Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House today to debate on Bill C-4.
A lot of the things that have been discussed and debated today are of great concern to me, and I think many Canadians. We talked about things like a secret ballot being unnecessary red tape and going against the foundation of our democracy. I find it unbelievable that many of our Liberal and NDP colleagues have made such comments today. It is the secret ballot, the way we elect almost every political official in our country, federal, provincial, and municipal, and they find it to be unnecessary red tape.
I would like to ask them how they think they came into this House today. Would they prefer that there not be a secret ballot, or no ballot whatsoever? I question their frame of mind when they are talking about a secret ballot being undemocratic.
It is also quite ironic that the first piece of legislation from the new government, a government that campaigned quite passionately about openness, transparency and accountability, is a bill that will absolutely gut transparency and accountability in legislation that we put forward for unions. I find that to be incredibly ironic, and I would say another broken promise by the new Liberal government.
Equally as frustrating for me as a member of Parliament from Alberta is that I have to question the motives of the government and why they would be bringing this piece of legislation forward right now. I am getting calls every day, from welders, waitresses, pipefitters, rig hands. They ask me when the government will come up with some kind of strategy that will help them get back to work. When will the government announce some sort of plan that will help their families as they try to make ends meet? They could potentially lose their jobs, or they have already lost their jobs. Where is the priority of the government when thousands of Albertans have been laid off?
The labour study was released today, and 22,000 full-time jobs were lost in Alberta in January alone. Alberta's unemployment rate went to 7.4%, which is the first time since 1988 that it has been higher than the Canadian average. We have heard predictions that Alberta's unemployment rate will exceed 8% by the end of 2016, the highest it has been since the Liberal Party put through the national energy program.
With thousands of workers, not only from Alberta, but Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, losing their jobs due to the downturn in the energy sector, the priority of the government is to reward the union bosses who helped get it elected instead of talking to Canadian families who have lost their jobs. I have to tell these families that in my discussions and debates in the House of Commons that Alberta is obviously not a priority. Canada's economy is certainly not a priority. The families who have lost their jobs are not a priority. However, what is a priority is rewarding those big union bosses who helped get the Liberals elected. I find that to be extremely frustrating.
The Liberal plan to repeal this legislation, a piece of legislation that was intended to ensure transparency and accountability for union leaders, I find very irresponsible. Despite what the minister would have us believe, repealing this piece of legislation and bringing forward Bill C-4 is an attack on Canadian workers.
The Minister of Employment said she believes that repealing Bill C-377 and Bill C-525 will restore balance to unions. The only balance that Bill C-4 will bring is tipping the balance away from union workers back to the union leadership.
I would like to point out that the overwhelming majority of union members are in favour of this type of legislation, the type of legislation that we put forward in Bill C-377 and Bill C-525. In a Leger poll, 86% of union members supported this kind of legislation. In a similar poll, 84% of all Canadians supported this type of legislation that brings accountability and transparency to unions. They want to be able to vote via a secret ballot on union leadership or union business, and they want to know how their union dues are being spent. I do not think that is too much to ask.
Canadians support transparency and accountability. Union members support transparency and accountability, and yet the Liberal government does not. This is a disturbing trend. It seems to be a sort of theme for the new Liberal government.
One of the first things the Minister of Indigenous Affairs did when she got her cabinet post was announce that she will ignore the First Nations Financial Transparency Act, where residents in first nations communities have the opportunity to see the finances of their leadership made public.
The first piece of legislation by the new employment minister is a bill that would gut transparency and accountability by unions. Do members see a recurring theme here? I do.
I heard today from a Liberal member, in her speech, that a secret ballot is in some way additional red tape that goes against the very foundation of our democracy. I just cannot believe that asking union members to vote in a secret ballot somehow puts them out, that we are asking them to do too much. Those members really need to rethink the stance they are taking. Without any credible rationale, or really any legitimate discussion with union members, the Liberal government is gutting two significant pieces of legislation that were a victory for union members.
The motive for Bill C-4 is really quite simple. This is an opportunity to repay union leadership that helped get the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, an NDP MLA in Manitoba, elected.
Last week, we heard that the Liberal Party was found guilty of accepting illegal union donations during a campaign event. The Prime Minister's own campaign team specifically asked the union to have members be props at a campaign event. His campaign team knew that they would be paid $100 each.
That was not the only campaign event he had. He had another campaign event with the Carpenters' District Council in Vaughan and another with the International Union of Operating Engineers in Oakville. This has been a cozy relationship with the unions, and I would be curious to know if there were illegal donations made at those two campaign events as well.
