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.

Canada Labour Code

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know the members who have been in the House for years remember the great work of Garry Breitkreuz. I remember Mr. Breitkreuz fighting for private members' bills. It was a way that the backbencher in this place could bring forward proposals, could bring forward issues that perhaps constituents had brought forward.

Again, we see the Liberal Party now asking, who needs private members' bills? The Liberals are in a majority government and they are going to ram through what they want. If I were a backbench Liberal MP, I would be disappointed with that type of attitude. Every member is an important member. Even if a member is not in the front row, every member has the ability to initiate legislation and change law in our country. That is what Mr. Hiebert did. He did his homework and he saw this thing through. Yes, it was a controversial bill, but when we enhance transparency, when we enhance accountability, we can leave saying that we have accomplished something.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I suspect there is a little red light and a bell that goes off in the Conservative lobby every time a Conservative MP says “big union bosses”. It seems to pepper every one of their speeches.

I would like to clarify this for my friend. He may not have ever attended a union meeting of any kind. However, on the idea that an outside big union boss, according to the Conservatives, would be able to come to into a room full of nurses and tell them how to vote, my friend has a deep misconception of how nurses and union members in our country think, which is entirely independent of what their leadership may or may not say on a given election.

The acts the Conservatives brought in were going to cost the Canadian taxpayer more than $21 million and were opposed by not just every labour union in the country, but were opposed by the Canadian Bar Association and the NHL Players' Association. My friend can hate on hockey and I will let him take that defence if he wants, but if what he was looking for was accountability and transparency, I would have suggested that the Conservatives could have started with themselves. They gave us every Senate scandal for the last 10 years. They were unable to account for the three-quarters of a billion dollars they spent on self-promoting ads. A little do as we say, not as we do was the Conservative agenda.

If we want to have labour peace in our country, allow unions to form as they always have.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there are no red lights going off in our lobby when we talk about big union bosses. I think there is a red light going off in the NDP lobby when anyone stands and says “big gas, big oil”, but there are no red lights going off here.

We realize that whether it be more transparency for members of Parliament through an accountability act, more transparency to councils of first nation groups through the First Nations Financial Transparency Act, and likewise with unions, we want to see important institutions and other levels of government having the most transparent, the most accountable organizations. Charities have it. They have put their books in order. They have full accounting and transparency. Charities realize that their charitable number is why they have to do it. Unions should do the same.

Any time the NDP members stand and say that the unions should be able to do whatever they want, nobody is discussing whether unions have fulfilled an important role in our country's past or not. Undoubtedly they have. Do they have a role in the future? Yes, but we need transparency and accountability with that group. That is what our amendments originally brought forward.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am usually pleased to take part in the debates of the House of Commons. However, that is not the case today, because the Liberal values do not represent the values of union members. In fact, they are quite removed from the values of a responsible government that were bequeathed by our Conservative government. In the last Parliament, we gave a voice to union members on fundamental values.

To do away with transparency and the freedom afforded by a secret ballot shows the lack of respect of the Liberal government, which is practising the politics of avoidance. It is sad to see that the Liberals have bowed to pressure from union leaders. That is completely unacceptable. I am being polite in using the word “pressure”. “Returning the favour” would be a more accurate way of putting it.

Unions do have a role to play. Union members have chosen to pay dues so that the unions will stand up for their rights and negotiate working conditions that are acceptable to and benefit both parties. They did not choose to pay dues to be involved in horror stories, such as the ones we have all heard about from friends who were victims or the ones we were personally involved in.

I would like to talk about one of my uncles, Laurendeau, God rest his soul. In the early 1970s, he chose to vote, by show of hands, against a strike, because he thought it was fair and just that he should work to feed his family. Even for the company he worked for, it was more important to get the job done and deliver the boats they were building on time, to ensure that the company would survive.

In the middle of January, when it was -35^o, someone sent him a gift of bricks. The bricks did not come through the chimney or the front door, but through the window. Two windows were broken, in the middle of the winter, at two o'clock in the morning. Imagine the trauma to my uncle, my aunt, and my cousin, who was seven years old at the time.

That is just one example. As everyone knows, such situations have some similarities, such as intimidation, harassment, bigotry, exclusion, and abuse of power, which can lead to occupational and psychological burnout that is sometimes irreversible.

In this day and age, at a time when the values of freedom and transparency are attainable, it makes no sense and it is completely unacceptable to take away rights from unionized workers.

Imagine if Canadians were asked to vote by show of hands in a general election, at a community centre, at a pre-set time, with the pressure of the candidates looking on or staring at them. That is what the Liberal government is going to do to union members, in addition to whipping the vote. The party line for moral issues—how shameful. In addition, this is rather simplistic for us as legislators.

