1987 Legislative Session: 1st Session, 34th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 1987

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

1715 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Tabling Documents –– 1715

Oral Questions

Writ filed by Attorney-General. Mr. Sihota –– 1715

Mr. Williams

Meech Lake accord. Mr. Harcourt –– 1716

Admission fees to provincial museums. Ms. Edwards –– 1716

Writ filed by Attorney-General. Mr. Crandall –– 1717

Proposed banning of 2,4-D. Ms. Smallwood –– 1717

Methadone clinics. Mr. Clark –– 1717

Industrial Relations Reform Act, 1987 (Bill 19). Committee stage. (Hon. L.

Hanson) –– 1717

Mr. Gabelmann

Mr. Williams

Mr. Lovick

Mr. Clark

Hon. Mr. Davis

Ms. Edwards

Mr. Miller

Mr. Jones

Mr. Harcourt

Mr. Sihota

Mr. S.D. Smith

Mr. Ree

Mr. Peterson

Mr. Jansen

Appendix –– 1737

The House met at 2:07 p.m.

MR. PELTON: Hon. members will all appreciate the valuable

service that we get from our Legislative Library. Today members of the

Association of Parliamentary Librarians in Canada are holding a

business meeting here in our parliament buildings. This is the very

first time they've met in Victoria, and I would like to introduce the

members to you.

They are Mrs. Marian Powell, who is the president, from

Saskatchewan; Mr. Richard Pare, who is the secretary, and is with the

Library of Parliament in Ottawa; Mr. Blake McDougall from Alberta; Mrs.

Mary Dickerson from Ontario; Mrs. Joyce Irvine from Manitoba; Mr. Eric

Swanick from New Brunswick; and Ms. Margaret Murphy from Nova Scotia. I

would ask the House to show them a very kind welcome.

If I may, Mr. Speaker, while I am on my feet, also in the gallery

today is a western gentleman who for many years has entertained and

provided much pleasure to countless thousands of Canadians from coast

to coast. These are people who have been fortunate enough to have had

the pleasure of spending many happy hours dancing to the music of Mart

Kenney and his Western Gentlemen. I would appreciate if the House would

make him very welcome here today.

MR. LOVICK: To coin a phrase, I am forever dancing measures

when I stand here. What I would like to do is to simply say, on behalf

on the opposition, that we too would like to welcome the librarians

here to our Legislature. We recognize, of course, that the librarians

provide the information which is the fuel that keeps us going. Without

them, obviously we could not function, though I hasten to point out for

one member opposite that some of us rely on information more than

others. In any event, thanks to the librarians from us too.

MR. ROSE: I would hate to let this opportunity go by without

adding my voice to that of my hon. friend from Dewdney in welcoming my

famous cousin, Mart Kenney, and his wife Norma. Is she here?

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, she should be. What are you doing here by

yourself? Mart Kenney, as you know, for many years has been a very

famous Canadian who lived in central Canada. But now he's back in his

nest in the west.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: A little earlier I had the pleasure of

meeting a group of students and their teachers from Seaquam secondary

school in North Delta. This is the alternate school; they certainly do

an excellent job. I would like to welcome the students and their

teachers: Steve Ferguson, Joyce Williams and Bruce Agassiz. I would ask

the House to join me in that welcome.

HON. B.R. SMITH: I'd like to welcome a number of guests to the gallery

this afternoon: first of all, Maryla Waters, who is a tireless worker for the

arts in greater Victoria, among her many other achievements; her friend, Sue

Fennel, a medical student from Cambridge, Ontario: and last but not least, my

new bride, Barbara Smith.

MRS. GRAN: Visiting the House today is a very lovely couple

who are the parents of a member of the press gallery, a former resident

of Langley, John Pifer. Would the House please welcome Everett and

Doris Brooks from High River, Alberta.

Hon. Mr. Strachan tabled the annual report to the governments of the

United States and Canada of the Columbia River Treaty Permanent

Engineering Board.

Oral Questions

WRIT FILED BY ATTORNEY-GENERAL

MR. SIHOTA: I have a question to the Premier of the province.

When asked yesterday about the Attorney-General (Hon. B.R. Smith), the

Premier said, and I quote: "It's not for me to judge. As a non-lawyer,

I'm not a judge. I ought to leave that to the profession." The clear

implication of that obviously is that the Premier is saying he's unable

to evaluate his own Attorney-General. Does the Premier still stand by

that statement?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: I disagree with the member's

interpretation totally.

MR. SIHOTA: In light of the comment made by the Premier

yesterday which I just quoted, is the Premier then saying that he is

unable to evaluate his own Attorney-General?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: What I said, or certainly what I

intended to say — and I think certainly that's how most people

understood it — is I'm not a lawyer, and sometimes I say fortunately so.

MR. SIHOTA: The writ that was filed by the government was

really

an act of overkill which has embarrassed all British Columbians.

Has the Premier decided to advise the Attorney-General not to repeat

this sort of action and to seek wiser counsel in the future?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: We have an Attorney-General with excellent judgment, and I leave it to him.

MR. SIHOTA: Is the Premier then saying that he would indeed instruct his Attorney-General again to misuse the courts?

MR. SPEAKER: I'm sorry, hon. member, that question is out of order. It's argumentative.

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, to the Premier. There seems to be

a pattern of heat-of-the-moment responses on major matters and major

issues, just as we've seen in this last week. Much of it seems to

emanate from the Premier's office. Has the Premier reconsidered the

highly centralized structure that he has evolved in the last eight

months so that more considered processes could take place, as we have

not seen in the last week?

MR. LOVICK: He doesn't comprehend.

MR. SIHOTA: You don't comprehend?

[ Page 1716 ]

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Well, you can appreciate why I don't

comprehend that particular question, because I don't think there was a

question, frankly. But if you're asking me,"Is the Premier's office

functioning effectively and as it ought to be on behalf of all British

Columbians?" I would have to tell you it's working fantastically!

[2:15]

MR. WILLIAMS: Can the Premier honestly say that, Mr. Speaker,

in view of the embarrassment all British Columbians have suffered in

the last week in terms of their action in the courts? In view of a

string of significant disasters and missteps by ministers, and a very

flawed performance in the last week, has the Premier considered the

question of those flawed performances and the need for some shifts in

the cabinet?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: I don't know what the member might be

referring to. Let me assure you that there are two types of leaders:

those who do things and make mistakes, and those who never do anything.

MEECH LAKE ACCORD

MR. HARCOURT: I think we have a few more questions for future question periods from that answer.

I want to ask the Premier about the Meech Lake accord, because

yesterday the Premier indicated that the Meech Lake accord is so

fragile that it can't be reopened to recognize the rights of native

people and northerners. In the negotiations at Meech Lake, did the

Premier work to ensure that another first ministers' conference on

Indian self-government was included in the accord? Did you work to

bring that about, Mr. Premier?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: The question is, can we or should we

reopen the meetings to further consider amending or changing the

accord. I think all of us here, regardless of where we sit in the

House, could perhaps take a lesson from the federal leaders. I

witnessed the Prime Minister make his statement, the leader of the

Liberal Party make his statement and the leader of the New Democratic

Party make his statement, and they all had one thing in common: they

were happy that an accord had been reached. They were obviously

satisfied with the accord reached. I don't think there was any intent

there that we begin the process all over again and risk the chance of

losing the accord reached. Perhaps there is a lesson in this, from the

leaders of three federal political parties, that might be applied

provincially, and hopefully one day soon we can put the resolution to

this House and all will stand behind the resolution and support the

accord.

MR. HARCOURT: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. We have already

stated our general support for Quebec's being included. Our House

Leader has said that, and I have said that. I think it's important,

though.... Again, Mr. Premier, if the accord is so fragile, why did

those same leaders and first ministers agree to a full debate in

Parliament and all the legislatures? A parliamentary committee will be

holding public hearings across Canada, and a number of the other first

ministers have agreed to public meetings on a provincial level. Why is

the Premier saying that the accord is so fragile? Are you prepared to

follow the lead of the others who are holding these full hearings, and

open it up in these areas?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: The only thing we know for certain, Mr.

Speaker, is that the federal government will have hearings in Ottawa,

and the intent of the hearings is in effect simply to determine whether

those who attend the hearings see major flaws in the accord reached. I

don't know the details of a hearing in Ontario or in Manitoba, and

we'll certainly wait with interest to see what position they take. I

believe, however, that there's an opportunity for all British

Columbians to be represented in this Legislature, and that in fact all

of us as constituency representatives will seek the input from the

constituency in whatever manner we deem best, and bring it to the

Legislature in order that it might be fully debated here. That

certainly provides, in the democratic process, an opportunity for all

people to be represented fairly.

MR. HARCOURT: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Premier Hatfield

has indicated that he is prepared to reopen the accord to include a

first ministers' conference on self-government and to remove the

requirement of unanimous approval on the two issues of new provinces

and aboriginal selfgovernment. Would the Premier agree to contact the

other first ministers about the removal of the unanimous consent in

these two areas?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, if Premier Hatfield has

representation to make with respect to the accord reached or what

changes he would like to see made or how he would like to see it

further considered, then it's for Premier Hatfield to raise this at an

opportune time; and there will be such a time again, as we have a first

ministers' conference a week from now.

ADMISSION FEES TO PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS

MS. EDWARDS: My question is to the Premier. The Deputy

Minister of Tourism said publicly this morning that the only person who

can stop user fees at museums now is the Premier. Has the Premier then

decided that citizens will have to pay for access to their heritage?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, I have not heard the

statement from the Deputy Minister of Tourism, but I'll certainly look

into that. However, let me assure the hon. member that we are

considering what the most responsible approach is to assuring that we

not only maintain all of the attractions we have but that we find ways

and means of improving upon those facilities. If there's some way by

which all of those participating in a facility like the museum can

contribute just a little in order that we might provide additional

resources to expand and improve on the facilities, then I think

certainly everyone's the winner by that.

MS. EDWARDS: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker, to the Premier. The

director of the Provincial Museum has intimated that part of the

government's plan with the fees is to reduce attendance there. Has the

Premier directed that there be a study of the impact of the user fees

on museum attendance, both at the facility and throughout the affected

community?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, that will be a matter for the Ministry of Tourism. Perhaps the hon. member

[ Page

1717 ]

would like to raise the question with the Minister of Tourism (Hon. Mr. Reid)

when the minister is present.

WRIT FILED BY ATTORNEY-GENERAL

MR. CRANDALL: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the

Attorney-General. The Leader of the Opposition yesterday said that he

was under the impression that there was a misuse of the courts in the

application that was before the courts recently. And the member for

Renfrew Bay also mentioned....Do I have the wrong riding name over

there?

Interjections.

MR. CRANDALL: I would like to have the Attorney-General

clarify for us and answer whether there was a misuse of the courts in

the application put before the courts recently.

HON. B.R. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, I was surprised to read that in

the Blues, too, because there was nothing in the judge's decision that

said there was a misuse of the courts. The Leader of the Opposition

would know that if court applications that fail are a misuse of the

courts, we'd only have one side in every application and that would be

the winning side, which would mean we'd shut the courts down.

PROPOSED BANNING OF 2,4-D

MS. SMALLWOOD: My question is to the Minister of Environment.