Since the election, the Prime Minister has met with the Teamsters three times, the engineers' union three times, and even the American Federation of Labour, the largest union in the United States. He has made meeting with the unions a top priority. He has met with close to a dozen of them. Yet during that time, we have lost thousands of jobs in the energy sector, with more to come. How many times has he met with people in the oil and gas sector? How many times has he met with stakeholders in the oil and gas industry? He has met with them once, and it was yesterday in Calgary. It shows us where the priorities of the Liberal government seem to lie right now.
The Liberal Party campaigned on accountability and transparency. It is obvious that it has no intentions of keeping that campaign promise. Canadians deserve better.
At the federal level, the previous Conservative government introduced extensive reforms to ensure that Canadians have trust in their political institutions. The first piece of legislation we brought in as a Conservative government was the Federal Accountability Act, something that we are very proud of on this side of the House. It brought accountability and transparency to Canadians. It did not gut it.
The Federal Accountability Act reformed the financing of political parties. It reduced opportunities to influence politicians with contributions by banning contributions from unions and corporations, and it levelled the playing field among individual contributors.
We also introduced Bill C-377 and Bill C-525, which made unions more transparent and accountable to both unions and Canadians. The specific intent of these bills was to preserve the democratic rights of Canadian workers and increase public confidence that unions spend their money wisely and effectively. With the passage of this legislation, the public was empowered to gauge the effectiveness, financial integrity, and health of their labour unions.
Some opponents today described Bill C-377 as anti-union. They said that union money should not be scrutinized by Canadians, let alone by their own union members. This is simply not true. These unions are subsidized by the Canadian taxpayer, and they are subsidized by a very significant amount. The federal government offers generous tax benefits to workers' organizations and a tax exemption on profits earned on investments, income from employers, and the profits generated by training centres. Despite receiving these substantial tax benefits, these organizations in the past were not required to disclose publicly how they used these tax advantages.
To put this in the same context, for the federal government, including me, and I am sure all of my colleagues in this room, every dime we spend is open to the public. It is on my website. People can check it out right now. Provinces, municipalities, and charities are asked to make these types of financial records public. The only ones who are not are unions.
It is frustrating that unions that should be accountable to their members and that receive generous tax breaks with taxpayer dollars do not feel that they should have the same obligation to disclose their finances to the public.
In most cases the money is deducted from the payroll whether the employee wishes to be part of that union or not. The money is then subject to tax exemptions that keep $500 million out of the Canadian treasury each year.
I think, and it is obvious from the polls we have done, that most Canadians believe these dollars and what is being done with them should be made public. Bill C-377 is about that disclosure, and it was a positive step forward for unions and Canadian workers. It ensured that union members and Canadians could have access to the knowledge on how union money was being spent, how their membership dues were being spent, as well as the investment in taxes and dollars that resulted from these dues.
Bill C-377 simply imposed transparency and accountability on unions, nothing more. It required labour organizations to file public information a return with the Canadian Revenue Agency on an annual basis. We heard that today. They said that they were doing that in seven provinces. All of a sudden they are saying that now that we are asking them to do it across the country, it is some sort of unbearable burden. If they are already doing it in many cases, it is not that hard to make a second copy and give it to the CRA.
The disclosure requirements would include financial statements, including the amount paid for political and lobbying activities, and the salaries paid to executives and staff. Nothing more.
In addition, the bill requires the CRA to display this information on a website for the public to see. Far from targeting unions, Bill C-377 does nothing more than impose the same obligations that registered charities across Canada now face. I am a Rotarian and I have been one for many years. We do our financial audits. We do our year-end audits and ensure it is available for the public to see. We certainly do not consider that to be some incredible burden.
If charities across Canada can somehow manage to do this, unions that receive a half a billion dollars a year through taxpayer subsidies can manage to do this as well. Their members want them to do these things.
If the Minister of Employment believes that transparency and accountability is so devastating to Canadian unions, why do so many other countries have similar legislation, and their unions have thrived? The United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, even France, socialist France, asked their unions to have similar legislation and to put their financial documents forward to the public. Even some Canadian labour organizations already do this. If their head office is in the United States, they have to make their financials public as well.
Some people have said that this creates an unfair burden on unions. This type of legislation has been in the United States for decades and has not impacted their collective bargaining in any way. The fact is that this bill does not regulate the activities of trade unions, how they participate in collective bargaining or in any way how they spend their funds.
The bill does not violate their Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It has stood up to constitutional challenge. For example, former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Michel Bastarache released his opinion on Bill C-377, and said that it was constitutional and would be upheld in the court he sat on. This shows, a former Supreme Court justice has said that these pieces of legislation that we put forward are not unconstitutional.
