Tag Archives: bill c-377

Georgetti: The Tories Attack on the Middle Class Should Worry You

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Ken GeorgettiKen Georgetti    President, Canadian Labour Congress

12/04/2013   http://www.huffingtonpost.ca

The Conservative government is engaged in a campaign to distract their supporters from a series of Senate scandals and cover ups. The Conservative fundraising machine believes that if it feeds its base a constant diet of someone to dislike, the donation cheques will keep rolling in. Workers and their unions are their current targets with a long list of legislation designed to keep their base happy.

The Conservative government’s recent volleys against workers and their unions will only serve to undercut the well-being and security of middle-class families in Canada if they succeed in pushing through their anti-union legislation. The Globe and Mail said as much in a recent series of articles on growing inequality in Canada — “declining unionization has contributed to wage inequality.”

Canada’s labour movement is not just about decent jobs, it’s about a better life for everyone. Unions have worked to protect good jobs, make workplaces safer, fought for paid vacation time, public health insurance and the Canada Pension Plan. When union members stand up for fairness everyone benefits — whether you belong to a union or not.

Canadians will see through the government’s attempts to divide people against one another. At one end of the legislative spectrum, the government uses giant omnibus bills to throw everything but the kitchen sink into one piece of legislation. The current budget bill runs to 308 pages and in the fine print it makes sudden and dramatic changes to the Canada Labour Code. One of those changes would place workers’ lives at risk by eroding their right to refuse dangerous work.

Other amendments to federal labour laws would erode workers’ constitutional right to bargain collectively by letting the government unilaterally, without negotiation, change the rules for bargaining with their employees. To add insult to injury, witnesses to the parliamentary committee studying the bill who would speak out against the changes were deliberately scheduled to testify after the deadline for the committee to make amendments passed.

What is the government really trying to fix here? We know that well over 99 per cent of all collectively bargained contracts in Canada result in an agreement rather than a strike or lockout. There was no consultation with any of the parties affected by this proposed legislation, and changing the rules without consultation and negotiation is simply heavy-handed and unfair. Given the Supreme Court of Canada will soon rule on very similar legislation introduced by the Saskatchewan government, the ideological cousins of this government, it’s also premature.

At the other end of the legislative spectrum, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is offending parliamentary tradition by using its influence to introduce Private Member’s Bills and to force their passage. That is what happened with Bill C-377, an unconstitutional piece of legislation that will force labour organizations (but no one else) to undertake costly and time consuming reporting of even the most minute of financial transactions.

Bill C-377 was supposedly the initiative of backbench Conservative MP Russ Hiebert but we know that special interest groups met frequently with the PMO, including the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Nigel Wright, and the PMO exerted pressure in order for the bill to pass.

The senate found Bill C-377 to be so offensive that it was sent back to the House of Commons in June with numerous amendments. But then the Prime Minister shut down Parliament and Bill C-377 is now going to be sent to the senate all over again. Bill C-377 is ideologically-motivated and aimed at wasting union members’ money and it is not needed. Our members already have access to financial information about the unions to which they belong.

Bill C-525, another Private Member’s Bill put forward by a Conservative MP, would make it nearly impossible for workers in the federally-regulated sector to join a union. The bill would consider workers who don’t bother to vote in a certification vote as casting “no” ballots on having a union. That’s not democratic — giving those who don’t vote control over those who do. If those rules applied to electing MPs, Parliament would be empty. One set of rules for Conservatives and a different set for workers — that’s unfair.

Finally, the recent Conservative Party convention in Calgary passed a number of aggressively anti-worker resolutions. One of them would allow some workers to stop paying union dues but still receive all the benefits that the union negotiates – all at the expense of their coworkers who do pay their dues. Leave it to ethically-challenged Conservatives, counselling people that it’s okay to dine and dash at a restaurant while leaving others at your table to pay the bill. That’s unfair and it’s a recipe for conflict and disruption in the workplace.

This government puts its extreme ideology ahead of all other considerations, but Canadians see these bullying tactics for what they are. The CLC and its affiliates ran a television advertising campaign during October and November 2013. We talked directly to Canadians about the positive role that the labour movement plays in our society. The response to our campaign has been overwhelmingly positive from both union members and the public at large. That response and our polling shows that we are on the side of the vast majority of Canadians. They will support a labour movement that works in the interest of fairness for everyone.

Ken Georgetti is president of the 3.3 million member Canadian Labour Congress.

MP welcomes bill’s second chance

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Bill C-377 To Revert To When  It Passed third reading In The House On Dec. 12 – Nullifying  Senators’ Amendments, Deliberations.

By Alex Browne – Peace Arch News    August 21, 2013 3:00 PM

https://i0.wp.com/media.bclocalnews.com/images/29576whiterockHiebert-Russ0411FC.jpg

South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale Conservative MP Russ Hiebert

Russ Hiebert, Conservative MP for South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale, says he’s pleased by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision to prorogue – or suspend – Parliament until October.

