1984 Legislative Session: 2nd Session, 33rd 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)

MONDAY, MAY 14, 1984

Evening Sitting

[ Page

4733 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Labour Code Amendment Act, 1984 (Bill 28). Second reading

Mrs. Dailly –– 4733

Mr. D'Arcy –– 4737

Mr. Blencoe –– 4740

Mr. Hanson –– 4743

Mr. Barrett –– 4745

Mr. Barnes –– 4749

Mr. Skelly –– 4752

Hon. Mr. McClelland –– 4755

Division –– 4756

Young Offenders (British Columbia) Act (Bill 22). Second reading

Ms. Brown –– 4756

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 4756

Hospitals Amalgamation Act (Bill 26). Second reading

Hon. Mr. Nielsen –– 4756

Mrs. Dailly –– 4756

Hon. Mr. Nielsen –– 4757

MONDAY, MAY 14, 1984

The House met at 8:02 p.m.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to proceed to public bills and orders.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 28.

LABOUR CODE AMENDMENT ACT, 1984

(continued)

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Speaker.... [Applause.] I'm so glad I have the approval of everyone already.

Interjections.

MRS. DAILLY: Down to the business then, Mr. Speaker.

I wish I could say that I take great pleasure in standing here tonight to debate this bill, but I cannot.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why? Are you tired?

MRS. DAILLY: No, I'm not tired, thank you. I had a nice dinner.

I really cannot take pleasure in debating a bill which I consider to

be highly regressive and which is going to do a great disservice to the

economy of this province. I say that because I think when you take a

hammer to any one sector, as has been done here with the trade union

movement, the whole province will suffer.

In the debate earlier this afternoon, we on this side of the House were accused of indulging in rhetoric...

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, no!

MRS. DAILLY: Yes, it's true.

...and in non-supportive statements. It was suggested that our

statements were somewhat inflammatory and really had nothing much to do

with the intent of this bill.

In this debate tonight, Mr. Speaker, I would like to refer to a

couple of statements made by some of the members over there. I listened

carefully — with the help of Hansard ,

of course. Last Friday I particularly enjoyed the delivery of one of

the members of the back bench, the member for Okanagan North (Mr.

Campbell). He is a most interesting and refreshing speaker, but

underneath all that I consider that the statements which he made in

debating this bill were very dangerous, because they were couched in a

populist tone that was very simplistic and which the Social Credit

members all seem to indulge in. They try to convince the public of B.C.

that they have the answers for all our woes in a very simplistic way.

That simplistic type of debate with very complicated problems, Mr.

Speaker, is dangerous.

I want to give you an example of what the member for Okanagan North said. This

is actually a statement in his debate of the bill. He says: "High wages

today, more unemployment tomorrow, higher wages the next day, greater unemployment.

Every time they want more wages, more businesses go bankrupt and more people

are unemployed." Mr. Speaker, that member is therefore suggesting that

the reason for the economic situation and downturn in British Columbia today

and the fact that we have among the highest numbers of bankruptcies and the

most severe economic recession of any province in Canada is all because those

terrible union members have asked for more money. If you read his statement,

that is what he is saying. I can just see that member, along with his colleagues,

going out on the hustings, speaking in their ridings and coming out with these

very simplistic statements. That is what he is using, and so are the other members

of the Social Credit government; that is the kind of simplistic statements they

are using to back up the passage of a bill which is doing great harm, as I said

in the beginning of my remarks, to the trade unions of this province, to their

very great history as trade unions, and to many of their gains which they fought

for through the years. It is also eventually going to harm the economy of this

province.

Mr. Speaker, I think we're all aware that if you bring in a bill

whose main intent is to use one group in society as a scapegoat to

bring about some neo-conservative policies which are not working, you

are asking for confrontation, and this is what concerns the members of

the New Democratic Party. We believe that this kind of legislation is

going to cause more alienation and more disenchantment in the province.

It's regrettable that we have to say that, but I believe this

sincerely. There may be quietness out there today, and there may appear

to be apathy, but let us remember that many of the people of this

province are struggling just to get by. Many of them are out of work,

and they can't really get worked up about a piece of legislation that

is going through this Parliament in the middle of May at a time when

they are struggling to make ends meet. Unfortunately, the Social Credit

government, which could not get by with their large package of

legislation last summer, has decided on a new tactic this year, and

that is to drop some of the major ones gradually at a time when people

are very demoralized with their personal situations. I don't think this

piece of legislation would have appeared on the floor of the House four

or five years ago, in a direct attack on many of the things that have

long been fought for by the trade unions, but the Social Credit

government has decided that when there is apathy, weakness and

tiredness in the general public, that is the time to bring in something

that they wouldn't have had the courage to bring in in better times. I

believe it's a neo-conservative philosophy approach — that is, bring it

in now when we can get away with it.

When I say that there are going to be problems later, I'm not saying

that people are going to turn to violence or anything like that. That

is not what we're suggesting. What I'm saying is that there will be

problems for the economy of this province. By and large our members and

the members of the trade union movement are responsible people. They

want to see their province get on the way to recovery, but they do not

happen to agree that this is the way to do it. Once you take on one

group and try to change the delicate balance between labour, government

and management — which unfortunately this bill does — you are not going

to achieve your purposes. In fact, the opposite will occur.

Going back to the simplistic statements being used to endorse this

legislation, I find it absolutely unbelievable that we have people in

this House who think they can blame the

[ Page 4734 ]

trade unions and their apparent lust for more wages

for all of our problems today. The member for Okanagan North should

perhaps do a little more reading and look at what's happened in

discussions and articles on the world recession. He would find that

many people today accept the fact that it's been the move toward high

interest rates, combined with the new monetarist theories, that has

been a major problem in the recession today. To just pick out one group

and say all the bankruptcies are their fault is really doing a

disservice. I'm afraid that the member for Okanagan North implied that

in his statement, because after referring to that he went on to state:

"We believe that the worker is entitled to stability so that he can

make his mortgage payments." He even refers to the inability of people

to make their mortgage payments as the excuse for bringing down this

bill. I have to put this together, and naturally I have to say....

HON. MR. BRUMMET: You're groping.

MRS. DAILLY: I'm not groping; it's a fact. The sad thing

about it is that these kind of statements are going to be used by

Social Credit members to back up the passage of this legislation, and

when they try to couch it in those terms, I consider it somewhat

lacking in straightforwardness and honesty, Mr. Speaker. I find that

very disturbing. In fact, through every member's speech there is that

general theme: you just pass this bill and stability will return.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I shouldn't just put the blame on the member for Okanagan North,

because he's obviously following the same line as the Premier of the

province, who, when asked about the bill, said: "The legislation is

necessary as part of ensuring a stable and steady economic development

in this province." In other words, once again the Premier is using the

same line. He is trying to convince the public of B.C. to pass a

regressive piece of labour legislation entirely on the basis that "if

you pass this, everything will return to normal in B.C., and we'll have

economic stability." I call that hypocritical and not actually being

straight with the people of British Columbia. If you are against the

long-fought-for rights of the unions, which were fought for over the

years, then why don't you come out and say it instead of trying to

cover up this legislation by saying that it has to be brought in to

stop bankruptcies and to bring about economic upturns? I find that

particularly lacking in integrity and, may I say, some honesty, Mr.

Speaker.

In thinking over the problems inherent in a bill like this, I of

course concede that I'm no labour expert. I could not indulge in a

detailed debate with the minister on the actual committee stages of

this debate, as I'm sure he has been well briefed. But I know that our

Labour critic can. Primarily I intend to deal with my concern over the

breaking of the balance of power and the delicate balance between

labour, management and government.

[8:15]

I sincerely believe this bill is tipping more into the favour of

management — this government's philosophy about collective bargaining

and the position of unions. Before we began to bring in some

progressive labour legislation in this province, previous governments

had regarded unions and collective bargaining in general as forces that

were really disruptive of the natural order of the economy. That was

the old thinking; they felt that government must see they were subject

to government controls. That was what we had until there was a move to

bring in changes and to form a Mediation Commission, which, I know,

even the former Minister of Labour, who is now the Provincial Secretary

(Hon. Mr. Chabot), conceded was not working. It was brought in with

great trumpets; it heralded a new era in labour relations with

government and employees. Yet it did not work. It wasn't until the NDP

brought in the new Labour Code that we began to see labour peace

descend on this province, with fewer strikes. I don't think anyone

could question that.

In the period of time when labour in this province was under much

stricter controls, when they didn't have the enlightened legislation

brought in through the Labour Code which left less government

interference and a finer balance between labour and management, there

were more strikes. There were more labour problems then. There was a

general change once this came about. The role of government as felt by

the NDP — and I believe that there are some members on the other side

who believed this at one time, until this new kind of legislation was

presented — was to protect the free collective bargaining system and to

guarantee the right of employees to organize, free from unwarranted

interference by both employers and union. The whole idea was to create

that delicate balance, and that was the idea behind the Labour Code. It

was known all across North America as being fairly successful in doing

that.

Mr. Speaker, government policy in the whole business of labour

relations should be founded on compromise. I think you would agree on

that. It should be a compromise between the desires of labour

organizations and those of management and between the disruption

generated in acting to deal with strikes and lockouts. Now I think

that's a pretty good statement. I didn't write it myself, Mr. Speaker,

but I don't think I had complete attention, so I thought I'd read it

again just so I can follow on from that. "Government policy in the

labour relations field is founded on compromise between the desires of

labour organizations and those of management and between the disruption

generated in acting to deal with strikes and lockouts. The balance is

indeed a delicate one, not easily achieved." We concede that.

But the Social Credit government, with this legislation and other

moves you've made, are steadily beginning to disrupt that delicate

balance. That is the point. I think even Mr. Weiler made

recommendations to the government warning them not to bring in some of

those amendments — and I hope the Minister of Labour is listening —

which you have now brought before us. That's one of the things Mr.

Weiler said.

Socred labour legislation allows the government to exercise

compulsive authority, in many instances. Surely by now the Social

Credit government realizes that you cannot treat a group of citizens in

that manner without expecting some form of adversarial role climate or

confrontation. And yet the government continues to do so.

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: Somebody says: "We'll get elected again." No one

in this chamber can make that assumption at this time. I think we've

been in this long enough to know that election results are very

unpredictable.

The Socreds have eroded the voluntarily emphasis of the Code. That's the point I'm trying to make. The legislation of

[ Page

4735 ]

the Socred government reflects not really too much faith in collective bargaining.

I know the Minister of Labour professed that in his opening remarks over and

over again. As far as the writing of these notes, I want to say I usually write

my own entirely; if I don't, I won't really understand what I'm

saying. I want to assure you I understand what I'm saying here. I want to

read it again because some of you don't understand it. "The Socred

legislation reflects little faith in free collective bargaining" — I really

believe that, despite the protestations of the Minister of Labour, who says

that in his opening; then he drops a bill that is eroding the delicate balance

— "as the best means to resolve labour disputes" — this is really what

their legislation shows — "and this Code is showing a rejection" —

and this is terribly important, Mr. Speaker and the thing that concerns many

of us — "of the concept of a right to organize in labour relations."

