have a lot of people upset in this province.
As our Leader said in a newspaper article this weekend, the irony of this legislation is it does nothing to address the underlying problem that is created by the unrest among health professionals. At the heart of the health care crisis is a shortage of nurses and health care support workers in the Province of Nova Scotia. At the heart, and I will repeat that, at the heart of the health care crisis is a shortage of nurses and health support workers in our province and yet they bring in Bill No. 68. I know that the front bench stands up because they have to show that they are prepared to stand up in this House, not with the people but in this House, because I am sure that the backbenchers in this province are hearing the message. They didn't bring in that bill. They are probably talking to the ministers up front and to the Premier saying, do you realize what we are doing here? They probably would love this bill to go to the Human Resources Committee, well actually they would probably love to have it ripped up and maybe they would like it to go to the Human Resources Committee so that they can hear what people have to say. That is why we support that move.
The ministers stand up and they try to attack us on this side of the House for expressing what Nova Scotians are telling us. They are wanting to attack us for being the voice of our constituents in this House and when nurses and health providers and family members and former patients talk to me about this bill, it is my obligation and my right to stand in this House and express to you what people are saying in my riding of Lunenburg West.
Bill No. 68 has been referred to as a draconian bill. It is a bill that is not receiving very much support for the people who are currently in the health care system and I think you are going to see that unions and other government employees across this province can see the writing on the wall.
The member for Guysborough-Port Hawkesbury - it is a beautiful part of this province - and maybe he has been out hunting sometime. He sees nature but anybody who has studied as basic a topic as nature knows that when people get scared or anybody gets scared, watch out. If they feel threatened, watch out. When that good member felt threatened in his own life, watch out. Well, these people up in the audience, these people in the gallery, those at home, the ones who are listening, they are mad and they are frustrated and I am saying watch out, because what you have done is you have sent a signal, a signal that says that we, as a Progressive Conservative Government, do not care about your democratic right if we feel it didn't meet our fiscal target. It means that your priorities are based on one issue only, it is laudable and it is important to be fiscally responsible but you didn't even allow this to continue through a process that maybe could have been resolved without bringing in this legislation.
[8:30 a.m.]
Nova Scotians didn't want government to bring down the hammer on nurses and health care workers. These are people who take care of our sick family members, not the greedy villains you guys are trying to portray them to be in the media. You leave the impression in the media that these individuals are wrong. That nurses and health care workers are wrong or that they are greedy or they are whatever. How do you think that makes them feel? Those who have given up and spent their lifetime career in the health care system in Nova Scotia; who have gone beyond the call of duty, beyond what the contract says they are to do; who go home at night worrying about the patients they have. What does that say to those who have taken their career to heart? Basically you have said this has been ridiculous. We don't care what you have done in the past. It is what we want to do in the future that matters.
Nova Scotia must also take steps to increase the number of technicians and technologists in this province. Now, you tell me how we are going to do that with this bill. It is estimated by the year 2015 the number of available workers will be half the current rate. The Minister of Health and the Minister of Education must therefore establish a training program and an innovative recruitment program for the requirements for the year 2015 to be met. Well, we have a problem and a crisis right now and this Bill No. 68 has not helped it. That is why we are saying it should go to committee. It should go to the Human Resources Committee to be looked at and maybe do some refinement, maybe there are changes. Or, maybe what the government should simply do is literally tear up Bill No. 68 and start all over again. Allow the process to have some integrity. Allow the negotiations to have integrity; to show respect and integrity for the workers who are here today.
In district 1 it has been indicated to me that Mr. Merkley said that there is no problem with essential services in district 1. The union and the employees have set up a program he believes can work. They say it is about safety. Well, Richmond County has not had an emergency wing in their hospital for months. They are not prepared to do anything there. They talk about bed closures. Well, I have been complaining about that for a while. It's been what, two years? They say it is because of vacation time starting in April and that is why beds are closing in April or May on the South Shore. It is vacation time. Just recently, I think it was the board had posted for eight new positions in my riding for nurses, so some people applied, only to find out later that they retracted that call. I asked the question why and the answer came back, oh, we have vacations coming up and we don't need them any more because we simply closed the beds, closed the doors and locked the door. That is their vision of health care - locking the doors. After a while you are going to have lock the front door hospitals. You can only lock so many and then you have a crisis bigger than you think you have in Bill No. 68.
In my riding health care is pretty important, as it is in every single riding in all 52 constituencies across this province. It touches the lives of each and every one of our members, and their families and friends and their constituents. You are playing a very dangerous game right now, a very dangerous game. You can hardly wait for this bill to go through this House, so your conscience doesn't have to be tugged at any more.
I can hear some of the comments: gosh, I will be glad when we get out of here and we don't have to work 24 hours or 48 hours at a stretch, or whatever it is that they put in; we don't have to hear about the compassion and the caring of nurses any more; we don't have to hear that this bill is taking away the democratic rights of the workers in the Province of Nova Scotia; I am glad we don't have to hear the Opposition members go on and on about why this bill is wrong, about Clause 12 and Clause 13 and other clauses in this bill that are wrong, that are flawed and mean-spirited; and they don't have to come back and look in the eyes of the workers who are in the galleries, whether they are in the east gallery or the west gallery, they don't have to look in their eyes any more and see their disdain and bitterness. They can go home and have a barbeque and stick their heads in the sand.
