Bill C-4 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code, the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Income Tax Act

This enactment amends the Canada Labour Code, the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act and the Public Service Labour Relations Act to restore the procedures for the certification and the revocation of certification of bargaining agents that existed before June 16, 2015.
It also amends the Income Tax Act to remove from that Act the requirement that labour organizations and labour trusts provide annually to the Minister of National Revenue certain information returns containing specific information that would be made available to the public.

Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, in relation to Bill C-4, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code, the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Income Tax Act.

The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House without amendments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome, everybody. We're going to get started.

Before we get things going officially, I would like to officially welcome back Julie, our clerk, from a bit of a hiatus. Welcome back. We missed you.

I'd just like to read a quick statement. It will frame what we're doing today.

It is with regard to clause-by-clause consideration of a bill in committee. There are many new folks in the room, myself included, so bear with me. I'd like to provide members of the committee with a few comments on how committees proceed with the clause-by-clause consideration of a bill.

As the name indicates, this is an examination of all the clauses in the order in which they appear in the bill. I will call each clause successively, and each clause is subject to debate and vote. If there are amendments to the clause in question, I will recognize the member proposing it, who may explain it. The amendment will then be open for debate.

When no further members wish to intervene, the amendment will be voted on. Amendments will be considered in the order in which they appear in the package each member received from the clerk. If there are amendments that are consequential to each other, they will be voted on together.

In addition to having to be properly drafted in a legal sense, amendments must also be procedurally admissible. The chair may be called upon to rule amendments inadmissible if they go against the principle of the bill or are beyond the scope of the bill, both of which were adopted by the House when it agreed to the bill at second reading, or if they offend the financial prerogative of the crown. If you wish to eliminate a clause of the bill altogether, the proper course of action is to vote against the clause when the time comes, not to propose an amendment to delete it.

Since this is a first exercise for many new members, I will go slowly to allow all members to follow the proceedings properly. If, during the process, the committee decides not to vote on a clause, that clause can be put aside by the committee so that we can revisit it later in the process.

As indicated earlier, the committee will go through the package of amendments in the order in which they appear and vote on them one at a time unless some are consequential and dealt with together.

Amendments have been given a number in the top right corner to indicate which party submitted them. There is no need for a seconder to move an amendment.

Once an amendment has been moved, you will need unanimous consent to withdraw it.

During debate on an amendment, members are permitted to move subamendments. These subamendments do not require the approval of the mover of the amendment.

Only one subamendment may be considered at a time, and that subamendment cannot be amended. When a subamendment to an amendment is moved, the subamendment is voted on first. Then another subamendment may be moved or the committee may consider the main amendment and vote on it.

Once every clause has been voted on, the committee will vote on the title and the bill itself, and an order to reprint the bill will be required so that the House has the proper copy for use at report stage. Finally, the committee will have to order the chair to report the bill to the House. That report contains only the text of any adopted amendments, as well as an indication of any deleted clauses.

I thank the members for their attention and wish everyone a productive clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-4.

To add to this, we did not have any amendments submitted prior to last Friday.

Mr. Zimmer.

Motions in Amendment

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, once again it is a pleasure to stand in this place and continue our dialogue and debate on Bill C-7. If members in this place were here when I made my initial comments and observations on Bill C-7, they will know about my history, both with the RCMP and the labour movement in Canada. To risk repeating myself, I will remind members exactly how the RCMP has touched me and my family over the years, and how the union movement in Canada has been involved a great deal in my life and my upbringing.

As I mentioned in my first intervention a few weeks ago, my mother's first husband was an officer in the RCMP who was killed on active duty at Depot, many years ago. Although I never met my mother's first husband, I learned of him very early in my childhood. My mother would tell me stories about who my father could have been. She told me stories about her husband and how much they loved each other and how much he loved his job with the RCMP. She told me about the unfortunate tragedy that took place when he was killed that one fateful day at Depot.

Since that time, I have always had a deep and very resolute appreciation of the dangers that every member of the RCMP faces each and every day of his or her life. Also, since that early childhood of mine, I have grown to know a great many RCMP members, many of whom are very close friends of mine, some who are current, some retired, and unfortunately a number who have passed on to a better life. However, universally all of those members shared common values: respect for the tradition of the force, and also a respect for democracy and democratic rights in Canada.

That is why, with all of the RCMP members whom I have spoken with since Bill C-7 was first introduced, to a person, they have all stated the same thing. They believe their right to certify if they wish should be conducted using a secret ballot. In fact, it is more a result of their being incredulous to the fact that Bill C-7 would not allow them that right.

My colleague from Durham who spoke just before me mentioned that many members of the RCMP perhaps were not aware of all the provisions in Bill C-4 and Bill C-7. They were not aware of the fact that they would not be able to cast a ballot in private. However, they are starting to become aware of that right now. Why the current government is hell-bent on its desire to prevent a secret ballot environment for our national police force almost defies credulity.

I can only think of one reason why that would be, and that is the fact that in the last election campaign, the Liberal Party campaigned aggressively to try to gather and garner the union vote. I can assure members that rank-and-file members of unions believe in secret balloting, union bosses not so much. The reason for that is that if they do not have a secret ballot when determining whether, for example, to strike, rank-and-file union members can be intimidated.

I know this first hand. I referenced the fact that I grew up in a union household. I did. My father was the head of the United Steelworkers of America, very active obviously in the union movement. In fact, he mentored Ken Neumann, who is now the national head of the United Steelworkers for Canada. At a very early age, I recall my father taking me to union meetings. I jokingly put to members that perhaps he was doing it for one of two reasons. One, he was honouring a commitment of babysitting that he made to my mother, or two, he hoped that his young son would grow up to be a union representative like him. If it was number one, he succeeded admirably. If it was number two, he failed miserably.