Now that is a fight that was fought for over the years, and this is

something that the members in the Social Credit government apparently

don't seem to understand. This right to organize is being seriously

hampered by this legislation. I can't help thinking as I read the

legislation and tried to understand it — and it is rather complicated,

as our critic has said before — of the movie Norma Rae ,

which maybe you saw, Mr. Speaker. It was about the organization of a

trade union, and of course it was a woman who got the workers together

to form their first union in this factory. I couldn't help thinking of

their struggle to organize; and some of the barriers they faced are

what our unions may now have to face again if this legislation passes.

It is going to make it more difficult for the organization, and there

is no way that the Minister of Labour can deny that, unless he is

willing to amend the bill, because there are moves in this bill which

definitely do undermine that. That, again, is one of my major concerns.

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to find, as I was going through my

reading for this bill, a quote from Mr. Matkin, the former deputy

minister, recently with the Employers' Council. A few years ago Mr.

Matkin said this on the matter of labour management and government

relations: "The reality really is that labour relations problems of

strikes, picketing and slowdowns are not legal phenomena; they are

symptoms of social problems." Now I'm not going to discuss Mr. Matkin's

position today; I give him credit for that statement at that time. This

is something that the Social Credit government doesn't seem to be aware

of. Maybe some of them, in a misguided way, actually think that if this

legislation comes in, they are going to solve some of our economic and

social problems. It just shows how little they understand many of the

economic problems — and their roots — if they think that this piece of

legislation, which hammers back the unions, is going to solve all of

them. It concerns me that they are going to attempt to sell the passage

of this to the public on that simplistic basis, which, as I said

earlier, I consider highly dangerous. The people who accept that are in

for a sad awakening when they find that the economy is not suddenly

going to blossom and recover just because the unions have had some of

their rights stripped from them by a piece of legislation. It concerns

me that there are people on the other side of the House who think they

can solve those problems in such a simplistic way.

When Social Credit brought in their big package of bills last July, at first

no one was aware of just what was behind those bills; but it has become quite

clear, in analysis — maybe not for everyone — that the package meant a basic

change toward some of the neo-conservative philosophy that we have seen in other

parts of the world. The tragedy of that is that if we look at societies that

have been under the sway of that neo-conservative movement, we have to say to

ourselves: "Well, what is their economic situation today?" In the

United States, what do we have? We have high interest rates coming back again.

So it's about time, I think, that somebody in the Social Credit government,

which seems to be under the sway of this philosophy, examined and started to

question whether the ones they are following — the Fraser Institute, the Michael

Walkers, the people who have been advising Mr. Reagan, Mrs. Thatcher.... Isn't

it about time they began to say to themselves: "Is this really taking us

on the road to recovery?"

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MRS. DAILLY: I wish you'd say that to some of the people who

are lined up today asking for bags of food in this province. You can't

keep saying over and over again, year after year, "We're on the road to

recovery," and hope that if you say it enough times, it's going to

happen. I regret to say that if your philosophies were going to bring

us onto the road to recovery, even if I disagreed with them we would

have to accept them. But I not only disagree with your philosophies;

they are also not achieving the end that most people in this province

want to see. That's the dilemma that Social Credit finds itself in

today, and stubbornness and inflexibility in adhering to this

philosophy is not going to do the people of British Columbia any

service.

I wanted to discuss briefly another

section of the bill.

AN HON. MEMBER: This is second reading.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Speaker, I think others have taken some leeway with that.

It has to do with the matter of cabinet's declaring economic

development projects. I want to say, in general terms for the Minister

of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland), that I think this heavy hand of the

government is very foolish, because it, again, is not going to achieve

the desired results. Once more cabinet is made the main intervenor if

this

section goes through, not the Labour Board. The designation, the

orders and the enforcement all become open to subjective rules which

clearly will limit the freedom of unions to act on behalf of their

members.

What happens to bargaining or the enforcement of collective

agreements or the power of a union to protect its members? All this is

going to be wiped out by the cabinet being able to say: "We declare

that an economic development project." That's pretty dangerous stuff.

It is giving the cabinet enormous power to make or break union

agreements. As I say, I don't really think some of the members on the

other side have any idea that they almost have a time bomb in their

hands here. It's really dangerous, yet once again they're sitting back

and saying: "Everything is going to work out all right. This is going

to bring us to the road to recovery." I find that kind of naivety and

simplicity frightening, particularly when it is quite obvious that

there's no concern about what it's really doing to the long history of

trade unionism in this province.

[8:30]

I would like to suggest to some of the members who find this bill so satisfactory that perhaps they should read about

[ Page 4736 ]

some of the fights through the history of trade

unionism in this province. Some of it was brought to our attention just

before 6 o'clock tonight. If you missed it, I would suggest you read it

in Hansard . The member for

Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace) gave us some history on unionism in

B.C. It was fascinating; it really was. Take the time to read it, and

perhaps it might give you a feeling for the struggle over the years to

achieve what the unions have in some of these basic rights. That's why

it is dangerous to tamper with those rights in the manner in which it

is being done today in this bill.

There's another area I would like to mention: the matter of unions

and their relationship with the public. I realize that in some quarters

it has been whipped up that the unions have a bad name. You can hear

that running around the province. A lot of it is based on ignorance. I

regret to say that many of our students leave the school system.... I

didn't do much in this area, regretfully. I guess you can't do

everything in the field of education, can you? I wish that somehow or

other, along with learning about corporations and the economy, there

could be more emphasis on teaching young people at least the history of

unionism. You can teach that, surely, without being accused of trying

to pressure everyone into becoming a union member — although if it is

taught properly, surely a person can make the right judgment in time.

I think that we have created a group of citizens who are not really

aware of the importance of trade unionism to their own standard of

living. They do not understand that in parts of the United States where

the trade union movement has been stamped on by authoritarian

governments and laws, everyone's standard of living has gone down. If

you study what has happened in some of the states, that is what has

happened. That's why I am concerned with the moves taken by this

government, because I'm afraid they will be dampening the economy, not

improving it.

In speaking of understanding the importance of trade unionism, we

hear so many negative things that I would wish that somehow the public

could be made aware that they have a proud history in many areas. The

trade union movement are in the forefront of fighting for universal

medicare, universal hospital insurance and the Canada Pension Plan.

Many of these major pieces of legislation were backed up and endorsed

by the trade union movements of Canada.

It is often not recognized that many of the union officials take

part in community endeavours. I know most of us in smaller communities

have seen the involvement of trade union officials and members in

community groups and organizations. I don't think this is talked about

enough. Perhaps the public would have a better understanding of their

problems if this were made more.... And I think it's up to the trade

union movement to do this also. But I don't think that our school

system has given too much encouragement to this whole discussion.

For example, I remember the time that the present secretary of the

B.C. Fed, Art Kube, was elected or appointed — I don't know how they do

it — president of the United Way of the lower mainland, which is a

major function for anyone. Nobody had even heard of him at that time;

this was before he was the secretary. He was an active union worker. I

don't believe there was anything in the paper about it. It's

interesting that every time a management person or a person belonging

to some big corporation or firm is nominated or elected to these

positions, he receives a considerable write-up in the paper. I have to

say, I suppose, that our newspapers, while not showing a bias against

them, are not doing what they perhaps could do to further the

credibility of or give information about unions in our province, I

think we all have that responsibility. It's sad that at a time like

this, when we desperately need unions, governments and employees

working together, we seem to be moving away from that. That's our only

answer.

I listened to the minister when he talked about consultation. I

understand that he had an advisory committee, but they've been sworn to

silence. There's no open consultation from what I can see. They're

taken into secrecy, into the minister's office; it's all done

hush-hush. I don't know why a major thing like this could not have been

turned over to the House committee. Every time we deal with one of

these controversial bills, I can't help thinking how this government

wouldn't be sitting here going through a long debate from the

opposition if it had just been smart enough, months ago, to have put

this bill into a committee and let the opposition work on it there, as

they do in the House of Commons. Why are you afraid of the

participation of the opposition in discussing changes to legislation? I

can't understand it. If you can't do it in this Legislature, it doesn't

bode too well for the future of building up a climate of cooperation.

If you want cooperation from the opposition and the labour movement,

why can't it be completely open and above board? Why can't we all take

part in discussing changes to legislation? Once again, we're all

sitting here waiting for this bill to be handed down. Everyone in the

opposition is running to see what it says. It's after the fact.

Everyone in the B.C. labour movement is lined up. I'm not saying that

all management knew. But why this secrecy with the government? Would it

not be better for government to work with all the groups involved well

beforehand? I don't think we'd be sitting here with people yawning and

wishing that the opposition would hurry up, do their piece and go home.

I don't consider that democracy. We were sent here to participate. When

the only participation given to you as a member of the opposition is

after the fact, it becomes somewhat frustrating. Any Social Credit

member who was in the opposition when we were government must have

experienced some frustration also. But I think that the members who

were in government between 1972 and 1975 had an opportunity to sit on

travelling committees such as Municipal Affairs and Education around

this province. Out of those committees came some common understanding

on some problems. There's no question about it. I find it frustrating.

When you're in Ottawa, or read about what is coming from there, at

least the MPs, whether they're NDP or Conservative, actually feel

they're taking

part in creating or at least discussing legislation.

Unfortunately, under past Social Credit governments and, I regret, this

one.... I'm sure our esteemed House Leader, who has been here as long

as I have, must appreciate the fact of the frustration of not being

able to take a more active part. Maybe the back-benchers themselves

don't have any more opportunity — I don't know.

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: I hope you do. It would be more frustrating for

the back-benchers, I'm sure, than it would be for us, if you could not

take an active

part in all the legislation.

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: That's good to hear. Well, all I can say is that you didn't add much to it. That's too bad. That fresh

[ Page 4737 ]

voice coming from Maillardville-Coquitlam does not add too much when he stands up here, takes part and agrees that....

I can see that this debate is about to come to a close. I know this

will be met with much happiness, but I must say that I have appreciated

the attention. I just hope it will result in some concrete changes.

MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Speaker, one of the traditional watchwords in

a democracy, when a government sees fit to overhaul a major piece of

legislation affecting a major area of the economy, is that the

amendments in the overhaul should update the bill. They should meet the

new demands created by the passage of time. Since we're dealing with

what in many ways can be described as a piece of legislation that is

economic, it clearly should be demonstrated that the changes in the

bill should help our economy in British Columbia. I think that everyone

would agree that our biggest single problem at this time is the

stagflation that we have and the fact that one person is on

unemployment insurance or welfare....If you include GAIN, one person in

four is receiving government handouts, and we all know that in a

province as rich as British Columbia that is absolutely unacceptable.