I can tell you something, when you do go home, if this bill passes, you will not be left alone. There will be people letting you know and reminding you all the time about Bill No. 68. They will not forget what this is all about.
Summer is a time of family and vacation and enjoyment. Well, you are going to have an interesting summer trying to explain this throughout the Province of Nova Scotia, unless of course you become born again to the realization of what this bill is all about and you have a choice and a chance to make it better. One way is to go to the Human Resources Committee - which we recommended - to have it debated and discussed. Another avenue you have is to say to the health care workers and the nurses in Nova Scotia that we apologize for what we are doing.
I don't know if I got anybody's attention over there on that issue, but you know no matter how you try to block it out it isn't going to go away. You have set a spark that is turning into quite a fire in the bellies and the hearts of the health care workers in this province. You have set a spark and set a fire in the bellies and the hearts of the health care providers and the nurses in Nova Scotia and that fire will not go out tomorrow or on Wednesday or on Thursday or Friday because they will carry that frustration and they will remind you.
Bill No. 68 is a mean-spirited bill, but what does it do? It takes away the right to strike by NSGEU and NSNU, the nurses and health care workers in the Province of Nova Scotia. It takes away their right to be able to have what they consider is a fair package. You have taken away their right to be able to sit at the table and negotiate in good faith.
How would the members across the way like to be at a table to negotiate their issue only to know that no matter what points you make, it won't matter because someone else is going to say what the deal will be? How would you like it if you sat down to negotiate whatever, only to find out no matter who you negotiate with, no matter how much logic you come up with, how many facts you come up with, how much information you come up with that substantiates your decision, somebody else has already made the decision for you? It is like going to court and predetermining what the outcome is going to be before you even presented your case. How would you feel if you were going to court and you brought in your arguments only to find out that the jury or the judge had already made up his or her mind? You would say that is not right, you would say that is unconstitutional, you would say that the rights of the democratic free world, the Province of Nova Scotia has gone.
Well, that is exactly what you are doing to the health care workers and the nurses of the Province of Nova Scotia and the possibility in this bill to go even further to other government employees. You are taking away their rights as individuals. You are giving the power to Cabinet to not only decide what the overall deal will be, the final outcome will be, but how they want to implement it. Now let's take a look at the Cabinet, we have a Cabinet that is going to be making the decision predicated on what? Predicated on the Minister of Finance. We go after the Minister of Health and the Premier, but we should also be talking to the Minister of Finance because the Minister of Finance, it seems to me, is calling the shots over there anyway, calling a lot of them. Maybe it is the Minister of Finance who is saying to the Minister of Health, this is what your deal will be.
I wonder how many of the backbenchers who are here today, and will be here tonight, actually had input into Bill No. 68. I wonder if the honourable member for Shelburne had an opportunity to sit down with the Minister of Health and the Minister of Finance and the Premier of this province to work through line by line the bill, Bill No. 68. I wonder if the honourable member for Yarmouth, did he have a chance to build this legislation and have input into this legislation? I think not. What about the honourable member for Annapolis. Did that honourable member for Annapolis have an opportunity to put his comments to the
minister on this bill before the bill came forward to the House? I wonder if the honourable member for Queens - a caring individual over there - I wonder if he had a chance to have any input into this bill?
We have members in that back that probably never knew what this bill was all about until they got into this House, until they heard the Opposition's comments about what this bill is really meaning. I bet you that between last weekend and the next weekend and beyond they are going to know in spades exactly what this bill is all about. You know, they have a choice when we come to the vote to defeat this bill so they can go back . . .
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The honourable member's time has expired.
The honourable Leader of the Opposition.
MR. DARRELL DEXTER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for recognizing me in my turn to speak on Bill No. 68. I wanted to begin this morning I guess in some small fashion in the exploration of the contents of this bill by responding in part to a question that was posed by the last member who spoke. The former Finance Minister was busy in his examination of this bill. He began by commenting that he didn't think ever before in the history of the Legislature that a bill such as this had come forward, that he didn't believe any government in history had brought forward this kind of legislation.
[8:45 a.m.]
I am sad to say to that member that that is not the case and, in fact, the last nurses' strike that took place in this province in 1975 was the subject of a bill that came forward from the then Liberal Government, I believe it was Bill No. 131 at that time, and it was a bill which essentially accomplished the same thing that this bill accomplishes. It was back-to-work legislation. It was legislation that took away the right to strike. It was legislation indeed that did the very same things that this legislation did.
It was called Bill No. 131, certain disputes between certain hospitals and certain of its employees, Mr. Speaker, was the bill at that time. The Minister of Health of the day was Mr. William MacEachern. Some of you here will remember him. I certainly do. He represented Inverness. He was a professor at the School of Journalism and I was a student of his, I remember him well. I believe at that time Inverness was a dual riding. I think there were two members and if I am remembering correctly, I think there was one Tory and one Liberal at the time although I could be wrong.