I have a memo here from the pesticides director of Agriculture Canada

dated September 11, 1986, which says that Health and Welfare Canada has

taken the position, understandably, that the overall data suggests that

2,4-D is a human carcinogen, and they have informed their political

health colleagues. Ontario and New Brunswick have responded to these

warnings by banning 2,4-D pending federal studies. What has the

provincial government done to protect B.C. residents from this

carcinogen?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Given the member is referring to

documentation that occurred well before I was with this portfolio, and

also a reference made to the Ministry of Health as opposed to the

Ministry of Environment, I'll have to take the question as notice.

MS. SMALLWOOD: New question to the minister. This document

went to the Ministry of Environment. I'm sorry that his officials have

not brought it to his attention. Will the minister now ban 2,4-D, as

two other provinces in Canada have done?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I'll take the whole issue on notice, Mr. Speaker.

METHADONE CLINICS

MR. CLARK: A question to the Minister of Health. Yesterday I asked the

minister about his failure to support the preventive services offered by AIDS

Vancouver. Now the ministry has indicated the last methadone clinic in Vancouver

will be closed, even though all the doctors permitted to prescribe methadone

are overbooked and people who need it are not going to get it.

What has the minister done to ensure that these people have the access to methadone that they must have'?

HON. MR. DUECK: Mr. Speaker, some years ago the Ministry of

Health began opening clinics to dispense methadone treatment to

drug-users. We then asked the federal government that they would

discontinue the physicians' authority to do the same, because we were

doing it in all parts of the city. It was no longer economical; it was

not viable. They agreed to that, so we opened more clinics for this

purpose. There was certain protocol that had to be observed, and this

was one of the reasons why we asked to have it dispensed out of our own

clinics. There was some concern that this substance, methadone, was

being illegally distributed. Some were even selling it on the streets.

So we went fine with the clinics that we were operating. We were

looking after all the methadone-users in the city and everywhere in the

province.

However, one physician took this to court and won. So now we were

back to square one, where everyone was distributing the same substance,

and we felt it was no longer viable to have it distributed by us and by

every doctor that got a licence. We are now assisting every physician

who meets the criteria to get a licence for the distribution of

methadone. We are not closing any clinics.... If the member would like

to listen, he asked the question.

Interjections.

HON. MR. DUECK: No, really. If you ask me a question, do you want the answer or don't you?

We have now agreed that we will look after all the people who are

still coming to our clinic until we find a substitute place where they

can get that treatment. There will be no methadone-user on the street

who has not got a place to go.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I call committee on Bill 19, the

Industrial Relations Reform Act, 1987. Further, I will advise the House

that if we get report today, we will adjourn.

[2:30]

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS REFORM ACT, 1987

(continued)

The House in committee on Bill 19; Mrs. Gran in the chair.

section 62.

MR. GABELMANN: Madam Chair,

section 62 of Bill 19 is in many

ways the most important

section of this bill, as was indicated this

morning by the Leader of the Opposition. We view the establishment of

the Industrial Relations Council and the commissioner, with these

powers as allowed under

section 62, to be inappropriate and wrong in a

free and democratic society. These powers and abilities that are given

to an unelected person are unprecedented in North America, and

unprecedented in western industrialized and democratic countries. We

think the provisions and powers such as are given to the commissioner,

however modified by the need occasionally to call the Minister of

Labour on the telephone, are not only wrong in principle in a free and

democratic society, but also wrong from a practical point of view. They

[ Page 1718 ]

will not meet the objective that the government

says it wants to meet: the elimination of long strikes or

lockouts such as the one that occurred in the forest industry last

fall.

For some reason, presumably because the Premier was involved on a

couple of occasions in trying to see if he could put that dispute to

bed, the government has decided that it needs some magic potion, some

simple answer that will solve what are very complicated problems in our

society. and that this simple answer is to establish this person and

this board with, as I said, unprecedented powers. Somehow that will

solve the problems in industrial relations problems. To a certain

extent I guess that's true, because if you take the logical extension —

and I'm going to be careful about how I phrase this, because I don't

want to overstate the matter — of these kinds of interventions in what

are properly free discussions between parties, you will get to a

situation where you will not have strikes or lockouts; certainly not

legal strikes and lockouts. There are countless countries in this world

where that's true, where the law is such — or the authority of law as

imposed by the military is such — that we don't have long and

troublesome disputes like we had last fall in the forest industry.

I'm not suggesting that this particular provision,

section 62, goes

that far. We are not yet Chile, nor yet are we Poland, nor have we laws

in place — yet — in industrial relations that even bring us close to

those situations. But it is the direction of this legislation that will

take us one more step down the road toward those kinds of situations.

The government runs the show in the Soviet Union. There is no freedom

of association, no freedom to organize, no freedom to strike. And

there's no freedom to bargain wages and working conditions. This

section goes a long way toward denying the right to bargain working

conditions. It allows for the government or its apparatus to intervene

at any stage in collective bargaining, for any reason. If the

commissioner decides that it's in the public interest for intervention

to take place, he can do so; whether he will or not is another

question, but he can. And when we consider law of this kind, we need to

consider it on the basis of what is possible under it.

The price of democracy, of free collective bargaining, of the right

to strike, of a free society, is high; it's expensive. There's no

question about that. It's very expensive. One of the prices we pay for

freedom is that occasionally people have their lives disrupted by a

freedom that's exercised by other people: the freedom to withdraw their

labour, or employers to close their shop in an effort to put pressure

on the bargaining unit. That's a price we pay, and it's a price we

should be willing to pay, I would argue, and as I think most democrats

would argue.

Yes, we have on occasion — rarely, but on occasion — a dispute of

the magnitude of the forest industry dispute last fall. But you know,

even that magnitude is overstated. More wood was cut in British

Columbia last year than in any year preceding. More wood was

manufactured in British Columbia in 1986 than in any preceding year.

And as the member for Nanaimo suggests, all of that done with a smaller

workforce — reduced by probably some 50 percent overall in the last

five or six or seven years. More profits were made in the forest

industry last year than any other year in this decade.

The price that was paid last fall was paid by, first of all, the people who

were directly affected and who went without a pay cheque; and secondly, by people

who lived in those communities. That was the heavy price that was paid. The

price was paid by people who live in Zeballos, in Port McNeill, in Woss, and

in countless logging communities and sawmill communities around this province.

That's where the price was paid last fall, by those people, by their neighbours

and friends who operate businesses in those communities, and in a smaller way

the province was hurt to a certain extent in terms of tax revenue. It was not

hurt significantly. The profits were up, greater income tax came in, the wood

was sold, the stumpage presumably — the little that's collected — was coming

in because the wood was cut. So who was hurt? The people who work directly and

were on strike, and the people in their communities who went without the ability

to do business because money wasn't being spent in their businesses. That's

who was hurt.

Who is opposed to this bill? Those same people. Those same people

are the ones who are saying that this kind of dispute resolution

mechanism is inappropriate and wrong and must be fought. These are the

same people who shut down my riding completely on June 1. There wasn't

anything moving on June 1, including non-union businesses which were

closed — in some cases voluntarily — by the owners in sympathy for what

was being protested that day.

Now if the impact is so bad on these people, why aren't they too

screaming for some solution such as this one proposed by

section 62?

They're not. Their screams are suggesting quite the opposite — that

what we need is a properly free and democratic collective bargaining

system. That's what's being called for by these people. And for the

government to argue that this once-in-a-decade event such as we

experienced last fall, which did not have the kind of overall impact

that people would be led to believe, calls for legislation of this kind

that establishes this authoritarian, undemocratic process is, to put it

mildly and to understate it, a dreadful overreaction; that, too, in the

face of our record in this province in the last number of years, the

last decade.

We have done better in terms of time lost in this province than the

other major industrial provinces in this country, and the minister this

morning in introducing

section 62 acknowledged as much because he had

to refer to other countries in western Europe and Japan to make his

point about our time lost. He couldn't cite Quebec and Ontario, because

they have a proportionately higher number of days lost by strikes or

lockouts. We have not had a bad situation in British Columbia in terms

of time lost. We have not had a situation which calls out for measures

of this kind that deny fundamental freedoms, fundamental freedoms that

are subscribed to by the International Labour Organization through its

conventions, and subscribed to by this country. Those conventions are

being violated by this denial of free collective bargaining.

I want to move on to another aspect of this, and that is the whole

question of consent. At some stage earlier in the debate on Bill 19 —

and I've forgotten now at what stage it was — I talked about the need

for laws to be consented to by those who are governed. You cannot, in a

free society, operate for long if you have laws which are not consented

to by those being governed. It's a fundamental element of our

democratic system, and I talked earlier about various people over the

years who have made that point. I talked about people going back to 300

B.C. coming on right through to today — Winston Churchill, Abraham

Lincoln, and many, many others — all of whom argued that for a law to

be successful it must be agreed to. For a law to be successful there

needs to be a process by which people feel they have had an involvement

in its determination. No one in this province prior to April 2 imagined

that there would be a law brought in in this

[ Page 1719 ]

province, this year, that would set up an

Industrial Relations Council, giving one individual the kind of powers

that heretofore have been the exclusive jurisdiction of the Legislature

to be used rarely and judiciously.

What happened was that the law came in without any consultation of

any kind on that fundamental issue — no consultation whatsoever; none.

Not a single person in this province was told: "I want your reaction to

a proposal that we establish this kind of body which will have

unprecedented powers to end labour disputes, which will have powers to

bring in settlements through compulsory arbitration, will be allowed to

bring in a final-offer selection process without the consent of the

parties, will be allowed to do a variety of other interventionist acts

in terms of reaching a collective agreement settlement." No one was

told that that's what the government is contemplating, and therefore

"we would like some reaction."

There was no reaction about this, because nobody believed this kind

of legislation was possible in a free and democratic society such as

ours is still. No one believed that was possible. So there's been no

public participation in the formulation of this mechanism. What we've

had is a public response to it, and clearly the response is

overwhelmingly in opposition to this kind of proposal, and even more

overwhelmingly in opposition to the process by which it was developed.

No one should be surprised that the people who are going to be

governed by this legislation and this Industrial Relations Council and

Mr. Peck say they can't live with it. No one should be surprised when

they say they will not be governed by it. If people won't be governed

by it or cannot live with it, it will not work. If it won't work, why

proceed with it?

I'm not suggesting by that statement that any group out there can

prevent legislation from coming in and being implemented simply by

saying: "We won't work with it." I'm not saying that. Governments have

the right to govern; legislatures have the right to legislate, and the

final analysis, the final decision, is made here. But legislators also

have a responsibility to make sure that when they do legislate, and

governments the responsibility to make sure when they do govern, that

there has been a process by which that legislation and governing has

been developed that allows people to think they've been part of it.

They may not like it all; they may scream and shout about parts of it;

they may say: "We'll get rid of that at the next election." They may

say all kinds of things. But if they've been part of it, they might at

least be prepared to work with it, because they had a say.

[2:45]

No one has had a say in this issue, and that's one of the reasons

why it won't work. As I say, if it won't work, then why proceed? The

government has had clear indications that it won't work. The only way

it's going to be able to make it work is by using the powers elsewhere

in this legislation to make every violation a contempt of court matter.

Because employers will be able to have any violation filed

automatically in the Supreme Court, which makes any violation of this

legislation a contempt of court, that will inflame it even further.

I appeal to the government to recognize that you cannot bring in a

law such as this, a law that governs people without their consent,

without expecting it to fail and to fail miserably.