Labour-management relations: working people and the management

organizations that they have to deal with cannot be coerced into having

positive, productive relationships. That kind of relationship evolves

in the same way that a successful and productive free enterprise

economy evolves. In fact, one might say that the trade union movement

and labour management relations, as they have evolved in a free western

democracy, are an integral part of the mixed free enterprise economies

that we have in British Columbia and elsewhere in the free world.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

The Labour Code that we still have on the books in British Columbia

has participated in that evolution. It has helped it and provided a

vehicle and a kind of framework in which men and women of good will

could work out some very fractious disputes with the minimum amount of

dislocation to the innocent public, a minimum amount of damage to the

economy and property, and, fortunately, a minimum amount of damage to

people's health and welfare.

This act short-circuits that evolution. It short-circuits the

framework that allowed people in the province to work out their

economic problems when they were voiced through a labour-management

dispute. I don't think there is any doubt that since the Labour Code

has been in effect, the relative days lost and the relative loss to the

economy, due to legal and illegal strikes, slowdowns and stoppages have

been reduced, there's no question about that. We know that as

detrimental as this exercise of the free market in human relationships

has been, the fact is that we have had a less detrimental economic

effect in the last few years through the kind of problem that I've been

describing than we've had through shutdowns and lost time due to

injuries and sickness. Many economic observers, especially from

industry, would suggest that we've had fewer problems with

labour-management relations than we've had from shutdowns due to high

property taxes and royalties, particularly on electricity, that have

been put on by the present Social Credit government.

When you pass laws that fetter the right of working people in their

attempts to organize themselves into bargaining units, you in fact

accomplish what the government hopes to accomplish: you have fewer

people in bargaining units, and you have poorer wages and working

conditions. This inevitably leads — as it has in those states to the

south of us which have had anti-labour legislation on the books for a

number of years — to less retail trade, savings and investment. I think

we need to remember that a great deal of the investment and enterprise

in British Columbia has been generated by people taking their earnings

and investing them in their own business — in the economy.

[8:45]

Many of the small businessmen in my constituency, for instance, are

people who in their early working years were employed by industry. They

may have been employed in logging or related forest industries; they

perhaps were employed through Cominco in their smelting and refining

operations, or they may well have worked for the CPR. They took that

opportunity that was given to them in their early working years and

with their savings began businesses on their own. Mr. Speaker, if they

had not had that opportunity to have disposable income which they

didn't need to live, we would have lost. We would have lost that

entrepreneurial ability that those people contributed to our economy

and those job opportunities which they gave to members of their

families, to other people that they knew and to other people that they

hired over the years.

I don't think anybody is opposed to investment coming into the

province from outside, from other countries, some other parts of

Canada. But the best kind of investment, the most responsible kind and

the kind that has been of most value to this province over the years,

has been the investment that was generated here in British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, it's rather interesting that one of the excellent

Vancouver business magazines and commercial operations recently asked a

couple of people to look at anti-labour legislation and its effect on

the economy. They asked one to be pro and one to be con. The

businessperson who they asked to speak against it says quite freely — I

won't use the term "admit," because he doesn't suggest he's admitting —

that he could find very little argument for anti-labour legislation. He

notes, for instance, that in the late 1940s and early fifties a total

of 25 states introduced not just right-to-work laws but other

anti-labour laws. He says these states had one thing in common then, in

1950, and today 35 years later: that is, they have a record of high

unemployment, low industrialization and low per capita income. He

further states that the anti-labour laws have had no effect on the

incidence of industrial conflict.

Mr. Speaker, what happens in a free society such as British Columbia

is that when people are discouraged legislatively from looking after

their own interests through collective action, they eventually organize

anyway. We can see that through the growth of the trade union movement

in the twentieth century in British Columbia and elsewhere. People

eventually organized anyway.

Mr. Speaker, good employers with happy and productive employees

don't need trade unions. After all, why should individuals who on their

time off.... Why should they see part of their earnings go into a trade

union organization through dues, whether they be checked off or paid in

once a month? Why should they give up their time to go to union

meetings when no doubt they would be happier looking after

[ Page 4738 ]

their family, improving their home, perhaps working

at something else that they may earn a second income from, perhaps

being involved in a service club or some community activity? People go

to trade union meetings and belong to trade unions and organize

themselves into trade unions because they're buying a service that

they, the majority of them in the bargaining unit, are convinced is

beneficial to them in their workplace. If they didn't exercise that

freedom, I would suggest that we in British Columbia could go the way

of some other societies that have a good deal less healthy economy than

we have.

Mr. Speaker, we have professional associations whose unabashed function is

to protect the interests of the professional group: the doctors, the lawyers,

the accountants, the architects. I doubt that the Social Credit government would

bring in legislation that militated against the freedom of those groups to establish

a closed shop; the freedom of those groups to have secret internal investigations

of alleged transgressions by members. The Social Credit government and the Social

Credit Party obviously believe in one set of rules for professionals and another

set of rules for ordinary working people.

Mr. Speaker, I don't think I need to remind you that the working

people of this province are the productive mainstays of our economy. We

all know that there's little or no money originally generated in this

province that comes about unless someone cuts something down, grows it,

fishes it out of the ocean or the rivers or mines it. All the rest of

us, with our business and professional services.... All the rest of the

activity in this province ultimately comes from those basic resource

exploitation activities.

If we are at some point to thrive economically again in this

province, we must have efficient, productive, innovative

labour-management people — teams, Mr. Speaker, as we have had in the

past, who cooperate and who are happy to cooperate in the efficient

utilization of all our resources while protecting each other's

interests — not just each other's interests as individuals, but each

other's interests vis-à-vis other resource groups.

When any part of our B.C. economy is curtailed — and I use the term

"curtailed" rather than "shut down" — for any reason, we might think

the big loser could be the investment community, the retail sector —

because people don't have paycheques — or the workers themselves. All

those elements lose, but when any sector is curtailed, the biggest

single loser is government, and in particular the provincial government.

Perhaps it's no wonder that the Finance minister is off borrowing

money. He doesn't like to call it "borrowing"; he likes to call it

"raising funds," as though he's going out to the United Appeal or

something of that nature, His press releases say '"$200 million

raised," and only three-quarters of the way down the page do you

realize he's actually borrowed the money. He's borrowed it, but the

first five paragraphs talk about how he has "raised" money.

The problem is that when the Finance minister of B.C. goes down to

New York to take out yet another mortgage on this province's resources,

they don't see it as the United Appeal; they see it as money that has

to be repaid, principal and interest. I don't think the government

likes doing that, and I don't believe the Finance minister likes that.

We on this side don't like to see that happen, and the public don't

like to see it happen. It happens because government revenue has

declined so drastically in major part because of Social Credit economic

policy. The bill we are discussing, Bill 28, is another step of that

Social Credit government policy which has put the Finance minister in

the position where he has to "go out and raise money."

The press has been widely reporting — I don't know who they alleged

to have said this, whether Mr. Pattison or a spokesman for the

government — that the price-tag on Expo is now going to be $1.5

billion. I think they probably must have consulted with Jean Drapeau

after he got pregnant — Jean Drapeau claimed that the Montreal world's

fair could no more lose money than a man could get pregnant, and Aislin

promptly drew cartoons of the good mayor with a very large midriff.

If we are going to get the kind of money we are going to need — not

going out and "raising," or borrowing, it — and if we are going to have

the kind of funds needed for projects such as Expo 86, we've got to

have a smooth-running, productive resource and manufacturing economy to

finance the diversification and growth in the economy and generate the

government resources to meet the interest and principal on that loan

and the other $16 billion of borrowings taken out by the government and

their various agencies over their term of office. Shareholders and

workers in this province must have earnings and equity capital to

reinvest. They must have dividends. When we have pieces of legislation

such as Bill 28 that create misunderstanding, hard feelings and the

feeling among many people that the rug has been pulled from under them

and that they've been shortchanged by government, productivity goes

down.

Recently we saw the sorry state of the B.C. pulp and paper industry.

Without commenting on the relative merits or lack of them of both sides

in the dispute — which is not settled — we should note that working

people, management and supervisory people in that industry set

production, marketing and quality records. The government is fond of

saying we're in tough shape because markets are down. Our natural

resource industries, taken as a whole, produced as much or more last

year than any year in B.C. history. There is that feeling that

government has not been fair to the people in that industry. When

people have that feeling after they have been highly productive,

innovative and have worked hard with management, it does not bode well

for the economy of B.C. I only mentioned one part of it there, but it

does not bode well for a major part of the B.C. economy.

Government has got to afford to pay the interest and some of the

principal back on the debt. This refinancing when a bond issue comes

due has got to end in this and other provinces, in the government in

Ottawa, and internationally. I mentioned earlier that we have half a

million people in this province on welfare or UIC; we have a couple of

hundred thousand more on GAIN. Very few of these people are there

because they want to be; most are there through no fault of their own.

The government says it doesn't like to interfere in the marketplace,

but the fact is, Mr. Speaker, that the government gets out of the

marketplace when it feels like it, and uses it as an excuse, and they

get into the marketplace in a massive way with borrowed money. The

losers are the people who find themselves in a difficult situation

through no fault of their own.

Mr. Speaker, of this bill.... I don't know exactly which one; I

suppose we will get into it in the clause-by-clause discussion. I won't

use the number, Mr. House Leader. It could be anywhere from

Section 1

section 50 or whatever number of sections there are in this bill,

but it speaks of specified developments. The government, in loving to

say

[ Page 4739 ]

that they want to get out of the marketplace, is

one of the biggest entities in the marketplace in British Columbia.

Again, without getting into the merits — or lack of them — of the

northeast coal development, that has got to be entering the marketplace

with borrowed money in a major way. Certainly the B.C. Place

development — and I am speaking of the large B.C. Place development,

not of Expo or of the stadium — makes the government, I would say, the

biggest developer in the province of British Columbia. Perhaps since

there is so little other development going on, it may make the

government bigger than all other active developers put together at this

time. So the government is in the marketplace in several parts of the

economy in an absolutely massive way, exclusively with borrowed money.

[9:00]

Mr. Speaker, in the past when the government was involved in what

are now called megaproject developments — and occasionally the private

sector as well, but let's stick strictly with government and its

agencies — the government and Crown corporations such as B.C. Hydro

entered into voluntary agreements with trade unions: no strike, no

lockout. Certainly the motivation is a good one. It's happened before;

it's happened in other provinces and other jurisdictions. It's not

unusual on major projects to have no-strike, no lockout agreements

entered into by the parties involved. In the past, projects that were

so covered almost invariably came in on time and on budget. In fact,

some of the major projects actually came in substantially under budget.

One of the biggest projects anywhere in the province in the early

1970s, which was the Seven Mile Dam in my riding, actually came in

under budget, and there was a no-strike, no-lockout agreement on that

project. It was entered into voluntarily by the parties involved, and

the project went ahead with a tremendous amount of efficiency, and

hopefully is paying good dividends to the province of British Columbia.