For Hiebert, prorogation means the clock will be turned back to last December on his controversial private member’s bill, C-377, which would require labour unions to publish detailed financial information.

Harper has said prorogation is in anticipation of a throne speech putting forward a new agenda for the government at the midpoint of its mandate.

Following heated debate, the Senate sent C-377 back to the Commons in June, with extensive amendments reducing the scope and impact of the bill that Hiebert claimed, at the time, had “gutted” it.

Under prorogation, according to the Library of Parliament, the bill will revert to the way it was when it passed third reading in the House on Dec. 12 – essentially nullifying the Senators’ amendments and the deliberations leading to them.

The unamended bill will subsequently be resubmitted to the Senate, Hiebert noted in a statement issued Tuesday.

“As such, I am hopeful my colleagues in the Senate will give C-377 appropriate and timely consideration,” he said, adding that the restored bill will “once again reflect the wishes of the elected lower house of Parliament.”

Wednesday, Peace Arch News asked Hiebert if that means he expects the bill will receive a smoother ride the second time around.

“I’m always hopeful,” Hiebert said, adding that he’s making no predictions about how quickly the Senate will deal with the bill when it returns to the chamber.

“This does give me an opportunity to communicate with the small number of members of my caucus who had concerns about the bill. I’ll do my best to persuade them that the bill should pass as it stands.”

Hiebert acknowledged going back to square one with the Senate also raises the possibility the bill could face further Senate Banking Committee hearings before being debated by senators.

“That decision would have to rest with them,” he said. “My hope is that, because we have already had three weeks of testimony, that could be taken into consideration. But it’s completely in the hands of the senators.”

A total of 16 Tory senators joined their Liberal counterparts in approving the amendments to Hiebert’s bill in June.

Hiebert has argued that since unions receive tax deductions through union dues, their finances should be made public, and that the transparency he’s asking for is no greater than that currently required for charities.

Opponents, however, claim the legislation – as it stands – will cost unions millions of dollars, adding that the bill also ventures into dangerous  areas of unconstitutionality and invasion of privacy.

Conservative Senator Hugh Segal was among those who spoke out against the bill in June, saying it was poorly drafted and likely to be challenged.

“Whatever may have been its laudable transparency goals, (it is) really – through drafting sins of omission and commission – an expression of statutory contempt for the working men and women in our trade unions and for the trade unions themselves and their right under federal and provincial law to organize,” Segal said.

Conservative Senator Diane Bellemare, a former economics professor at the University of Quebec, was also critical of the legislation.

“Even with the proposed amendments, this bill remains an unbalanced bill that has no similarity to other transparency bills in France, the United Kingdom and Australia,” she said.

Opinion: Canada’s labour model is broken

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By Brian Dijkema, Edmonton Journal July 16, 2013

 

Opinion: Canada’s labour model is broken

The Harper government needs to reshape labour relations to reflect that workers and capital both win when they work together.
Photograph by: Jacques Boissinot , THE CANADIAN PRESS

 

Pop quiz: which Canadian politician was responsible for the first piece of legislation allowing trade unions in Canada? J.S. Woodsworth? Tommy Douglas? Ed Broadbent?

The obvious answer — one might say the conservative Canadian answer — would be one of the above. The correct answer is, in fact, none of the above.

None other than Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, passed the Trade Unions Act in 1872. You read that right: it was a Conservative prime minister who first legally recognized trade unions in Canada.

That this would come as a surprise to many reflects our assumptions about the way conservatives react on the labour file, instead of leading in step with their principles. Recent efforts are a case in point.

For those who haven’t been following, the current government’s efforts in labour relations reform have been limited to nibbling at the edges via private member’s bills. Bill C-377, which sought to force labour unions to disclose to everyone, not just their members, all spending over $5,000, loans over $250, and wages of employees making more than $100,000.

The other attempt at reform was Bill C-525, which would require unions to achieve a threshold of support in workplaces of 50 per cent plus one of all employees (not just those who vote).

In other words, it would require unions to receive a mandate not currently enjoyed by any current governing party in Canada, or any government in Canada ever.

Bill C-525 didn’t make it to second reading, and Bill C-377 was deemed — by the normally compliant Senate, no less — so poorly written that it was infamously sent back to the House of Commons with amendments.

Both of these bills are efforts to solve real problems with Canadian labour unions. Union spending on fringe causes — Israel apartheid week anyone? — is worthy of scrutiny. So are many of the deceptive practices unions use to get members in the door.

But what both bills have in common is that they buy into the very adversarial mentality that many of the socialist labour unions in Canada have against conservatives. In doing so, the federal Conservatives (and conservatives) are letting the left frame the conversation instead of taking a page out of Macdonald’s book and charting their own course.

