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—