Mr. Speaker, there was a strike, I believe, according to my notes here, it began on Friday, June 13th. The new legislation introduced then by the Liberal Government called upon the members of the Nurses' Union to go back to work and at that time and, interestingly enough, I noticed in the notes that the Director of the Nurses' Union at the time was Tom
Patterson. I assume it would be the same Tom Patterson who works for the Nurses' Union these days and so he has obviously been through this before, but what I found interesting about the debate around Bill No. 131 and how it relates to Bill No. 68 is this.
At that time, do you know what the Premier was saying about the strike, Mr. Speaker? He was saying that the government had to bring forward this legislation because public safety and welfare were at risk, exactly the same thing that this government is saying. I found it ironic that the Minister of Finance at the time, who I believe was Mr. Nicholson, Finance Minister Nicholson indicated that one of the reasons why they had to bring forward that legislation at that time was because the government would find it very hard to bear the cost associated with a reasonable wage settlement for the nurses at the time. The Liberal Government stood there and said exactly the same things about Bill No. 131 in 1975 that the Tories are saying in the year 2001.
Mr. Speaker, the chairs have changed sides, but the arguments and the approach to the collective bargaining rights of working people in this province haven't changed one iota as a result of the switching sides of those two behemoths of the political landscape of this province. It is indeed unfortunate, and I must say, I mean I took an opportunity to look back in Hansard and to see the outrage that was put forward on behalf of the then Leader of the Opposition.
AN HON. MEMBER: Who was that?
MR. DEXTER: Mr. John Buchanan talking about how he wouldn't support this bill, how draconian. He uses the same words, the same language. He talks about how terrible it is to take away the rights of nurses. He says the government has within its capacity the ability to treat nurses fairly. Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, the Progressive Conservatives, sitting on this side, talking about the downtrodden nurses and it is replete with stories about nurses and about how hard they work and how important it is to support them and how awful it is that the Liberal Government of the time should bring in back-to-work legislation.
Mr. Speaker, they were right then. They are wrong today. They were right then. They were right to say that it is wrong to take away the collective bargaining rights of working people. I guess what I find so ironic about it is that even though, and it was an awful bill to impose, Bill No. 131, in those days, but at least in that bill they brought in binding arbitration which allowed the nurses to go to the bargaining table with an arbitrator and to state a case and to try to resolve the question of a wage settlement on the basis of argument rather than an imposed contract from the Cabinet table. So it had at least that feature that stood out for it. This bill is much different.
It is different because, Mr. Speaker, what it does - and there's a distinction here I want to draw for you - there is a difference between something that is undemocratic, which this bill is as well, it is undemocratic, but there is a difference between being undemocratic and
being anti-democratic. I mean there's a big difference between the two. You see, when something is undemocratic, it abuses the rules of democracy. What it does is it uses the majority vote of government to be able to weigh in on the interest of one side or the other. It uses the weight of democracy won through an election to be able to throw its favour against one side. It can take away the rights of a group, as this bill does. It can be used to punish a group. Those are abuses of the rules of democracy as we know them and those are undemocratic things to do.
However, Mr. Speaker, this bill is anti-democratic. It is different in its nature, it is different in its scope because what it does is it undermines the very foundation of democracy. It takes away the right to freedom of assembly; it takes away the right of freedom of speech; and it takes away recourse to the civil courts. Those are fundamentally different in nature than undemocratic legislation. This is taking away democracy that has been the toil and sweat of generations. It is taking away democracy that was won on the "Fields of Flanders" and on the "Ridge in Vimy". That is what this legislation does. That is what makes it so profoundly wrong. It is wrong in its nature; it is wrong in its scope because it undermines the very pinnings of our democracy.
Mr. Speaker, it is not for us who are sitting in these seats to attack democracy in that way, and I would say to this government that is a terrible shame, it is scandalous what they have done. They have set a precedent in this House that is so regrettable that the people of the province should sit up and take notice that their democracy has been damaged in a way I am not sure that we will be able to recover from it.
I want to recall for you, Mr. Speaker, I took a little time to look and see whether or not others had commented on these kinds of things, and indeed they have. I was pleased to see from years gone by the Greek philosopher, Democritus - there is in fact a university in Greece named after this philosopher - he lived about 460 BC and he said that words are the shadows of deeds; words are the shadows of deeds. Well, the words in this legislation foreshadow the destruction of our basic democratic rights. That is what they do. In this case the bill, Bill No. 68, without proper examination at the committee stage and profound revision that needs to take place, has the potential not only to foreshadow the destruction of our democracy but to bring it about.
Mr. Speaker, I find it difficult to believe that at this point in time in the history of this province that there could be this kind of hollowness of heart, this loss of genuine belief in the quality of our society. I find it difficult to understand how a government could bring forward this kind of legislation that undermines the very pillars of our democracy.
I felt it was necessary to begin my commentary today on the amendments by setting out those kinds of basic tenets of what this bill does and why it is necessary to have it referred to the Committee on Human Resources.
Mr. Speaker, I know that over the weekend many people in this House were at home participating in Father's Day on Sunday. Perhaps you had an opportunity to visit with your children. I am sure many of those who are here today had that opportunity or perhaps had the opportunity to visit with their own parents, talk to their own father about the celebration of that day. I know I am wearing the tie I got from my son on Sunday. It caused me to think, because on Sunday, knowing that in the very wee hours of Monday morning we were going to be back here, it caused me to think a little bit about the kind of life my parents lived and the kind of decisions they must have made over time about how they sought dispute resolution.