While I am certainly not a member of any union and I am certainly not enthralled with the union movement as a whole, I can say that I respect the right of any organization in Canada to unionize. I respect the role that unions have in Canada. I understand the role that unions play in Canada. However, there are many faults in the bill as it appears before us today. The biggest single fault is the inability of the legislation to allow for a secret ballot on determining whether or not to certify.

At the union meetings I attended as a youngster, I saw first hand how intimidation can work. Again, I use the example of a strike vote, where all union members would gather in a union hall, hear speeches primarily from their brothers and sisters in leadership positions within the union, and then would be asked to vote by a show of hands. I can assure the House that if there were any members in that union hall that did not want to strike for whatever reason, many times they would be afraid to express their true will by a show of hands. Why? Because some of their brothers and sisters would gather around them and let it be known in no uncertain terms the way in which they were to vote because the union leadership wanted a strike.

I think that is absolutely unconscionable. It was unconscionable then and it should be unconscionable now. Intimidation factors should not be allowed in any workforce or any workplace. By the same token, I will freely admit that there have been times in the past in certain non-unionized organizations where management would use intimidation factors. That also is unconscionable. That also should not be allowed but there is a simple way to fix this, to remedy this, and that is to allow secret ballots.

If an organization chose to unionize, so be it. It is the will of its members. However, if they chose not to unionize, those who voted against that very concept of unionization should not be then consequently intimidated and threatened because they voted against the wishes of their union leaders.

Across Canada, most provincial legislation allows for secret ballots in the workforce. In fact, they expressly prohibit non-compliance with that legislation. They make it a point to ensure that democracy is served. The ability for Canadians in any walk of life to express their will in a secret ballot environment is a basic tenet of democracy. Why the government fails to allow this in Bill C-7 and Bill C-4 is almost beyond belief. I can only go back to what I said just a few moments ago. I think this is payback to the union leaders who they courted during the election campaign of 2015 and that is shameful, absolutely shameful.

I have spoken with so many RCMP officers since Bill C-7 was first introduced because Depot used to be in my riding before the boundaries changed in the last election. Consequently, I am a frequent visitor at Depot and because of my history with the force, many members there know me and know me well. To a person, every single one of them was aghast at the fact that they would not have the right, if they decided to vote for or against union, to do so in private.

Bill C-7 is flawed. We know it is flawed and I believe the government knows it is flawed. That is what makes this doubly shameful. On the opposition side we will not be supporting Bill C-7. I cannot support Bill C-7 and I think it is a shame because other than that, the bill does contain provisions that are very helpful to the RCMP. However, that one provision disallowing secret ballots is something that is a deal breaker for me and I will certainly not be supporting the legislation.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from South Surrey—White Rock for bringing her experience to this House.

The best part of this new Parliament, from the viewpoint of the opposition, is not the fact that we are in opposition—that is certainly not a bright point at all—but the fact that one-third of our caucus is now made up of new members of Parliament.

The hon. member who just spoke brings to this House her experience as a municipal leader, particularly in Surrey, as she mentioned, which has the largest RCMP detachment in the country. In recent years, that has probably been the most tasked detachment in the country, working with challenges in violence and organized crime that the area has seen. Her leadership as mayor was recognized long before she joined this Parliament.

That is when the House of Commons is at its best. It is when we have members of this place rising in the House to talk on legislation, not just based on what is contained in it, but how it impacts the lives of those impacted by the bill, how the work done by the men and women of the RCMP in Surrey, indeed across the country, is fundamental to the safety and security of the people of Canada and the people of Surrey. They reached out to her council while she led council there, with concerns about crime and these sorts of things.

As a mayor, she also brought to the debate the impact of uniformed service on men and women in the RCMP, the rise of operational stress injuries, the risk of violence, the impact on family of stress, moves, and these sorts of things. I appreciate her addition to the debate here today, and her discussions with me and other members of our caucus on Bill C-7.

It is her input, and the input of members of the RCMP across the country, that is leading the official opposition to oppose Bill C-7. As members may recall at the introduction of this bill, I said we would try to work with the government on it.

Bill C-7 is in this place as a result of the Mounted Police Association of Ontario v. Canada. This was a Supreme Court decision that stated that the staff relations program at the RCMP was not sufficient to meet the rights of association guaranteed to all Canadians under the charter.

That program was an internal HR function that tried to work between management and the men and women on the front lines of the RCMP. The Supreme Court decision stated that the exclusion of the RCMP from the Public Sector Labour Relations Act and its inability to associate violated the charter. Therefore, Bill C-7 is here before us.

In my speech, I said we would work with the government as a result of the timeline that the Supreme Court of Canada gave Parliament to provide a framework so the men and women of the RCMP could get union representation in a way that suits the needs of the unique role that the RCMP plays.

I remind members of this House, I remind the government, that it was given a lot of flexibility by the court. The key element, though, was that it had to be free from management. This type of collective structure needed that degree of independence from management. The rights and the freedoms of members needed to be reflected in that association, so their charter rights needed to be secured.

We did not see that in Bill C-7, from introduction through to committee. That is why our willingness to work with the government only had the legs to get us to committee. As my friend before me said, we were very concerned with clauses 40 and 42 in Bill C-7, which could have resulted in a patchwork of entitlements by RCMP members for health and occupational safety provisions across the country.

