1998 Legislative Session: 3rd Session, 36th 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, JULY 13, 1998

Afternoon

Volume 11, Number 19

(Part 2)

[ Page 9933 ]

The House resumed at 6:37 p.m.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

Hon. P. Ramsey: I call adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 26.

LABOUR RELATIONS CODE AMENDMENT ACT, 1998

(second reading continued)

On the amendment (continued).

G. Abbott: At the time we departed for dinner, I had just begun a discussion of what I think are the four reasons the economy of British Columbia is struggling and people are suffering as a consequence. The first I had noted was the anti-business rhetoric which all too frequently has pervaded the comments of the Premier, particularly, but also of members of his government at times. Some of that rhetoric, I regret to say, is probably amongst the most virulent that one might hear north of Havana. I think it's unfortunate. I think it does have its price, and I hope we're hearing some toning down of that.

I think what we need in addition to a toning down of the rhetoric is a recognition of what is needed to turn around this economy and of what we need to see new investment in this province, so that we can stimulate the economy and create some new jobs. Without all of the ingredients being in place for new investment in this province, it isn't going to happen. I think it's an important part of our job here to ensure that it does.

I think that the second element that has contributed to the economic malaise we've had in this province, which is specifically addressed in the amendment put forward by the member for Matsqui, is the issue of excessive regulation and its impact on the provincial economy. Particularly in Forests, the area that I'm proud to be critic for, we see the cost of excessive regulation to our provincial economy. Even the current government now admits that the Forest Practices Code, as it was created in 1994 and put into place in 1995, was onerous and excessive in its scope and application.

The Forest Practices Code, even by the reckoning of, I believe, the Minister of Forests and the Minister of Environment . . . some $300 million a year more in costs to the forest industry than was necessary to achieve the environmental objectives which continue to be contained in the revised code. Because of ill-conceived and ill-managed legislation, we see a government that penalized the forest industry in British Columbia to the tune of about a billion dollars, and the consequence of that has been lost jobs.

In 1998 we see forest companies having severe problems, in large measure because of the unnecessary penalty they pay. But I don't think it's just forestry; it's a whole range of the ways business has been conducted across the province.

I think the attitude of this government has all too frequently been that you can heap the regulation on, and it doesn't matter -- business just absorbs it. Business can handle any sort of degree of regulation, and they just pass it along or whatever, and it's not a problem. But obviously we're seeing more and more that yes, it does matter, particularly as we get into 1998 with the recessionary problems we're facing. We see some tentative steps on the part of the government, in fact, to try to reduce that onerous and excessive level of regulation.

Regrettably -- and we'll obviously get into this when we get to some of their bills around red-tape reduction -- the talents of this government, such as they are -- lie in the area of adding regulation, not in the area of getting rid of it. I don't think they really have any understanding or ability to rid the province of regulation. For what it's worth, they are good at adding regulations, but they are not a talented group in terms of identifying unnecessary regulation and eliminating it. The NDP's answer to deregulation, by and large, is to add more regulation.

The world just doesn't work that way, but they have not yet captured that fact. Again, we are talking here about how Bill 26 is going to further damage investor confidence and the provincial economy.

The third aspect of this four-legged stool around damaging investor confidence in the provincial economy . . . . We've talked about anti-business rhetoric; we've talked about excessive regulation. I want to talk about the third and, in some ways, the most important element -- although that's debatable, and perhaps some of the members on the other side might want to take me up on this. I think onerous taxation is another huge element in the general undermining and damaging of the economy which has occurred during the tenure of the present government.

The excessive and onerous taxation is obviously manifested in several ways, and I just want to identify a couple of them. One is a tax which the Premier paid a lot of attention to as part of the anti-business rhetoric around the 1996 campaign: the corporation capital tax. In his view, it was a way to penalize the bad guys -- to characterize the way the argument ran then.

Certainly the promise of then-Premier Harcourt, back in, I think it was, '93 -- when the corporation capital tax was extended to business beyond the banks was . . . . When then-Premier Harcourt brought that extension of the corporation capital tax in, he said it was going to be a temporary thing. It was a temporary revenue measure which was going to be taken away in the relatively near future. Well, of course, that didn't fit into the general themes of the 1996 election campaign.

The then Premier, much to his dismay I'm sure, became the former Premier, and the new Premier saw the corporation capital tax as another example of how any government of a socialist persuasion should beat business over the head. He was all for keeping the corporation capital tax, and I guess still is.

There have been some discussions in recent months around relieving business of that tax, but it still remains in place, and it still remains -- just as Bill 26 is going to become -- another impediment to investing in British Columbia. The corporation capital tax says: "You know, you may want to invest in British Columbia, but the first thing -- the absolute first thing -- we're going to do if you have the courage and the foresight to invest in British Columbia is tax you through the corporation capital tax. We're going to do it regardless of whether your business is new and struggling.