MR. WILLIAMS: The member for North Island has said that these

are powers unprecedented in North America in terms of this great

centralization in power. And this is an administration that came into

office on the promise of decentralizing power and authority. What does

the minister say in response? What does the Premier say in response to

this? That was the promise of those rosy days of October: decentralist

approach. We have a more centralized operation in the Premier's office

than we've ever seen, or at least the equivalent to the previous

Premier, which was highly centralized. And now we have this kind of

exercise, all of it, as the member says, as a response to a kind of

thing that happens once in a decade or once every other decade.

It's taking this huge hammer, this tremendous authority — and as the

member says: "The only amendment you brought in is the telephone call

to the Minister of Labour" as a kind of sop to those who said: "Well,

you know, there really is a democratic process. There really are

ministers, there really are elections, and there really is a

Legislature."

That's not very good. You haven't given us the justification. We

know that the numbers are different. We know that we aren't the

province with the worst problems of strikes. More days are lost in

Ontario and Quebec than in British Columbia. The argument starts

falling apart. The problem is a perception. I think it's a perception

in the Premier's mind that is not the reality. The Premier sees

problems that are not there. That's what we went through this last week

too. In a way, British Columbians are kind of writ large. We're the

California of Canada, in many ways; and the Premier is a kind of

representative of that, in a way. It's part of the nature of British

Columbia. But given that, we shouldn't get the kind of responses that

we've had in this last week and with this legislation. They're

overblown. It's not responding reasonably to the milieu of British

Columbia.

This is indeed a special place, this province of ours. The people

east of the mountains have trouble with us, whether we're on that side

or this side of the House, because we're written a little larger than

the rest of Canada — and that's fine by me, because I think we should

be. It really is a special place. But then you do this to us. Nowhere

in North America are they doing this. They have a healthy economy in

Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba; and generally things have been moving

better in those other provinces.

The Premier stated his reason for all this: this kind of

intervention is to get the economy rolling. But it's very clear that

that's not what's going to happen.

The member for North Island says that governing is really by

consent. The British system is a kind of muddle-through system, when

you really look at it. We're told in school it's the greatest system.

and all that stuff. I don't really believe that. I think there are a

lot of elements of other systems that are better, and that the

Americans might have some advantages on us in that regard, in terms of

checks and balances especially. Under the British system we don't have

those checks and balances; they're assumed. It's assumed that the

leadership will accommodate those kinds of checks and balances. It's

not required under our system, but there's an assumption.

That's really what the member for North Island is saying about the

consent of the governed: they really have to accept it. If they've been

involved in the process in a reasonable way, even though they may not

like it, they'll accept it. But the member for North Island is saying

that that didn't happen here.

[ Page 1720 ]

This proposal has been kicking around for years now. In terms of

this super-czar. Let's be honest about that. It's been kicking around

in the Premier's office for years. The former Premier decided it was

too hot and didn't make sense in terms of the consent of the governed.

This wasn't the result of those hearing processes. This wasn't the

result of work in the Ministry of Labour, or the consultation with

business and labour. This is something that was hanging around in the

Premier's office for a long time. The question was: should we use that

hammer? Should we bring that hammer in in terms of legislation? The

irony is that the former Premier said no. The new Premier comes along,

claiming to be a decentralist....

I share that view, the real view of decentralization, because I was

out for some time myself. One of the advantages when you're out of

office and come back again is that it gives some perspective. I share

that same perspective, that if more power were delivered to the people

in this province, rather than in this Legislature or in the

corporations on west Georgia Street, we'd all be better off. But we're

not getting that pattern now. We're getting a very highly centralized,

interventionist system that's not in keeping with the flow of history

in this province; it's not in keeping with the incremental gains that

labour have struggled for, and that have been agreed by various

contracts between the two parties, labour and management.

The whole idea that one person and one group of bureaucrats could be

smarter or better than the collective wisdom of those in business and

labour, working between themselves in terms of their interests, is a

bit of a shocker, given that interregnum that the Premier went through,

being out there and independent and doing nice productive work in the

garden, and all that stuff — which I don't knock. That's a kind of

peaceful existence. We haven't had that of late in this province, and

it needn't have been so. It doesn't bode well for the future.

The people of the province have made it clear. They think there's

something wrong here. This isn't what they bargained for. You don't

have the consent of the governed.

The people in the trade union movement made it clear before this all

happened that they, in an unprecedented way, were coming of maturity,

in a sense, in terms of being willing to work with business and

management, to fund a school and institute to deal with labour

relations.

You know, when outsiders have come here and looked at the province,

they've seen not only weaknesses in labour, which I think are blown up

pretty big.... I remember when consultants came here from Stockholm and

looked at our industry in the forest sector — thoughtful people from

the Royal Institute there. They were shocked at management's level of

capability in labour relations. They thought there were all kinds of

problems created at the management level. We always tend to think of

these things as labour problems, but it takes two to tango; there are

also management problems. There are misperceptions, and there are

ideological views and a range of things that are not productive.

It's been there on the labour side too. We now have a new generation

of labour leaders in the province, and that's showing. It's being

reflected in the polls, in terms of understanding and attitude by the

public about those guys. "Labour bosses" have been pretty unpopular

folks in the modem history of this province. But if you look at the

numbers now, Mr. Georgetti is coming through pretty well. Even the

Premier said,"Well, he is an attractive young man, and he communicates

pretty well," and so on, and that's true.

But we do have these problems on the management side. There is

something fatal and flawed in the view of democracy here and of what

this province has been and can become. With the right, generous

attitude, we can really become something in this province, and I don't

think it matters whether we're governed by the moderate right or the

moderate left, in that sense. I think we can become something indeed,

but this won't allow that.

The idea of some guy who has all these powers, and can be right, and

can really split it down the middle and really settle it all.... I

believe in a pluralistic system. I believe that people out there, given

genuine opportunity, especially in a province like this, can perform

magnificently. I think that this new generation of labour leaders we've

got in the province would help that come to flower.

We had this wonderful opportunity just within our grasp in the last

six months in terms of labour not being happy with what has been

happening, and not being happy with themselves either. I think

Georgetti and these new people are a reflection of a new maturity and,

at the same time, youth and energy. That's exciting, because I've been

as dismayed, maybe, as people on the other side on occasion in terms of

some of the steps taken by some of the labour representatives in this

province.

I don't think it's an easy thing, but the signs of the last six

months or so have been very good. What's happened is like taking a

great big stick to it all in terms of that reasonable attitude that was

evolving. Mr. Matkin was impressed by what the labour unions' response

was — Mr. Georgetti and the Federation of Labour and their responses.

So from the business side, I think you saw that, Mr. Premier, in terms

of Mr. Matkin's initial response to this legislation. He clearly could

not endorse it.

Then we've had this other situation with Mr. Leslie, the former

deputy minister, saying all kinds of things, in terms of the lack of

communication and all the rest of it. This man is a Rhodes scholar, an

expert in his field, and shouldn't be readily dismissed or ignored.

Given all that — an opportunity within one's grasp — how could one

proceed in this way? It's a misperception and a lack of understanding

of opportunity and of what British Columbia is all about.

It's terribly disappointing, because we've gone through a

significant recession. We do not have great capacity in terms of the

civil service at the higher economic levels in this province, I am

sorry to say. I am afraid that the highest levels.... The city of

Vancouver has far greater competence, especially in terms of economic

understanding. We just don't have that in the province of British

Columbia. We don't have a significant capacity, so we went through this

whole exercise of restraint under the last administration with no real

understanding of the macroeconomic implications of that. They were

negative; they hurt the province in the end.

People bought it because it was simplistic and all the rest of it.

And so it is with this. We don't have the tools, the people, the

equipment, to be advising this administration in a satisfactory manner,

in terms of how you really direct this economy. There is no reason in

the world.... You ask any current immigrant. They will say: "There is

something wrong. Where I came from" — and it doesn't matter where they

came from — "we didn't have anything like British Columbia to work

with." Here we have more than two and a half million people, and this

incredible land of opportunity

[ Page 1721 ]

— the last great frontier in North America,

really — and they say: "What's wrong? Unemployment, people aren't so

well off...." They're better off in Ontario and, my God, even in

Manitoba. You look at the flat fields of Manitoba and the town of

Winnipeg and say: "How could that be?" Yet it is.

So there is a desperate need there. I don't think you've got that

kind of economic understanding in terms of this sort of thing either.

This has heavy economic implications. The Japanese aren't going to buy

the stuff that was sold around here. Maybe some of our people would for

a little while, but the sophisticates in Japan are not going to buy the

idea that this is going to make British Columbia safe for investment.

They know it's exactly the opposite. They know that it is turmoil, and

that we are going to have an administration of turmoil. It needn't have

been. At a time when North America has pulled out of the last slump, we

are modestly pulling out.

[3:00]

AN HON. MEMBER: Modestly?

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, we're partly moving in the pulp industry,

which is significant because of world market conditions and all the

rest of it. But we still haven't done what other administrations have

done.

So one despairs in terms of the lack of capacity, in terms of

top-notch economic advice for this government. You didn't get it prior

to restraint; you're not getting it now. We don't have that sense of

direction. And the people from abroad that the Premier and others have

looked to for investment in this province are going to look at this

turmoil. They're going to look at this threat of boycott, which is

there and real because of this lack of consent of the governed that the

member for North Island referred to, and they are just going to turn

their backs on us. If that was the strategy in terms of a new economy

in the province....

I happen to personally think that we can build British Columbia

incrementally internally with our own people and our own savings, and

that we don't really need a lot of outside investment at all. If I am

right, then maybe this repairing process and pulling back process could

be more immediate and beneficial. The Premier has talked about at least

not proclaiming, or not proclaiming parts of, this legislation.

AN HON. MEMBER: He has rejected that too.

MR. WILLIAMS: Has he? I am not sure. Maybe the events of the last week

have caused him to really pause and reconsider. I hope so, because I think there

are these two sides to the Premier's view of the world. There is this dark

side, where it's kind of a holy war about the past and people he hasn't

liked for one reason or another or that he personally thinks have hurt the economy.

And there's this generous side that is willing to work and build and so

on. It keeps moving back and forth. We get the dark side on the steps and out

on the streets. It is not very good. I have listened to the tapes and I find

them disturbing, because we really are a government of all the people. When

40-plus percent are trade unionist, to isolate them and use them as whipping-people

is not healthy for the democratic system. It is simply not healthy, and it isn't

the kind of thing one expects any more these days. They are people who have

to be brought into the mainstream and be participants. They have much to offer,

those working people of British Columbia. I just urge the Premier and minister

to pull back. You cannot justify the steps you are taking here. I don't

think it is embarrassing to pull back at this stage. There is too much at stake.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The member for New Westminster would like leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MS. A. HAGEN: I note in the Speaker's gallery a member of the

city council of New Westminster, Alderman Mal Hughes. I would ask the

House to make Alderman Hughes welcome.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Before the Chair recognizes the next member,

I would like to suggest that the speakers deal with relevancy a little

bit more. In the last 15 minutes I don't believe there was really

anything relevant; it was all second reading debate. If we are going to

get through this very large section, relevancy is going to have to be

adhered to.

MR. LOVICK: I noticed as my colleague from Vancouver East was

speaking that the Premier was in the House and seemed to be listening.