In fact, clauses 40 and 42 have nothing to do with the standing up of a collective bargaining agent for the RCMP. It was essentially the outsourcing by the federal government of workers compensation programs to provincial regimes. As each province is different, it would have taken a single unified national police force and created a patchwork of benefits for their members, depending on where Canada asked them to serve.

We had problems with that because the men and women in RCMP uniform go where their nation needs them, whether that be to Surrey or Shelburne, Nova Scotia, similar to when I was in the Canadian Armed Forces. They should not have to worry about a patchwork of benefits and occupational rights depending on which posting they are in.

Therefore, I am happy to say that the government did listen to the concerns that the official opposition expressed with respect to clauses 40 and 42. Ultimately, I am sure that some of its own members heard from members of the RCMP, and the government agreed to strike those provisions at committee. I applaud the government for listening.

I also will remind members that I had profound concerns that some members of the RCMP felt they were being told they could not speak to their member of Parliament and express concerns they have as Canadians with respect to a bill that would impact them and their family, which is Bill C-7. Once again, the government disappointed the opposition, and as the critic, I rose in the chamber to seek unanimous consent of the House and to show that, in the matter before us that would impact thousands of Canadians across the country, none of them should be intimidated or prevented from giving their opinion to their member of Parliament. Because there was that concern within the RCMP, I stood in this House and asked for unanimous consent to say that, as parliamentarians, we should hear from all members who are impacted by the legislation that we are debating and voting on.

Sadly, members of the government denied unanimous consent for such a basic fundamental democratic right. I was not asking for the ability of uniformed RCMP members to throw up bonfires and protests; we were asking for the simple democratic right for members of the RCMP, or their partners or spouses, to be able to come to their MP and express their concerns with respect to legislation. I was profoundly disappointed when the government denied that unanimous consent that would have encouraged MPs to hear from people in uniform on what is probably the most profound bill in generations to impact the RCMP.

While we are on the topic of democratic rights, the other thing I clearly said in my initial speech on Bill C-7 was that we expect Bill C-7 and ultimately the collective bargaining unit for the RCMP to be the subject of a vote by members. We said that in the House and at committee, and the government is not providing that. If we combine Bill C-7 and Bill C-4, it would take away that right from the members of the RCMP in one bill and be silent on it in Bill C-7. The government knows full well that it will pass Bill C-4, which will deprive RCMP members of a secret ballot vote, while concurrently passing Bill C-7. That is shameful. That is why we are opposing Bill C-7.

Why is it shameful? We are debating Bill C-7 as the result of a Supreme Court of Canada decision that asked Parliament to fill the void that the Supreme Court indicated was there with respect to the exclusion of the RCMP from the Public Service Labour Relations Act. Therefore, we are here debating Bill C-7 because of a court decision. However, no members of the RCMP have really been asked about this fundamental question. Why would the government fear giving a secret ballot vote to all RCMP members from Surrey to Shelburne on a collective bargaining agent that is in their own interest?

What is ironic is that every member of the 338 members in this chamber were elected to this place by a secret ballot vote. However, they do not feel it is the same to give the basic fundamental democratic right to vote on their representation collectively to people whom we give the important task of keeping Canadians safe in rural parts of Canada, where the RCMP is the only face of the government and of law and order in this country, those members whom we ask to keep us safe. It is a sad irony that the new government that runs on and talks about sunny ways is clouding those sunny ways by running Bill C-4 and Bill C-7 through the House at the same time.

While I am glad the Liberals listened to us and struck clauses 40 and 42 from the bill, the fact that they are not listening to the existing concerns my colleague from Surrey mentioned and not giving the men and women the right to vote means that Canada's official opposition, the Conservative Party, cannot support Bill C-7.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important not to let the debate on an amendment that has to do with harassment and whether or not RCMP members would be allowed to bring issues of harassment to the bargaining table to get derailed by questions of process on certification. There will be time for that in the debate. There has already been a lot of discussion around that. There will be more opportunity for discussion on that at third reading. I would say, because what I have not heard in the arguments of some members is why a different rule should apply to RCMP members than a rule that will be applying to other Canadian workers who are federally regulated. The place for that debate is on Bill C-4, which will be coming back to this House, as well.

I just want to take some time to talk about however RCMP members get there, if they get there, to have a certified bargaining agent, the question we are talking about now with respect to this amendment is what that bargaining agent is going to be able to bring up at the bargaining table. That is the important issue, I think, with respect to debate on this amendment. I am pleased to rise in support of this amendment.

Members who have been following this debate closely will know that I argued at committee, with the support of my caucus, for an even greater lessening of restrictions on collective bargaining because we think that is required, frankly, in order to honour the spirit of the Supreme Court decision that was taken.

That ruling, and we actually heard quotes from that ruling from the hon. parliamentary secretary earlier, says very clearly that part of the impetus and reason for the kind of freedom of association that is guaranteed as a charter right and thereby also guarantees collective bargaining is that workers have to be able to have a meaningful recourse within their workplace and a way to identify their own priorities to bring them to the employer and to have a shot, I guess is the really informal way of putting it, at having some success.

If we are going to bring a bill forward that says for all the many reasons that RCMP members sustain a protracted court battle in order to get collective bargaining—those have to do with workplace safety and health; they have to do with the topic of this amendment, which is harassment and conduct within the workplace—if we are going to bring forward a bill in response to that decision that says, “Okay, fine. You have collective bargaining on paper but you can't bring any of those issues to the table. We don't even care what your proposals would be. We don't care how reasonable they would be. Before we know even what they are, we're going to rule them out of court through this legislation”, I think it does a real disservice to the Supreme Court's ruling. I think it does a disservice to members. I think it is a reason why, if we do not relax these exemptions, we are going to see, in very short order, another court battle and I think, eventually, if the Supreme Court continues to rule in the spirit that it has been on collective bargaining, we are going to see that this law does not pass muster.

