Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to Bill C-4, which seeks to repeal both Bill C-525 and Bill C-377.
By way of a brief background, Bill C-525 imposes a requirement for a secret ballot for union certification and decertification, whereas Bill C-377 imposes minimal public financial disclosure requirements on unions.
I stand in opposition to Bill C-4, because fundamentally I believe the bill is regressive legislation. It would be bad for workers, for union members, for taxpayers, for openness, for transparency, and for democracy. Indeed, the only group of persons who would benefit from Bill C-4 are a select group of union bosses.
There has been a lot of heated rhetoric from some union leaders, the Liberals, and the NDP over the years about Bill C-377 and Bill C-525. Therefore, I would submit that it is good to take a step back in this debate on Bill C-4 and look at exactly what Bill C-525 and Bill C-377 actually do.
Bill C-525 simply requires a secret ballot for union certification or decertification, nothing more and nothing less. It replaces the old card check system; a system that was rife for abuse and intimidation. Under the former card check system, union certification could take place no matter that a worker may have been intimidated by a co-worker or union leader to sign up for a union card. Under card check, certification could take place even if, for example, the majority of workers were unaware of certification efforts until certification was a fait accompli.
Bill C-525 simply ensures that on the question of deciding whether to be represented by a union, that the process is an open and democratic one made by secret ballot with the majority of support of workers. What could be wrong with that? After all, the secret ballot is fundamental to our democratic system of governance in Canada and around the world.
Unions use secret ballots to decide all manner of things. Unions use secret ballots in internal union elections. Collective agreements are ratified by secret ballots. Strike action is decided by secret ballot. Yet, on something as fundamental as to whether to be represented by a union, with the consequence, by the way, for a worker, in the case of certification, which one either pays mandatory union dues or one is fired, there was no choice, no secret ballot, and that was what Bill C-525 corrected.
In the context of Canada, Bill C-525 was hardly radical legislation. Indeed, some six provinces have passed similar legislation requiring a secret ballot for certification or decertification of a union. Many of those provinces have had laws on the books for some time. I think Nova Scotia, for example, has had a requirement for a secret ballot since 1977. Therefore, in that context, Bill C-525 is simply extending rights to federally regulated workers that are enjoyed by workers in a majority of provinces across Canada.
What about Bill C-377? What does it do?
All Bill C-377 does is require unions to report expenditures of $5,000 or more, or salaries of $100,000 or more.
Each year in Canada, unions collect about $4.5 billion in union dues. That is $4.5 billion with a “b”. Those union dues are tax deductible and consequently unions receive a tax benefit. The tax benefit that unions receive equals about $400 million a year. Of the billions of dollars that unions collect, unions funnel those billions of dollars collectively into various different causes and efforts.
Having regard for that fact, it seems to me to be more than reasonable to impose some basic minimal financial disclosure requirements on unions so that union members, who after all are mandated to pay union dues, and the broader public, who after all subsidize unions to the tune of $400 million, know where those dollars are spent and how they are allocated.
It is certainly nothing revolutionary when we talk about financial disclosure. As it has been pointed out in this debate today, charities, publicly traded companies, crown corporations, all levels of government have public disclosure and public reporting requirements. Why should unions be treated any differently? All Bill C-377 does is put unions on a level playing field.
For a government that talked so much about openness and transparency during the election and after, it really is ironic that it would choose to introduce Bill C-4 as one of its first pieces of legislation, a bill that takes away the right of a secret ballot from workers to decide whether to certify or decertify, a bill that takes away the right of workers to decide, without intimidation and without coercion, whether they want to be represented by a union, and a bill that takes away basic transparency measures on the billions of dollars in union dues that unions collect that are taxpayer subsidized and mandated from their members.
In short, Bill C-4 is antithetical to basic principles of openness, transparency, and democracy, and therefore needs to be defeated out of hand.