Unfortunately, at the conclusion of my colleague's remarks the Premier

left. I was hoping he might respond to some of the suggestions and

comments presented, or that the Minister of Labour might respond. It

would seem, however, that we are going to have to carry on and build a

somewhat more elaborate and detailed case of concern about

section 62

of Bill 19 before we can apparently provoke and elicit that response.

So I am sorry that is the case.

I start by saying that, Madam Chairman, because the first point I

want to make, and I think it is a crucial one, is that I think we are

now at the point in this debate where the civility and good humour and

relative friendliness is going to be very much in jeopardy. I say that

because the dimensions and the implications of

section 62 for Bill 19

are such that we on this side of the House believe it is our moral

obligation to stand and speak against it as eloquently and effectively

as we are able. I recognize the difficulty in personalizing conflict,

and I know that one should avoid doing that in a house of debate. The

point though, and why it becomes difficult for me, at least, is that at

some time I ask myself when the minister, whom I regard as a decent

individual and a nice person.... At some point I say, how much longer

can a nice and decent person sit by and present under his name

legislation which is not nice and not decent? If I then should spill

over into a somewhat exaggerated or intense mode of drawing attention

to flaws in Bill 19, specifically

section 62, I want the minister to

know that that is the reason why. If you're complicit in this kind of

legislation, and if we are correct in our conclusion that this kind of

legislation is indeed bad, then you the actors, you the creators of the

legislation, must indeed bear some of the blame for that. I don't, as I

say, intend to attack the minister as an individual human being, but I

do intend to attack his judgment and his sense of perspective in

allowing this particular

section to stand before us.

Having said that, let me refer to the minister's opening comments in

defence of

section 62 of the bill. I made a few brief notes, and I

think I can do justice to the minister's comments. I would advise him,

of course, to correct me if I'm overstating the case.

He began by referring to the problem that is indeed endemic in every industrial society: the problem of strikes

[ Page 1722 ]

and lockouts. He acknowledged — to give him his due

— that there is a 95.5 percent factor; that 95 percent of all contract

settlements are adjudicated, adjusted and resolved without recourse to

strike or lockout. Nevertheless, the minister is suggesting that for

the 5 percent solution we need: (

a) Bill 19; and (

b) the provision

specifically of

section 62. The obvious conclusion, then, the fair

question to derive from that model, if I can call it that, is whether

section 62 will in any way satisfy the problem that it is designed to

address: namely, whether it will have an influence on that other 5

percent of disputes which would lead those disputes to be settled

amicably and without resort to strike or lockout. The starting claim

that we on this side of the House will make, and that we will make

again and again — and it will always be in order, I suggest — is simply

that this kind of approach will not have that impact, that influence.

Rather, it will have the opposite influence, primarily because what

section 62 of Bill 19 seems to be saying — and I think we can support

this contention by reference to a number of witnesses — is that

collective bargaining as we have come to understand it is now an

extinct species. It doesn't exist, certainly, in the form that it

existed prior to the introduction of Bill 19.

The minister can declaim and state again and again that the

government will not invoke the provisions of this

section of the bill

unless it is "absolutely necessary." I would suggest that that

statement begs the question, because the real question is: who decides

when something is absolutely necessary? That takes us to the nub of our

concern about this bill: namely, that the right to decide what is

absolutely necessary is going to be given to a non-elected official

who, as nearly as we can make out, is not even entirely answerable to

the minister. The person we're talking about, the industrial relations

commissioner, is given incredible powers. Forgetting for the moment all

about the individual who has been charged with that responsibility, we

on this side of the House are contending that there is something

demonstrably wrong with the principle of in effect giving over to a

non-elected individual that responsibility for adjudicating and making

that sort of judgment. We think that's wrong.

We are also scared, I think I can fairly say, when we hear the

minister's repeated allusions to threats to the public interest. I

think we have spoken on a number of occasions about precisely that

reference, and why it is that we're concerned by that reference. "The

public interest" is a terminology that tends to be invoked and used by

particular individuals whose own interest is perceived to be the public

interest. History abounds with examples to demonstrate that simple

conclusion.

Interjection.

MR. LOVICK: How do we define the public interest, is the

question posed by my hon. friend from Vancouver East. He's quite right

to pose the question, because we don't know how. Continued assertions

and iterations about,"Well, we're looking out for your best interests;

we're concerned with the public interest; we have to protect innocent

third parties" — all of those statements, with all due deference, Mr.

Minister, are suspect and they are also charged with subjective value

judgments.

We are concerned who it is, then, that is going to have the

responsibility to make those judgments. Again I come back to the point

I made just a moment ago: we're concerned especially and specifically

by the fact that we are giving over the right to make those decisions

to people who are not, on the face of it, answerable even to this body

— non-elected officials, individuals who rather sit outside the

legislative process and to whom we give great, indeed too great, powers.

We're also worried — and I'm speaking just in general terms thus far

— when the minister says to us in defence of the bill that this

individual, this new industrial relations commissioner, will have the

ability to designate certain services as essential. Again, the same

point causes us concern, namely that some individual is given the

right, in effect by fiat, to decide that which is essential as opposed

to that which is — dare I say — unessential.

It's frankly, I think, a fallacious and false dichotomy to suggest

that we can divide the world of services and goods into essential and

unessential, and I for one am rather frightened when I listen to any

argument that suggests it's a very simple matter to decide. I'm even

more frightened though, Madam Chairman, when somebody suggests to me

that the decision is going to be made by one person, a person who again

is not, on the face of it, answerable to the elected representatives of

the people. That is a concern. I think it's a legitimate one. I think

we have every right to express some alarm and some misgivings.

That, again, is all by way of

preamble to make the point that I

perhaps will become somewhat strained in my comments, and I will be

perhaps more emotional and exercised than I might otherwise want to be.

I think, though, I want to stress here that what we're dealing with is

sufficiently important that we should not, for fear of being impolite

or for fear of being uncivil, hold back on expressing precisely the

concerns and misgivings that we have. So that's my

preamble, as it

were, Madam Chairman, and through you to the minister.

Now let me try to state precisely what it is, in general terms, that

is wrong with

section 62. I have alluded to various aspects, but let me

see if I can be somewhat more precise. I want to begin that process by

reading into the record a very short statement from a person whom we

normally regard as belonging to the other side, i.e. as distinct from

this side of the House, a management lawyer who....

Interjection.

MR. LOVICK: Sorry about that. There are members indeed of the

government who are on this side of the House, and it's difficult

sometimes to put things in graphic and entirely accurate form. So I

apologize to the members on my extreme left who feel left out.

[3:15]

The person whose words I am about to read and whom I am referring

to, Madam Chairman, is of course Gavin Hume, the well-known labour

lawyer whose track record is to be spokesperson for management — that

side of the equation. Highly respected; I think his credentials are

beyond reproach. Let me just read you the first short paragraph of

Gavin Hume's analysis of

section 62. It's a very short paragraph but I

think it makes some points that cry out for elaboration. "Section 62 of

Bill 19," says Gavin Hume,"provides a new

Part 8.1 — disputes

resolution. It is anticipated that these new provisions will have a

profound effect on the process of collective bargaining in the

province. The legislation gives the commissioner unprecedented powers

to intervene in both public and private sector disputes." Note

"profound effect." Note "unprecedented powers." This is somebody, I

would hasten to point out, Mr. Minister, who is

[ Page 1723 ]

not attempting to speak in any kind of inflammatory

style. This is somebody whose interest, if anything, would conspire to

make him tone down the implications of this bill and this section. But

his words, nonetheless, are "unprecedented powers" and, as

well,"profound effect."

He goes on to another two sentences I want to quote. "The dispute

resolution mechanisms available to the commissioner, such as mediators,

interest arbitrators, fact finders and public interest inquiry boards,

are not new." So we can all breathe a sigh of relief there. We can say:

"Fine. Nothing new there. Good. We can live with it." But then listen

to the next sentence: "The authority given to the commissioner to refer

the dispute to one of these third parties, without the consent of the

parties involved in the dispute, and, in turn, the powers given to

third parties to establish the terms of the collective agreement, are

new."

Let's let that sink in for just a moment, Madam Chairman, because

what that amounts to, to any fair-minded witness, is effectively a

redefinition and a rewrite of what most of us take to mean by the

phrase "collective bargaining." Collective bargaining traditionally

involves two parties. The last statement in this effectively says that

what's new in the bill, what's new in labour relations, what's new

because of

section 62, is that third parties now have the power to

adjudicate agreements without the consent of the parties involved in

the dispute. In a rational political world, Madam Chairman and Mr.

Minister, I ought not have to say anything more.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, your time has expired.

The second member for Langley would like permission to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. PETERSON: Madam Chairman, on behalf of yourself and

myself I would like the House to join me in welcoming 25 grade 7

students sitting in the public gallery from Langley Prairie school.

With them are three chaperones and their teacher, Mr. John Thielmann.

Will the House please join me and give them a very warm welcome.

MR. CLARK: I was enjoying the eloquent remarks of the second

member for Nanaimo so much that I'm going to relinquish the floor and

have him speak some more.

MR. LOVICK: I do not anticipate that I shall take up another large chunk of time to finish these few remarks I wanted to make.

I was trying to build the case, when I concluded, that what we have

here is, dare I say, incontrovertible evidence that collective

bargaining as we currently and customarily find that term is a thing of

the past, based on this analysis of

section 62. I was suggesting that

if indeed we have a government that claims to believe in the principle

of free and fair collective bargaining, then in all honesty that

government cannot continue to say: "We are presenting

section 62 and at

the same time we believe in fair and free collective bargaining." I

think the two are mutually exclusive. I think, indeed, that

section 62

contradicts the principle flatly, directly and clearly. That was the

conclusion I was deriving from the eminent labour lawyer.

The reason that we on this side are so much concerned about that is not necessarily

that we believe the thing called "collective bargaining" is in and

of itself necessarily sacred, sacrosanct or next to godliness, or some such

thing. However, it is one other manifestation of rights in a democratic society,

enjoyed by citizens in the society, that are sacred, sacrosanct, and — if I

can extend the repetition — next to godliness. Free collective bargaining between

the parties is certainly just another manifestation of a society in which people

are treated as free, independent, decision-making individuals. That's why

we have the system. If we don't have the faith in the individuals to decide

their own destiny, then obviously we're going to throw out collective bargaining

and any pretence to having a system of collective bargaining. However, in our

society and in our culture we like to believe that collective bargaining is

important. We like to believe that it is a necessary part of a democratic society.

I want to emphasize that we on this side of the House are concerned when we

see what we consider to be absolutely solid, irrefutable evidence that that

right is being taken away. I could not live with myself, Madam Chairman, if

I did not stand up here and speak for the amount of time I am allotted against

any provision that is going to take away that kind of right.

Let me see if I can put it in one other way; then I will end my

remarks for the moment on this. The system, I have suggested, of

democracy and of individuals having the right to choose their governors

and to choose the laws that govern them and to challenge both their

laws and their governors is a precious and a fragile one. We all know

that. There are forces obviously conspiring and working against that

system's operation and success every day of the week. But the forces

should not be the elected governments.

If anybody ought to be protecting the rights, if anybody ought to be

protecting the sanctity of the system, surely that is government's job.

As I suggest, what we see here is a head-on challenge against those

basic independent decision-making powers we grant to individuals in the

democratic society, in this case powers and rights we call collective

bargaining.