We have an opportunity now to move forward with a bill that would actually give RCMP members what they asked for and what they fought for going through the court process. I still think there is going to be a lot of problems with the bill because there are so many other exclusions, but we will support this amendment because it is a way of making a bad bill a bit better. It is a bad bill that has a strong likelihood of passing, because the government seems quite committed to passing it in its present form. Why it feels such a loyalty to this form is beyond me. This is actually the language that was pulled out of a previous Conservative bill. The Liberals have not minced words when it comes to criticizing the previous government in terms of its approach and thinking. The Liberals certainly have not held back criticism of the previous government when it comes to its approach to labour relations, and yet, the first bill that they are likely to pass does not just adopt that same philosophy and approach, but it is actually for the most part word for word, the very same bill that had been contemplated by the previous government going back as far as 2010.

This amendment is a way, I think, of trying to bring the bill a bit closer to the spirit of the Supreme Court decision. I do not think it gets us there, but I think it is important for RCMP members, if there is a possibility of passing this amendment, and I hope there is, that would at least make things a bit better for them.

I would argue, and have been arguing at length throughout this entire process, that it is not just an opportunity for RCMP members, but it is an opportunity for the institution as well.

We have heard, and we are hearing today from Liberals about how the government is engaging to work on the issue of harassment to improve it. The Liberals are going to study it, as if it had not been studied before, and then they are going to make some changes, and I wish them well in that. I am not saying that is not important. I am not saying that is not an important part of the process, but what we have here with the Supreme Court decision and now Bill C-7, if it is changed, is an opportunity to bring in a genuinely new approach, to do something genuinely different, and to allow RCMP members to bring their knowledge and expertise of the force and how things work on the ground directly into conversations with management.

For instance, if it is the case that Parliament is going to be addressing workplace issues in the RCMP, along with management, and it is going to take parliamentarians going around studying issues, having a law come before Parliament and passing through the two Houses in order to address workplace issues, then is it the view of the government that somehow that is a better process? Is that somehow more responsive than a process that would allow a union that represents RCMP members made up of the very people who are out there doing that good work on behalf of Canadians?

Consider the time that it takes for an issue to filter up through an organization, get media attention, and build public pressure for government to act on it, and it is unfortunate that with issues of sexual harassment in the RCMP we have reached that point. It means that it has become very bad. However, there are all sorts of other workplace issues that maybe do not get quite that bad, but are egregious nevertheless, which could be addressed by a process that actually consults the people who are doing the work on a day-to-day basis. We could get that kind of day-to-day or month-to-month feedback between the people doing the job and the people managing it.

If the model which says that somehow issues have to get bad enough that they come to Parliament and then we go out and study the issue, sometimes for years, and bring legislative changes, is how we are going to address issues in the RCMP, then I do not think one has to be a super business ideologue to say that this is just a bad model. It is just not efficient.

Why would we not want a model, if we are seriously trying to address an issue, that would allow us to get more frequent feedback, which does not involve a bunch of third party players, like parliamentarians, for instance, who do not have that day-to-day experience and do not have a real operating knowledge? It may be that some members of Parliament do have that experience, but if they do, it is a coincidence of the fact that a particular person was elected to represent a particular riding. I think it is fair to say that most of us in this chamber do not have that kind of day-to-day experience. Therefore, it seems wrongheaded to me to pretend that the most serious issues of the force are going to have to come here before they can be dealt with.

There is an opportunity here to have a better system, a system that RCMP members appreciate much more fully, that they are actually a part of. However, part of our point is that we should not prejudge the issue of whether this is going to work well or not. If it works well, it means that fewer of those issues are going to come to the House.

I would say that by the time issues get here, they have become really bad, and they are probably far away from being effectively solved. A good collective bargaining process can help us catch more of those issues early on, and resolve them in the workplace so that they do not have to come to Parliament to get fixed.

To the extent that this amendment, in a limited way, creates more opportunity for that kind of better process in respect of a certain issue, we are in favour of it.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure whether the member and I were watching the same Charbonneau commission. Personally, what I remember from that commission is that, unfortunately, people in positions of authority in the unions violated the fundamental rights of union members to have proper representation. That is exactly the opposite of what we saw.

On this side of the House, we believe that, in order to be free of any express, malicious influence on the part of the union authority over the newly unionized members, voting should be done by secret ballot. That way, everyone can vote in good conscience, in a voting booth, and make the choice that they are most comfortable with. Voting by a show of hands or by identifying oneself, while three or four people are watching each individual closely to see who is on their side, is not necessarily the best way to go about it.

On this side of the House, we believe that secret ballot voting is the best way to give people who want to form a union even more strength and authority, whether we are talking about Bill C-7 or Bill C-4.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the House to speak to Bill C-7. Throughout the discussion I will take the opportunity to emphasize that, even though I am not my party's critic on the matter related to this bill, two aspects of it concern me in both form and substance.

Bill C-7 concerns the 28,000 officers of the RCMP, or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

This bill was introduced in response to the Supreme Court's January 2015 decision in Mounted Police Association of Ontario v. Canada concerning the right of association of RCMP members. In its ruling, the Court gave the government one year to introduce legislation on the right of RCMP members to associate. That deadline was extended to May 16, 2016.