So we find, and we will find — I will use that as an example when we

get to that section, whatever it is — that here is the government once

again interfering in an area of the marketplace which the marketplace

itself has looked after up to now in this jurisdiction and in others.

One could ask, Mr. Speaker, when there aren't that many good things

about the economy right now in B.C., why the government wants to fiddle

with one of the good things. One of the good things has been the

ability of union and management to enter into agreements that meant no

work disruption by either side on major projects — projects of

tremendous importance to the province of B.C.

Mr. Speaker, I suppose one of the catch-phrases about airlines these

days is that nothing is lost more irrevocably than an airline seat. If

the plane takes off and it's not filled, you've lost the revenue from

that seat. I think it goes a lot further than that. I think it's fair

to say that when we have lost productivity in the economy, lost days

and industries shut down, the revenue from that cannot be regained,

especially for government. Because the costs of government go on

whether business is good or bad out there; in fact, when business is

bad, the costs of government go up.

Bill 28 is part of the Social Credit attack on the B.C. economy. We, on this

side of the House, and non-partisan people out there in the community continue

to ask: "When will the Socreds realize that their actions are causing the

economy in this province to decline?" Bill 28 is part of that continued

decline. While the rest of North America has recovered — and, indeed, much of

it gone into expansion — the private sector of B.C.'s economy continues

to decline. There has been a net loss in the last 11 months of 90,000 private

sector jobs; an increasing bankruptcy rate in British Columbia, while in the

rest of Canada bankruptcies drop. We have falling government revenues, while

government revenues grow elsewhere. Private investment is falling in British

Columbia, while private investment grows elsewhere. There are incessant demands

for more welfare funds to sustain even the bare minimum standard of living for

several hundred thousand of our people. I suppose it is a sort of gallows economic

humour, but the Socreds have achieved a welfare state in British Columbia where

a number of egalitarian governments, including a previous Social Credit government,

failed to do so. We are approaching a situation in British Columbia in which

nearly 4 percent of our gross provincial product is simply going to interest,

with very little provision for repayment. When your repayment

schedule is going

to take 300 years to complete if you don't borrow anything more, I think

we can safely say that there's little or no provision for repayment.

I believe Bill 28 is going to militate against recovery in this

province. It is going to cause us to remain the economic basket case of

Canada longer than we should. Our productive people, whether they be

labour, management or small businessmen, can work their way out of this

situation; but I would hope that government would give them a chance.

All the economic evidence that anyone could find is that the government

of B.C. has made the difficult economic situation that we found

ourselves in early in the 1980s far worse than it otherwise would have

been. Bill 28 will have an effect opposite to what the government

desires. It will stifle growth, it will stifle recovery, and it will

continue the Socred war on prosperity.

I really wonder how the government could think, if they're giving working people greater opportunity....Why

are so many working people so suspicious when they are the alleged

beneficiaries of a government act that the government claims is going

to better their position? We all know that there is a bad

labour-management climate in some areas of the economy. I don't think

there is any question that any solutions require diplomacy,

intelligence and courage. You're not going to bludgeon people into

reaching genuinely productive agreements. I would hope that the

government would give up its doctrinaire stance on this bill and on

other legislation that they have brought in. I would hope that they

would recognize that other jurisdictions in the free world are not

following their pattern of legislation and government policy. Other

jurisdictions are not only not following the Social Credit pattern of

British Columbia's policies and legislation, but fortunately for the

rest of the free world their economies aren't following the Social

Credit pattern either. The Social Credit administration somehow thinks

that the rest of the western world is out of step with B.C. I would

hope that the Socreds would get off their ideological hobby-horse and

get back to that economic and labour-management pragmatism that used to

be the mark of the Social Credit pioneers that preceded them — as well

as of the governments of other political parties, whether they were

Liberal, Tory or New Democrat.

There is nothing in this bill for labour — not even an attempt at

tokenism. The government has not even made a pretence of meeting one

concern of persons who work with organized labour. If the government is

so blatant, if they wish to improve and update the Labour Code.... I

don't doubt

[ Page 4740 ]

that there are parts of it that need improving and

updating. No piece of legislation is perfect, and I'm sure the Labour

Code, being ten years old, needs updating. But there is not even a

single attempt to meet any concern of organized labour, whether it be

from the official house — the B.C. Federation of Labour — or the

unofficial houses of labour or from working people who are not

necessarily organized into trade unions. This kind of legislation, when

it has been brought in elsewhere, has not improved the economies of

those areas. We have had a long period to test it. One of the more

interesting things to note is that very little anti-labour legislation

has been brought in in free democratic western societies since the late

1940s or early 1950s, so there is a long period of record to test it

out. If there was great economic benefit to this kind of legislation,

other people would have tried it at some point since the early 1950s,

but they haven't. With this act Social Credit is taking us down the

road of a labour-management experiment that was tried and found

wanting, and is still being found wanting in jurisdictions other than

British Columbia.

We have had major political differences in this province, and not

just in recent years. I think we've always had a lively political

scene. But prior to Bill 28 we did not have

an act which directly

attacks the freedom that people have had to organize and associate

together for their own benefit.

I know the government is going to use their majority to jam this

bill through, but I would hope, in the administration of the bill and

in the way they approach the economy of British Columbia, that they

stop their war on prosperity and adopt less doctrinaire, dogmatic

approaches. I ask them to have a look at what other jurisdictions —

some very conservative ones too — are or are not doing, and what

benefits those actions are having on the economies in those areas;

compare that with the disbenefits to the economy of British Columbia

that government policy overall has had, including Bill 28. All of us in

this House want to see a government that will come to its senses and

admit it was on the wrong path, will modify its approaches, and

hopefully everybody in this province will have the kind of opportunity

that they've usually had in the past to get B.C. moving again.

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Speaker, first I would like to thank the

government for giving me the opportunity to spend the evening in this

fine chamber. I'm sure we all just love being here.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: That's what you get paid for.

MR. BLENCOE: You're quite correct, Mr. Minister — among other things.

This evening I want to reflect on this bill within the context of

what has happened in British Columbia over the last ten months. I have

been taking the opportunity during the last few weeks — and usually on

weekends, I might add — to speak to many people of various political

persuasions. For instance, this last weekend I was involved in a number

of community events, and one in particular was well attended by those

who support the government in power. Many people came up to me and

indicated that they were Social Credit members, and were therefore

willing to discuss what they thought their government was or was not

doing. I took the opportunity to listen. Obviously the key in political

life is for a politician — those making decisions — to listen intently.

The advice I have had from politicians whom I respect has been:

"Make sure you listen intently, take in what people say and make your

decisions accordingly." What came back to me this weekend — and over

the last few weeks — from those who are of the persuasion of this

government is that this government has gone too far; they believe in

many of the principles that Social Credit stands for, but the Premier

and this cabinet have simply gone too far.

[9:15]

[Mr. Ree in the chair. ]

I was most interested to see those supporters of this government

feeling frustrated. These are reasonable people, not necessarily the

extreme that does exist within that party, the extreme that often gets

heard at the Socred conventions. These people were working people, they

owned businesses or were professionals, and for whatever reason had

traditionally supported the Social Credit government.

I was pleasantly surprised, I must admit, that there was a deep

questioning of the modus operandi of this particular government, its

way of carrying out the people's business in British Columbia. They

were reflecting on the last ten months, on what's happened in the

province of British Columbia, of course culminating in this Bill 28 and

what it represents. It's not only people of our political persuasion,

obviously, but those of the Social Credit government persuasion also,

who have a real desperation or a desire to get back to some consensus

and conciliation, to get back to trying to find some ways jointly to

resolve our problems.

There was a distinct feeling that I got. These were people who, as I

say, traditionally would support this government, and sincerely felt

that this particular piece of legislation and others that we've had

before us simply go too far. They will create further confrontation,

further unrest, and the economic recovery this government has been

talking about for the ten months since it got elected, which is not

with us at all, will not be achieved in British Columbia. The thing

that came back to me over and over again is that this government has

gone too far. The people of British Columbia want to come back to the

middle, back to some reason and sanity, back to trying to resolve our

problems in an atmosphere of problem solving and not confrontation. In

my estimation, in the last ten months British Columbia has become a

very unhappy province. There is virtually no group that this government

hasn't decided to take on in some capacity. We don't have to go through

all those; they have been numerous. No one knows who is going to be

confronted next.

Mr. Speaker, we have had problems in this province before in the

labour-management area. We have a Labour Code that has been brought

down, which has been seen as a model in North America. There's always

been a belief that if the legislation and the rules are fair, and if

both sides are treated equally, we will resolve our differences. We

will resolve our differences. Now it would appear that this government,

continuing its mission which we have seen over the last ten months to

upset some of the basic things that we accept in a civilized and

progressive society.... Many of those things that have become the norm

are now being taken on by this government. We've seen it in the area of

human resources, tenants, human rights, the public service. We've seen

it with students and the dislocation of the education system. Mr.

Speaker, we have a province that's in absolute turmoil.

[ Page 4741 ]

Interjection.

MR. BLENCOE: You've only got to listen, Mr. Minister. People

will take you aside and say: "When are we going to get things back on

track? When are we going to stop fighting each other? When are we going

to try to resolve our problems together? When are you in that

Legislature — all of you in that Legislature — going to prove not

necessarily who is right, but do what is right for the average British

Columbian?"

I think there's a distinct feeling by thoughtful, rational, caring

British Columbians that what we have seen in the last ten months is not

putting us back on track. Oh, sure, certain groups have been in a

confrontational battle with this government. There may be some winners

and some losers in the short term, depending on how you gauge winners

and losers in a political fight. A lot of caring British Columbians

have the distinct feeling that in the last ten months this government

has been following a dogma given by extreme right-wing economists — and

I've referred to the Fraser Institute many times in this House before —

that does not try to achieve decisions that reflect, as much as

possible, the majority of British Columbians. Certainly there may be an

initial interest by some who say: "Sure, it's good to bash the unions";

or "Sure, it's good to bash tenants"; or "Let's get rid of some of

those human rights." But it does not create stability for the future.

It does not create a cordial atmosphere or a convivial society upon

which to build economic recovery. That's what we should be trying to do

in the legislation that comes forward; we should be taking a look at

our legislation in terms of trying to create stability, taking out the

confrontation....

Interjection.

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Speaker, all I am trying to do is appeal to

some reason and compromise on what this government has been doing in

the last ten months. It is my belief that there is not a balanced

perspective in this particular piece of legislation, or in many of the

other pieces we've had in the last ten months.