After considerable thought and reflection on the matter — and I

choose my words very carefully — what this

section amounts to I think

is in effect a violation of the social contract. It amounts effectively

to redrafting the map of relations by which we in this province live.

You may want to say that that is alarmist. You may want to say: "Oh,

surely you jest; surely that can't be the case." But I want to suggest

it is, for the reasons I have tried to sketch out, namely that

collective bargaining is merely one manifestation of authentic

democracy in action.

It is not the only one, but it is a crucial and important one. If we

take away that right, then we have created precisely the mandate and

the rationale for taking away other democratic rights. Let me close

these few remarks with just sharing another little bit of

correspondence about this subject. As I said, Madam Chairman, I have

struggled for some time now with precisely what Bill 19 means, what its

implications are and what my responsibility as a legislator happens to

be in response to that particular bill.

One of the parts of my struggle has been, of course, to grapple with

the action taken by individuals throughout this province, action that

we loosely call civil disobedience. As one who has made some point of

studying those matters in usually more abstract than real

circumstances, as one who has some familiarity with that debate and

that discussion, I come sadly to the conclusion that we have in Bill 19

and in

section 62 of that bill what I earlier referred to as a

violation of a social contract.

[ Page 1724 ]

I want to just suggest to you that in standard political theory,

when the governors violate the contract, that is held to be the

absolute case — the only case, frankly — in which individuals are

justified to commit civil disobedience. It is an important point to

note, because I don't think any individuals decide that they are going

to go out and engage in activities that, though not necessarily

technically illegal, are going to be perceived as illegal. I don't

think individuals run out and cavalierly do that kind of thing; rather,

they do so because they feel they have no other choice in the matter.

Let me then share with you part of an exchange between a former

colleague of mine and me about the matter of Bill 19, about what its

implications are, about what we ought to be doing, we the opposition.

This is from the head of the philosophy department at Malaspina College

in Nanaimo. He writes to me as the president of the college union. The

first paragraph says: "Here is what the union has requested me by

democratic vote to express to you as the MLA representing our

constituency."

Then he writes another paragraph. The other paragraph, specifically to me, I would like to share with you. It says this:

"My personal concern is somewhat different than my

provincial union's concern. Not that I don't agree with the CIEA stand"

— that is the College-Institute Educators' Association, by the way, Mr.

Minister — "because of course I do. But let me explain. Bill 19 is

essentially a rewrite of the social contract, a rewrite that most

citizens did not anticipate because we were not told of its

possibility. Surely governments continue to have a responsibility to

inform the citizenry when basic changes to the social contract are in

order. I do not believe that the present government has been honest in

its actions as they relate to labour legislation. This lack of

forthrightness is most disturbing and may in itself justify acts of

civil disobedience against unannounced governmental moves."

I hope the minister listened to that, because I think the case being

presented is obviously a thoughtful one, a well considered one, the

product of some reflection, the product of some study. It's not a

rabble-rouser. It's not somebody who says: "Let's hit the streets so we

can embarrass the government." It's an attitude, rather, that is

offered I think in dismay, one that says: "The society we have come to

embrace and love is in jeopardy, is threatened."

[3:30]

What I have tried to demonstrate, Mr. Minister, is that under what

on the face of it may be a relatively simple amendment to the existing

labour law, simply the creation of a new position called the industrial

relations commissioner and a body over which that person is to

preside.... I'm suggesting that within that ostensibly simple provision

is something that I regard, frankly, as very sinister. I think the

government has a moral obligation, as I suggested earlier, to explain

to us in real terms — not can't; not some kind of can't and some kind

of flip pronouncements about how this will solve all our industrial

relations disputes, because certainly we know it won't, but explain to

us in real terms — the purpose of this section, and also to somehow

demonstrate to me and to my colleagues why we are wrong in the

contentions we are presenting to you. Unless the minister can do that,

certain of my colleagues and I are going to continue to speak out as

eloquently as we are able against this measure.

HON. MR. DAVIS: This clause is an expression of the public

interest. Hon. members opposite, and particularly the last two

speakers, have been telling us about their vision, their view, of

collective bargaining. They sometimes call it "free collective

bargaining." That in itself is a conflict in terms, because collectives

rarely operate freely. Nevertheless: "free collective bargaining."

As I see it, this clause deals with a power struggle in our society.

The old Labour Code essentially addressed that power struggle as if

there were only two contestants in the arena: substantially big

business and its adversary, big labour. The public interest — the

interests of the rest of the community — was substantially excluded. It

was not considered effectively in the old Labour Code; it's addressed

in Bill 19.

The majority of people in this province, the majority of individuals

in this province, citizens, are neither members of management in big

companies nor individual members in other collectives called unions.

They have been, more often than not, spectators in a battle, a battle

between the big boys, between big business and big unions. At times big

business has been inclined to use similar language to that used by the

large unions. They are big; the unions are big. They see their interest

as often better served by an agreement between the two big parties to

the contest, without any regard or little regard to the public

interest, the interest of the majority, the majority of the people in

this province. Surely the freedoms, the opportunities, the interests of

the majority.... Twice as many people are employed otherwise than in

unions. If you include members of their families, many times more

people are spectators to this old-fashioned contest. This was the case

last year in the instance of the IWA work stoppage. They were affected,

some of them seriously affected, by a contest between the two big boys

on the block.

The little people are all too frequently ignored. Anyone who's an

individualist, anyone who regards the rights and freedoms of the

individual, is concerned with the rights and freedoms of the majority

of individuals as well as the minority. Special interests exist; they

have to exist, often, to get things done. Large corporations are

sometimes the most efficient. Unions are necessary in order to get

their employees reasonable conditions of work, reasonable remuneration.

But those special interests, those special groups, those special power

groups, must not be protected by legislation which regards their

interests solely. It must be concerned with the interest of the greater

number of people in the province, the majority. The public interest is

the interest of everyone, including the majority of people who are

neither big management nor big labour, nor in management at any level,

nor employed as unionized workers.

The hon. member who spoke last talked about the social contract.

That's a mentality that regards society as being made up of big lumps

which have a contract with the bigger lump, the state, and that is

foreign to the philosophy of those who believe in the individual and in

individual rights and freedoms. I support this clause because it

expresses the public interest — the interest of the majority of the

people of this province.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The second member for Nanaimo has a point of order.

[ Page 1725 ]

MR. LOVICK: Sadly, Madam Chairman, the minister reveals his ignorance. The social contract is a concept defined by liberals.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, that is....

MR. LOVICK: It is the great defence of individual rights....

MADAM CHAIRMAN: That is not a point of order, hon. member ...

MR. LOVICK: It is so. He's lying to us.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: ...and your language is not parliamentary.

MR. LOVICK: He's telling us the wrong story.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I would ask the second member for Nanaimo to withdraw his comment.

MR. LOVICK: About which?

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Did I hear you say that the minister was lying?

MR. LOVICK: If indeed I said the minister was lying, I'm happy to withdraw that comment.

MR. HEWITT: Point of order, Madam Chairman. For the second

time that member has interrupted a speech made by a member of this side

of the House. If he looks at the rule book, he will find that where a

correction needs to be made.... I stand to be corrected by the Clerk if

I'm out of order. My understanding was that where a correction is to be

made, it is to be made at the end of the member's presentation, not to

interrupt his speech. Would the Chair please clarify that, so that

member doesn't continually abuse the rules of this House?

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The point is well taken, and the member is

correct. I would also like to remind the members that this House has

listened to many speeches in this debate, and I find it unacceptable to

have members interrupting one another in the middle of their speeches.

HON. MR. DAVIS: This clause substantially has to do with the

public interest. My main point, and I believe the main issue dealt with

by this clause, is the interest of our society as a whole — that of all

of those who live in British Columbia who are citizens and voters here.

It's inconceivable to me that this Legislature would pass a law

which dignified the interests of two power groups — big business and

big labour — without some regard to the rest of the community; and

that's essentially what this clause does. Here we're talking about a

substantial majority of the people of this province. Their interests

cannot be disregarded. The big entities, the big power groups — big

business and big labour — can battle on their own, but when their

warfare spills over and affects other in the community — affects them

seriously, sometimes for long periods of time — the public interest is

involved.

The public interest can really only be expressed through the

government of the province, the government of the day, regardless of

party. That public interest is very real, and it must be expressed in

legislation. I'm amazed that it wasn't expressed in the previous Labour

Code. It must be expressed now, and this is one of the reasons I

support this legislation.

MR. CLARK: I knew the Minister of Energy was old, but I

didn't know he was that old, because that kind of language and ideology

is really a nineteenth-century one. I think it bespeaks an incredibly

simplistic view of how modem society operates.

With respect to the public interest, all academics and anybody

looking at it objectively will say that you cannot define the public

interest very easily. It certainly isn't simply a question of majority

in a modern and complex society. We have what most people would view as

the interests of different publics and different sectors of the public

that conflict from time.

What we've said in labour relations is that the public interest

should be decided by legislatures, not by bureaucrats, a bureaucrat, a

minister or the cabinet. This Legislature has had the power to

intervene in labour relations disputes and has intervened from time to

time in extraordinary circumstances to protect what is viewed by this

chamber as the public interest. A commissioner will now have a wide

range of techniques available to intervene in disputes in what he

thinks is the public interest.

It's a very simplistic notion the Minister of Energy has stated. I

think, however. It's consistent with this kind of bill, which reflects

that view. It's a view that is not shared by very many individuals in

the western world any more; I think it went out of fashion around the

turn of the century.

We believe this bill is a very poor one. I had some experience with

the old Labour Code, and I feel very strongly that, particularly with

the 1984 amendments, the old Labour Code was stacked against trade

unions and in favour of employers. It was a significant shift in the

power and in the balance between management and labour, with the

amendments in 1984. We now have

section after

section of this bill

which shifts that balance even further in favour of management. But of

all the sections, the one we're debating now is really the heart of the

legislation and fundamentally changes the direction.

Before this bill was introduced, we had a genuine effort on the part

of labour and management to come together in the public interests of

British Columbia and make a consensus building process. We had the

Pacific Institute, the board of trade, the Business Council of B.C. and

the B.C. Federation of Labour. We had, I think, a new generation of

trade union leaders come to the fore. We had a new government that held

great promise to the people of British Columbia, which is why they got

elected — because of the promise of a fresh start, the promise of a

break in the confrontation we had seen in British Columbia.

So we had a promise. We had all the actors coming together. We had a

Minister of Labour who toured the province and had 700 submissions,

which demonstrated the kind of interest in consensus — building and in

change that could be supported by all parties. Instead we have

legislation which is not supported by at least one major actor and, I

suspect, by many more. I've had calls from employers I used to deal

with who are really shocked by the extent of this legislation.

[ Page 1726 ]

This

section gives sweeping powers to one individual; and "sweeping

powers" is the language used by the Minister of Labour in his press

release. It's not meant to be inflammatory; it's a description that the

government uses itself to describe the powers of Ed Peck and the

commissioner to intervene in disputes — sweeping, massive intervention.

We've said before, and I'll say again, that consensus cannot be

legislated. You cannot decide that there will not be any strikes.

That's not how it works in a modem society; that's not how it works in

North America and in British Columbia history. This attempts to go

against the history of British Columbia and to radically change the way

we do business. It can't work without the cooperation of the parties.