That is the first thing that I wanted to mention, as it reminds us of what we are going through, in terms of form, with the study of Bill C-14 concerning medical assistance in dying, in which I was directly involved.

RCMP members were not unionized, but they were part of groups and could have discussions with the employer under the staff relations representative program, which was established in the 1970s. It worked quite well, but was challenged by some groups of RCMP officers in Ontario, which resulted in this decision.

For the benefit of the Quebeckers who are watching, I should explain that the RCMP is also the largest police force in eight out of 10 provinces. Ontario has the Ontario Provincial Police, Quebec has the Sûreté du Québec, and the other provinces have the RCMP, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which is the police force that enforces the laws and regulations and maintains order in Canada.

The Supreme Court ordered the government to pass legislation conferring on RCMP officers freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. It was at that point that our government, which was in power at the time, began to clear the way for drafting this legislation, under the direction of the hon. member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis.

Negotiations concerning freedom of association, agreements governing salaries, and all such matters do not happen overnight. We need to take the time to do it right, and that is the point we have reached.

The current government introduced Bill C-7. We agree on the principle of the bill, but we had some serious problems with some of the clauses. Therefore, during the clause-by-clause study, my colleague, the hon. member for Durham, who was a minister and who is a lawyer and a member of the Royal Canadian Navy, proposed some very important amendments.

Clauses 40 and 42, which were deleted from Bill C-7, had to do with health care and insurance provided to RCMP members. We are very happy that the government listened to the Conservative member for Durham with respect to deleting these two major clauses.

However, we do not recognize freedom of association in the same way as the government. We have two opposing views. This is also the case with another bill, Bill C-4, which I am working on in my role as employment and social development critic.

What is the government proposing, and what would we have liked to see in this bill? We think that the right of association must be recognized, but that it should be subject to a secret vote that reflects the will of the members. This is a key element that we enshrined in Bill C-525, for example, which was passed by the House of Commons. This bill required that union certification, specifically when a group of workers is trying to unionize, be subject to a secret vote.

The Conservative member for Durham proposed that solution, but the government rejected it. We find that unfortunate. The sacred right of association must be enshrined in law so that, when it comes time to negotiate, that right is even more powerful, legitimate, influential, and authoritative. In our opinion, the best way to ensure and assert that authority and strength is establishing secret ballot voting.

We know what we are talking about here in the House of Commons. We were all elected by secret ballot. That way of doing things dates back to 1874. It is nothing new. Elected members of the House of Commons have been familiar with the principle of the secret ballot for a long time. The same is true for elected officials in the provincial legislatures across the country. Every elected representative is elected by secret ballot. The same is true at the municipal level. Our mayors and municipal councillors are elected by secret ballot. That is a given in our democratic system if we want those representatives to be powerful, strong, authoritative, and competent.

A solid foundation is needed when it comes time to negotiate and discuss and to ensure that people are properly represented. On this side of the House, we believe that the best way to give unions or union representatives more authority is to allow them to obtain that authority by secret ballot. We encountered exactly the same problem with Bill C-4, for which I am the official opposition critic.

Bill C-525, which was introduced by a Conservative member under the former government, enshrined in law regulations regarding unions and the creation of unions through secret ballot. All of us here, who have decision-making authority, obtained that authority because the people in our ridings voted for us. We think that, when people need to create a union or an association, their representatives, who will be given the authority to negotiate with their employer, should be chosen through the same approach.

That is fundamental, but unfortunately, the government members decided to do otherwise. That is the government's decision to make, but it is not what we would have done.

We believe that that element is fundamental and that the government should have acted accordingly. The Supreme Court specifically stated, in the ruling handed down in January of last year:

The flip side of...freedom of association under s. 2(d) is that the guarantee will not necessarily protect all associational activity.

From our perspective, the best way to give the newly formed group the necessary authority is a secret ballot.

I want to be clear. We support the fact that the 28,000 members of the RCMP, for whom we have a lot of respect, are doing a great job. It is the most honourable job in our country. They deserve a lot, and they deserve it for our citizens. We have a lot of respect for them. We agree with the fact that they should have the right to negotiate as a group. We recognize that. That is why our colleague, the hon. member for Durham, did a tremendous job at the parliamentary committee by pulling out two clauses, clauses 40 and 42, which were not as good as they should have been.

However, we are at a crossroads. The government prefers to have a way of recognizing the group that will represent the RCMP members. We believe the RCMP members would be better served if the election of those people as their representatives was done by a secret ballot vote in front of the government. That is why we agree with the principle of the bill, but unfortunately, we will not be supporting Bill C-4 because the government has failed to recognize that the secret ballot vote is the best way to ensure the strongest dignity of this group to be represented.

[John Mortimer]

We operate on $50,000 to $100,000 a year, and I have total confidence in the talented professionals and well-funded labour lawyers of Canada's labour movement to go after Canada's employers.

What is wrong in this country, sir, is that we're the only nation left on earth that allows forced union membership, the only nation left on earth that allows forced union dues, and the only nation in which workers are not protected from their union leaders by statute law. BillC-4 is about to remove those protections, which were a victory for them in the last Parliament.

[John Mortimer]

It was both French unions and the government that came together to ensure disclosure. I would draw parallels back to what happened in America when you essentially had a left of centre party, the Democrats, who backed what then senator John F. Kennedy did, because, the equivalent of the day to Mr. Yussuff, the head of the American Federation of Labor, George Meany, advocated the goldfish bowl theory, which was that unions would be better in every respect if the light of day were shed on their activities.