The bills simply provide greater transparency and accountability, ironically, two things the Liberal government campaigned on but do not seem too eager to follow up on.
As I touched on earlier, a survey conducted by the Leger firm in 2013 showed that of the 1,400 Canadians it polled, 83% said they wanted to see this type of legislation to be adopted by unions, and 84% of current union members also agreed. A Nanos poll done in 2011 showed similar results. Therefore, this has not changed. For some reason, the Liberal Party wants us to think that between 2013 and 2016 there has been an incredible earthquake of change in position of union members.
When the Minister of Employment brought forward C-4, did she actually consult with union members before she brought this forward? If 84% of union members in 2013 supported the type of legislation that we put forward with Bill C-377 and Bill C-525, what has changed in three years? What has changed in three years that now the Liberal government believes the union membership has been crying for it to repeal this type of legislation.
I am certain there has been an outcry, but my bet is it is from the union leadership, not the union members who the Liberals failed to consult before bringing this forward.
Earlier this week I asked the Minister of Employment if she had actually consulted with union members before bringing this type of legislation forward. Her answer was a no answer. She could not answer. I think the fact is that the Liberals did not. What she said was that she had spoken to 22,000 residents in her constituency during the election campaign.
I would like to ask her this. Did she say to them that her bill would be in favour of less democracy? Did she ask them if they were okay with the government's stomping on the very foundation of our democracy and getting rid of secret ballots? Does she think her Manitoba riding spoke for the rest of Canada? I would be interested in seeing what her answer is on something like that.
It is in the public interest that the financial information of workers' organizations be disclosed because of the tax breaks they receive. It is a benefit of the union workers because they exercise their democratic right through a secret ballot. It is also the benefit of a government to consult with Canadians, as we did when we drafted this type of legislation. For example, Dan Kelly, president and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said he supported Bill C-377. He said that almost all unionized workplaces are forced to pay union dues. Therefore, unions should be required to publicly disclose how they use those funds. He also stated that public financial disclosure for unions would enhance transparency and accountability with regard to trade union activities. He was not the only one. We had lawyers, union members, and professors all come and speak to the committee and Senate committee in support of this legislation.
Canadian labour laws are in place to protect the rights of workers, to ensure that they have a fair and productive workplace and can work in an environment where they feel they can speak with their conscience. This is about balance and it creates a fair environment in which workers are the ones making the choice so they feel it is better suited to their needs. It is a Liberal government that is attempting to repeal legislation that created accountability, transparency, and fairness for workers. The Liberals plan to go back to a system that was broken and balanced unfairly. This is not what Canadians want.
The Liberal Minister of Employment said that the government was repealing Bill C-377 and Bill C-525 in favour of creating a balanced network. This is exactly what our previous legislation did. The main principle of that legislation was that all federally regulated workers should have the democratic right to a free and fair secret ballot, especially when they are voting to certify or decertify their union. The legislation recognized the right to peaceful association is one that extends to all workers in Canada, should they wish to have a union represent them or not. The choice is theirs to make, and it should be theirs to make by way of a secret ballot. The choice should not belong to their union leadership. The system was open to abuse, where co-workers could be coerced or intimidated into voting for a union. It is not unreasonable, nor should it be unreasonable, to ask to have a secret ballot. It is consistent with every democratic system we have in this country. It is a basic right afforded to all voters, and should be reasonably extended to workers who are voicing their opinion on whether they want to be in a union. The only way to achieve this is through a secret ballot.
It seems that the Liberals' goal and mandate here is to change every voting system that we have across this country. It is absolutely clear that the Liberal government has no respect for Canadians' right to vote. They want to get rid of the secret ballot here in the House. They want unions to go back to the card check system. They also do not believe that Canadians have the right to vote in a referendum when we are talking about possibly changing the very system of how we select our government. Piece by piece, the current Liberal government is intent on dismantling our democracy.
During the spring of last year, I had an opportunity to meet with representatives of a union at a gas plant in southern Alberta. It had about 80 members. I wanted to ask them how they felt about the legislation we had put forward. They were honest. They said they were being pressured by their union leadership in eastern Canada to vote against the Conservatives because of Bill C-377 and Bill C-525. I asked them whom they supported and how they were going to vote. They said they were voting Conservative and supported the bills and information contained therein, that they wanted to see the financial records of their union leadership and to have the freedom of conscience to be able to vote in a secret ballot.
Right now, as we put forward Bill C-4, I want the Minister of Employment to come forward and be honest with Canadians. The reason she is putting forward Bill C-4 is that it is a way to repay the union leadership who helped get her elected. It is not a bill that is in the best interests of Canadians.