I know the Minister of Community Services and the Minister of Transportation and Public Works are here and I am sure they are going to be able to appreciate this. I want to tell this little story. I remember my mother telling me a story about an argument she and her husband, my father, had and how it got resolved. I think that sometimes it is useful to look at these kinds of small vignettes of life and maybe it will give you some clue of how to resolve the big problems.
My mother and father were sitting at the table, it was the early 1930's. They were married in 1933 or 1934, I forget exactly which. They were sitting at the kitchen table and some decision around the administration of the household had come forward and they disagreed. Apparently they profoundly disagreed because I am told that after they stated their positions their disagreement got louder and finally both of them got up from the table and walked away; one went into the living room and my father went out and got his scythe and went out into the field and started to mow his field. My mother went into the living room and it happened that she was sewing a blanket. A couple of hours passed and their disagreement had set the stage for the day. After a couple of hours, my father was out mowing the field, he came in and my mother reported that the door opened and a hat sailed through the air and landed on the living room floor. She took notice of it but nobody else came into the room, Mr. Speaker, nothing else happened. About 20 minutes later my father opened the door and came in and sat down and they resolved their dispute, they talked it out. My mother said, now what was the hat about? What happened? Why did this hat come sailing through the air? My father said, well, I opened the door and I threw in my hat and I figured that if the hat didn't come flying back out it was okay to come in.
Mr. Speaker, my point is that if a relationship means anything to you, if it really means anything, you have to find a way to talk. You have to find a way to make an overture. You have to find a way to communicate.
[9:00 a.m.]
That simple little story, as related to me by my mother about the way my father found a way to make his entry back into the discussion, I think, is an important kind of lesson perhaps to us all about the way that you have to go about finding ways to talk to people. You
have to understand what it is that they are going through. I would suggest to the government that this amendment creates an opportunity to refer the bill to the Human Resources Committee to find out if there isn't a way to begin the discussion, to begin to talk with one another so that the true purpose of collective bargaining can be allowed to take root. If you can't treat one another with enough respect to be able to come to a reasonable conclusion around the questions of salaries and benefits and workload issues and all of the other things that are affecting not just nurses but health care workers.
I know that health care workers are sometimes frustrated because their interests are subsumed in those of the nurses and I want to say that I recognize it isn't just the nurses. There are many health care workers out there who have rejected the offers that have been put forward by the government. I couldn't help but remember meeting outside here with Peter McLardie. He was in the gallery the other night, he is an educator at the school of ultrasound and a sonographer, I guess they are called, from the word sonar and what they do is use ultrasound to find and diagnose tumours. The doctors rely on the information that Mr. McLardie provides them in order to be able to provide the service. If he is not there, then it becomes virtually impossible for the doctor to do his job. He was telling me that he has a profound belief that highly technical personnel will leave this province for better wages if the government passes this legislation. He said that these are workers who can't be replaced here because there is such a critical shortage. You are getting this kind of advice, not just from nurses but from health care workers, who are telling you that it is time for you to withdraw this bill and to find a way to get back to the bargaining table. I would say to you and to the government that this is good advice, advice that they ought to listen to.
I couldn't help but be struck by the fact that - as far as I know - the only response from the government benches on this bill took place this morning. I know that my colleague, the member for Halifax Chebucto, spoke on it and I know that the member for Lunenburg West spoke on it and I am not going to do what they did which was reiterate the actual words that the Minster of Justice said, but instead I want to talk a little bit about the symbolism that is kind of wrapped up in what the Minister of Justice did in addressing the amendment, without actually addressing the amendment. I guess that is the first element of symbolism contained in his intervention.
What the Minister of Justice did, ironically, as the only government member to speak on this amendment, was to rise at 2:15 a.m. or 2:30 a.m. - in the middle of the night - isn't it ironic the only government member to speak on the legislation, speaks in the middle of the night? Then, what does he have to say? He accuses the other side of being incapable of original thought and then what he does is use brutal bullying tactics to try to convince the members of the Opposition that they ought to sit down and be quiet and they ought not to continue with their examination of the bill. It is ironic that it could be the Minister of Justice in some kind of Orwellian world where he stands up and speaks on a bill that is designed to take away recourse to the courts - the Minister of Justice. It has the resonances of East Bloc dictatorships when the Minister of Justice is in charge of taking justice away. Can you
imagine what the popular press of this country would be saying if this were to happen in the former Soviet Union or in China? They would say it represents what their system of government stands for.
So are we left to think in this country that the Minister of Justice, when he stands and talks about the necessity of taking away freedom of assembly and freedom of speech and taking away the right of recourse to the courts, are we supposed to say that's okay, that it is okay in a free and democratic society to reduce people's rights to the mere shadow of words?
Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, it is constructive to look at the past and what people have said about the very nature of their democracy. John Adams, the American patriot, said that you must remember democracy never lasts long, it soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself; there never was a democracy that did not commit suicide. Is that what this is? Are we stuck in a death struggle over democracy in this province?