There was a certain amount of support in that period of time in America amongst the most prominent union leaders for what John F. Kennedy did. That has not been here. We have learned from the American government website about illegal activities of Canada's unions involving other political parties in this country because we were able to read in there about donations they made to political parties. For example, when UFCW 1518 in Saskatchewan gave money to the New Democratic Party.

I think it's tragic what's happening here. The current Prime Minister, as a member of Parliament and as a party leader, spoke for pay at union executive meetings across this country before reaching the Prime Minister's Office. He made it clear to those union executives what he was going to do. Bill C-4 delivers.

During the hearings on Bill C-377 and Bill C-525, there were plenty of submissions to read. When I was to appear here before, it was cancelled due to events in the House; there was no submission there other than mine.

I would ask the Minister of Labour, what consultation took place when you met shortly after you got your mandate letter with leaders in this country behind closed doors and told them in no uncertain terms that you would move one bill to take down Bill-525 and Bill-377, full stop, end of discussion? It was a very blunt meeting, I'm told, by people who attended it. This is not consultation. This is favours to Canada's union bosses plain and simple, and workers and taxpayers are the ones who lose.

[Aaron Wudrick, Federal Director, Canadian Taxpayers Federation]

Good afternoon. My name is Aaron Wudrick and I am the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. I want to thank the committee for the invitation today. I will be limiting my remarks to the provisions of the bill that relate to the rescinding of certain sections of the Income Tax Act as they apply to unions.

For those who don't know, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is a federally incorporated, not-for-profit citizens group, with over 89,000 supporters across the country. We have three key principles on which we focus all our advocacy. Those are lower taxes, less waste, and accountable government.

Very simply put, the CTF's view is that the sections of the Income Tax Act that will be rescinded by Bill C-4 represent a step backwards in terms of promoting transparency and accountability with respect to taxpayer dollars.

Obviously, there has been and will continue to be a very heated debate coming from both the union and non-union positions on the impact and desirability of these measures. We would merely say that it should not ever surprise the committee that any stakeholder—union or otherwise—who receives a hefty subsidy from taxpayers will inevitably resist attempts to have greater transparency imposed upon them.

In Canada, unions collect about $4 billion annually in member dues and can spend them as they see fit, with no mandatory public reporting. What makes this an issue for the broader taxpaying public is the fact that unions enjoy a range of tax benefits and special tax treatment that ultimately function as a public subsidy for their activities. Specifically, union dues are tax deductible, as is strike pay. These tax breaks have been estimated to have a net worth of about $400 million a year or more.

Charities receive somewhat similar but not as extensive special treatment, and they are accordingly required to file public disclosure in order to maintain their charitable status. This is the reasoning behind calls for public reporting of union finances. Where any entity receives the benefit of a public subsidy, the expectation of transparency is heightened as compared to those who do not receive a similar benefit.

To be absolutely clear, none of our comments here should be interpreted as opposing the political or social engagement of unions. Unions are legitimate stakeholders and should of course be able to engage in political activities. What we at the CTF object to is that unions are being subsidized by the taxpayer to do so. Indeed, we've even taken up the position that political parties themselves should not receive any, or at least, much less generous taxpayer subsidies. Given that they are subsidized, however, we believe that this special benefit should, as I said, attract a higher level of transparency than without the subsidy. This is analogous to our position on the transfer of public dollars to private businesses, also known as corporate welfare. We oppose it full stop, but if it is going to happen, surely the price for receiving a public subsidy should be transparency and accountability to the taxpayers who are footing the bill.

Finally, and with some regret, we would merely note that it is an unfortunate irony that this new government, which was elected on a platform that promised new and unprecedented levels of openness and transparency, has instead, of late, been making some troubling moves in the opposite direction.

While it's fair to say that the CTF does not support the overall fiscal direction of the new government, at least this is an honest disagreement. Contrast this with the transparency issue, where the CTF was very encouraged by and supportive of many of the Liberal Party's campaign promises. Indeed, our view is that the new government got off to a very good start on transparency by publishing ministerial mandate letters. Unfortunately, it's been pretty much been downhill from there.

In addition to the provisions in Bill C-4, the government has ceased enforcement of the First Nations Financial Transparency Act, which risks leaving many first nations in the dark as to the compensation and expenses of their elected officials. There are of course concerns about withholding information from the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, which I won't belabour here, but in all it adds up to less transparency, not more. It flies in the face of the government's own commitments, and harms its credibility in presenting itself as the purveyors of real change, in contrast to their predecessors. We would certainly urge them to reconsider some of these positions, and looking at Bill C-4 would definitely be an excellent place to start.

Thank you.

[John Mortimer, President, Canadian LabourWatch Association]

Honourable members, please look at appendix A of our submission. The current web page of the largest Canadian local of the Labourers' International Union says this about union cards:

Don't sign anything! You do not have to sign anything. Don't be tricked into signing something “to get more information”....It's just a sneaky way to get a...[card signed].

The horse's mouth speaketh the truth. Union organizers lie.

Employees might be told the card is just to get more information or just to get a vote, but in card check jurisdictions, unionization is the goal and the result of this trickery.

The Minister of Labour, union leaders, academics, and labour boards point to the low number of rulings about such union tactics. The three most relevant reasons are as follows.

