Transport Committee on May 7th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Mortimer, can you finish your answer, then?

[John Mortimer]

I met a couple of SELI workers from Latin America, who travelled all over the world for their employer, working on these highly sophisticated machines and projects to bore holes—very sophisticated, dangerous work. They were very skilled people.

I have to admit that I would be shocked if the man I met was earning $3.50 an hour or $3.57. Once again, I dispute the accuracy of what you say. You're free to e-mail me with proof that those people were paid less than minimum wage.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You have a little over a minute.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

You referred to competition as having done wonders for the phone industry, but I guess you've missed the news reports that Canada in fact pays more than most other countries in the world for its phone service, because we have an oligopoly, where the carriers basically get together and set the price. In addition, we have a cable system in which only the carrier that is licensed to serve you is able to serve you, and no other carrier can supply you a signal on that piece of wire as a result of legislated discrimination.

The competition hasn't really worked in the phone business because we pay more than most.

[John Mortimer]

We have more competition than we used to.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

But we still pay too much.

[John Mortimer]

On the fact that my taxes pay the CBC, please don't get me started as a taxpayer.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Here's what you were looking for, right here.

[John Mortimer]

It's one of the most egregious examples of what still goes on.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

The story is from the Canadian Press, on April 3. I can send it to the chair if you like:

About 40 temporary foreign workers from Latin America have finally been paid the tens-of-thousands-of-dollars they were each owed for building the Canada Line rapid transit link between Vancouver and Richmond, B.C.

It was a five-year-long battle. The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal ruled in 2008—after they had finished the work—that they had been discriminated against. Then, of course, there were fights back and forth in court. It took a long time for it to finally get settled, but it did get settled.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Please forward that to the clerk.

Just before I move on to Mr. Harris, I just want to correct Mr. Sullivan. You implied—I think I heard you right—that private sector companies or what-have-you don't hire apprentices.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

No, what I said was the ones that were in my riding refused to hire apprentices, despite the pressure by the government to do so. The government itself has asked, and they've said no. So we have a situation in which what the federal government has indicated it would like to have happen with its tendering process may in fact be more difficult with free labour, or whatever that term is, the union-free contractors, which is what in fact this contractor is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Very good.

In my riding it's the exact opposite. Apprentices are hired a lot by private contractors. Two of my sons have gone through, and two of my brothers. My brother's a private contractor as well, and he hires a lot. So it goes. I think the point needed to be made that it's not the norm, at least not up my way.

Mr. Harris, five minutes.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm sure Mr. Sullivan will like to find out that this particular situation was a result of a sub-sub-sub-subcontractor and had nothing to do with the main contractor of the job, who indeed was a unionized builder who provided hundreds and thousands of union jobs. This was like a small wart on a very large and well-run contract.

Mr. Mortimer, thank you for coming.

I was fortunate to live through the days of the Glen Clark government in British Columbia, the NDP government that decided they were going to build the Island Highway. As you may know, if you have done the research or were there, Mr. Clark's government put out an edict that no non-union company would be permitted to bid on the Island Highway.

That decision was challenged, and he had to reverse it, to the extent that any non-union contractor who bid was required to pay exactly what the union shops were paying or would not be allowed to bid.

There went the small, family-run operations that could do a better job for less money and that were used to being quite successful through being able to do so.

The argument, of course, is that because the job cost hundreds of millions of dollars more than it would have normally cost, had we had open tendering or open bidding complete with performance bonds, etc., from both sides, it was a very irresponsible thing to do.

I certainly agree with that argument, because I was a taxpayer in British Columbia and still am.

The basis of what you're saying today, when you wipe away the rhetoric we have heard from the other side—with the exception of that of our future mayor of Montreal, who is going to clean up all the mess over there—is that you believe that companies, whether union or non-union, should be permitted to bid on infrastructure contracts, and particularly on government-funded jobs, provided they can provide the appropriate bonding and performance promises and would be held to the terms of the contract.

That both sides, union and non-union, should be allowed to bid is the bottom line. It has nothing to do with whether one works better than the other; it's just that they must have a chance to bid.

[John Mortimer]

They must have a chance to bid; and then there are criteria that are multi-faceted for the taxpayers' benefit, as we were discussing earlier.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Okay.

Some interesting terms that I haven't heard before are MERFs or STABs, as they're known. These exist in this country and have something to do with the union subsidizing their union contractors when they're bidding.

How does that work? I'm not familiar with it.