I find it hard to believe that at its most basic level the members across the aisle are not democrats. Surely they sought election, they went out and knocked on doors; they spoke with their constituents and they promised them some pretty fundamental things. They promised them they would work hard to try to make this province a better place. I am sure the member for Pictou West did that, I am sure the member for Cape Breton North, in the by-election, said that my fundamental job when I go to the Legislature will be to make your lives better. You place in me your faith, you elect me in a democratic process and what I will do is go in search of a better path for the province.
I would say surely, Mr. Speaker, when they were talking about a better path, they certainly didn't tell their constituents that. In the case of the member for Cape Breton North, I am sure that he didn't say, only those few short months ago that one of the first things I am going to do once I am elected is intervene in the collective bargaining process in such a profound way as to take away the right to access to the courts, to take away the right to free, collective bargaining, and take away the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, to impose upon unions the penalty should they dare advise their members, as is their right, about their options, and if they said anything more than you must return to work, I will impose a penalty on them.
I am sure they didn't say that. It would be deeply disturbing to think that a person could get elected on the basis of representations and on the basis of these kinds of statements and then come to this House and deliberately decide not to fulfill them, to decide instead to do another thing, Mr. Speaker, that being the subject matter of this legislation.
We know, Mr. Speaker, and I think everyone who has had an opportunity to be in this Legislature over the last number of days has had an opportunity to see the government members diligently at work at their desks, attentively listening to the words of the Opposition, considering this amendment to send this legislation off to the committee, it must
have been with some shock that they heard the ruminations of the Minister of Justice, because I am sure that everyone else sitting over there was taking the opportunity to weigh carefully the option that this amendment gives them.
I am sure the Speaker has had the opportunity, as he sits here and listens fully to this debate, to think in his own mind, now, what could be accomplished if we were simply to send this bill off to the Human Resources Committee so there could be a full examination of it, or there could be a report back to the Legislature about how this bill might be made better, might actually serve the interests of the people of the province. Perhaps the report of the Human Resources Committee would be that the bill should be withdrawn entirely. Can you imagine? The Human Resources Committee that is dominated by the government side has a profound look at the legislation and decides that it is just wrong, that it is not just wrong in word but is wrong in deed.
I suppose there are those on the government benches who might be nervous of an open-mined chairman who might cast a vote against the Legislative agenda of the government. I suppose that might be true. I know in his many columns and responses to the press, the Chairman of the Human Resource Committee has lamented about the lack of effectiveness of the committee and its inability to accomplish what he originally set out for it to accomplish. Which was, as I understand it, to see that the maximum benefit of the service of the committee could be realized by the people of the province. That is not exactly what he said, he talked about getting the best possible candidates for positions by the Human Resources Committee about examining subjects that were relevant under the other part of the mandate of that committee. Well, here is an opportunity to use that committee to show some leadership to the government and to do the work that is important and necessary.
Mr. Speaker, one of the things that is particularly ironic about this piece of legislation is some of the other things that it does in relation to the way it treats nurses. We have said already, and I am sure that many of my colleagues have said, it is not just about the black letter of the law that is contained within the bill, certainly that is frightening enough, but it is the tone, it is the lack of respect that is shown. My colleague, the member for Halifax Fairview, Friday night, was making some very eloquent points about this. He said this isn't really about numbers on a page, employees listed in a ledger of the Department of Health, that is not what it is about. It is not about statistics, it is not about the number of patients who travel in and out of the hospitals of the province, it is not about that. It is about nurses and health care workers who we know, who are citizens of our community who are, perhaps, in our families, who are our friends and our neighbours. That is what it's about.
It is about treating those people with respect, it's about taking leadership on an important issue of the day. I think many people would say that health care and the state of health care in this province is probably the pre-eminent issue placed before the government of the day. I know that the Minister of Finance has said no, no, the pre-eminent issue is balancing the budget, the pre-eminent issue is paying down the debt. Well, I would suggest
to you that those things are important because of what they allow you to do with health care. That is why he says they are important. What we know is that the Minister of Finance has deliberately under-budgeted the revenue, has decided that what they are going to do is try and hide some of that revenue for future years. My bet is that by this time next year, what they will come out and say is, look, surprise, we are ahead of our financial projections and now we can give you that tax cut earlier. How do we achieve it? They won't answer that question. They achieved it by user fees, by hidden charges, by refusing to negotiate in good faith with nurses and health care workers. They accomplished it by subterfuge, through the back door and without being straight up with the people of the province.
[9:15 a.m.]
That is how it will be accomplished, but apparently, in the Machiavellian world of this government's politics, it does not matter how the ends are achieved, only that they are achieved. The irony will be, they will talk about a 10 per cent tax cut, but it will only be the provincial portion and that will be something like 3.6 per cent really which, as I understand it, will actually be less than if they hadn't uncoupled from the federal income tax scheme and allowed the full weight of those cuts to take their effect.
When you add on the increases in user fees, things like the $50 a day that is being charged to seniors in this province because they can't find a long-term care bed and have to stay in hospital, what will be paid out by the populous of this province into the coffers of the government will far exceed anything that they propose by way of a tax cut. So, it will be a sham. It will be a little misdirection, a little sleight of hand, a little hocus-pocus. It won't mean anything, but it will sound good. I suppose - and that has been our experience with this government - that the only thing this government wants is a convenient scapegoat and a useful slogan. That is all they want to do. They want to blame somebody and they want a catchy phrase to do it with.
