Transport Committee on May 9th, 2013

[Sean Reid]

I can speak to that a little bit.

One of our largest members in Ontario almost exclusively does water treatment work, and they self-perform virtually all of that work, which means they have plumbers, carpenters, labourers, electricians, the whole thing, hundreds of workers.

They cannot do a single water job in the city of Hamilton. Workers who have worked for this company for 25 years cannot do work in the city they live in, Hamilton. This company is based about 10 minutes outside of Hamilton. If they want to do work in what they've been trained to do, which is to build water treatment plants, in the city of Hamilton, they have to find another company to work for—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

—or move to another city.

[Sean Reid]

—or move.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Here we have a government policy that is banning someone from being part of the union that they want to join if they want to continue to work in their field.

[Sean Reid]

Effectively, we do.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

That seems to be a clear-cut violation of both the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and paragraph 2(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of association and is the very basis upon which labour associational rights rest.

Let's look at the situation in Kitchener-Waterloo. I'm going to read from an article by Peter Shawn Taylor. He is the editor-at-large of Maclean's magazine. He lives in Waterloo. He said that in Hamilton:

...two workers signed carpenters’ union cards and were thus able to impose a union agreement on the entire city forever. As a result, the pool of eligible bidders for construction contracts in Hamilton was reduced by over 90 per cent. Of the 260 firms that had previously bid on city jobs, city staff calculated that only 17 were affiliated with the carpenters union.

So competition has been reduced by roughly 90% to 95%.

He went on:

Hamilton calculations show a 10 per cent increase in costs due to union-monopoly rules, or about $4 million to $10 million per year, for routine capital projects. With regards to a massive $1.1-billion waste-water treatment plan, the cost is estimated at an additional 20 per cent to 40 per cent.

We are talking $200 million to $400 million in extra costs as a result of a monopoly that the province imposes on the City of Hamilton.

[Sean Reid]

Right. The same would be true for the $800-million light rail project in Waterloo that's soon.... It has about $200 million of funding from the federal government in it.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

He also referred to a $200-million project in the city of Toronto:

Even a 10 per cent hike amounts to nearly $20 million in extra costs. In Toronto, Coun. Karen Stintz has put the price of restrictive union rules at $100 million a year.

We're talking about serious money here. This policy is making it impossible for a lot of seniors to stay in their homes because they can't afford the annual tax increases to pay for inflated infrastructure prices on their property tax bill.

[Sean Reid]

More than that, it's the price of monopoly in a large municipality like Toronto, where $100 million is flushed down the drain. You could build four water treatment plants in smaller municipalities in southern Ontario with that money. For every monopoly that exists in a large urban municipality, there are five, six or seven municipalities on a smaller scale that are getting the short end of the stick.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

People are sitting in gridlock traffic because municipalities say they can't afford infrastructure upgrades, meanwhile we're seeing $200-million, $400-million price inflation on a single project in one municipality alone.

[Sean Reid]

Yes.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Atkinson, what percentage of your members are unionized in the businesses that you represent?

[Michael Atkinson]

I don't have a figure on that, because it's something we wouldn't ask them to report on, but if you go by market share, it's whatever the market share is. It would be approximately the same percentage.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Toet, for seven minutes.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our guests this afternoon.

I want to start with you, Mr. Reid. I was hoping you could expand on a comment that you made in your statement. You said that the Manitoba Red River Floodway expansion is off limits to PCA contractors. I know there are many who would argue that this would not be the case. There's a difference of opinion on that. I'd like you to articulate why you would make that statement, and how you see that very clearly defined as they are not allowed to be on that site.

[Sean Reid]

I can't speak too much to that specific project, but generally in Manitoba, the situation is the following, and I think Brendan articulated this a little bit as well.

Technically in some cases you can work on one of those infrastructure projects, as long as you join the right union. Essentially, to Mr. Poilievre's point earlier, so long as you're willing to forfeit your right to freely associate, you can work on the Red River project.

We think, and our workers think, that is an unacceptable option. We have companies that, because of the unique labour model that we enjoy, as I mentioned earlier, self-perform all of the work. This means they have hundreds of different tradespeople who are fiercely loyal to that company, who have worked there for many years, and the company will not.... That's their business model. They've built their business model on having these employees on their team. They're not going to suddenly wake up one day and pretend they're a building trades company and forfeit their business model. That's unacceptable to the business owners as well.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Kooy, could you comment on the same thing. You talked about Manitoba Hydro and the international building trade workers union that you had to be a member of there. Have you had any discussion with Manitoba Hydro on the reason for those parameters? Have you ever had an opportunity to interact with them on that?

[Brendan Kooy]

Personally, no, but I know that my colleagues in Manitoba absolutely have, and unfortunately they've made little headway in that regard.

My understanding of the situation in Manitoba is that Manitoba Hydro is not under any contractual obligation to sign project labour agreements on things like hydro projects, or the East Side transportation initiative, or the Red River Floodway expansion to give that work to building trades unions; however, that's exactly what's happening, and a lot of those large projects are receiving federal funding.

You can imagine our frustration as a union, and the frustration of Mr. Reid's members, our signatory contractors who are affiliated with CLAC, who are told essentially that they cannot bid on those contracts, that work, unless they want to operate under the building trades model. For our members, as Mr. Poilievre pointed out, they have freely chosen to associate with CLAC for whatever reason, and we think they're good reasons and we respect that, and so it's frustrating for those workers as well to be told, no, their company cannot employ them on those projects unless they decide to be forced to switch unions.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you.

Mr. Atkinson, I was very intrigued by a comment that you made, which was something different, something we hadn't really heard throughout the testimony we've had so far. You talked about the environmental assessment aspect of things, and some of the changes in the environmental assessment, and one project, one assessment that's been brought forward.

I just wanted to get some clarification from you on that. Would you support any weakening in environmental protection in that process, or are you very strongly convinced of the fact that the assessment must be equivalent? If you went with a provincial assessment must it be equivalent to a federal assessment or better? Should the protection never be allowed to be dropped, and must it be maintained at a very high level?

[Michael Atkinson]

We've always said that we support diligent, vigilant environmental assessment. Our problem is that we have to wait for that green light to go on to develop a project. The worst thing that can happen is that the green light goes amber or goes red because of lack of certainty of the process, and that's what has been causing the problem.

Absolutely we want to see an environmental process that truly hits the intended purpose of the legislation, that lives up to that standard. But we want to ensure that when that process is undertaken, it's done on a timely basis and it's done on a certain basis, so that when the green light goes on and allows our members to develop that project, we can go with confidence, knowing that the light is not going to go amber or red again because of the assessment process being questioned or because of overlapping jurisdictions.

That is the problem. The problem was never one about protecting the environment; the problem was about the red or green tape that was associated with an uncertain, unclear, and untimely process.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

From experience, then, have you run into the situation where it was green and then went amber or red?

[Michael Atkinson]

Yes.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Do you have an idea of what kind of cost that would add to some projects?

[Michael Atkinson]

Well, sometimes it's the entire project that's gone.