[John Mortimer]

This is in a section of an IBEW collective agreement in Ontario.

Of every hour worked, $1.08 is put into the market recovery fund, and 60 cents per hour goes into the stabilization fund. Money goes into the sports, entertainment, and retiree fund; into the education fund; into the promotion fund.

What is the taxpayer doing funding the union's sports and entertainment fund, let alone these funds with big dollars in them?

Someone told me that here in Ottawa the electrical workers have—I don't know whether this number is true or not—something like $15 million in their fund, which they can use to subsidize a contractor who is bidding against other contractors who are bidding at a lower ultimate cost of doing the project. They'll meet that bid by taking this money, which has been strong-armed through collective agreements like this over the years, in order to “level the playing field”. This means that the taxpayer is being ripped off to an even greater degree, with this money that has been built up in these funds over the years.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Okay.

The province of Quebec has become somewhat notorious, as far as the construction industry goes, for violence, strikes, strong-arming, and corruption, as we're seeing in the paper now. This province has a union-shop-only bidding process. Is it reasonable to even imagine that there is a correlation between the decision the province made about having only union shops bid on the job and the history of violence, corruption, strong-arming, rigged bidding, and all of the other nonsense that is going on and is still going on through a commission right now?

Is there a correlation in any way? Can we imagine that?

[John Mortimer]

I think the opportunity existed in the country in 2001 for the Supreme Court of Canada to show some leadership on this issue. The ruling in Regina v. Advance Cutting and Coring should have admonished the Quebec legislature, the judicial system, and the police for failing to enforce the Criminal Code and the rule of law. People who perpetrated the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in vandalism, with one union fiefdom warring against another union fiefdom, should have been investigated, prosecuted, and if found guilty put in jail. Instead they said we should force all workers into five unions. That's how we'll stop the violence. That's what the Cliche commission was about, ultimately. Lebel's decision and the majority in Advance Cutting and Coring reviews this history of union violence as a basis for justifying stripping charter rights.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

There is a point of order.

Mr. Coderre.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Chair, I am not an extreme trade unionist, but I will not tolerate the history of my province being rewritten. Please ensure that, when we talk about an infrastructure issue, we don't go over the history of unions in Quebec, but rather talk about the infrastructure and recommendations. We have to draw the line.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I think Mr. Mortimer was done anyway.

Mr. Sullivan.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Thank you.

One of the reasons some of my constituents tell me they belong to construction trade unions is that they are safer and they feel safer. I walked by a construction site yesterday—I asked and they said they were non-union—where they were jackhammering and not wearing any hearing protection. I commented and they said they don't have to.

They do under the law in Ontario if they're in a unionized workplace. Part of what the union does is ensure that the laws are upheld. Many of the people in my riding belong to Local 183 of the Labourers' Union, which has represented union members for many, many years on construction sites. They do it in a manner that is safe.

We had a swing stage collapse here in Toronto a couple of years ago in which four workers were killed. It was a non-union, non-represented worksite where corners were cut in order to get jobs done quicker, and of course it collapsed. It was a stage that should have only held four people; they put six on it and there were only safety lines for two. Four workers were killed as a result of the neglect of a contractor.

The population in my riding, many of whom came here from Portugal many years ago and are well trained in construction, want to work safely. That's part of what the issue becomes when we compare cases of corner-cutting, which goes on quite a bit on the non-union construction side. They don't have any overseers. Part of what a union does is help to regulate the tensions between an employer and an employee, which always exist.

There can be tensions when an employee says he wants to work safely. The worker wants to abide by the labour code and work safely, and the employer tells him he's not going to work there anymore. In a unionized workplace, that can't happen. That's part of what we're dealing with. I wondered if you had any comments for the thousands of workers in my riding who depend upon the safety that comes from being in a unionized workplace.

[John Mortimer]

I think we can find terrible tragic stories in a range of places. As someone who had national responsibilities with employers, one of the challenges we had was making sure that our employees followed the health and safety procedures we put in place for them.

I oversaw the discipline of employees by our managers, where employees didn't follow the safety procedures that were there for them. I submit to you that not every unionized job site is as safe as you say just because it's unionized. It's going to be because of a combination of the attitude of the workers and the attitude of management.

There's some work out of Australia that suggests that our entire workers' health and safety system is fundamentally flawed and doesn't actually drive safe behaviour, because the accountability mechanisms are wrong. But that's a study for another day, I suggest.