Canadian labour law has not fundamentally changed since 1944 when Canada adopted the American model based on the Wagner Act of 1935. That model is based on the false premise that workers and owners are adversaries rather than parties with different, yet entwined interests.

There are rumours the government is considering bringing back a version of C-377 this fall. Let us all hope it is not so.

The choice facing the federal government over the summer is whether to continue symbolic tinkering with a broken model that diminishes mutual respect and trust, or to substantially reshape labour relations to account for the fact that workers and capital both win when they work co-operatively.

The latter approach reflects values inherent to Conservative governments: recognition of the entwined nature of labour and capital, respect for the limited role of the state, and the value of private associations.

Framing the debate according to conservative principles of limited government with a view to increasing competition between unions would break up the current anti-conservative labour monolith and, paradoxically, lead to the development of more unions.

In other words, it would be good for workers, and good for the country. It would be a legacy worthy of Sir John A. Macdonald himself.

Brian Dijkema is program director for work and economics at Cardus, a think-tank that researches renewal of North American social architecture.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Senator Segal on Bill 377

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From:   http://cdnlabourlaw.blogspot.ca/   

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

 

Bill- 377 has been a subject of much debate in the Public and among unions.  This is the Federal Government’s effort to have Unions disclose all kinds of financial information to the Canada Revenue Agency.  Information that charities, NGOs and businesses are not required to disclose.  For some interesting discussion see Doorey’s Blog on the Bill.

However, the bill has collected an attack from within the conservative ranks in the Senate. 

Senator Hugh Segal’s made an impassioned speech against the Bill in the Senate a few days ago.  I have cut and pasted the whole thing below because I enjoyed reading it so much.  Its wonderful to see someone break from party discipline and speak out against laws that are unfair and unconstitutional, I hope other conservative Senators heed Senator Segal’s arguments and defeat this bill. 
— the below is quoted directly from the Senate’s web site—

Hon. Hugh Segal: Honourable senators, I rise with the permission of Senator Ringuette, who has adjourned this motion, to speak on Bill C-377. I believe the bill must be amended and critically examined before committee. As I do believe that, I do not oppose second reading, although I cannot vote for the bill in principle and will not. Let me share my best judgment as to why Bill C-377, dealing with broadening trade union disclosure to CRA, is bad legislation, bad public policy and a diminution of both the order and the freedom that should exist in any democratic, pluralist and mixed-market society.

While I do not question the good faith and enduring belief in transparency of those in the other place who proposed and supported the law, and of my esteemed colleague Senator Eaton who sponsored the bill in this place, I want to point out that, while transparency is a compelling public good, applying it in a discriminatory way is harmful and divisive.

As a Tory, I believe that society prospers when different views about the public agenda, on the left and the right, are advanced by different groups, individuals and interests. Debate between opposing groups in this chamber, in the other place and in broader society is the essence of democracy. Limiting that debate as to scope and breadth is never in the long-term interest of a free and orderly society.

Dispatching CRA to police how trade unions spend their money, in denominations of $5,000 or more, is to increase the role of CRA and of the state in ways that create a bigger, nosier and more expensive government. As a taxpayer and as a Conservative, I oppose that kind of increase in any government’s power or expenditures.
At the disclosure level that is now in the bill — $5,000 — a two- year supply of coffee, a used car, a new computer system or printer, or the replacement of plumbing or a boiler at a union headquarters would qualify for explicit disclosure. Is this all that CRA has to do?
Some Hon. Senators: No.
Senator Segal: My colleague from Prince Edward Island, Senator Downe, has spoken eloquently about the need to work harder on tax evasion. Do we want to take people who might be working on tax evasion and have them assess which union local bought a new boiler for its headquarters? That is what this bill would produce.

If this is to apply to trade unions, why would it not apply to rotary clubs, the Fraser Institute, Christian, Muslim and Jewish congregations across Canada, the Council of Chief Executives, local car dealers or the many farming groups, like the cattlemen’s associations or the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, all of whom do great work? How about local constituency associations, food banks, soup kitchens, or anglers and hunters clubs?

All of these groups express views on policy. All have the right, under election law, to volunteer in municipal, provincial or federal elections, and all come to Ottawa to lobby and press government on issues important to them. They do so along with representatives of the defence industry, our First Nations and various cultural groups. Are they all to be swept into the CRA bureaucratic remit? That is what this bill would lead to. If CRA is to become the political judge of what expenses are appropriate, what are the guiding criteria?

The bill is silent on that.

There are, honourable senators, other doubtful provisions that should be of deep concern, such as proposed paragraph 149.01(3) (a), on page 2. It says that information shall be provided in “such form and containing such particulars… as may be prescribed.” It does not say by whom. Would it be the representatives of the Privy Council Office or the Department of Labour? Spare me.

