Evidence of meeting #83 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was unions.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
No, I'm absolutely sure, Mr. Cuzner. Thank you.
Go ahead, Mr. Dykstra, please, for your round.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Mazzuca, the fact that you've made a decision to.... I haven't had a chance to read your submission. I thought you indicated that you made some recommendations as to how amendments would be put to the bill to address the privacy concerns. They are concerns I have coming to the table here, and I'm a little concerned that you've actually indicated that the bill should be either defeated or withdrawn. That leaves you not at the table if we're going to move forward with respect to amendments to address the issues, as highlighted both by Mr. Hiebert and obviously by those who are concerned on the privacy side.
I would like to ask you to be clear on this. We are moving through this process, and the potential for amendments to this bill is extremely strong. I would like to think that you'd like to remain at the table rather than remove yourself from it, in terms of saying, “Look, if we're going to go down this road in terms of privacy, here's what you should do.”
4:55 p.m.
Chair, National Pensions and Benefits Law Section, Canadian Bar Association
Our submissions reflect three of our sections: the privacy law section, the pension and benefits law section, and the constitutional law section. The constitutional law section raises serious reservations regarding the bill's constitutionality. Again, that's one of the reasons the CBA has said that the bill should not be passed.
With respect to privacy concerns and pension concerns, we believe there are fundamental issues there. If the bill does proceed, it is the pension law section's view that pensions and employee benefits should be excluded from the bill—not simply that benefit payments not be made public, but that they not be required to be reported and that they not be required to be posted on a website.
I don't think the intent of the bill, at least on its face, was ever meant to capture pension and employee benefits, training funds, and supplementary unemployment benefit plans, the other types of plans that are covered by section 6 of the tax act. We believe that those should be exempted outright from the coverage of the bill.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Well, I appreciate getting those put on the table, because in moving the bill forward and if the bill passes, having your recommendations for amendments is pretty important.
Mr. Blakely, I would say the same. You've indicated that you don't support the bill in its current form. Mr. Hiebert has indicated that he is open to and understands, from a privacy perspective, that specifically four significant amendments are going to have to happen. I'd like to think that you'd like to make your recommendations in terms of those amendments and not just simply withdraw from the discussion.
4:55 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Office, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO
I certainly am open to discussing this.
There's a number of things. Even if you look at the parallel legislation in the United States, for example, pension funds and health and welfare funds and training funds are exempt from the bill in the United States. It's only the union that has to file.
The written submission we've put in suggests that if in fact there is a requirement that everyone who's under line 212 in the Income Tax Act has to make disclosure, then make professional associations do it, and we'll do it. Make employer associations do it, and we'll do it. It just seems to be fair to say that everyone who's in the employment milieu somewhere should report.
4:55 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Office, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO
In the United States, the act is the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, not the union—
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
You're repeating your message, and you're free to do that—
4:55 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Office, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO
Sorry—
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
I understand that, but my point is if we're going to move forward with amendments, I would like to think that you'd like to have an attachment or at least a submission with respect to those amendments, versus just simply comparing other organizations.
4:55 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Office, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO
I have your point. I will do that.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Okay, thank you. I appreciate that.
Mr. Logan, you've identified a couple of times that it was a previous administration in the United States that passed the legislation. You're not from the U.S., but you're working there. You'd obviously understand that there were two other levels of government, namely the House and the Senate, that would need to have passed those measures as well. As I understand it, this bill was actually passed while the Democrats held the House and the Senate.
I would think that it was the entire government that passed it, not just the presidential administration.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Mr. Logan, do you want to comment very briefly on that, please?
5 p.m.
Professor, Labour and Employment Relations, San Francisco State University
I will comment very briefly.
You are absolutely right. It was passed at a time when union corruption and union racketeering were of much greater concern in the U.S. than they are today, but even at that time, one of the chief architects of the law, a professor of law at Harvard University, Archibald Cox, actually warned against “excessively elaborate reports which place an undue burden upon the ordinary men and women who serve as officers of many local unions”.
One aim of the legislation is to give publicity to financial malpractice. There can be no better place to hide than under a mountain of thousands of lengthy reports filed in the cellars of the Department of Labor. The intention of this—
5 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
You also indicated that no one has been caught since the legislation was put in place—
5 p.m.
Professor, Labour and Employment Relations, San Francisco State University
—was never to impose this degree of reporting and burdensome administrative practices simply as—
5 p.m.
Professor, Labour and Employment Relations, San Francisco State University
—a way of hobbling unions' effectiveness.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
I would ask members, if they have a question, to leave enough time for their witness to answer.
Mr. Mai, please.
5 p.m.
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, witnesses, for being here.
You've raised a lot of the legal issues, and they are of concern.
Mr. Mazzuca, as you have mentioned, there are a lot of unintended consequences in this bill. You also mentioned that even with the amendments, the bill should not be passed into law. You've raised privacy issues, but you also raised the constitutional issue with problems regarding the charter challenge. If we were to have a charter challenge, would it have to have the reason for this bill to exist?
In your brief you say that “it is unclear what issue or perceived problem this bill is intended to address.” Can you expand more on that?
5 p.m.
Chair, National Pensions and Benefits Law Section, Canadian Bar Association
From the CBA's perspective, the bill is obviously an amendment to the Income Tax Act. It would have to be supported on that basis. It wasn't clear to us on the face of this bill what income tax-related purpose the bill was attempting to achieve. It seems to have potentially maybe other reasons, but the taxing issue wasn't apparent to us on the face of the bill.
5 p.m.
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
if we look at the privacy issues in terms of how it happens in real life, I think this bill would actually result in public disclosure of the names and addresses of hundreds of active duty police officers. Is there anything in the bill to protect these people in terms of...?
5 p.m.
Chair, National Pensions and Benefits Law Section, Canadian Bar Association
Right now the bill, in its current form, would require those to be published and made public on a website. Clearly that's, from our perspective, a concern. It's not clear to me what the proposed amendments are, but if the amendment is simply that the name and the salary still be disclosed, that could still raise public privacy concerns because, depending on the size of the organization, it's easy to figure out who you're actually talking about at that point.