We're going to do it regardless of whether you've made money or lost money or anything else. We're going to penalize you for investing in the province." So it's a huge impediment to new investment here, and mark my words -- and mark the words of the entire official opposition on this -- Bill 26 is going to do exactly the same thing: it is going to discourage people from investing in the province. We can definitely not afford to see another barrier or impediment of that sort to further harm our B.C. economy.

[6:45]

The fourth leg on the stool, if you like, is our labour laws. I don't want to try to canvass the whole waterfront, but I want to make a couple of general comments about labour laws and their importance in terms of the message that we send out to

[ Page 9934 ]

the people of British Columbia -- and indeed, to outside investors -- about B.C. as a place to work, a place to park your investments. The thing about this government is that pervading much of what it does seems to be a view that if something is not centralized, if it's not bureaucratized and if it's not unionized, then it's definitely not worth having. That seems to be, more often than not, the view that is expressed by this government. There's nothing wrong with unionization. Certainly on this side of the House, we take the view that unionization is a democratic right.

But surely also -- and I guess this is where we differ with the other side -- if people don't want to unionize, that ought to be a democratic right as well. Yet that seems to be a right that is forgotten by this government. In my time, I've belonged to a variety of unions, but I've also had the opportunity at times to work in non-union businesses and enterprises. Surely it should be a democratic right for people to decide where and when they want to unionize. This government doesn't seem to take that view.

I will just mention in passing the example of New Forest Opportunities. In order for anyone in the coast region of FRBC to work on a FRBC-funded project -- not just a displaced forest worker -- they must join the IWA. Now, the IWA is a fine union with a proud tradition, but this, I'm afraid, is not one of their finer moments. This is an example of where people are being compelled to join a union whether they like it or not. It's wrong to compel people to unionize on silviculture projects that are using public dollars.

Yet I think New Forest Opportunities, Bill 26 and all this kind of thinking underlines the view that if it's not unionized, something's not quite right. The world isn't spinning quite the way it should if it's not unionized. I think that is a destructive and negative sort of view of the world, and regrettably, it is one that is going to contribute further to the decline in investment confidence in this province and a decline in the provincial economy as well. Bill 26 is going to be one more step in this direction.

One of the problems with Bill 26 is that it looks at relationships between labour and management on the basis of sectoral structures, rather than individual enterprises. It seems to me, again that this goes back to the notion that if it's not centralized, if it's not bureaucratized and if it's not unionized, it's not worth having. There seems to be, implicit or explicit in Bill 26, a notion that it's not right to have individual enterprises negotiate their own contracts so that they can build details and features into it which accommodate the special interests of that enterprise.

In Bill 26 there seems to be a rejection of that exact thing; things have to be done on the basis of sector, where everything's common, rather than recognizing the individual needs of different businesses.

Again, this is a fundamental -- where the government side of the House and the opposition side of the House divide. Clearly if we are to have jobs, if we're to have new investment, if we want to have people working in this province, we need to build in those kinds of opportunities to recognize the special features and challenges which any business may have in the marketplace. To take that away just makes it that much harder for our businesses in British Columbia. Particularly given the taxation and regulatory burden that they're facing in the province, to have that heaped on as well is something that just makes it that much more difficult for our businesses and our economy to succeed.

A second point I want to make about Bill 26, and I think it's a very important one, is one of the darts aimed at the economy of this province. Sectoral bargaining, in the absence of the restoration of the secret ballot for certification, will further damage investor confidence. We need -- and again, this is a fundamental difference between the two sides of the House here -- a secret . . . . There is nothing wrong, in theory or in practice, with the secret ballot. We all get here to this House by a whole lot of people marking secret ballots about who they want to have.

To take away that right in union certification is wrong. It's a fundamental difference that we have with the Premier and with his side of the House.

The overall problem is that the Premier and the Labour minister and others like to brag about their record in labour relations. They say that things are great. Well, if they're so great . . . . To use the old maxim, if it ain't broke, why are they proposing to fix it? The fact of the matter is that what they're going to do here is something that is going to cause . . . .

Interjection.

G. Abbott: You don't need to start getting in on this just to show off to the Premier. Go back to sleep. You were asleep before the Premier arrived; go back to sleep again. You're just showing off -- you're just grandstanding -- for the Premier.

Deputy Speaker: Through the Chair, please, member.

G. Abbott: Hon. Speaker, I was just trying to point out to the member for Vancouver-Burrard that heckling me now that the Premier is in attendance will not get him into cabinet any quicker. I'm sorry for that intervention.

So if it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's the lesson here on Bill 26. There are a lot better things we could use our time and talents in this House on than a bill that is going to further undermine the economy of British Columbia.

I want to just point out a few things about the damage that has been done to the economy of British Columbia. Others have noted that British Columbia has gone from number one in 1991, when the NDP took power, to number ten today -- an awful part of the legacy of the ill-conceived and misguided policies of this government. We see that decline showing up everywhere: in economic growth, in new investment. We see it, for example, in the decline in the gross domestic product. This is from TD Economics. Others have noted this, so I won't spend a long time on it. The graph is striking.