Proposed subparagraph 149.01(3)(b)(ix) lists the need to declare what is spent on labour relations activities, with no concurrent disclosure imposed on the management side. How about a law that forced my political party to disclose its campaign, travel, research and advertising budgets to the Liberal Party of Canada or to the NDP two weeks before the election was called?

Perhaps Coca-Cola should be forced to disclose to Pepsi its marketing plan and expenditures over $5,000.

How about the Montreal Canadiens having to tell the Boston Bruins whether their coach spent more than $5,000 on dinner for their team and where they ate in Boston before the game?

Honourable senators, this bill is about a nanny state; it has an anti-labour bias running rampant; and it diminishes the imperative of free speech, freedom of assembly and free collective bargaining.

I imagine that, were it to pass, subsequent legislation from the other place from private members might be aimed at newspapers; networks, TV and otherwise; student groups; universities; junior baseball leagues; and even, God forbid, community soccer. Where we are headed with this bill is down a dark alley to a very dark place indeed.

If the unions should disclose, so should the auto dealers, the C.D. Howe Institute, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, all the local Legions and all of the various local organizations.

Have we decided that CRA has lots of employees with little to do? When did that meeting happen? Who came to that conclusion? To manage the new nosey mission, CRA would need new employees and up to $2.5 million in operating funds, plus an extra $800,000 a year. That is CRA’s own estimate. The Parliamentary Budget Officer says the number will be much higher.

Let me talk now, in conclusion, about one Conservative who, while not perfect, was generally revered for his role in the building of Canada. His name? Sir John A. Macdonald. We take him seriously in Kingston, Ontario and in other parts of Canada.

In a piece on early labour legislation in Canada, Mark Chartrand, in reference to the introduction and passage of the Trade Unions Act of 1872 under the Liberal-Conservative government of Sir John A. Macdonald, wrote:

Sir John A. Macdonald was solely responsible for the introduction of the Bills. In his preliminary remarks in the House of Commons he said that that they were modelled after British statutes enacted in the previous year [under Gladstone] that had emancipated union members from existing laws that were considered to be “opposed to the spirit of the liberty of the individual” and “too oppressive to be endorsed by free men.” He suggested that it was in Canada’s best interest to enact analogous legislation so that Canadian and British immigrant workers “would have… the same right to combine for the accomplishment of lawful objects, as [workers] had in England.”
During the debate of 12 June, he noted: “[r]ecent events in Toronto —

He was referring to the famous printers’ strike.

— had shown the necessity of adopting some amendment [to existing law] here”, and also expressed his concern that if “workingmen… should learn that the old law remain unchanged, they would not come to settle in Canada”.

 

Honourable senators, the very growth of Canada, the successive waves of immigrants from the British Isles that built Canada in the early days, depended in some measure on protecting legitimate union rights. Honourable senators, they did so then and they do now.
(1510)

Let me quote from Chartrand’s historic work:

… considering the following statement made by Macdonald on 11 July 1872 at a mass meeting sponsored by the Toronto Trades Assembly in his honour “as the friend and saviour of the working man”:

He rose at that meeting and he said:

I ought to have a special interest in this subject… because I am a working man myself. I know that I work more than nine hours every day, and then I think I am a practical mechanic. If you look at the Confederation Act, in the framing of which I had some hand, you will admit that I am a pretty good joiner; and as for cabinet-making, I have had as much experience as Jacques and Hay themselves.

 

The negative effect of this bill, either in deploying CRA on political missions or on limiting freedoms, is debilitating and offensive. The bill before us today, as well as right-to-work legislation that is being proposed in the other place as a private member’s bill, is not who we are as Canadians. It is time this chamber said so.
Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!
Senator Segal: Honourable senators, I know union leaders whom I dislike and do not trust. Some have been mean, narrow, divisive and unconstructive, but I defend their right to advance what they consider to be their members’ interests. I know corporate, political and not-for-profit leaders who suffer from the same faults.

As for soft-sounding, labour-financed coalitions that campaign against Conservatives at various points in provincial elections, we have seen that. It is the election laws that should be changed to limit anybody’s right to do so on the right or the left without spending limits and full, timely disclosure, not the Income Tax Act of Canada. This is a matter of election law, not CRA inquisition.

As I adjourn the debate in Senator Ringuette’s name, I urge honourable senators on all sides to reflect on how this bill might be revamped or, if necessary and if it is not revamped at third reading, actually stopped dead in its tracks.
Senator Tardif: Good idea.
Senator Segal: In the interests of free, collective bargaining; strong, competitive environments; safe workplaces; and the fair treatment of working men and women, socially, economic and politically, this bill should be either readily revamped or set aside. If it has been quoted on other matters in this place that “the best social policy is a job,” then people who seek union support in the workplace — as is their right in a free society — should be protected, and the unions who serve them should not be singled- out unfairly.

Thank you, honourable senators.