For decades, labour boards have ruled that card-signing tactics are not the employer's business. In 2005 the Canadian board stated: “Any disquiet about undue influence or coercion into signing... should be brought to the Board's attention by the employees themselves.” Unions have plenty of talented professionals and outside labour lawyers, funded by their $4 billion to $5 billion in revenue, to challenge employers and competing unions, but with labour boards telling employers to sit down and shut up, it's simply not credible that employees have any practical ability to file charges against unions and miss work to show up and litigate them, let alone to afford a lawyer instead.

Sadly, labour board rulings allow unions to lie to unsuspecting workers. One board ruled that a fraud against an employee is not a fraud against the board and did nothing about it.

Then there is outright card fraud. We got a small peak at the underbelly of a union's tactics in British Columbia via the Purdys case, in which the union was caught, but only years later, for forging employee signatures onto cards.

Is there a political party in this country that has not experienced real problems with card-based membership drives ahead of nomination meetings? Does any of your parties call a membership card a vote? All unions that I know of run their internal affairs with votes and not with cards.

In 1977, Nova Scotia's workers became the first Canadians to get legislated access to a bulwark of workplace democracy, a statutorily guaranteed secret ballot vote, which this bill steals back from federally regulated Canadians.

Appendix C includes a table summarizing the key provisions of Canada's 11 private sector labour codes. Every year in the seven vote jurisdictions, in government-run elections, workers still have been unionized. Even in Nova Scotia, after 37 years of workplace democracy—news flash!—unions have not disappeared. Labour relations have not been set back to the age of the Flintstones there in comparison with card check jurisdictions.

Voting is criticized for reducing the rate of new unionizations. Of course it does so, because votes reflect what informed employees making a government-protected private choice actually want. Getting unionized by trickery, as the labourers' union points out to its members, in a situation in which workers have no real means of litigating and proving the outcome—that is going to be the federal reality for Canadians, if Bill C-4 is not amended or pulled back by the Trudeau government. Stealing the vote from the weakest party, the party that is not at the table with FETCO and the Canadian Labour Congress, and giving the card check back to Canada's executive suite of union leaders is simply wrong and undemocratic. As the Labourers Union rightly implies, a card is not a vote.

Shifting gears. it is very troubling that Bill C-4 is a single bill that also amends the Income Tax Act to take away financial disclosure. MP Hiebert modelled his Income Tax Act of Canada amendments on the American system, which some Canadian unions already comply with. That U.S. law started as the Kennedy-Ervin bill. Yes, none other than Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy and his brother Bobby led the charge at a Senate committee and as President Kennedy implemented the legislation he had championed in the Senate.

Our submission has extensive and accurate content on financial disclosure to factually correct the complete misrepresentations by numerous labour leaders about the state of union disclosure and privacy law in Canada.

Our submission includes proof that workers have had to fight unions over years in the legal system to get even minimal disclosure—proof that there is nothing for taxpayers and watchdogs to hold government of the day accountable to enforce the existing union dues tax deductibility provisions of the Income Tax Act. That is what Bill C-377 was set to finally enable for Canada's now even more-indebted taxpayers.

If you look at appendix E, you will see that across Canada's 11 provinces and three territories and the federal jurisdiction, there are some 32 labour codes—32. Only 10, less than one-third, have any provisions at all dealing with financial disclosure. Nine of those 10 only mandate disclosure to actual union members. Under nine of these codes, unionized employees, who must pay dues as a condition of employment or be fired from their jobs, are not entitled to a shred of financial disclosure at law. Only one of 32 labour codes covers those types of dues payers. There is nothing required under those 32 codes for taxpayers.

In our submission we have the actual wording that will show you how little those provisions actually provide.

Union leaders, and those aiding and abetting their huge campaign to hide from taxpayers and dues payers, have led you to believe that they all disclose, that they must disclose. One union leader wrote that labour boards keep financial statements on file, for the asking. Plain and simple: not one labour board collects and keeps them. That was another lie.

The CRA can go back seven years in our tax returns, but labour boards have repeatedly denied access beyond the most recent fiscal year when a union refused to expose, took union dues, and fought the workers at the labour board and won to keep the prior years secret.

Let's make this even more real. Appendix B in our submission is the cover page from a 2014 petition to a local of the PSAC from workers of the federal government looking for detailed disclosure. As of last week, since 2014, Robyn Bensonhas been silent.

The labour code of these employees is the Public Service Labour Relations Act of Canada. It is one of the 22 labour codes out of 32 that has not a single disclosure requirement for those workers to get access to what's going on at PSAC.

Under the 10, the mere 31% that have limited provisions, I have never read a labour board ruling that ordered any detail. Labour boards just order an income statement, maybe a balance sheet—two pieces of paper—for a $90 million union. That's not disclosure.

The most important topic, finally, that we address relates to the range of assertions that these Income Tax Act provisions had no Income Tax Act purpose. We respectfully disagree. Appendix I contains our very detailed analysis of the act, CRA interpretation bulletins, and Tax Court case law.

Two provisions of the Income Tax Act, paragraph 8(5)(c) and subsection 8(5), read like this: Dues are not deductible to the extent levied for any purpose not directly related to the ordinary operating expenses of the union.

We simply do not know, as taxpayers in this country, if it's $100 million being inappropriately spent, or $1 billion inappropriately spent.

Finally, Bill C-4 should be split in two. Respectfully, for this committee, I do not understand it, as a Canadian, to be constituted to serve Canadians as an Income Tax Act expert. The truth is that Bill C-4 is a form of omnibus legislation moving forward in a rush that reverses achievements of the last Parliament for taxpayers and workers as a political strategy to pay back the union executives who helped this government win its last election.