I've heard many members on the government side say, at least

privately — and I think employers — that all of these incredible,

sweeping powers given to Ed Peck and the commissioner won't be used.

They're really there as a threat to force the parties to negotiate. It

seems to me you simply don't place those kinds of extraordinary

powers....

What are the powers? He can appoint a fact-finder under this

section, a mediator, a public interest inquiry board; he can order

votes at any stage during a strike; he can order final offer selection;

and a whole range of things. Those things aren't there as a threat.

They're there to be used, and they will be used.

[3:45]

I submit that because of that one

section in particular, the B.C.

Federation of Labour has decided to boycott the legislation. In fact,

these sections will have to be used, and they will be used

significantly and consistently to try to impose a settlement on the

parties. The government's response by way of the writ the other day

indicates the kind of attitude the government has: the consistent

desire to use significant powers to try to deal with non-consent to the

government's actions. This

section of the bill that gives those

wide-ranging tools and powers to that commissioner to intervene will be

used, and it will be used just as the writ was used: to try to force a

settlement on the parties.

We can predict — we know historically — that that kind of thing

won't work in British Columbia. All of these powers and, I think, this

bureaucratic kind of approach to collective bargaining will stifle the

kind of free collective bargaining that we've had. In fact, there won't

be free collective bargaining anymore. It's quite clear. And it forces

government to be an actor, a partner, in every collective bargaining

process. The Minister of Energy talks about individuals and the liberal

philosophy of the nineteenth century, and here we have a government

intervening so extraordinarily, so massively into the day-to-day

operations of free peoples to negotiate collective agreements without

the interference of the state. It's beyond me how members on that side

can reconcile this kind of strange dichotomy in their minds: on the one

hand saying "we're in favour of the individual and getting government

off the backs of people," and on the other hand saying: "except in

labour relations, where we're going to intervene in every way

imaginable." In fact, this kind of interventionist legislation doesn't

exist anywhere else in the world.

Disputes. No one likes labour disputes. They're messy. But democracy

is messy. It's a price that we pay to live in a free society, to

believe that people have the right collectively to organize and decide

for themselves, to work with employers and decide how to govern their

working lives and what kind of collective agreements they want, what

clauses are in those collective agreements. It's messy and no one likes

it.

It's tempting on the part of government to say: "It's messy for all

these other people so we're going to force settlements consistently."

To try to stifle that kind of debate, to try to stifle people's ability

to negotiate collectively, is not productive. It's going to result in

more disputes. It's going to result in longer and more bitter disputes

consistently across British Columbia. It does nothing to enhance our

reputation in the world; it does nothing to enhance our democracy; and

it does nothing in terms of building the kind of British Columbia we

want, the kind of consensus around labour relations that we need to

move forward in British Columbia.

It really is so profoundly different from our belief on this side,

so fundamentally opposite to the direction in which we believe we

should be moving, that we will be debating this clause-by-clause at

some length.

HON. L. HANSON: With the agreement of the members opposite, I

believe we should start the amendment process. With that in mind, I

would move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See

appendix.]

It's a matter of clarity, Madam Chairman. This is simply to ensure

that the reference to library is the correct reference. The original

had a rather narrow reference that didn't cover all libraries, and now

it recognizes that a regional library constituted under the Library Act

is covered by the definition of a public employer.

On the amendment.

MR. GABELMANN: I don't want to debate the amendment; the

amendment's no problem. I just want to clarify what we're doing here

and indicate that it's with our acceptance that we proceed at this

stage to deal with these amendments seriatim. Procedurally it's a

difficult situation, and I think what we can best do now is to quickly

go through the amendments so that we can then debate in a full way the

amended

section 62. I appreciate the agreement to deal with these

amendments seriatim, even though procedurally it could well be argued

that this is one

section and therefore it's one amendment. But we agree

that we will deal with the amendments seriatim. There will be some

discussion on some of them, and then we will go to a full discussion on

62 as amended after that.

MS. EDWARDS: Madam Chairman, just to clarify in my own mind,

does this mean that library boards which are actually elected by

societies will now be included here instead of the ones that would be

appointed by the minister?

HON. L. HANSON: All library boards. Maybe I should clarify that, Madam Chairman, by saying all libraries constituted under the Library Act.

Amendment approved.

HON. L. HANSON: Madam Chairman, I guess there is no necessity

to refer to

section 62 each time. I move the amendment 137.4 standing

in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

On the amendment.

MR. CLARK: The amendment says: "It is the duty of the commissioner to keep the minister informed respecting

[ Page 1727 ]

strikes and lockouts that occur or are threatened."

" Or threatened," is the question. Does that mean that where strike

notice has been given you are informed of that? Maybe we could just

tighten up what that means.

HON. L. HANSON: Madam Chairman, I think that it's a very

broad requirement in that the commissioner must keep the Minister of

Labour informed on all affairs, I guess, as they are going on. But it

makes it clear that there is a requirement for the minister to be kept

aware of all potential and actual disputes, and remove the arbitrary

28-day notice.

MR. CLARK: "All potential and actual disputes." Does that

mean that it's really a pro forma thing where the commissioner gets

informed that bargaining has commenced with these two parties, and then

he sort of passes that on to you so that you're always informed of the

status of all negotiations for all collective agreements in the

province at all times? Is that fair? Can you say that for the record

for me?

HON. L. HANSON: Madam Chairman, that's substantially correct, yes.

MR. GABELMANN: Not to be too flippant about this, but I think

if the minister wanted to keep up to date with all the situations that

are going on, he could read the Business Council newsletter every week,

and he'd know exactly what strikes are underway, the status of contract

negotiations, when contracts are likely to expire in which industries,

and who the mediator is. If an IIC is involved, that's stated too. The

minister could avoid this whole bureaucratic nonsense just by reading

the Business Council weekly report.

Amendment approved.

HON. L. HANSON: Madam Chairman, I move the amendment 137.5 standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

HON. L. HANSON: Madam Chairman, I move the amendment to subsection 137.7 (3) standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

MR. GABELMANN: I wonder if the minister could tell us if

137.7 (3) (

d) was in the first instance an oversight, and he's just

correcting a drafting error, or is this a conscious decision to add yet

another authority to the commissioner?

HON. L. HANSON: The question, I believe, is referring to "refer the matter to a public interest inquiry board." Is that the concern?

We see it as reflecting a downgrading of the reference of the matter

to a public interest inquiry board. It wasn't an oversight. I believe

it was a result of concerns that had been raised in the various

meetings that we had with representatives of management and labour.

MR. MILLER: For clarification then, the amendment would allow

the reference to a public interest inquiry board of any matter that may

be in dispute. It is not necessary that it has reached the point where

there is a strike or lockout in place; bargaining could actually be

going on in some form, and that matter could be referred to a public

interest inquiry board.

HON. L. HANSON: If the wording is: "Where a strike or lockout

notice has been served, or where a strike or lockout has commenced or

where the chairman considers that a dispute exists between parties, he

shall report the matter to the commissioner...." On receipt of that

report, the commissioner may do the following....

MR. MILLER: I have not looked at the

section extensively, but

it is divided into nine different sections. Some stand on their own and

some are linked together then — is that what you are saying? Are

(2) and (3) linked together, then? One example deals with a situation where

an employer and a trade union have commenced collective bargaining. The

chairman or person appointed may inquire.... Subsection (2) deals with

where a strike or lockout has been served: there shall be a report to

the commissioner.

I will accept your word for now that (2) and (3) are linked

together. But my concern is that if they were not — in other words, if

they were viewed independently — you could conceivably have a situation

where a public interest inquiry board could be constituted to deal with

a matter that will debate that whole issue of public interest inquiry

separately. I am not conceding anything there, because I think it is a

foolish move. But you get my point anyway, so I will leave it until we

get through the amendment.

[4:00]

Amendment approved.

HON. L. HANSON: I move the amendment to subsection 137.7 (6) standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

HON. L. HANSON: I move the amendment to subsection 137.8 standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

On the amendment.

MR. GABELMANN: I'm delighted we have a traffic cop in here now, helping us through this, Madam Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's interesting.

MR. GABELMANN: That's one word. There are others.

This

section is the essential services section. We'll debate this

issue in a substantive form once we've gone through all of the

amendments, but I just want to comment on what this amendment does.

It's clearly a reaction to the concern that the commissioner had too

many powers, and this is returning, theoretically at least, a power to

the minister, because the minister now has to receive a report. The

report is not defined, and that's why we have characterized this whole

section, the so-called improvements to this section, as requiring a

phone call from the commissioner to the minister prior to doing what he

was going to do anyway. So all that this so-called democratization of

this

section really accomplishes is one more phone call, so B.C. Tel

can make a few more cents on their long distance charges. But that's

really all there is to

[ Page 1728 ]

it, and I hope the public, when they consider the

minister's suggestion that in fact this is made more democratic because

the minister gets to make the decisions now....

The fact is that in the way the process is structured, the way it

will evolve and the way events will proceed, all of the information

required to make the decision will be in the hands of the commissioner,

so the commissioner will have all the power. He who has the information

on has the power, and the power that flows from information is

effectively still in the hands of the commissioner. The minister does

not have the information coming from his staff within his ministry; he

has it by a phone call or a report, or however it's transmitted, from

the commissioner. The commissioner can give the minister whatever

information he chooses to give or, conversely, not give whatever he

chooses not to give. If the minister doesn't know the right questions

to ask, they won't get asked and the information won't be transmitted.

So we really have not accomplished a heck of a lot by making what I

think is a paper change to this paper chase.

Amendment approved.

HON. L. HANSON: Madam Chairman, I move the amendment to

section 137.9 (1), (3) and (7) standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

On the amendment.

MR. GABELMANN: There seems to be a speed-up here. Given that

I wasn't going to talk about (1) or (3), and I don't think anybody else

was, we'll go to (7). The changes are in subs (1), (3) and (7), right?

AN HON. MEMBER: Right.

MR. GABELMANN: I think (1) and (3) don't require debate at

this stage; (7) does. Sub (7) will get further debate again later on,

but I want to make just a comment now so that it's on the record with

this amendment.

What we had originally was a proposal that violators of this law

could be punished by their employers rather than by the state — an

unheard of concept until now; that if you break the law of British

Columbia by violating an order of the commissioner, discipline can be

exerted by your employer. Now it's been.... The amendment narrows that

considerably, because.... I can't imagine that the original

section

would have stood the test of the courts anyway, but it has been

narrowed, so let's look at what the amendment does precisely.

The amendment suggests that now the only violation of the law that

will be punished by the employer is the violation of the law as set out

in 137.9, the return-to-work section. If there is a return-to-work

order directed by this

section by the commissioner and people refuse to

obey that law or that order, instead of being in violation of the law

they are judged to be in violation of their contract and the employer

will have the right to discipline. So if you choose freely to break the

law by refusing to go back to work, you aren't taken to court to have

your innocence or your guilt judged as to whether or not you did break

this law. That doesn't happen. What happens is that the employer says

you're fired. You broke the law of B.C.; you're fired. It's now

arbitrable. The disciplined employee, whatever the discipline is — and

discipline can range from a letter to a firing — is now subject to

arbitration, thank God. But the fundamental issue still remains that

the employers are given the right to be the enforcers of the law.