It's a clear indication that this government is continuing to take

2-by-4s and trying to physically carry out their mission to take on

certain groups in our society that they don't agree with

philosophically. It's not going to create harmony. We need harmony

today in British Columbia. We need understanding of our differences,

and there certainly are differences, not only in the labour-management

field but also in many other areas that we've discussed here in this

House in the last ten months. We need harmony. I would suggest that if

there's an area where we want to try to ensure that there will be peace

and harmony, it's got to be the labour-management field. Without these

workers, organized or unorganized, feeling that living, working, having

a family and being part of British Columbian society, feeling that

there's a future, some harmony and something worth working for in

British Columbia, and feeling that they haven't got a government that

suddenly comes out of the weeds and attacks them for whatever reason,

that economic recovery, which is not coming about in British Columbia,

will never happen.

We have seen the subtleties of this government, which is now talking

about maximizing profits. We know what that's all about. It's taking on

the wages of working people and trying to lessen those wages as much as

possible by trying to force upon the unionized labour force legislation

that will dramatically affect their rights and the working operations

of organized labour. Although profits are important — absolutely — in

the system we live in, I remind this government that it's not profits

that will create the economic recovery that you desire. It's the

spending ability, the wages and the earning capacity of the workers of

this province. By wanting to continue to talk about this whole profit,

to go back to the system where the few don't hang on to the wealth, and

wealth is shared as much as possible with the workers.... What you have

is a system whereby you will continue to erode the earning capacity of

the workers of the province of British Columbia. We know that the world

economy today is controlled.... It's not controlled by British

Columbian companies; it's controlled by transnationals, which have

their headquarters in other parts of the world. When you're talking

about maximizing or talking about profits, you're talking about profits

that don't necessarily stay in the province of British Columbia. So by

taking away the earning capacity and the erosion of those wages for

British Columbian workers, you transfer that earning capacity in the

form of profits many times out of the province into those

transnationals, many of which have their headquarters in developing

countries.

In my estimation — and I guess it all depends on your philosophical

position and what you believe about economic structure — if you

dramatically affect the earning capacity of the workers, then a

consumer-led economic recovery will not transpire. We all know that

what we really have in the province of British Columbia today is

nothing new at all. It's the classic philosophical struggle for the

average working person to share in the resources and wealth of their

province or their country. It has been a struggle, going back many

years, for the labour movement to desire a proper share of those

resources and that wealth. What we have now is a determined,

well-thought-out strategy to take away that

section of the wealth — the

property, if you will — that those workers have managed to achieve

through their organization and their requests that they share in the

wealth of the province or the community, and that they have a fair

share, and fair or decent wages, bargained for through the process we

have in place today, but which unfortunately is under the gun in this

province.

If it is the intent of this new direction, this mindless newspeak

kind of verbiage we get from the Premier of this province, who can

hardly put two sentences together, this "new reality".... What this new

reality is, Mr. Speaker, is an attempt for our British Columbian

workers.... He's saying to them: "You've got to compete with those

workers in the Philippines or in Mexico who are being run by the

transnationals." We will never, ever compete with a dollar a day or two

dollars a day. Is that what we want for the province of British

Columbia? I would suggest that what is happening in those countries is

a great struggle of their workers to get a fair share of the profits

being made out of their sweat. That's the struggle there has been in

the western world.... Our workers fought that struggle, and now it

would appear that in the province of British Columbia they're going to

have to fight it all over again.

[9:30]

There's no mistake about it: we in British Columbia are in a classic economic

struggle. This government is going to take away those hard-earned, fought-for

rights and privileges, and decent and fair wages bargained for, fought for and,

indeed

[ Page 4742 ]

— Mr. Speaker, you know the history of this

province — died for, in terms of rights and the establishment of

unions, and therefore those unions' rights to maintain their ability to

achieve decent and fair wages. If the intent of this government is —

and I think it is — to upset that historic balance that has been

achieved between management and labour in British Columbia, it's going

to create nothing but hardship and heartbreak, and it's going to

destroy the very delicate economic recovery.... Well, there's no

economic recovery in this province at the moment. I would most

sincerely urge this government to rethink that policy and to rethink

this mindless reality that the Premier of the province keeps talking

about, because all it will do is continue to erode the earning capacity

of the workers of the province of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, we have seen this government talk about trying to meet

with the various organizations that have been affected by legislation.

This government states that it was prepared to, or did listen to, the

concerns of organized labour or the trade union movement. I would

suggest that that process was not in good faith, that it virtually did

not exist. We have in this House standing committees that are hardly

used, and there's one issue, as I've already said — this

labour-management issue — that should be put to a committee of this

House, to try and listen to all sides and come out with legislation in

which all sides feel they have gained something. This is one particular

piece of legislation that should have been put to an all-party

committee with the ability to listen to those groups which will be

dramatically affected by the legislation.

That committee, listening to the various interested parties, could

very well have achieved some balance and some consensus, could very

well come up with some legislation that may not necessarily have met

every single concern of all the interested parties.... But one of the

things you do in that kind of negotiation is to find ground that you

can agree on and that both parties feel they have at least got

something out of. This piece of legislation has nothing for labour at

all, and one thing that even the critics of labour are saying about

this legislation is that it is putting the labour movement, the trade

union movement, up against the wall — that their very life, their

future, is jeopardized.

Mr. Speaker, when you leave no way out, you create.... It's like

caging a wild animal. You have to leave a way out. You have to leave

both parties with the ability to have gained something from the

legislation, particularly in this particular issue. There's no question

that this legislation favours management rights and dramatically

affects the rights and privileges of the trade union movement. It is

indeed anti-union, and there's no question that this government is on

an anti-union course. It's on a course to break the trade union

movement in the province of British Columbia.

Well, Mr. Speaker, the rights, privileges, decent wages, benefits

and conditions have been fought for; the struggle has been long and

hard. That movement will not succumb to that kind of aggressive

attitude. It's taken too long for workers in British Columbia or in the

western world to get a fair share of the wealth, the resources and the

profits. That struggle will have to continue.

Mr. Speaker, I have to indicate that I am concerned about the

particular aspect of this legislation.... Obviously I'm concerned about

the definition components in the certification areas, and

decertification, and the alternate construction certification. The one

area that I think has certainly gained public attention is the ban that

is now put upon those who wish to demonstrate in a political way, as we

had last session when we had thousands and thousands of British

Columbians who made a decision to leave their place of work and to

demonstrate politically their decision against this government.

That right now has been removed from those British Columbians. I

believe, as many British Columbians do, that it is most unfortunate.

And it is indeed, Mr. Speaker, an affront to the Charter of Rights and

Freedoms of Canada; it's an affront to certain sections of that. When

this government moves into that particular area, where it is limiting

the right of British Columbian citizens to leave their workplace

because they feel moved to indicate their deep, sincere concerns about

the direction of their government — their government, I might add....

Now you're going to curtail that right in a free and democratic

society, and I would say that we are on a very dangerous course. I know

a number of people I have talked to who don't necessarily agree with

what happened last session. But they felt that those people who left

their place of work to join collectively with hundreds of thousands of

other British Columbians to indicate their deep concern with what was

happening in the province had that right. Well, I think we have to look

at that closely, because I think that is most unfortunate. It's a

dangerous course and one that should be reconsidered.

To conclude, basically I have been trying to say this evening that

I'm deeply concerned about the lack of consensus that is being achieved

in British Columbia over critical issues. This is my first year here,

but in ten months I have seen a government that doesn't appear to be

willing to listen to concerned, sincere and dedicated British

Columbians about a number of issues. This government is so arrogant

that it believes it is so right in everything it's doing, and it's

going to continue its course unabated. My request, my plea in this

particular piece of legislation, is to ask the government to seriously

think this through: you may have legislation that controls what

organized labour can or cannot do, but if you do not have harmony,

understanding and agreement on some of those basic elements worked out

for the two basic groups involved in these kind of issues, you're only

going to create further problems for yourself and further mistrust.

I think it's most unfortunate that this government is continuing to

isolate certain segments in our community for the problems that we

face. The attitude of this government is that working people —

particularly in the unionized sector — are in some way responsible for

what's happening in terms of the depression, that their wages and what

they have done in terms of the rights and working conditions they have

achieved have brought around the recession. That's not the situation at

all.

What we face today, as we all know, is a world economy that has been

based upon extraction of natural resources, and that is shrinking.

We're also facing a struggle in those parts of the world where we have

cheap products and cheap natural resources, and those workers are

trying to achieve decent working conditions and wages. The only way

those who continue to control the economy can get more profit is by

affecting the earning capacity of those workers. The profit that the

Premier talks about is the wages of those working people — taking their

decent salaries and wages away and putting them back into the hands of

the owners. Mr. Speaker, that's going to be no answer at all.

What we have to talk about in this Legislature is how we are going to deal with that world economy that is radically

[ Page 4743 ]

changing and how well we are going to deal with it.

How are we going to deal with a society that is technologically

changing so rapidly that it's leaving so many people unemployed or

underemployed? This legislation gives us no answers in terms of

resolving the economic problems of British Columbia; it only creates

further mistrust, suspicion and confrontation. I think the time has

come in the province of British Columbia — and this Legislature can

start here — for some attempts to achieve some common solutions and

answers to our problems.

Interjections.

MR. BLENCOE: There is some discussion down at the other end of the chamber. The minister has also left, Mr. Speaker.

I will leave it there, but I ask this government to seriously

reconsider this piece of legislation, as we have asked on numerous

occasions for other pieces they have brought forward.

[9:45]

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, these amendments to the Labour Code

must be seen in the context of the protection that is being removed

from citizens in this province and which has been since the July 7

budget of last year. The Social Credit government is afraid to have

agencies, advocates, offices or representation there to protect people,

whether it's in tenant rights, human rights or consumer matters. Trade

unions are in the way of this government because they are defence

organizations for working people against the brutality that this

government is capable of inflicting, not only in the private sector but

on its own employees.

Look at what the government did over the last year and a half in

human rights and other services. As you know, Mr. Speaker, they spend a

tremendous number of tax dollars polling to try to find out where they

can identify weaknesses to proceed with their radical right economic

plan. That is the economic transformation of British Columbia into a

radical right society where the citizens do not have defence

organizations; they do not have trade unions which are prepared to

democratically bargain and represent their interests.

In 1972, when the New Democratic Party assumed office in this

province, there were a series of disconnected pieces of labour

legislation where the redress of grievances was primarily in the

courts. From the various bills which covered different occupations it

was clear that there was no codified protection or basic scheme of

justice and redress for working people, or any way of proceeding

rationally in negotiating collective agreements with employers and

provincial government. The NDP government at the time codified all of

that labour legislation into one Labour Code after full hearings and

discussions with employer groups and trade unions and so on. Do you

realize that that particular bill had the unanimous consent of the

House, Mr. Speaker? The Labour Code of British Columbia that you are

amending had the unanimous consent of this Legislature. The people who

are now tearing it apart and ripping away those basic processes of

justice are now on the government benches, and those same individuals

stood in their place in this House and voted for the Labour Code. What

hypocrites! They were just waiting for the day when they had a

situation where they could employ tax money to prepare the groundwork

to disassemble these basic protections that were put in place.