[Michael Mazzuca]

It's not a likelihood, but I think a certainty. We know that it was already being challenged; I believe that was in Alberta. I think that if Bill C-4 were not moving forward, there would be a number of other challenges. A number of provinces had also let it be known that they would potentially challenge it as well. Those aspects of Bill C-377 would be dragged out through the courts for many years.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

I didn't get enough.

Well, thank you again.

I'm still stuck on this Charter of Rights thing and on constitutionality. We're in Canada, so I think it's appropriate.

Mr. Mazzuca, in the event that Bill C-4 were not being proposed, what do you think would be the likelihood of a constitutional challenge to Bill C-377?

[Hassan Yussuff, President, Canadian Labour Congress]

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.

The Canadian Labour Congress, of course, is the single largest democratic and popular organization in this country. It speaks on national issues on behalf of 3.3 million workers. It represents more than 50 national and international unions in Canada. The Canadian Labour Congress strongly, of course, supports Bill C-4, restoring balance, fairness, and stability to federal labour relations.

From the beginning, the CLC opposed Bill C-377 and Bill C-525 as flawed, ideologically motivated legislation. These private members' bills represented a fundamental and a dangerous attack on the rights and freedoms of working people in Canada to organize unions free from outside interference. These bills were developed without consultation with the labour movement. They threatened to polarize federal labour relations and fundamentally tip the balance between employers and unions.

Historically, changes to the federal labour relations regime have been incremental, based on careful study and research, and developed through extensive consultation with unions and employers. Bills C-377 and C-525 were the complete opposite. Bill C-377 was drafted and introduced without consultation with unions. The bill lacked any credible labour relations or public policy rationale. Bill C-377's purpose was to single out, interfere with, and weaken the unions.

No public company, registered charity, or non-profit organization has to disclose confidential or extremely detailed information, only unions. None of the organizations whose members can deduct professional fees, such as bar associations, medical associations, engineers and, of course accountants, were targeted, only unions.

Seven provinces and numerous constitutional experts warned that Bill C-377 interfered with provincial jurisdiction over labour relations. Experts in constitutional law pointed out that the bill violated the rights of workers under the Charter of Rights. Conservative senators warned of the serious risk to personal privacy and to thousands of individuals unintentionally put at risk by the bill, and so on.

Unions routinely issuing financial reports to their members in nearly all jurisdictions in Canada have laws entitling members to financial statements.

Bill C-377 would have cost taxpayers millions of dollars to spy on and/or punish unions. This is purely for the benefit of union-busting employers and the anti-union crusaders.

Bill C-377 was flawed as an offensive attack on unions and the constitutional rights of working people. We commend the new government in Canada for repealing it.

Bill C-525 was also drafted without consultation and without convincing justification. FETCO, the association of large employers under federal jurisdiction, did not claim there were problems with automatic card check certification. FETCO did not identify any problems with card check certification before or even during the debate on Bill C-525. Blaine Calkins, the sponsor of Bill C-525, justified the bill by referring to union intimidation in organizing drives and the mountain of complaints that end up at the labour relations board. In fact, most cases of intimidation and unfair labour practice during the certification process across Canada involve employers. Eliminating automatic card certification and imposing mandatory voting have nothing to do—

[Daniel Therrien, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada]

Mr. Chair and committee members, thank you for inviting me to speak with you regarding Bill C-4.

In May 2015, I appeared before the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs to comment on some of the legislative enactments of Bill C-377, which the bill before you now proposes to repeal. Namely, those provisions imposed certain public disclosure requirements upon unions under the Income Tax Act. Before that, my predecessor appeared before a House committee in 2012 and a Senate committee in 2013 on the same issue. As during my last appearance, I will keep my remarks at a fairly high level.

Firstly, as a matter of general government policy, I fully support efforts to encourage transparency and accountability, including for unions. These are fundamental organizational principles of good governance, and they underpin effective and robust democratic institutions. But transparency is not an end unto itself; it cannot be an absolute objective to the exclusion of other considerations such as privacy. Transparency efforts must be carefully balanced with the need to protect the personal information of individuals.

It was the aim of Bill C-377 to render operations of union organizations transparent and therefore more accountable. This was to be achieved by requiring publication of individual employee compensation over $100,000; details of all transactions and disbursements for which the cumulative value in respect of a particular payer or payee was greater than $5,000, including third parties; and the percentage of time spent by certain individuals on political activities and lobbying and non-union activities.

In my remarks before the Senate on the proposal, I expressed doubt that true accountability for union members required publication of such extensive personal information to the general public through the website of the Canada Revenue Agency. The vast majority of unions already have financial statements that are internally available to their members and in many cases publicly posted on their websites. However, these statements containing financial information are usually in aggregate form and seem to achieve their intended purpose without having to name specific individuals.

As I have emphasized in other venues, most recently before the House ethics committee, political activity can be and for many people is a very sensitive and personal matter. Publicly listing specific individuals along with their political and lobbying activities is, in my view, overreaching.

Likewise, publicly naming individual payers and payees, often third parties, associated with transactions involving cumulative value over $5000 seems disproportionately intrusive from a privacy perspective.

Finally, as for shining light on the compensation levels of a union's highest-paid officers, there are several ways this can be achieved in practice without having to legislatively require disclosure of specific salaries of named individuals. While several provinces require that detailed reports of a union's spending be made available upon request, these measures have stopped short of publishing the names and earnings of individuals. Similarly in France, for example, unions publish annual financial statements—that is, assets, liabilities, loans, etc.—but they contain no personal information.

In short, I am supportive of the legislation before you that will revoke these more problematic aspects.

I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.