I concede it's a narrow point. I concede that the minister can say

it's not the law that's being broken; it's the contract now in force

that's being broken. Technically, that's correct. But the contract was

not freely reached; it was imposed by law under this section. People

who choose to break that law, or the results of that law, which is a

contract, are going to be judged and punished by their employer. They

have a right to further judgment at an arbitration, if it goes that

far. But that's a wrong principle. If the employer wants to argue in

front of the Industrial Relations Council that that employee has broken

the contract, which is a legal contract because it was imposed under

the law of British Columbia, and proceeds in that way, then fine,

that's one thing; people are going to suffer the consequences of having

violated their contract, I suppose. But to write into law that the

employer gets to discipline a violation of this

section — that's in

effect what it does, although I concede it does not do it directly — is

wrong in principle. We just don't need this kind of power.

We'll do more on this later on. I concede that the amendment goes a

long way to redressing a totally untenable situation that would have

existed with the previous wording. I concede that it's a lot better.

But it still does not go as far as it should go, to make it clear that

if you break the law, then society deals with you; and if you break the

contract, then there is a civil remedy available.

MR. CLARK: Because we're going to debate this again when it

comes around as amended, I won't belabour it. This really makes

employers agents of the state, and I find that offensive. It says that

failure to comply with

an act is enforceable by the employer. I just

think it's offensive to the way in which we do business. It's been

tempered by this amendment, and therefore it's better than it was.

Clearly, as it was, it wouldn't have stood up. But I can't think of any

other legislation that puts a third party in a position of enforcing an

act of the Legislature. We'll get into it more in debate later. But I

think the questions around what disciplinary action would be required,

what reasonable cause is, and all those other things, are going to be

subject to lengthy and expensive litigation. Maybe we can go around it

a bit in here, to help clarify it later.

Amendment approved.

HON. L. HANSON: I move the amendment to

section 137.92 (

l) and (2) standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

HON. L. HANSON: I move the amendment to

section 137.95 (3) and (3.1) standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

On the amendment.

MR. CLARK: I ask the minister to explain this amendment, if he could.

HON. L. HANSON: The original wording to this

section could

have been construed to mean that the mechanism of interest arbitration

was only to be applied to public sector

[ Page 1729 ]

employees. The amendment makes it clear that our intention was to cover private sector as well, where necessary.

Amendment approved.

HON. L. HANSON: I move the amendment to

section 137.96 (6) standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

HON. L. HANSON: I move the amendment 137.97 (l), (8) and (11) standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

MR. MILLER: Due to the complexity and the length of the

amendments we're dealing with, I wonder if the Chair could recognize

that and perhaps just cut the pace back a touch. It's very difficult to

look at the amendment related to the bill and see the extent of the

change. It's impossible to commit this kind of stuff to memory.

[4:15]

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The Chair would be happy to comply.

HON. L. HANSON: I move the amendment 137.98 (6) standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

HON. L. HANSON: I move the amendment 62.1 standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

On the amendment.

MR. GABELMANN: I'm just standing, Madam Chair, to give people

a chance to catch up. I think everybody agrees that this is not simple

to follow, because we've got so many different documents dealing with

the Code, the original bill, and now the amendments and different sets

of numbers. I'm trying to find 140 of the Code. It doesn't help when

you have the wrong piece of paper in your hand. I think

section 140 of

the Code....

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: Right. I think it's not the end of the world if this one passes.

Amendment approved.

MR. GABELMANN: It's a procedural question at this stage. We

were all doing so many different things here. We did in fact deal with

137.98, and 137.99 is not amended?

AN HON. MEMBER:

Section 140.

MR. GABELMANN: Okay.

section 62 as amended.

MR. MILLER: Certainly the events of the last few minutes have

illustrated the complexity in dealing with a lengthy piece of

legislation, and it may be foreshadowing in terms of dealing with the

complexity of labour relations in this province.

Certainly my colleagues have detailed what they see as the offensive

aspects of this bill, and this

section in particular, in terms of its

intervention in the labour relations scene, and the possible

repercussions of that in terms of what we really want to achieve. I

couldn't help but be struck by the comments of the Minister of Energy

(Hon. Mr. Davis) with regard to this very important issue and the

simplicity with which the minister boiled the arguments down to a

question of the rights and freedoms, and the freedom of the individual.

I guess both sides, at some points in debate, could be faulted with

slipping into political rhetoric, but certainly that was a classic case.

[Mr. Gabelmann in the chair.]

The rights of individuals, of course, in our society have been

considered paramount and are considered paramount by, I think, all

political parties in this country. In varying degrees and in varying

forms we respect those rights, and we also understand that the rights

and freedoms of an individual are tempered or restricted somewhat in a

variety of ways. Certainly the one that first comes to mind is that

we're not allowed to exercise those rights and freedoms to the

detriment of others, as outlined perhaps in the Criminal Code. We've

had some debate recently about whether or not the kinds of activities

that took place on Monday actually fall under that jurisdiction, and

we've had a judge in this province, in a decision just handed down.

Indicate that that's not the case. So I think we would be better off

moving away from that kind of example and dealing with the problems of

the interferences of the rights and freedoms of individuals with

respect to labour relations disputes.

[Mr. Weisgerber in the chair.]

Before I get into that, I'd like to point out that individuals and

groups in our society can be impacted severely by a number of

happenings. I'll deal with one, and that's the possibility of a strike

by capital. It's not something we hear about all that much or something

we talk about all that much, because, frankly, it's been my observance

in our society that we tend to assume that capital has, in a sense, an

inalienable right. In other words, if they refuse to do something,

that's okay, because we're not in a position to compel people or

institutions to invest capital. Yet the repercussions of that not

happening are just as traumatic in our society as the repercussions of

a major labour dispute, and yet we don't attempt to deal with that kind

of issue. We tend, in our society, to say,"Well, we'll have to make

accommodations: we'll have to look at the needs of capital," as this

government has done over the last little while. We've said: "It's clear

that we've got to give some tax breaks to capital, because otherwise

things are pretty fragile and capital might flee." And in that regard,

they have tremendous bargaining power with, in fact, no bills that

regulate in the sense that this bill regulates the activities of two

groups in our society.

So I think that's a good preference, because when you're dealing

with rights and freedoms, you must be conscious of the limitations that

are placed on people. Certainly I would be the first to agree that

almost every labour dispute causes a

[ Page 1730 ]

hardship not only to the participants but

potentially to people who are on the sidelines. Whether they be

suppliers to a particular industry that's struck, whether they be small

contractors supplying goods and services, whether it's the bank who may

have difficulty collecting their mortgage from an individual who

happens to be on strike — whatever it is — there certainly is a ripple

or a repercussion in the community. I have yet, in my many years as an

industrial worker, to encounter anybody who took any delight in that

whatsoever.

In fact, strikes are very difficult for individuals. Most working

people I know have not really put themselves in a position where they

are able to effectively save for a strike. Realistically, that very

seldom happens. Yet I've seen certain strikes where there is a great

deal of commitment on the part of the people who are engaged in that

process. It's not a blind herd mentality that governs. Certainly people

do discuss the alternatives and the ramifications, and I've seen people

hurting as bad as you can hurt financially and yet determined to hold

out for what they see as something that is worthwhile. Quite frankly, I

have seen that determination strongest not in strikes for money, but

for the things that are attendant to collective agreements — the whole

issue of benefits and working conditions. I have seen some real

determination when it comes to those kinds of issues.

We are not dealing on a simplistic basis with this piece of

legislation being somehow like a seagull that I recall on a Social

Credit pamphlet at one time — just by looking at this picture of a

seagull in the air, we were somehow promised freedom, the breath of

freedom. We are not dealing with that, and I wish we could get away

sometimes from that kind of rhetoric. It distorts what our purpose

should be in this Legislature.

As far as I am aware, as legislators, as MLAs — and the opposite

side obviously is the government in terms of determining what comes

into this Legislature and is debated — we have the power and the

responsibility to intervene in a labour dispute if, in the opinion of

the people in this Legislature, that dispute has caused a significant

problem in our economy or to people in our economy. I have stated this

before. There is a recent example, I believe, with the grain-handlers'

or the longshoremen's dispute just last year, when the federal

Parliament was called into session on very short order. All parties

were forced to stand up and debate the bill to send people back to

work, to end the dispute. All parties had to put their position on the

line, and they had the opportunity to side with the participants in the

dispute, I guess, and speak against the legislation or for it. That is

when people are tested. They have to make some difficult choices about

how they feel, and where their allegiances and their broader

responsibilities lie. Nothing has taken that away from us. We have that

opportunity. I don't know if the insertion of all of these clauses

under

section 62 is necessarily going to change what ultimately might

bring us into this chamber. That is really the question.

There have been some good, solid indications, I think, that there

was some movement among the parties that the Minister of Energy (Hon.

Mr. Davis) referred to as big companies and big unions. I don't know if

the Minister of Energy has ever considered the fact that if you have a

big company, you are not, I suppose, well served if you have a small

union. They have grown together. In that respect I think — and I wish

he were here; maybe he's listening — he would probably agree that the

cumulative effect, if you like, of the growth of trade unions and their

interaction with companies has generally been a beneficial one in our

society. Without getting too historical, we could go back and talk

about all of the changes that have been made — not entirely by unions;

there were some great parliamentarians who stood in their place and

championed the rights of people who they thought were being abused in

terms of, say, laws that used to allow child labour and a number of

other things.

We have been making some good progress, but along the way we have

had some disputes. Now we have come to this. My feeling is that we have

missed an opportunity. Rather than be as creative as we could in trying

to investigate alternatives to the traditional square-off, particularly

where we have had a recession in the economy and the impact of that on

both parties, rather than perhaps look at what other jurisdictions are

doing, or even, which I prefer, create our own special solutions to

those problems, we have gone back to a method that was tried and really

failed back in the late sixties, and that is a bill that is more

interventionist.... At every stage or at a number of stages in the

process between the parties, it seeks to intervene in the sense of: "We

are there watching. We know what is going to happen, and we are going

to step in here if anything goes awry." They become the third party at

the table. I don't think you can negotiate successfully with three

parties at the table. I don't think it works very well. I think the two

parties have to be at the table, and they have to have a commitment to

each other to negotiate meaningfully.

[4:30]

I just think that there are a host of things that we could look at

in British Columbia in developing our own unique brand of change. In

doing that, we could certainly examine the kinds of setups that exist

in terms of participation by working people in some of the

industrialized countries of Europe. I know that some companies in

British Columbia are doing some experiments in terms of share issues to

employees. We see the Repap company, which, thank God, purchased some

of the BCRIC enterprises, now starting, for the first time, really, to

deal with offering bonuses for production, being very frank with their

employees in terms of the performance of the company.

We see a number of initiatives, but certainly not enough initiatives

in the private sector to start to deal with what really causes the

major blowouts. Really we're only talking about those, because, as has

been pointed out quite often in this House, most contracts are

resolved. Most parties know that they have to sit down and come up with

a document that works. People want to work and companies want to

operate. I suppose I deal more with the private sector, because that's

my experience, but it seems to me that they tend, when there is a

blowup, to produce the worst results.