That Labour Code, as has been mentioned many times in this House, in

the press and so on, was something that employers and people in the

industrial relations field all over North America came to look at as an

experiment in rational, sensible industrial relations. What we have

now, 12 years later, is a total dismantling of that structure which is

going to destabilize our society. This is crisis management from the

Premier's point of view, and he enjoys this style of governance. It's

where you contrive to create a crisis and then manage it. We've seen

him do this innumerable times in the last few years. The people suffer,

the economy suffers, small business suffers and even big business

suffers. The only net that holds it together is this radical-right

ideology that the cabinet has been indoctrinated with that comes from

the Fraser Institute.

Here's an item from the Vancouver Sun

of February 24, 1984: "Walker Has Way to Dump Unions. Michael Walker of

the Fraser Institute suggested Thursday that the B.C. Labour Code

should be changed to allow companies with union employees to go out of

business and come back as companies with non-union employees." Now is

that someone who is being responsible? Is that someone who wants

industrial peace? Is that a person who has any sense of fairness for

the average working person in this province? This is a patsy, a rented

suit for the radical right. This is someone who is really out to cause

distress, not stability, in the economy.

We know from other jurisdictions that are more acquainted with and

more mature in their industrial relations development that it is far

better to have the trade union communities sitting together with the

government and with employers planning investment policy and economic

strategies so that their industry can be competitive with other

jurisdictions. Instead we have a think tank subsidized by a number of

individuals and corporations that don't really care to have the

well-being of British Columbians at stake; they have a broader picture.

They don't even want a minimum wage. They believe that the minimum wage

itself....

MR. SKELLY: It prevents child labour.

MR. HANSON: That's quite right. They want child labour. I've

seen Mr. Block's papers from the Fraser Institute where he really

argues for child labour. What is this mentality that is galloping

through British Columbia? Here we are blessed with a province.... We're

the largest softwood producer in the world. We're the largest producer

of low-grade copper in the world. We have a population of 2.7 million

people with a geographic area far in excess of our own needs. We should

be able to provide adequate education for our kids. We should be able

to provide adequate health care for anyone who requires it. We should

be able to provide meaningful employment for whomever needs it. We have

wealth in our resources, if they are properly managed.

The Labour Code is really to benefit employers as well as working

people. There are many employers that oppose these changes to the Code

because they know that it's going to create problems for them. It is

only that the polls show that the government is perfectly capable of

bullying the public now because in an insecure climate as we have in a

depression, clearly they can literally get away with murder in this

province, and they almost are.

What is going on with the Labour Code is the same process that we've seen take place with the Human Rights

[ Page 4744 ]

Code, with tenants' rights, with representatives

and advocates for abused children and families, and with enforcers of

consumer protection law, who serve unorganized consumers. We've seen

attacks against students, low-income and unemployed families, marginal

small business operators and so on. We were well served with the Labour

Code, and if there are improvements to be made, then they could

certainly be made by a process of sending committees from this

Legislature out around the province to hear what those changes might be

and then having them brought before this House in a rational way.

Here we are at 10 o'clock at night on May 13 or 14 — whatever it

happens to be today — and because the Premier wants this wrapped up so

he doesn't have to run up big phone bills from China.... He's worried

that the Katzenjammer Kids will create some kind of disaster, so he's

phoning back from China four or five times a day urging them to wrap it

up: "Sit all night. Use closure if necessary. Push the committee stage,

get out of the House, and be quiet and behave yourselves till I come

back to do some more crisis management and develop another crisis, so

that I can ingratiate myself to the Fraser Institute."

The people of this province are sick of this approach. The

government governs for everyone. The government should be stabilizing

and sharing the distress that is in the community. But they're not

governing for everyone, just for the super-rich. They argue that

they're big populists. Oh, sure! Taking away all the rights and

benefits and avenues of redress and of democratic decision-making that

exist, and interfering in all sorts of constitutional aspects of

people's rights for freedom of speech and of assembly, for the right to

strike and to democratically develop a constitution. Is this government

prepared to interfere in the same way in the ledgers of the banks? No.

Are they prepared to interfere in the ledgers of the powerful

professional organizations in this country? No. But they certainly like

to bully the poor, the ordinary working people, the visible minorities

and the invisible minorities. They love that. They really get a charge

off that; that really sends a jolt of adrenalin through them. We have a

sick government in this province. We have a government that is really

addicted to bullying people. There is no need whatsoever for most of

the changes in this Code. They're trying to ingratiate themselves to

Mr. Walker, who has had his hand in it, and to Mr. Stewart, who is

really the Labour minister in this province and who has a company

called Appin Consultants and offers his services to the Labour minister

in any way possible to undermine and cut away at basic decency and

opportunities that working people have had to fight to achieve in this

province over many years.

The wheel is turning backward in this province at an accelerating

rate, and we are not going to be benefiting in any way. The economy of

this province is set back by the policies of this government. The key

to the economy of this province is industrial peace. It is the working

people of this province who work in the mills, the primary extractive

economy. Rather than diversifying the economy and adding wealth that

could shore up the kinds of services we require as a community and a

society, what we have instead is an attack on the ordinary working

people who do create the wealth in this province, and who should be

consulted and brought into the process of investment policy. There are

many pension plans that exist in this province. If people felt they had

a friendly government, a government that wasn't a bully, we would find

those pension funds invested in long-term diversification projects to

upgrade plant and to increase the job security in British Columbia.

Instead we have an unending attack against working people, and we're

not going to have the investment dollars put here to create the kind of

job security we require.

[10:00]

We are an international spectacle. Even the CBC, as bland as it is

in terms of its reporting of the issues of this country, has decided

that the government in British Columbia is really out of step with the

traditions of this country. The kind of program it has embarked upon

since July 7 of last year is distasteful to all of Canada. It is

distasteful to all fair-minded people in this country, and we are now a

spectacle. I'm sure that people who read the "B.C. news"

section of the

Globe and Mail in the investment centres of New York, Geneva,

Zurich and so on don't want to invest in British Columbia. These

cabinet ministers can fly first-class all over the world, but Zurich is

not going to invest any more money in British Columbia as long as there

is not industrial peace here. As long as this government whips up and

creates and contrives bullying actions against working people, there

will not be industrial stability here, because people will fight for

their basic rights to speak up as they want to and to be able to

bargain in a free society.

The United Nations, through the International Labour Organization,

has a number of documents that Canada is signatory to that outline

basic freedoms of working people: that they should be protected and

receive a worldwide.... Third World countries and so on — countries of

the United Nations — look at these various labour rights processes of

injustice. Canada is a signatory to many ILO documents, and these

Labour Code amendments cut deeply and offend the signatories that we

joined with in these various documents.

If the government sincerely wanted industrial peace, then meaningful

discussions would take place with the authentic and legitimate labour

bodies that exist in our province. We have a B.C. Federation of Labour.

That Premier cannot refer to that organization without a contemptuous

look on his face. He regards it as an illegitimate organization. Rather

than being the legitimate house of labour for 300,000 people in this

province, he treats it with contempt. He uses it as a means to

ingratiate himself with the Fraser Institute. He uses it as a sounding

board for his own political purposes.

Mr. Speaker, there are people of good will and good faith all the

way through the labour community who, for the benefit of their own

membership and the unorganized working people of this province, would

dearly love to attempt to unburden the unemployed of their anguish.

They know first hand what it's like to set up services where they hand

out donated food to the unemployed in this province. They know what

it's like to look at the boards in the various trade union halls that

indicate the number of members who are on social assistance. People who

had seniority of many, many years, who had not known unemployment, UIC

and then social assistance probably in their entire working career....Now many of these people have been unemployed not one year, not two years, but for three years.

Nothing in these Labour Code amendments is going to increase working

opportunities for any of these people. This is a philosophical, an

ideological bill; it has nothing to do with making the Labour Code a

better code. It is an ideological document framed by the hands of the

Fraser Institute and Mr. Stewart. These are the ones who want to see

people working at below poverty levels in British Columbia. They

[ Page 4745 ]

want to roll back the standard of living that

working people worked to enjoy in this province, and they want

instead.... The Minister of Labour shakes his head. Mr. Speaker, they

will not be happy until there is not a union left in British Columbia.

Sophisticated employers in this province would far rather work in

industrial relations with a trade union, bargain collectively in good

faith, sign a contract and live up to that obligation with their

employees and have stability for a one-year or two-year or three-year

period. They would rather have that kind of an arrangement than some

kind of a silly arrangement where people are certifying and

decertifying three or four or five times a year, where there is

constant rating and changes of bargaining agents or maybe no unions and

so on. That is not stability. That is backward. That's the kind of

thing that people had 200 years ago. That's silly, and that comes from

that silly little government over there. It's a government of

hot-liners, Mr. Speaker.

It's just about time in the history of British Columbia that there

was a progressive voice on the airwaves. One of the problems in this

province is that there are too many rightwing hot-liners, and if anyone

can provide some kind of progressive voice and rational, objective and

stable view, it is the Leader of the Opposition. I hope that's the job

that he's going to undertake.

It is a sad evening, Mr. Speaker, because what we're seeing is the

unravelling of accomplishments that really benefited all of B.C. and

served this province well over the last 12 years. They've tinkered with

it from time to time; they've interfered with the Labour Relations

Board and they've politically interfered with the processes. They are

now moving us back to adjudication in the courts; we're going to see

people back in the courts. That is the way they want to go. They want

political interference all the way through. That is the kind of process

they want; it's an approach we will regret one day. Rather than moving

ahead in a progressive way with progressive amendments to the Code

through consultation and cooperation, we have again this

confrontation-crisis management. It is going to do nothing but hurt our

province and set back any hopes of a recovery.

I would urge the government to withdraw the amendments, because they

certainly are not going to do anything for us. If they could just

extricate themselves from the clutches of the Fraser Institute, we

would certainly be well served. They should start governing for all of

the people — the poor, the disabled, the human rights people, working

people and so on. They should be governing for everyone. They shouldn't

be attacking and trying to divide and conquer. Their bullying tactics

are a spectacle for all of the world. I would urge the government to

withdraw these amendments.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, if the late W.A.C. Bennett were

alive today and in this chamber tonight, much to the surprise of his

successors in those chairs over there he would be up in this debate

supporting the arguments being made by the official opposition against

this bill.

The history of W.A.C. Bennett in this House comes from the time of

the breakup of the original coalition that came together in this House

to stop the CCF from becoming government in the early 1950s. At that

time the coalition was riding high in power and was a representation

essentially of middle British Columbia. They remained in power until

they introduced a bill which at that time was known as Bill 39. It was

a direct assault on the trade union movement, which was re-emerging

with greater strength in the postwar period.

