Human Resources committee  I've been at or supervised a fair number of union meetings, and if you don't think they're pretty rambunctious, if you don't think unionized employees are heavily involved in criticizing, challenging their union, that's not my experience. They're not wee, timorous beasties. Unio

Human Resources committee  Polling like that is a bit like comments on Twitter. It's covered in 140 characters. It's the way you ask the question. Most union members, in my experience, and I've dealt with them for many years.... Sure, they want to know what the union is spending. Where's the forum to get t

Human Resources committee  I have experience with both systems, because in 1988 the Alberta labour code switched from a card system to a secret ballot system. I was certainly of the view that to make that work it was essential to have very early votes, no more than 15 days from the application for certific

Human Resources committee  That's a bad joke, isn't it? The uniqueness of our system compared with the European system is this. You can have two unions in the European workplace, and people can choose which union or no union. You are each elected on a first-past-the-post basis within a constituency. We ha

Human Resources committee  Thank you.

Human Resources committee  I think I can accommodate you in much less than 10 minutes, Mr. Chair. Let me introduce myself in terms of why I'm here and the experience I'm prepared to expose to you, should you want to ask questions. My career for 42 years has been in labour relations. In 1984 I left a lega

Human Resources committee  Well, I'm actually here. I may look like an American, but I'm actually Canadian.