That may be this government's definition of the way to administer the province, but I don't think people are fooled. I don't think people are fooled. I think Abraham Lincoln once say, you can fool some of the people all of the time and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can never fool all of the people all of the time. They are going to find out that is true. They are going to find out the next time they have to go and knock on the doors of the nurses who are sitting in the gallery. When they have to knock on the doors of the friends and families of those nurses, when they are going to be there to ask them for their vote, they are going to find out that they didn't fool anybody.
They are going to find out - the member for Annapolis is going to find out. The member for Kings South is going to find out. The member for Guysborough-Port Hawkesbury is going to find out just how much the people of their ridings were paying attention. I am sure the member for Queens will find out - that member already knows because he and I have gotten e-mail from the same people who are protesting and saying that
this is an undemocratic thing, that these rights should not be taken away. Do you know something? I couldn't help but notice in the one e-mail that I received from a fellow that I went to high school with back in Queens County - what he really did was express profound disappointment in the way that his member, a member of this government, is treating the health care workers of the province.
That is what we find in many places we go. I, too, was out on the weekend. I, too, was at the Farmer's Market. I, too, attended a number of public functions - I was at a piano recital with my son - everywhere I went these citizens of the province were approaching me, telling me how important it was that we return to the Legislature, even if at the government's behest, it was at 12:01 a.m. We had to come here and to convey to the members sitting on the opposite benches the profound disappointment that people have in this initiative, in this bill, in this piece of legislation. People don't only want government for the sake of government, what they want is government that listens. They want to be able to say this is a government that does something for me, rather than to me. They want the activist kind of government that is out there providing service. The old notion that government is there to be torn down has exhausted itself.
I don't espouse government simply for the sake of government, Mr. Speaker, but I wouldn't tear it down either, at the simple notion that less government is better because some day you are going to need one of those services, whether it is health care services or otherwise. When it happens to you, you will know that it is true. Those services are there, they are needed, they are required by the people of the province. It is necessary for this government to find a way to get back to the table, to listen to health care workers and to provide them with the respect they deserve.
Mr. Speaker, it wasn't the health care workers of this province who promised more acute care beds and then didn't deliver them. It wasn't the health care workers in this province who decided that wait times for surgery were going to be longer. They didn't do that, this government did. They didn't promise more long-term care beds and then not deliver them and, instead, deliver a $50 a day charge to those people who are in hospital. These health care workers didn't promise to create a positive work environment and then poison collective bargaining with this kind of legislation. They didn't do that.
Mr. Speaker, it wasn't the people who work in our health care facilities, not these hard-working Nova Scotians who respond every day to life and death situations. It wasn't them who chose not to deal with the crisis in recruitment and retention of nurses, it wasn't them; it is not them who are the threat to public safety; it is not them who are a threat to public welfare in this province; it is not them who are a danger to the delivery of the health care services of the province. I have said this before, if the government wants to see who the threat to health care really is all they have to do is get a mirror, and look at the people in the mirror because those are the people who are damaging health care by refusing to recognize the legitimate right of health care workers to negotiate freely in their own interest. It is one
of the things about collective bargaining, there are two sides to it. Both represent their own interests in one form or another. In this dispute this government has decided that they are going to sit at both sides of the table, that the Cabinet is going to have the ability to be able to scribble down the terms and conditions of employment of the nurses of this province and then they are going to deliver it to them and they are going to live with it whether they like it or not.
I suppose we could close the Legislature altogether. We could bar the doors, and the Minister of Justice, rather than bringing forward bills in this House, could simply nail the edicts up on the doors. The citizenry could come around periodically and find out what the new laws are and see how they apply to them. That is the fundamental nature of this bill, Mr. Speaker, it takes away the right to freedom of assembly, the right to freedom of speech, it takes away recourse to the courts and I have heard it said that perhaps this will be challenged in the courts; perhaps it will be, I don't know. I am not a clairvoyant, I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet, I am just here in my capacity to try to hold this government accountable for what it does do.
You can pass this bill and perhaps you will, but I don't want you for a second to be under the impression that it will be a defeat for the people on this side. It will not be because true defeat can only come to those people who are prepared to give up the struggle. Those of us on this side are not prepared to do that. Defeat will only come to those people who do not have the heart to go on and that will not happen to those of us who stand in our places here. It will not happen on this bill, it will not happen through the efforts of this government.
Those of us on this side of the House, this band of brothers and sisters, we are here to tell you that we shall stand here as long as the people who place their faith in us and who place their faith in democracy are prepared to stand with us. We shall be here for as long as those who understand that the function of government is to serve the people and that it is never the other way around. We shall place ourselves on the scales of democracy on the side of those who are seeking just treatment. We will place ourselves on the side of those who want to be treated fairly and to have their democratic rights respected. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, and it has been said before, that the struggle will continue because the cause endures. That is what it is all about here.
We are not going to simply stand aside so that this government can do what it wants to the people of the province at any expense and we are not going to listen to the Minister of Justice when he tells us that we must sit down and be quiet and to hold our place. We are not going to do that because the Minister of Justice needs to hear us. He needs to hear that the things that he is doing when he takes away basic, fundamental freedoms, are wrong. It is wrong to treat people with disrespect, it is wrong to treat health care workers in this province with the kind of cavalier attitude that has been displayed by the Minister of Justice, by the Minister of Labour and by the Minister of Health.