Bill 39 led to one of the most divisive periods in the history of

the province of British Columbia. It also led to the end of the

coalition, as people who had come together decided that because of

philosophy and principle they would have to split apart. One of the

people who left the coalition was W.A.C. Bennett. One of the reasons

W.A.C. Bennett left was because the aggressive right turn of the

coalition government left the great mass of the middle voice of British

Columbians without any representation of what once was a

Liberal-Conservative coalition. Social Credit was started in this

province not as a political philosophy but as a response of populism

against that right-wing turn.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

The second coalition that was sponsored in this province came out of

what was perceived to be a left-wing turn after the New Democratic

Party was elected in 1972. Those people who were Liberals, those people

who were Conservatives, went to what they considered to be the

mainstream as a coalition against the government perceived to be of the

left or of the right, as is the history of this province.

Mr. Speaker, I predict tonight that as this government is riding

high, as this government reads polls and interprets them on the basis

of a daily assessment of what the public wants, this bill, more than

any other, will lead to the downfall of the present government. There

is a sense of amusement and a thought that labour-bashing at this time

can only strengthen the government's hand, and temporarily that may be

true. But I want to warn you of what someone far wiser than I said:

"Those who do not learn from history are condemned to relive it." Just

as the earlier coalition of some 34 years ago in this province began to

break up because of repressive labour legislation, this coalition will

begin to break up after this bill is passed because of the same thing.

It won't be the vocal trade union leaders who bring about your

downfall; it won't be the press conferences or angry demonstrations; it

won't be the pleadings of the official opposition. It will slowly take

place, as it did in the early fifties, in the living rooms, the

kitchens and the meeting halls of every comer of this province, as

working people in this province — men and women — begin to discuss

this, not in detail but on concept. The one concept that the working

people of this province have always believed in is being fair, and when

the balance is tipped against the working people of this province and

they perceive that they are not being treated fairly, that is when the

political changes take place in this province that lead to great

sweepings-out of government and great readjustments and realignments

and political allegiances. Just as you think that you're at the apex of

your power, just as you think now that you can do no wrong, that is the

time that you arrive at the beginning of your weakest moment. You say

to fair-minded people in this legislation that regardless of how you

juggle the books, regardless of how you manipulate the voting strengths

or weaknesses of management or labour in these sections, you give to

yourself — through this legislation and through the board — under

section 10(

b) the right to say that no matter how working men or

working women vote, the board shall have the right to deem to exist

what they think was in the people's mind, even if they voted yes or no.

I want you to think about that.

[ Page 4746 ]

[10:15]

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Exactly. And who are the first people to

understand this more clearly than legislators, more clearly than

newspaper writers, more clearly than the political scientists? Those

men and women who are at the job, providing the taxes for the

government to exist. When they perceive that no matter how they vote,

the government has in this bill the power to determine how they should

have voted, then those people will not forget it. They won't show up on

the lawns here, Mr. Speaker; they won't show up at the NDP conventions

or Social Credit conventions. When they are at home and when they

experience the effects of this bill, they will remember it and they

will begin to chip away at the power base of the coalition that you've

put together.

One of the parts of the coalition you've put together had been some

of the members of the building trades. As much as the New Democratic

Party has appealed to workers to vote for them, many trade unionists

have traditionally voted Social Credit in British Columbia. There has

been a tacit psychological agreement between those trade unionists who

voted Social Credit and the legislation and this government and its

predecessors in Social Credit that somehow you are always going to

produce as capitalists a balance and allow those hardhat trade

unionists to have a job and a good income. For the first time since the

early 1950s that psychological bond between many trade unionists and

Social Credit is now being eroded. Mr. Speaker, the government can sit

there and smugly think that this is a very popular bill — and it

probably is, by any reading of any poll at this particular time — but

what this government doesn't understand is that polls can change, but

legislation won't. What you think is popular now and what you think

will gain you more strength now may turn out to be the weakest link in

a chain you forged in an attempt to broaden the base of support for

your party.

This is not brand new. This happened once before in Bill 39, and I

predict, Mr. Speaker, that it will happen again. Harold Wilson once

said, Mr. Speaker, that a week was a long time in politics. Well, there

are about 36 months of weeks before there is the next provincial

election. As long as we discuss this bill in the abstract, you are not

in trouble, but the first time after this bill passes and the Labour

Relations Board uses the

Section in this act that overturns a vote at

the workplace of honest men and women in this province by saying that

the government, through the board, determines that whatever the workers

voted, that's not really what they wanted, and they upset their

democratic vote, do you know what will happen? In the lunchrooms, the

cafes, the living rooms and the church basements, where discussions

take place in this community of British Columbia, that experience of a

group of workers becomes the subject of discussion of citizens all over

this province. Do you know what that leads to? The new formation of

what is known as the silent majority. It doesn't show up in

demonstrations or in angry letters, but it shows up on the doorstep

when you go out looking for their vote. When you MLAs from the

government go back there....

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Yes, you can reel off all the years you want.

The only time you lost power as a coalition against the CCF is when you

fractured yourselves and eliminated that tacit alliance you had with

many working people of this province. That was between 1969 and 1972,

and it almost happened in the early 1950s, except that W.A.C. Bennett

walked across the floor and joined Social Credit in a move against

similar legislation known as Bill 39.

What I am saying now will be cold words on a piece of paper and

could be looked back upon by political scientists three years from now.

But as much as the government ignores my words tonight, if this bill

goes through and you insist on interpreting that what you think free

men and women have voted is wrong, and you change it, as I stand here

you will lose the next election.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: This is a little bit different, Mr. Member. I

have a few words particularly for that minister, because he has fallen

into another trap. He has been burned once, but he hasn't learned, and

I'll come back to that.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is unfair. More than anything else the people

out there in a free society, particularly in a small community like

British Columbia, will vote on the basis of what they feel is fair or

unfair. They won't be able to recite

chapter and verse what this

legislation is or tell you the

section or subsection, but they will

know that if by a secret vote a majority of them want to decertify or

certify, and under this legislation what they decided as a majority

will not be implemented, then they know they've been cheated and the

legislation is not fair. That's when people turn on governments.

As much as we like to think it is the flowery speeches of

politicians and the flashy advertising, when people in their own homes

determine that a government is no longer fair, you can spend all the

money in the world on advertising in all the fancy publications you

want, but you won't win again. If you pass this bill you will defeat

yourselves. It doesn't look like it tonight, and you'll look good in

the polls for a little while longer, but the first time this bill is

implemented, and the first time it is learned by word of mouth that

unfairness took place under this bill, the erosion will take place. How

much erosion is there to take place? As much as the press or the

political scientists may say that you won a sweeping victory, those of

you who have been around here long enough know that the difference

between 49 percent and 45 percent of the vote is three people in every

hundred. If you alienate three Social Credit voters out of every

hundred, you'll be swept out of office.

When you analyze it that way in terms of changing people's minds,

the warning I give is clear, free of charge and predictable: you will

lose the next election on this bill. You mark my words. As soon as you

tell people in a free society that they don't have the right of a

majority vote, that you will overturn it, you're going to lose people.

Who will you lose? You will lose people whom you have determined and

think are right-wingers. But it is not that we have right-wingers and

left-wingers in this province; essentially the coalition of government

that has led this province since the 1930s has been populism. Populism

was based as a formula for stopping ideology. Ideology has returned,

but it has returned on the right for the first time ever in this

province. That same ideological thinking that has formed the coalition

to bring you together, put now into practice, will bring about your

defeat.

[ Page 4747 ]

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of other comments

I wish to make on the bill. If the minister earnestly believes that he

is going to legislate human behaviour in collective bargaining through

a law, then he has got a great deal to learn. This particular minister

has already had one disastrous experience with listening to so-called

experts. As the Minister of Health, he listened to Mr. Bewley and Mr.

Hoskin about how he was going to cure drug addiction in this province

by writing a bill and teaching drug addicts how to play the ukulele. It

cost the taxpayers $22 million to understand that legislating ukulele

lessons for drug addicts is not the way to cure drug addiction: $22

million of taxpayers' money was wasted because of an ideological

commitment by that minister to think that by writing a law and telling

drug addicts not to use drugs any more, it would end. Mr. Hoskin was

fired, Mr. Bewley went on to a greater career, $22 million went down

the tube and Rafe Mair had to clean up the mess.

Mr. Speaker, did that minister learn anything about taking advice

from so-called academic experts? In the first instance, there was some

questionable academic background in dealing with drug addicts. In this

instance, the minister is dealing with academic ideology with no

practical experience in human relations. You're not dealing with sick

people who are drug addicts, in attempting to give them ukulele

lessons. You're dealing with the hard-working men and women of this

province who pay the taxes that keep government going. When

hard-working men and women feel that legislation is passed that does

not give them a fair shake — not in favour of the unions, not in favour

of management, but a fair shake that's when the hard-core vote begins

to dissipate.

I said at the outset that W.A.C. Bennett, were he alive, would be up

in this chamber tonight speaking against this bill. I repeat, the

reason he would be up against this bill is that, as an astute

politician, he understood that the way to stay in power for more than

20 years in this province is to talk one way but be fair down the

middle. In the last analysis, what they always said about W.A.C.

Bennett was that the famous second look....

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Well, he'll forgive me, wherever he is. I like to think the best of him, wherever he is.

But this government is making the mistake of no second look. They

are making the mistake of presuming that they know best, and they're

basing that purely on what they see in last week's poll. They move the

ideas from an abstract poll into legislation, and think they're

translating that into what people want. Maybe they want it today in the

abstract, but I warn you, as W.A. C. Bennett understood, once you

translate that abstract into reality, and the people feel they are

being treated unfairly, that's when you lose ground.

Where will you lose ground? It won't be in the industrial

constituencies. They traditionally vote NDP, anyway. Once in a while

they slip one way or the other. But there are hard-core constituencies

in this province that will vote Social Credit even when they're voting

Liberal. There are other hard-core ridings in this province that vote

CCF-NDP forever. An example of a hard-core riding that votes Social

Credit even if it's voting Liberal is Point Grey. Those two members ran

as Liberals and got returned as Socreds — no problem. The people there

know what their enlightened self-interest is.

[10:30]

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: No, not in Oak Bay or Point Grey. We write them off; they're yours. And we have some that are ours.

Now let's talk about the middle group. What of the middle group?

They represent the upward-striving middle-class people of this

province, who are generally very hard-working, have upwardly mobile

aspirations for their children, believe that governments will be fair

and that if they work hard their kids will succeed in society. What is

happening to those people in the South Burnaby constituency, in Delta,

in Surrey...

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: ..Yale-Lillooet too; you've got an industrial

base in there that's going to look at this. Those people who quietly

went and voted Social Credit, who have been bombarded by a series of

government acts that have affected their lifestyles, have so far pretty

well remained steady with the government. But those three people out of

a hundred that are necessary to swing those ridings are made up of

trade union members who have voted Social Credit in the past. It is a

fact that if every trade union member voted NDP, we would have been

government a long time ago. So you do have to rely on some trade union

vote to get into office. You have to rely on a big one, and you're

beginning, out of a mistaken belief that because you're riding high now

you can insult that vote.... I'm warning you that you've just gone too

far. These are not the people who demonstrate. These are not the people

who make statements, either soft or bellicose. These are not the

spokesmen of the right-to-work outfits or militant trade unions. These

are Mr. and Mrs. Average Trade Unionist in British Columbia, who expect

fairness above all from governments, and tonight are going to be

deprived of it. They won't understand this overnight. You're not facing

a cataclysmic upheaval of voter resentment within the next few weeks.

