Human Resources committee  Certainly.

Human Resources committee  Yes, it depends on the day.

Human Resources committee  Indeed.

Human Resources committee  Sure.

Human Resources committee  Sure. There's absolutely no.... Let me say this very clearly. I did say this in my presentation too. There's no question that this bill creates red tape. It creates costs. It requires a giant leap forward in accountability measures, in detailed reporting requirements for unions.

Human Resources committee  My personal views are irrelevant. For small businesses, we have 109,000 of them. I would imagine we would have some in both camps that view their union as a partner and those that view them very much not that way. As I said, most of our members are not unionized, but I don't think it would shock you to believe that most small business owners are not huge fans of unions as they exist today.

Human Resources committee  Our members are exclusively all small employers, and therefore, my job is to represent their needs and views as employers.

Human Resources committee  There are lots of criticisms and there are lots of supporters. There's a former Supreme Court judge that believes that it's all bunk and the law is constitutional. None of this had been tested yet, right? That, I imagine, would have happened over time. Our views of this are largely based on the fact that most of these rules exist in the U.S. right now.

Human Resources committee  There are some things. One thing that did happen is that I believe it was the previous Liberal government that did prohibit union and corporate contributions to political parties, and our members supported that. Most of our members are incorporated and they supported the idea of banning union and corporate contributions.

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, members, for being here today. I am keen to talk to you a little bit about why CFIB is concerned about the changes to the rules that are being contemplated and why we ultimately favoured the approaches that were taken in Bill C-377 and Bill C-525.

Human Resources committee  We actually did a report. I didn't include it in your packages. There's another report that we did that measured the Canadian work ethic among new entrants into the workforce, and I have to tell you the view from employers was not super flattering right now. They love their current employees and desperately want them to stay, but when they're going to market to try to find new ones they're finding people who don't show up to work on time, people who will take a job and then say, sorry, they can't work any evenings, they can't work on the weekends.

Human Resources committee  I don't think there is one silver bullet in any of this. I think there need to be changes made in a variety of policies, both federal and provincial, to help in that regard. One of the things we really do believe strongly, though, is that small firms that do a ton of on-the-job work-hardening skills training for employees need to be supported.

Human Resources committee  Yes.

Human Resources committee  There are several reasons. In Canada I was actually very pleased to hear some of the comments coming from Liberal MPs in Atlantic Canada. I guess any MP in Atlantic Canada right now is a Liberal MP. The comments from several MPs and from the New Brunswick Minister of Fisheries were that we have to begin to accept that there are sectors of the economy, types of work, as well as regions of the country where people are just not terribly interested in taking the jobs that are available.

Human Resources committee  Sure. I've spoken about this a great deal and have done a lot of research in this area. We are rapidly upskilling our young talent and wanting everybody, it seems, to be put through the school system to get a university-level education. Of course, we also have declining birth rates in Canada that contribute to this That bias against jobs in the trades and in jobs where you're working with your hands is still very strong.