My concerns reflect those of thousands, even millions, of Canadians who are outraged that the Liberal government wants to let union bosses help themselves to the money and have their palms greased. We recognize a Liberal way of doing things that is nothing new. I believe, as do Canadians who are concerned about the politics of avoidance, that centralizing power in the hands of the minority and using fear tactics to serve one's own interests is highly unethical. I hope that my colleagues opposite will understand what I mean by the politics of avoidance without a photo to illustrate.

I am talking about how they are failing to defend democracy, failing to be accountable, failing to commit, failing to protect everyone no matter their status, failing to step up to their responsibilities as a government, and choosing to benefit a minority at the expense of the common good.

I am afraid that this Liberal government's politics of avoidance is just the beginning. To date, it has excelled in just one area: social activities that involve selfies and extras.

Our Prime Minister is a national joke. Transparent for the smart phone cameras he might be, but stand up for transparency in democratic institutions and organizations he cannot. He is an embarrassment.

Not long ago, he was a leader who promised to stand up for the middle class, but he hoodwinked millions of Canadians with his grand promises. As citizens, workers, retirees, parents, individuals, and a country, we all stand to lose so much in the end.

This plan serves merely to enhance the image and serve the interests of an egotistical individual who is running away. Yes, this Prime Minister is running away from making real decisions for a strong, prosperous, and safe society and economy like the ones we bequeathed to him just 100 days ago.

I would like to list just some of the so-called changes introduced by this government: tax hikes, an end to income splitting, cuts for families earning less than $60,000 a year that use tax-free savings accounts to put money aside, a threat to the child care tax credit, an end to the air strikes against ISIS, along with never-ending deficits that will cripple the economic future of our country, our children and our grandchildren.

As though that were not enough for the first 100 days of this regressive agenda, now the Liberals are coddling union leaders instead of standing up for dues-paying members, our noble workers who have a right to vote according to their convictions and in complete secrecy.

It is high time that whoever is pulling the strings within the Liberal government did something to ensure that its actions reflect the values of a responsible government that promotes transparency and the right to exercise one's right to vote in a respectful manner. Is anyone running that giant Liberal ship? There is still time to prevent our country from sinking.

It is both completely ironic and worthy of a soap opera to see this Prime Minister everywhere except at work, to see him flippantly reveal a security plan to foreigners, in another country altogether, with no regard for his own citizens, without the consent of the House and without consulting duly elected parliamentarians. This is a Prime Minister who is asking his own party members to ignore their moral values and toe the party line on an issue as delicate and fraught with consequences as the one currently under debate.

In closing, I am very sorry to say that the coziness between the Liberal Party and big union bosses definitely flies in the face of democracy and violates the rights not only of union members, but of all Canadians.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister (Intergovernmental Affairs)]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the comments from across the way and was reminded of a parliamentary secretary who ended up in leg irons. I do not think I ever covered an election campaign as a journalist where there were not allegations of cheating. In fact, court cases proved that. In fact, young people from that party who were sent to the courts as adults did not face justice. Now we are being lectured on what transparency and ethics should be adhered to in this House.

However, what really confused me in the speech we just heard was the member's own rhetoric. On the one hand, it is a Conservative bill that is to be repealed; on the other hand it is a private member's bill. Which is it? Was the bill that is to be repealed introduced by the Conservative Party through the back doors of private members' bills? Or, was it government legislation masquerading as private members' business?

When they introduce a private member's bill, they do so knowing that it will not be subjected to the full scrutiny of this House because that is the process. That is the process that a private member's bill goes through that a government bill does not.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as a result of the bill from my colleague opposite, unionized workers will no longer have access to a secret ballot or financial transparency. This bill had teeth and was truly democratic. The bill introduced by the Liberals is a step backwards for Canadian society.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, prior to being elected I was fortunate to work for 16 years with a major Canadian union, the teamsters union, and I represented workers and went to many union meetings. In fact, I went to monthly meetings for 16 years. I represented workers in many certification drives when they tried to get organized before the Canada Industrial Relations Board. The practice of the board when we had card check was that if a union signed up a majority of people, the union submitted that to the board. The board had the ability to certify without a vote, and the advantage was that it often happened before the employer found out. When an employer found out that a union drive was going on, that is when there were massive unfair labour practices.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I hear the Conservatives laughing. I spent 16 years at the labour board fighting those very complaints where workers would get fired. They would get intimidated. Families would lose paycheques because employers tried to intimidate workers against unionizing.

My question is this. The board could always order a vote, in any circumstance. Why is it that the Conservatives want to take away from the board the discretion to certify without a vote, when to do so is simply respecting the right of Canadian workers to organize, as is their right under international convention and treaty?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

My speech today had to do with the fundamental rights that unionized Canadians will lose: the right to know where their union dues are going, through transparency of financial statements, and the right to a secret ballot if they so choose. It is always easier to vote one's conscience by secret ballot than voting in front of a bunch of thugs.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all of my colleagues on this side of the House for the clarity they have brought to this debate.

