Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My thanks to the witnesses for joining us for this important study.
I come from a union background myself. I was a consultant at the Canadian Union of Public Employees before being elected to the House. Before that, I was a journalist at TVA and sat on the executive board of my union, the Telecommunications Workers Union, which operates under federal legislation.
For me, joining a union by signing a card is the easiest and most effective way for workers to become organized. That is confirmed by most academic studies. It is effective because it can be done discreetly. There is no election campaign. The employer does not automatically have the means to threaten or intimidate workers who want to organize themselves in order to improve their working conditions.
When secret ballots were imposed in British Columbia and Ontario, the number of attempts at unionization went down. When there were attempts, the success rate dropped.
Ms. MacPherson, the figures you gave us earlier were eloquent, not to say astonishing. They show that the system of signing a card works relatively well. Sometimes it causes a vote, but not automatically.
There is an old expression that says:
If it's not broken, don't fix it.
My impression is that the current system is working rather well. Am I wrong to say that we do not need to fix a situation where the strengths of the employers and the union are adequately balanced?
