Fruitless Filibusting and Pointless Posturing, the NDP in action

Who needs a viable postal system in this day and age? Canadians, that’s who! Canada Post has been essentially a non-entity for the entire month. The government has stated they will legislate the staff back to work prior to breaking for the summer, however, the NDP opposition decided to filibuster this attempt. Why? Possibly because they feel that by refusing to negotiate, the workers and the corporation were closer to reaching a compromise. Or maybe they feel that Canadians do not need a postal system? Or, is it just an ego boost for a leader suffering from “short man syndrome” perhaps?

NDP leader Jack Layton has done something no other leader of his party has done federally in its history. He is the leader of the opposition, and his party holds the second most seats in Ottawa. He has promised those who voted for him that, even though he is up against a majority government, he will fight tooth and nail for them in the house. That is great, and is exactly what he should do. However, he needs to learn to pick his battles. Democratically elected governments are supposed to govern for the people, rather than govern the people for themselves. That is the principle, at least. So when the people of Canada say they want the government to do something, the government should do it. Not get bogged down in rhetoric to send a message that, even though they did not get enough votes to run the country, the official opposition can still prevent our parliament from functioning.

In many rural parts of Canada, the postal system is the only option citizens have for a large number of day to day tasks that, to someone in a metropolitan centre like Toronto or Vancouver seem trivial. In areas where there is no high-speed internet, people still rely on Canada Post quite heavily, for things like banking, paying bills, and indeed keeping in contact with people outside of their community. A novel idea, using the postal service to communicate, but yes, people still send letters. Of course, one might argue, there are other, privately owned and operated alternative organizations available. FedEx, or <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />UPS, or Puralator, for example. Again, however, we come across large numbers of rural communities with little or now access to such corporations. Moreover, even within the larger communities and cities, the cost alone gives many pause when needing to ship with a courier.

The Canada Post Corporation and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers were no longer at the table, neiher side willing to negotiate any further. Talks had completely broken down. Neither side was willing to budge, or make a viable compromise on key issues. Both apparantly blind to the fact that, by not serving Canadians, they were hurting themselves. At a time when most government organizations are being told to decimate their staff, litterally, by decreasing staffing costs by ten percent, how could the CUPW think that they would be able to demand a raise of over three percent this year, and just under for the two years following, and have it go through? How could the Corporation see denying proper ergonomic equipment, which is seen as a standard cost of doing business in both public and private sector organizations today as being acceptable to their employees?

 

The government needed to step in, because as has been the case with most unions since the fall of the Canadian Merchant Seamen in the middle of the last century, the CUPW was making unreasonable demands not to actually benefit the majority of workers, but to benefit the Union itself. The Crown Corporation, knowing that unions in Canada are no longer what they once were, decided to play hardball, in hopes of starving the employees into submission. The result was that Canadians, the service of whom is the sole purpose of Canada Post, and theirfore the sole reason for the workers to have an already comfortable job, in the eyes of many Canadians. This is not to say that we do not acknowledge that it is not always an easy job; but there are better benefits, a good pension, and more job security than many of us have the luxury of enjoying.

 

Why, then, did Mr Layton feel that it was necessary to prevent the government from stepping in to force a resumption of a service that, to many Canadians, is essential? The NDP claims to be the champion of the poor and down-trodden. Those would seem to be the very same people who are suffering the most from a lock-out of postal workers. It is the low income seniors, waiting desparately for their Garaunteed Income Suppliment cheques, or the unemployed workers, waiting for their Employment Insurance, which already takes far longer to receive than many feel it should, who are left without money for food or rent. The people who cannot afford to survive without government support, beholden to Canada Post to deliver their cheques, barely scraping by are the people Mr Layton relies upon for support, the very people who elected him. So why, now, would he decide to ignore them in their time of need, for the sake of a Corporation that has no interest in supporting its employees, or a union whose members are already making, by Canadian standards, a pretty decent wage?

 

It is clear that the filibustering was not for the sake of the people of Canada. It is also equally clear that, considering the breakdown of negotiations, neither the Union nor the Corporation had any intention of resolving the issue in a timely or adult manner. So who gains from it? That is the only question easilly answered; Jack Layton and his party. They were able through this arbitrary and fruitless show of force, to get media coverage. Moreover, while they accomplished nothing but wasting time and tax dollars, they will still have the opportunity in four years time, to try and spin this, when those destitute Canadians who suffered at the hands of this pointless and churlish debate between a fat and complacent Union, and a self-righteous crown corporation that is putting its bottom line above both its workers and its consumer-base. If we are to believe that the NDP is standing up for Canadians, why did they chose to take a stand against a bill that the majority of Canadians either support, or were ambivilant towards, rather than a budget which further cut staffing levels at government departments which Canadians relly upon, or wait until an actual issue, which Canadians want opposed, comes up? Learn to chose your battles, Mr Layton, and go back to standing up for the people who elected you, not pandering to personal interest groups like plump and pious Union Reps or fat corporate heads who are looking out for their own bottom line, and not really losing out on anything by not having to do their jobs. If the NDP are socialists, as they claim, support Unions in ACTUAL issues; when neither the Union nor the Employer are willing to co-operate, and Canadians are suffering as a result, it is the government’s DUTY to deal with the issue, not spend more than two days blustering for the chance to get on TV again.