It is clear that Bill C-4 goes against the principles of transparency and accountability and against the wishes of many union members themselves. I am wondering if my hon. colleague would comment further on this.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

I would like the Liberal Party opposite to allow each Liberal member in the House to vote freely, based on their own beliefs, on this bill. We will see whether the bill that was introduced in the last Parliament truly represented Canadian values.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today in the House to represent the thousands of unionized workers in my riding of Regina—Qu'Appelle, thousands of members of unions who work at EVRAZ steel, making steel for pipelines, members of unions that represent workers who work in electrical, pipefitting, all different types of industries, who rely upon their employment through our energy sector.

I know the bill is about the internal workings of unions and not about the job-killing practices that we have seen over the past few weeks, such as opposition to energy east, opposition to pipelines that would help keep those unionized workers working. The bill is more about the internal mechanisms of how the unions conduct themselves.

I want to touch upon a few things.

I do not know that the questions and comments we have heard from other parties are even relevant. Whether or not it was a government bill or a private member's bill should not matter. This is now a Liberal bill that we are looking at, a Liberal bill to repeal certain provisions of the act. That is what we should be talking about. It does not matter how they got in there. We are now talking about whether or not we should remove them. I hope that if my colleagues do have questions or comments for me, they worry less about the process from the last Parliament and more about the effect of the bill that is actually before the House.

Let us talk about disclosure, first and foremost.

Where do unions get their money? They get their money from forced union dues. They get their money from workers in a company, in a place of business, who have absolutely no choice. Whether or not they want to support that union, that money is taken right off their paycheque. It is taken off their paycheque in much the same way that Revenue Canada works with employers to take money out of the pockets of hard-working Canadians. It is the exact same way. It is held at source.

In a lot of ways, the union has the same kind of taxing authority that the federal government has. The workers have just as much choice as to whether they want to pay their taxes as to whether or not they want to pay their union dues. If they do not pay their union dues, they are out of the union, and they are out of a job.

Where does that money go? We do not know.

Well, we do know kind of know because we hear the ads on the radio and we see the ads on TV during elections. We know the big unions get together and put a lot of money to engage in political partisan electioneering. It has nothing to do with helping the workers they represent. It has nothing to do with getting them a better deal, a better collective bargaining agreement. However, it does have a lot to do with whether or not their favourite political party does better or worse in an election. We heard a lot of those ads and saw a lot of those flyers go out.

I am accountable for everything I put out under my name. If I put a ten percenter or a householder out to my constituents and they do not like it, they can do something about it in the next election. If I put out a campaign flyer that touches a wrong note, that angers some people, I might lose votes over it.

Those unions can put those flyers out. They can make all kinds of outrageous allegations of no truth whatsoever to the types of things that they accuse us of doing and there is no accountability for it. When Canadians go to the ballot box, they do not have a right to effect change in the union representatives who decided to spend that money, but they have a right to elect or not elect members of political parties.

They have all the powers of the federal government with none of the accountability when it comes to that type of taxation power through union dues.

We have heard some of the counter-arguments about why unions should not be held to the same standard on disclosure. If I was to say that other types of charities are not held to that account, I believe my colleague made the point, when he introduced the bill, those charities do not have the power to compel people to donate to them. The unions do.

If I am in a steelworkers' union, that money comes out of my cheque. I have no choice. I have more of a right to know what they are doing with my money than the charities that I can make a choice to give to or not. If a charity publishes its books or has good spending practices, I can say I will support that charity because I think it is spending that money effectively. If it does not, if its spending practices are questionable, if there are allegations that it might be paying executives exorbitant salaries and not actually helping the people it claims to help, I can keep that money in my own pocket and give it to a different charity. However, I cannot with my union. If I do not make my union dues payment, and there is no mechanism not to, but if I found a way not to, I would be out of the union and out of a job.

That is why the threshold for disclosure needs to be just as high as for the federal government.

The other big part of the bill is the secret ballot.

This is when I thought that I know the Liberals have to reward their friends who helped them during the election. It happens a lot in politics; political parties make promises maybe without even expecting to win, then they do, and now they have to follow through on it, but I thought the one thing they might resist the temptation for is the secret ballot. What is wrong with the secret ballot?