I started out, Mr. Speaker, talking about Bill No. 131 from a government long past, the Liberal Government of the 1970s. I couldn't help but notice that the Minister of Labour at that time was none other than Walter Fitzgerald when he introduced that legislation. I couldn't help but notice that the members of the Conservative caucus at the time were outraged at the notion that collective bargaining rights could be surreptitiously taken away. You know, the Minister of Transportation, the House Leader, throws up his hands and says, what else is an Opposition to do but to rail against the excesses of the government? Well, there are some of us in this Chamber who think it is more than just words, it is more than just playing a role, it is more than just being here and going through the exercise of opposition.
There are many of those, I daresay, in the 11 seats that make up the Official Opposition who believe that it is fundamentally about the kind of democracy you want to live in. It is about the kind of society that you want to live in. It is about the kinds of communities that you want to have because those of us in the New Democratic Party believe that the quality of your community, the quality of your society, is measured by your ability to be tolerant in many things - not just in collective bargaining - in many aspects of life and in many aspects of government.
[9:30 a.m.]
We think it is necessary for the Minister of Finance, for the Minister of Health, and the Minister of Labour to have the opportunity to garner the advice that could be gathered through the Committee on Human Resources and their ability to be able to take submissions from the public. Before I started this job, I sat on that committee. I know the debate that takes place there and I can tell you that it would be a healthy and lively one; the examination, I am sure, would be complete. They would look at every aspect of the legislation, have an opportunity to discuss it with not just health care workers, but with other affected groups: senior citizens, the people who make up parts of the health care delivery system, labour leaders, and citizens who have no stake in this, except their desire to see a reasonable resolution and their desire to see health care workers of the province treated with some respect.
The other thing it would do is it would get around much of how health care workers feel today. You have to ask yourself when you look at this bill, how do health care workers feel about being treated in this fashion? I can tell you what I found out. I can tell you what they have been telling me and I am sure it is part of what they have been telling the Minister of Economic Development down in Digby, and the member for Queens, in Liverpool or in Caledonia. Maybe the member for Shelburne has had an opportunity to head down to Port LaTour, Barrington Passage, and talk to those people and I am sure that they have told him that they feel mistreated. They feel betrayed; they feel as though they have been taken for granted; and they feel as if they are the subject of political gamesmanship. That is how the nurses feel, that is how the health care workers feel. They feel as though they have become
a pawn in a game at which the government sits at both sides of the chess board. They have the ability to dictate any outcome and that is certainly what this legislation will do.
Some of them are telling us they feel like outcasts in their own province. They feel that the relationship with government has been fundamentally altered, that any trust that they had in the government to treat them fairly has been destroyed. I must say, when you look at a situation like this one, more extreme than that which was put in place by the Cameron Conservatives, more extreme than what was done by the Savage Liberals even though they went through that whole process of wage freeze and a rollback and a loss of wages by the health care workers, it wasn't a freeze of a deal that had been freely arrived at between parties, and that was undemocratic. It was an abuse of power, but it wasn't so fundamentally flawed as this legislation is. It wasn't - as I have explained earlier - anti-democratic. It didn't undermine the very foundations of the society that we live in, unlike this piece of legislation.
There is much of this debate that could degenerate into hyperbole and degenerate into rhetorical flourishes, and I don't want that to happen. I have been trying to point out in very concrete ways why it is that this government ought to follow our lead and vote in favour of the amendment in order to allow the Human Resources Committee to properly deal with this legislation.
I wanted to point out if I could, that this bill raises two key questions that could be answered by the Human Resources Committee. The first one is, who is truly responsible for the delivery of health care in Nova Scotia, Mr. Speaker, the front-line workers or 12 people who sit behind the closed doors of the Cabinet Room? Who is really responsible for the delivery of health care? You know, and I said this before, but I think it bears repeating in light of this amendment, Nova Scotians won't come here, they won't come to the Legislature looking for health care. They are not going to come here to get a diagnosis or to get some assistance and over some considerable period of time now the Cabinet and the members of the government benches have proven beyond any doubt that they could not walk a mile in the shoes of a health care worker.
So why is it, Mr. Speaker, that all of the decisions, all the terms of employment should be decided by the Cabinet members? Why should those 12 people have the right, absent of any discussion with those who will be directly affected, why should they have the right to simply dictate all the terms that normally would have been negotiated at the bargaining table? What they should be doing, and if they really were committed to it, what they would do is the hard work that I had suggested earlier. They would do the hard work. They would try to come to a meeting of the minds.
You know, Mr. Speaker, that is one of the fundamental tenets of the notion of contract is that you come to a common purpose, that you have a meeting of the minds. There is offer, acceptance, consideration. Those are the mechanics of making up a contract, but the fundamental nature of contract is that you have two parties who want to engage in a common
purpose whether it is the provision of a service or product. So when you have a situation where one side is prepared and has the power to dictate the terms, then there is no agreement. There is no contract as the law knows those terms. There is just an imposition of terms of work on an unwilling population whether they are a population of health care workers or otherwise. This sends a loud message to all the other sectors that have to do bargaining with this government. It defines the extent to which this government is prepared to go in its negotiations with all of the unions, with all of the people who have contracts with the government. It shows that they know no bounds, that they will go as far as they consider is required.
