The whole purpose of a strike and/or lockout is that it's an economic sanction to move the party to resolve a dispute. Our experience is that if employers or employees feel no economic pressure, then the dispute will linger and carry on. But the fact of the matter is that it would be like paying full wages to employees when they're on strike; it would be pretty hard to get them to settle the contract.
For the employer it's the same experience. As they continue to operate, the economic sanction does not work, and therefore the balance is unequal. As the legislation in B.C. was put in, our experience was that it made the parties more equal in terms of the bargaining table and in terms of the dispute itself.
I have to continue to emphasize this: our staff representatives who actually do the on-the-ground bargaining say that labour relations got better after that legislation, because when employees return to work, animosity doesn't exist. If a lockout is scabbed, the strikers feel as though their jobs are being stolen away from them by their employer. Sometimes the reaction is aggressive. People get hurt—that's one thing—and also the employer gets hurt at the end of the day because productivity lags afterwards. You want people to go back to work with a good feeling, that they were equal, that they got a fair settlement, so that productivity can increase and go forward.
Let's stress this again: 98% of all the collective bargaining we do in Canada resolves in a settlement. We are very productive in the industries we work in. The 3% that go to dispute need to be resolved quickly and efficiently. We think this restores a lot more balance to Canadian citizens, particularly when dealing with these huge multinational companies that have really no regard for Canadian rights or our citizenship rights: that's your job.
Canadian citizens are telling us, through our mechanisms, that where we have it, it works, and where we don't have it, they want it. These are Canadian citizens talking to you. That's why you get visited by your constituent. Your citizens want it.
Business might not like it, but my experience with them is that they adapt very well to the conditions that they have to work in. They do a good job in Iceland and in France, and in other jurisdictions in South Korea where they have it. They'll do a good job in Canada too when they have it.