This bill will likely get to committee and I hope that our friends across the way, even the New Democrats, will surely agree on this. What is the democratic problem with the secret ballot? Say there is a union resolution to boycott Israel, for example, as several big Canadian unions have done. Maybe some union members would like to vote against that union resolution, but they know that some of the people encouraging them to vote for it may be the ones who are tasked to defend them in a grievance, so they are a little afraid to do so if it is a vote by show of hands. Why not a secret ballot when it comes to certification or decertification? What is wrong with a secret ballot? Every one of us here was elected by secret ballot, as well as town councils, municipalities, and provincial governments. This has been the fundamental practice in our democratic system for such a long time that it has become part of our democratic way of life.

I have not yet heard one compelling argument against the secret ballot. It makes me suspicious. I hate to attribute motive, because I know we are all supposed to take each other at our word, but it makes me suspicious about why the Liberals are doing this. What do the union bosses have a problem with, and why are they telling the Liberals that they have to ride roughshod over a democratic principle of secret ballots, that they have to include it in this bill? I hope we can isolate this at committee and, at the very least, agree that when it comes to votes on these types of things, unions should have secret ballots so that workers have the same protections that they have when they go to the ballot box to elect their government.

I have always found the mentality of big labour in Canada confusing. For full disclosure, my father was heavily involved in his union during his working career, so I heard his perspective of it. I know why unions came about and what the need was for unions at a time in Canada when many workers did not have basic protections that now so many of us enjoy, both workers in unionized fields and non-unionized fields. However, the degree to which unions will sacrifice jobs for its members versus jobs for its union executives is what I cannot understand.

Over the Christmas break, many of us heard the news that Goodwill in Toronto closed its doors. Why did it close its doors? The economy is tough all over, which is part of it, and part of it had to do with a lease issue, but a big part of it was its union not recognizing the financial difficulties that this particular store was in. It was holding out for 100% of the benefits and 100% of the entitlements, but it was willing to lose 100% of the jobs, and that is, in fact, what happened. In order to try to preserve every last bit of what the workers had in their agreement, the whole store closed. Are those workers better off because their union executive went to the wall, went to court, spent probably hundreds of thousands of dollars in this dispute, and now it has closed the doors?

I do not know if my colleagues from Toronto have spoken to any members of the union. Are they happy with the way their union ran the show? Do they have a great victory as they sit at home without jobs, knowing that their union fought the fight, lost the war, but won that battle and are now out of business? We see this all over the place in the Canadian economy, whether it is the auto workers or other types of big unions. They are willing to sacrifice the jobs of all to protect the jobs of the union executive.

Here in Ottawa, quite a few years ago, there was a transit strike over the issue of scheduling. The Goodwill article is the same type of thing. The issue was over scheduling and who would get the most hours. Does anyone know who the number one victim is when it comes to these types of union actions? It is young workers. It is newly hired workers. The entire fight was that the union wanted to lay off the most recent hires and protect the jobs of those who had been around longer. It is new entrants into the workforce. These are the actions of unions. Time and time again across the country, the very people who they claim to help, the young workers, people entering the workforce, people trying to start a living and raise a family, are the ones who lose first when these types of actions come about.

I want to go back to the main point just before I wrap up. I think this bill is wrong because it takes away disclosure, makes unions less accountable, and most important, it takes away one of the most fundamental principles of Canadian democracy, and that is the secret ballot.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to listen to the member's comments. Let us put it into the perspective of these Conservative private members' bills that were introduced a little while ago. Let me remind the House that no one was calling for the legislation. Businesses, management, and unions were not coming to the Conservative government stating that they wanted this legislation. In fact, it was a Conservative-driven bill.

If we want to have good labour relations in the country, we should be promoting harmony, consensus building, and so forth. If we want to come up with a way not to develop legislation, we should look at the way in which the Conservative government brought in this unfair labour legislation over a year ago.

My question to the member is this. Would he at least acknowledge that, by the Conservative government bringing in this legislation in the manner it did, a lot of the normal procedures that ministers are obligated to follow were foregone, not the procedures with respect to the House? Also, does he recognize that this bill rectifies a wrong that the government brought against labour prior to the last election?

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my hon. colleague, as I know that having an opportunity to speak in the House was not something he was often able to do. However, I was always happy to be graced with one of his interventions.

I will say that the member is again getting trapped in this process argument. He is living in the past. He must live in the now. We are looking at a bill that would have an effect on our legislation right now. It would have an effect on unions right now. How we got here is irrelevant to me, whether through private member's bills or a government bill, but what is relevant is what this bill would do right now.

The member talked about who was asking for it. I know lots of members of unions. My mother was a member of the nurses union. She would get all kinds of garbage in the quarterly newsletter about what the union was up to. Some unions spend time and union dues on anti-Israel boycotts and all kinds of political posturing, or they make political statements on things that have nothing to do with labour relations. My mom and many of the steelworkers in Regina, who do not want to see their union dues go to those types of things, supported our legislation in the previous Parliament.