So that is the first question that has to be answered by the Committee on Human Resources and the second one, I have mentioned this earlier, Mr. Speaker, is whether Nova Scotia will be governed as a democratic society. Over and over again the Minister of Health and the Premier say that their actions are justified and why are they justified? They say that their actions are justified because the members of the bargaining units took their offers, explained them to the membership and defeated them in a democratic vote and they can't live with that. They can't live with the idea that a group of people could discuss an offer and decide it is not fair, that they could have a democratic vote and decide that it didn't meet the aspirations of the collective bargaining unit.
I want to tell you something, Mr. Speaker, it has been said before and perhaps you have heard it before, but if not, I will reiterate it. Employment is not a commodity. It is not something that you put on the shelf, a kind of widget, and can't take off so many hours of employment off the shelf and then when you're through with it put it back. It is not what it is about. Employment is fundamentally different than any other product or service that is sold or bought, because employment is people's lives. They have to invest their time in the work that they do. So it means that they have to achieve different kinds of things.
They have to have job satisfaction, Mr. Speaker, that is what keeps them there. They have to have reasonable remuneration because they have families they have to support. They have to have benefits because as much as they would always want to be well, they may not be or their families may not be. So bargaining for employment is fundamentally different than bargaining to purchase a product. We must always keep that in mind.
Now, the government has an option, it has an opportunity to go back to the bargaining table. They could improve their offer. They could have just simply reflected on why is it that the members of this bargaining unit are so angry, why is it that they are feeling as if they have been betrayed.
Certainly, this would be something that the Committee on Human Resources would have the opportunity to do and then, Mr. Speaker, the committee and/or the Cabinet, or the government could spend the time answering this question. They could spend the time answering the question, what can be done to fix the health care delivery system? You have
to remember the number one priority promised by the Premier was that his government would fix health care. That was the number one promise they made to the province. Mr. Speaker, am I running out of time here?
Mr. Speaker, this is something that is going to take some courage. It is going to take some strength of character. It is going to take some moral fibre for the government to do. It is up to them. They have the opportunity to support this amendment and send this off to the Human Resources Committee. So my message to them at this hour of the morning is to seek out that courage, try and find it within yourself to listen to the voices you are hearing. Try to remember the oath that you gave to all of the people who elected you. Try to remember that you promised these people that you would try to find a new path for the province.
Mr. Speaker, I want to end with a quote that I ran across from Ernest Hemingway. Mr. Hemingway passed away back in 1961. He was well known for his strong opinions and he said, "Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination." I would ask the government members to put aside their imaginations about apprehended emergencies and to do the right thing by the health care workers of this province. Thank you.
[9:45 a.m.]
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Victoria.
MR. KENNETH MACASKILL: I am happy to stand in my place today and make some comments on Bill No. 68, some comments that might strengthen the fight before us today on behalf of members of the Opposition from the Official Opposition and the members of our caucus. As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, I spent the last number of days at the Maritime Parliamentary Conference in New Brunswick, where we had an opportunity to discuss issues with many of our members of the Legislatures of Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Nunavut. The common theme I heard when they made reference to what some referred to as the "rock around the clock" activities in Nova Scotia, what I heard mostly was, why is there back-to-work legislation when there is no strike, when there is no threat of a crisis developing in the health care system and when the health care workers promised they would provide emergency service? Guess what? This government doesn't trust them.
Mr. Speaker, if this government hasn't heard the message yet about how bad this legislation is, then perhaps they should do the right thing and refer this to the Human Resources Committee and ask for their input. I am sure they would help the members of the Tory caucus to really believe the effects this has on not only the health care workers but the sick and the people who need the expertise and the professionalism that we see by our health care workers in this province.
Mr. Speaker, I didn't have the opportunity to return to my constituency on the weekend, but I am sure many of the members of the government caucus had that opportunity. I know some had been in their constituency, but they were hard to find, but surely they have heard the comments on the street about this piece of legislation and the opposition to this bill that is growing stronger and stronger every day.
Maybe some of the backbenchers didn't go home on the weekend. Maybe it was not a safe place to be, but I believe if the government would at least let the Human Resources Committee do some research or some travelling around the province, or give them some time to see what the effects of this bill may be on the public of Nova Scotia, I believe the government would benefit greatly.
Mr. Speaker, the Human Resources Committee would allow this government to be seen as open and accountable; certainly that is what this government needs. If there is ever a time that this government should show they are open and accountable, now is the time, a concept that is now lost on the Cabinet and the backbenchers.
Mr. Speaker, you could even go one step further and allow this committee to use its travel budget to visit various parts of the province. What would this do? Well, it would certainly open dialogue so as to allow nurses, health care workers and their families to have a say, in Baddeck, in Neils Harbour, in Cheticamp, Halifax, and Sydney, and probably in Shelburne, too. Perhaps if this government referred this bill to the Human Resources Committee, it might take some of the pressure off the government and their back benchers. I believe that if I were sitting on the back bench right now, I would certainly welcome the opportunity to have the Human Resources Committee come to my community to hear and to respond to all of the concerns that are out