But the first time you use the

section in this bill that denies the

true intent of working men and women at any job site in this province,

that word will spread throughout the length and breadth of British

Columbia. It happens very quickly.

section 10(5), my good friend, where you clearly spell out — and,

Mr. Speaker, I wish to be in order; I won't read it in detail, because

that's committee stage — that the labour board will have, after all of

the rules you list about how people should vote.... You will decide

what you thought they voted for. That's where you're going to get

trouble.

I know that you're not going to withdraw the bill, because you have

the most pig-headed minister ever elected in this House guiding this

bill through.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, with the greatest respect, that remark must be withdrawn.

MR. BARRETT: I apologize, Mr. Speaker. I withdraw. The most stubborn minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: He's just tenacious.

MR. BARRETT: Not tenacious, stubborn. And the result of stubbornness is stupidity — but I'm not ascribing that

[ Page 4748 ]

to him, but to the wrecker. It was that minister,

out of his stubbornness, who blew $22 million on what he thought was a

quick cure for drug addicts.

MR. HOWARD: It was only taxpayers' money.

MR. BARRETT: It was only taxpayers' money. He was going to

give them ukulele lessons, blow in their ear and cure their drug

habits. Now he's going to cure labour problems with this kind of

legislation. I want to tell you that it simply will not happen.

Hotel-room legislation is no substitute for rational, thoughtful

research and going out and finding out what people want.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues who point out the dangers of this bill are actually warning you to save you from yourselves.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Yes, it's true. You have an inherent necessity

as democratic socialists to solve problems. You have attempted to save

this government from this folly. Politically, fortunately for our

future, they're too stupid to understand what you're saying to them and

they are bringing about their demise.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell you, the impact will not be felt overnight.

The impact will not be understood six months from now, but in the

ensuing 36 months after this is passed and up to the next election, if

this one

section is used, you will bring about your defeat because

you're not being fair. You can be right-wing; you can be left-wing. You

can use rhetoric; you can attempt to be logical and reasonable. But if

people feet that they're not being treated fairly, that's when they

throw governments out. The one person who instinctively understood this

in this chamber in all the time I was here was W.A.C. Bennett. He could

read the messages better than anybody who ever checked entrails except

for one time. The one time he let his guard down was in 1971-72 under

the influence of right-wingers, and you lost.

Well, you formed another coalition and recovered, and now that

you're riding high with that coalition you're on the edge of making

that same mistake again. I don't like people of this province

suffering, Mr. Speaker, and if my reason and persuasion would get you

to change this bill, it would probably save your neck politically. But

I want it on the record that you were warned. You were warned and I

tried. You as a government will be solely responsible for the

confrontation you're asking for out of this bill. You will be solely

responsible for the industrial disputes that will lead to a lowering of

productivity because of morale at the workplace being diminished. You

will be solely responsible for the alienation of many of your own

supporters who are trade union members and who quietly vote for you

while espousing their allegiance for the NDP. You will lead to the

destruction and the end of the present coalition that you represent as

a party.

Were it only a political destruction, I wouldn't worry about it. I

would hark my words and say: "I told you so." But I want to mention one

other thing before I sit down.

The course of this kind of change, Mr. Speaker, which I say will bring about

an electoral defeat, happens with the silent majority. But the course of it

will not be easy. You are asking for trouble at the workplace in this bill.

You are setting worker against worker. You are setting management against worker.

You are setting investor against investment in British Columbia. You are sending

a signal to the North American community that has understood that there has

been a tacit agreement between labour and management in North American capitalist

economy to ensure that there is continuing growth in place. But now you're

upsetting the balance. You're allowing the extremists to have a field day,

and that tacit psychological agreement that has given legislative authority

to overall labour peace in North America is being unbalanced by this bill. Despite

everything that has been said, Mr. Speaker, we have had a relatively good record

in British Columbia for ten years on labour management peace. Despite all of

the arguments one way or the other, we have had a reasonably calm period of

time in this province. That's going to end, because what you're doing

is threatening the very foundation of the organized trade union movement, as

they perceive it to be happening, as well as the reality of this bill. It's

a serious mistake.

I have not seen the evidence of one wise politician on that side.

I've seen ideologues; I've heard rhetoric, but I have not seen the

replacement of W.A.C. Bennett, who understood populist politics.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: You know, Mr. Speaker, I hope I'm wrong, and I would be the last to say: "I told you so."

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: You'll be the first.

MR. BARRETT: I only told you so on the drug thing, and that was so stupid. I asked you for....

MR. COCKE: ...third, fourth, fifth, and you were stupid.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. First, I'll ask the Minister

of Labour not to interject. Second, I would ask the member for New

Westminster to withdraw the comment.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I was too soft. I will withdraw.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you very much. Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition could speak to the principle of the bill. We will have order.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that you asked the

member for New Westminster to withdraw, because it's a mistake to

reveal state secrets.

But let me say this. There was an understanding of the people of

British Columbia beyond polls. There was an understanding in their

feelings, attitudes, hopes and aspirations. W.A.C. Bennett knew the

people of this province. He had a feeling for the people of this

province — the rich and the poor, the organized and the unorganized.

That enabled him to hold that coalition together. You've made a

paramount mistake in believing that polls speak for the people. You're

wrong.

The tragedy of this is that there will be trouble. There will be

confrontation, but there is going to be a positive result. As arrogant

as this group is tonight and as confident as they feel now, this bill

once passed will lead to the end of the present coalition, and, if I

may be permitted a personal note, none too soon. You have done more

damage to the psyche of this

[ Page 4749 ]

province, the dreams of this province and the hopes of the people of this province, even those in breadlines.... You've

done more to psychologically damage their futures than any other group

could do if they set out to do it on purpose. But tonight you've

culminated it. With this bill tonight, you've said to your own tacit

supporters in the trade union movement: "You can go to hell. We think

we know that what we're doing for you is the best." You'll rue the day.

W.A.C. Bennett knew it, and you're going to learn a whole new lesson.

You wait and see.

MR. BARNES: Following the Leader of the Opposition, I would

like to speak against the amendments to the Labour Code. I must say,

however, that we're not likely to introduce any new attacks against the

initiatives of the government, because just about everything has been

pursued that would attract attention to the government respecting its

determination to punish its perceived enemies — those who consider

themselves to be working people, who are dependent on the democratic

legislation that been hard fought for over the years.

I would just like to briefly refer back to the Leader of the

Opposition's comments when he suggested that this government is playing

popular politics. The problem in referring to the idea of using polls

is that it's popular. It is popular, and I think the Leader of the

Opposition and others on this side of the House realize the difficulty

of trying to make a political case in the future when in the present

there seems to be so much anger and hostility toward a perceived group

of people, organized working people....

Mr. Speaker, I'm having some difficulty even hearing myself, with all the chit-chat. Perhaps you could get some attention.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I appreciate that. If hon. members are going

to carry on discussions, perhaps they can carry them on somewhere other

than in the chamber.

[10:45]

MR. BARNES: I realize that my remarks are not going to be any

great revelations; nonetheless, I would like the record to show that I

joined my colleagues in opposing the amendments to the Labour Code.

As I was saying, I recognize the difficulty of doing so in light of

the attitude that this government has pursued, the attempts to exploit

the biases that unfortunately exist against working people, and the

political value that can be gained by exploiting the fears of voters —

playing on their fears, their difficulties and their so-called

security. As you know, 85 percent of the people who are working

probably view those who are not working as competition; they want to be

secure, perhaps at all costs, and I suppose you can't really blame

them. Nonetheless, the government has a duty to recognize that the

pendulum does change.

When you read the bill and look at the kinds of things the

government claims it is correcting — the problems of certification and

decertification, making the process fair, suggesting that secondary

picketing is not fair and that they want to amend the Code to protect

those people who have jobs and who are working legitimately from having

to suffer any losses as a result of political action on the part of

others; and on and on it goes — it's difficult at first blush to see

the fault of an initiative like that by the government; to attempt to

democratize, so to speak, the processes involved in labour-management

relations to protect the public from unfair work stoppages due to

political confrontations and differences. I've talked to people in the

province about the problems that are supposed to exist between labour

and management, and a large number of people are concerned, as we are,

with having the very best possible working relations, with the kind of

rapport and cooperation that is necessary to achieve security not just

for the workers but for the investors and the public who rely on some

level of congeniality between the parties so that there will be the

least amount of disruption with respect to services and the production

of goods.

The inspiration behind the government's move — the real motive — is

hardly to improve those relationships, as some of the members have

pointed out. The government's ulterior motive is that it is popular,

pure and simple. At this time in British Columbia's history it happens

to be a popular tack to open that cleft a little wider between labour

and management, to exploit the biases and the frustrations that the

public is experiencing as a result of hard times, hard times which are

not just in British Columbia but throughout this country and the world.

So the public is looking someone to blame, and the government is

seizing the opportunity to blame the wage earners, claiming that their

demands are frightening away investor confidence and frightening those

people who would invest their capital, making them fearful that unless

they can control working people through legislation and have some

assurances that they will have the advantages they need to protect

their capital invested in British Columbia....

When you think about that, it is a difficult proposition to dispute

out of hand, because obviously we would all like to see people invest

in the exploitation of the resources of this province on a fair and

equitable basis, and we would like to see working people have a fair

return for their physical efforts as well. I think that when you

consider the things that have happened in this bill it has very little

to do with the objectives of the bill. It seems more concerned with

making it impossible for working people to collectively come to terms

as a group. That seems to be more the objective than trying to improve

the investor climate, suggesting ways in which labour and management

can cooperate, or trying to encourage the need for consultation on

serious matters of job and investor security.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I guess what we're saying on this side of the House is that the

people are so angry and have been whipped up to such a tenor in this

province with respect to the concept of labour, and of working people

going on strike, that there is an opportunity for the government to

accentuate those negative concepts and not consider the reality that

working people have contributed as much as any other segment of the

population in trying to improve working conditions and the job site,

and in trying to be innovative in terms of the best ways to provide for

a productive climate in this province. I just feel that we should back

off a bit, Mr. Speaker. We should back off and think about what the

Leader of the Opposition was suggesting about fairness. Not all of us

are able to articulate in legalese the ins and outs of

labour-management matters, because, as we know, it's a very complex

field, and we know that many people spend most of their professional

hours trying to figure out ways of coming to agreements. We know

[ Page 4750 ]

some of the problems that are involved in it. But

fairness, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, may be the

breaking-point in what the government is doing. It is a simple case of

an unfair approach; it's an overkill. It just d