We're going the way of, you know, let's be the third party at the

table; we don't trust the parties; we don't think that they've got a

commitment — as opposed to what we can do to set up, for example, a

labour centre in British Columbia that honestly looks in a very

creative way at what's going on in other jurisdictions. I sometimes

feel that we tie our own hands in this province when it comes to

looking at those questions; we simply go on and on and on adopting that

almost frontier mentality. It clearly does not do us any good. It

doesn't matter who you are — whether you're an employers' council, a

trade union or anybody else. Clearly, if the reputation that we have of

a disruptive province causes investors to stay away, that's not good,

and I don't think anybody on either side really wants that to continue.

But I've seen no attempt to facilitate a different approach. Instead,

what I see

[ Page 1731 ]

in this legislation is simply an attempt to go back

to a very poor solution, and that is: "Let's intervene; let's be the

watchdog; let's step in; let's force these people to resolve their

differences. Boy, if they don't, we've got some ways we can intervene"

— including, in my opinion, the most ludicrous one....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Excuse me, hon. member, your time has expired.

MR. MILLER: Shows how time flies when you're having fun, Mr. Chairman.

MR. JONES: I have a great deal to learn about labour

relations. I was really enjoying the comments by my colleague from

Prince Rupert, and I'd really like to hear some more.

MR. MILLER: With that kind of inspiration, Mr. Chairman, I

might go another 15 minutes. Seriously, I don't want to. My last remark

was aimed, as I said, at what I consider to be the most ludicrous....

In some sense, it's really paying lip service to a bit of phony

philosophy or phony ideology, and that's the question of the public

being allowed to intervene through the public interest panels — I

forget the terminology. I really think that that's a bit of an

amateurish way to deal with the question. It really begs the question

in terms of the effectiveness of such an intervention, the

repercussions that might flow from that and the ability for some people

outside of the dispute to use that in a vexatious manner or in a manner

that's self-serving and, I think, against the best interests of good,

meaningful labour relations.

As I said, my experience is talking here. I don't think that we

agree any more than you do with long labour disputes, but we have some

serious differences when it comes to the manner that you are proposing

to try and solve this. I just think it's kind of a blind look at the

thing. I think events over the next few years will probably prove that

right; not so much that the parties, particularly labour, may simply

take an extremely militant attitude towards the legislation.... I'm

sure they will, and I'm sure that will be a source of failure, if you

like, of this legislation. But also I think just the design of the

legislation itself will not work. Unfortunately it appears that we're

going to have to go through that process. Hopefully a few years from

now we can talk about this again, and maybe some lessons will have been

learned. But right now I think we're heading in the wrong direction.

MR. HARCOURT: Mr. Chairman, I spoke earlier in the day about

why

section 62 is a particular

section of the Industrial Relations

Reform Act that we find offensive. It embodies a number of the reasons

why this bill will not work. It is unfair; it is a bill that picks

particularly on one side over the other. I would like to reinforce that

by looking at two particular areas that I think show that inherent

unfairness, and the uncertainty that it creates.

If you look at

section 137.7 (l), the provision that the

participants — the disputants or whatever term you want to use — in a

labour dispute "shall" supply such information as is requested.... Now

if you have been involved in labour-management relations and

discussions that have gone to the stage of a dispute, you know that

that doesn't happen very often. When parties get to that particular

point, it's at a very delicate part of the negotiations. It's a very

heated, committed part of negotiations, and some very intense and

complicated strategies and counter-strategies have gone on.

I suppose it's like a poker game, where you're into the third or

fourth round of bidding. You're just getting ready to make your final

judgments, and all of a sudden somebody says: "Okay, turn up all your

cards. We want to see what they look like." Well, that makes it a

little tough to carry on the poker game. It makes it a little hard to

carry on the negotiations when there can be that kind of intervention.

"We want all the information you've got. We want to know every one of

your strategies and counter-strategies. We want to know exactly where

you intend to go, what your limits are, what your limits aren't. We'd

like to have all that information."

Well, that kind of uncertainty in our rule of law makes it very

difficult, after decades of building up a tradition — a series of

moves, a series of strategies, like in a chess game, that have become

accepted conventions — to all of a sudden find yourself basically in

the middle of a Kafka novel that.... You're not quite sure where you're

at — what's going to happen, and when, and who is going to do it to

you, and how. That kind of uncertainty makes it very, very difficult

for our collective bargaining process to work in the one out of 20

disputes that gets to this point, and the one out of a hundred that

gets to a short strike or a lockout.

This kind of major intervention by a bureaucrat in that collective

bargaining process creates uncertainty that makes it very destructive.

That is an instance of why this bill is such a massive overreaction to

anomalies that happen in our democracy and in our collective bargaining

system.

Another area that I think points out the fundamentally flawed nature

of this bill is subsection 137.9 (l), the return to work provision.

There's a whole range of procedures that are laid out on return

to-work: requirements for employers, requirements for employees. You

read down through that, and you see that it's reasonably fair, in the

sense that it lays out requirements for both. But I think the innate

unfairness and anti-worker nature of this legislation hits you — boom!

— when you read the last provision of subsection (7) on page 23 of the

bill. You see that the fairness all of a sudden changes when the

penalties are starting to be applied, because, Mr. Chairman, when the

penalties and sanctions are applied, they're applied to employees and

not to employers. It's only employees who are punished if they don't

comply with the return-to-work orders of a public interest inquiry

board.

That shows the real intent of this bill. It shows that it is there

to punish working people who don't comply with the bill — not

employers, employees. It also shows that it hasn't been thought through

in terms of people being treated relatively fairly, even if it's badly

— even if they are being treated badly, they should be treated equally

badly — because it allows an employer to discipline selectively, to

pick out people who are active trade unionists or to pick out people

who they don't like because they chew gum or they smoke. I don't like

people who smoke, but that doesn't mean that I am going to discipline

them — except to put in a bylaw like we did in the city of Vancouver to

prevent that in public places. But we don't think that people should be

picked out for that reason, or because they may have a different

religious viewpoint or a different racial origin or may be

unfortunately blemished, imperfect human beings by the fact that they

have hair on the top of their heads. We think that it is unfit for a

bill and

an act of this Legislature to have that sort of unfairness — a

bill brought before this House in 1987. We thought that we

[ Page 1732 ]

eliminated that sort of potential for prejudicial action over the last 50 years.

So, Mr. Chairman, we have some real problems with this particular

section of the Industrial Relations Reform Act, because it creates

unfairness, it creates uncertainty, it creates an imbalance, and it

creates a possibility for vindictive and uneven application of

penalties for the people of this province. We would urge that you have

a serious reconsideration of this

section and of a number of the points

that have been made by members of this side of the House as to why it

is so fundamentally flawed and why it should not be applied in the

province of British Columbia.

MR. SIHOTA: Mr. Chairman, I was hungrily looking around the room and hoping that we would hear some defence of this legislation from....

Interjection.

MR. SIHOTA: Oh, fine. I will for a moment, and will let the member for Kamloops speak on this matter.

[4:45]

MR. S.D. SMITH: I want to be very brief, as usual, to satisfy

the wishes of the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Clark), as

always. But I think that we should take a look at this notion of public

interest a little bit more, which

section 62 contemplates and which has

been discussed around here quite a bit over the last little while.

You know, under that system that we have had for a long time — which

I see the B.C. Teachers' Federation newsletter referred to as a

fundamental social contract that has governed labour relations in B.C.

since the 1930s — a lot of us would agree that there have been a couple

of flaws, and there have been a number of occasions since 1930 when the

public interest just might have been better served had we had the

courage to take a couple of risks and take a look at some alternatives.

Perhaps in 1987 we are going to be able to do that. The system that we

have been dealing with, it seems to me, presupposes that we have two

parties operating in a vacuum, to the exclusion of everybody and

everything else in the province. That really does deny the reality of

British Columbia or any other jurisdiction, particularly as

organizations have got larger and more complex and have dealt in a way

that affects many more facets of our society than they did in the past.

The Leader of the Opposition, earlier on, wanted to think of

industrial relations as a kind of complicated strategy; it was sort of

like a poker game and so on. I think that's a pretty frivolous way of

looking at industrial relations in British Columbia. There may be some

who like to think of it in that light, but I think more responsible

people in our society understand that in fact it is a very serious

matter, and it's a matter that really does go to the root of British

Columbia society and the people in it. Frankly, I wish the opposition

leader would take it a little bit more seriously than that.

The public shouldn't be allowed to get into the system or into the

game, because that would be amateurish, says the member for Prince

Rupert (Mr. Miller). I don't believe that the public getting into the

game is amateurish at all. Indeed, I think the attitude disclosed by

the member in that regard is terribly arrogant and elitist. It's the

kind of attitude that we ought to reject, and it's the kind of attitude

that the people of British Columbia have consistently rejected for a

long, long time — indeed, for those who are interested in history, as

the member for Prince Rupert indicated earlier he is, people of British

Columbia have resisted that attitude since 1933 on every single

occasion when they have been given the opportunity to have a say about

it.

Let us look at that history in another light in relation to the

public interest that is contemplated by

section 62 and in relation to

what the member for Prince Rupert and others have said about the

draconian nature of this bill, and the way it is going to do all sorts

of dire things to the province. We've heard that same type of argument

on every occasion over the last 30-odd years when government has sought

to make changes and improvements in existing industrial relations laws.

Interjections.

MR. S.D. SMITH: I'm interested to hear the comments of the

first member for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams) as he proceeds towards

the close of his somewhat checkered career in this House.

In 1954 some changes to the labour legislation of the day were

introduced into the Legislature, and it was said: "The labour movement

faces legislation in B.C. which will set us back decades in the

progress that we have already made. B.C. organized labour feels the act

is the worst labour act in Canada." Then we move along, and the

reference was that every action of the Minister of Labour of the day,

Lyle Wicks,"appears designed to limit the influence of trade unions

among the workers of this province." That was the charge not in 1987

but in 1954, although many people may have had a sense of deja vu as

they've been listening to this debate.

Let us move ahead to 1959, when we had Bill 43. We again had

speeches about all the dire consequences that were going to happen to

working people in this province who chose to be members of organized

labour. George Mitchell, then of the International Woodworkers of

America, said: "This legislation brings us the closest we have ever

been to fascism. It's another Pearl Harbor attack by the Social Credit

government, another double-cross." Then, with Bill 42 in 1961, we had a

statement attributed to Mr. O'Neal that "not since the days of Oliver

Cromwell has a ruler of the British Commonwealth used the tactics of

Premier W.A.C. Bennett and his cabinet to intimidate the working people

of this province." We move along to Bill 33 in 1968, when it was stated

by Stanley Little of CUPE that "this action reeks of gestapo

dictatorship." Mr. Little said that "the act will deny our members

their democratic right to win for themselves the kind of wages and

working conditions which they deserve."

Now I must tell you that since 1968, when that prediction was made,

workers in British Columbia have done very well, thank you very much,

through their own efforts — quite properly taken — in terms of their

working conditions and wages. The point is that on every occasion that

labour legislation changes have been introduced into this House, there

have been predictions of dire consequences: the end of collective

bargaining, working people having their rights trampled and people not

able to survive any longer in the organized labour community. We even

had statements in 1973, when the present Code was introduced. Jack

Phillips of CUPE said that "B.C. workers are sickened and ashamed by

the proposed legislation." That was in 1973, when the Labour Relations

Board was established, and one of the persons on that board, of course,

was a chap by the name of Ed Peck.

[ Page 1733 ]

AN HON. MEMBER: Not the same Ed Peck.

MR. S.D. S