Evidence of meeting #90 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was unions.
A video is available from Parliament.
President, Canadian LabourWatch Association
Mr. Georgetti said he has 136 labour councils at the Canadian Labour Congress that have financial affairs of $1,000 to $1,500. Well, their reports are going to be zero, zero, zero. They're not going to be hard to file.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
To the Privacy Commissioner, in one of your statements here you question whether that $5,000 threshold for names, salaries, and disbursements in respect of all labour organizations, employees, and contracts needs to be publicly disclosed or not.
What is your process in deciding whether that passes the smell test or not? What makes you think that $5,000 is the right number? Should it be $10,000? What process do you use to come up with the opinion that you've given in this paragraph?
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Well, I look at how proportional it is, and $5,000 seems to me, although I'm not an expert in the world of—
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
With regard to proportionality, let's call a spade a spade. If a union shop is dishonest, and if they're going to spend $4,999 and give it to me and give it to my kid and give it to my other kid and give it to my other kid, are we saying we need something that actually has a threshold that is so much per family, or could it be a threshold of so much per person, so they don't get five cheques of $4,999?
How do we—
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Honourable member, I can't speak about alleged wrongdoings. I can only speak about privacy.
If you look at a comparative scale, apart from the United States—and even in the United States the threshold is $10,000—in terms of personal information, it might make sense to break out salary, disbursements, and different kinds of benefits, but if everybody whose salary is over $5,000 gets it published—and that means everybody—that seems to me excessive, with great respect, to attain the objective of transparency.
Conservative
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Mr. Chassin, you say that processing the forms and complying with the regulation will not be as onerous because they're already doing it. Can you elaborate on that?
Economist, Montreal Economic Institute
Obviously if they are required to show those financial statements to their members right now, it shouldn't be that onerous to put one in the form prescribed by a new bill and then disclose it publicly.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hoback.
Go ahead, Mr. Marston, please.
NDP
Conservative
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity. I will just make one brief comment and I only have one question.
First of all, just in the interest of transparency, which seems to be the theme, we should take note that four of the seven presenters here today are so interrelated, sitting on each other's boards of directors, that they really constitute one opinion. It's like one incestuous union-busting daisy chain of opinion here.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
I know the history of the Merit shop. I've been dealing with them for years. They're created for the express purpose of busting unions in the construction industry. That's a declaration, to get started.
I'm interested particularly in one comment made by Mr. Smith. It's the cost that we're looking at here. We may be witnessing the genesis of a boondoggle in terms of the complexity of the reporting that is contemplated. Why would we set up this expensive bureaucracy just to further the private commercial interests of the Merit shop contractors, who are the true architects and protagonists of this bill?
It's the sheer amount of time you've spent at the PMO lately, drafting this thing. Mr. Hiebert might be carrying the ball, but it was crafted by a notorious union buster, Terrance Oakey, so why would we want to spend all this money to further the commercial self-interest of one notorious union-buster in that industry?
Mr. Smith, do you have any opinion?
Vice-President, Canada, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America
Thank you, Mr. Martin.
The proponents of this bill, who are at the table today, have become so sure of themselves that they have confirmed my testimony to you.
Mr. Oakey, from the Merit contractor, is quoted in the spring 2012 edition of the MeritOpen Mind magazine as saying, and I quote:
MP Russ Hiebert introduced a Private Member’s Bill (C-377) that would require unions to publicly disclose detailed financial information. This will be of particular benefit to the open shop contractor community, as the way unions spend dues will become another factor in the certification process by providing valuable information to employees who are considering joining a union.
What Mr. Oakey is clearly saying, as far as I'm concerned, is that this bill is not about what taxpayers are entitled to and this bill is not about transparency; this bill is all about the intelligence bonanza that the non-union open shop contractors are looking to gain at the cost of the taxpayers of Canada and the competition.
Conservative