The graph shows strong provincial GDP growth in every province, with the exception of British Columbia. Newfoundland is the strongest, at 5 percent; Ontario, second-strongest, at 4.5 percent; Alberta, 4.1 percent. Even PEI, which is the weakest of the other nine, is at 2.3 percent provincial real GDP. Where do we find British Columbia? At zero -- a shocking indictment of this government's policies and a shocking indictment of the way they have led this province for the past seven years. Really, when you look at this graph, going from Alberta to British Columbia is like falling off the edge of the earth.

There has been tremendous damage done to this province, and it's showing up now.

Sadly, it shows up in not only a decline in investment but in a decline in employment as well. I think we saw some figures come out on the weekend that showed that British Columbia is actually losing jobs, and that's shocking.

The other shocking figure from the weekend is that StatsCan is reporting that B.C.'s student unemployment rate for June stood at 22.9 percent -- a shocking figure! That is perhaps the saddest statistic of all. What this government is doing with its regressive, thoughtless policies is taking away the future of our children. When I was going to high school and university, I could readily count on a job every summer. This summer almost 25 percent, one in four, of the students in British Columbia looking for work can't find it. It's another

[ Page 9935 ]

shocking indictment of the record of this government. It's there. That's our future, and we see what's happening to it under the leadership of this government.

Interjection.

G. Abbott: Yeah, what leadership? That's a good point. It's negative leadership.

We see an overall decline in business confidence . . . .

I see I'm going to be running short of time here, so I just want to make note of one last point, and that's the B.C. discount. I want to quote briefly from a First Marathon Securities Ltd. analysis of the Canadian paper and forest products industry in British Columbia. The heading says: "B.C. Discount Is Real." I'll just quote a small portion of this. "B.C. companies now trade at a 26 percent discount to eastern companies, on the basis of their median price over book value." It's an astonishing figure, hon. Speaker, and it's going to get worse. Bill 26 is going to make it worse.

I urge all members of this House to support the amendment moved by the member for Matsqui.

S. Hawkins: I'm very pleased to rise in support of the amendment put forward by my colleague the member for Matsqui. This amendment proposes to decline giving second reading to Bill 26 because it will risk further damage to investor confidence in the provincial economy.

It's good to see that the Premier is back. I know he's been away, and I know he got a ton of mail, because I've been receiving copies of it. I was going to leave this until later, but while he's here, maybe I can just read him a letter. This one particularly struck me, from the mailbag that I got. It's from the CEO of Enviro-main Filter Inc., Mike Alderman, who is situated in my constituency. He writes to the Premier:

"My name is Mike Alderman. I'm 25 years of age."

This got me right away, because here is a young entrepreneur who feels the need to write to the Premier. He says:

"I own a company in Kelowna that was incorporated on November 7, 1997." It's less than a year old. "I'm a young entrepreneur struggling . . . . "

I hope the Premier's listening. He's struggling to get ahead in a politically determined environment that extinguishes the free enterprise spirit. We've got a young person who is setting up a company and feeling like he's swimming against the free enterprise current -- the negativeness put forward by this government. He further writes:

"I'm asking you to please give your head a good shake and look at what you are doing to a province that small business owners should be proud of. The hard work and money that we, as small business owners, have already spent and continue to spend to establish small businesses should not be shot down by your government by providing favours to unions at the expense of B.C. entrepreneurs.

"If Bill 26 is passed, you are going to cause me to move my company to a province that I don't want to live in, but I will have to do so to provide for my family. Yes, Premier, I will be able to thank you for this move."

[7:00]

A couple of things strike me about this letter. First of all, it's a young person who's writing. I know this gentleman. He was looking for a job, and he decided he would try to strike up a business of his own. At a young age, 25, he has set up a very, very successful company. In fact, the company, Environmain Filter Inc., provides a product that is the only one of its kind in Canada. They import this product, customize it and sell it around the country. They are so successful, I understand, that they're going to franchise. Their first franchise will be in Abbotsford.

In less than a year they've chosen to expand and develop their company. Here's a young person who's willing to do that. This is a very, very environmentally friendly product. We should be proud that we have people who are doing this kind of work in B.C. He's writing to the Premier and saying: "What you're doing, Mr. Premier, is threatening my company. You're threatening any jobs I might create.

You're threatening any investment that I might attract so that I can expand and develop my business and actually guarantee some kind of a living in B.C." He's saying to the Premier: "If you do this, you're going to force me to move my company out of B.C. I don't want to go, but that's what you're doing." I hope the Premier is listening. This guy is only 25 years old. He started out . . . . He's already franchising his company. Like I said, it's environmentally friendly. It's the kind of business I think B.C. is looking to attract.

He's the kind of entrepreneur that B.C. is trying to attract: young people who are motivated. So it struck me quite hard that someone I know feels quite threatened by the moves of this government and is saying that they will take their company out of the province if negative initiatives by this government go ahead.

We know that the policies of this government have hurt B.C.'s economy. We know that private sector investment is falling, and with it businesses fall and job creation falls. We know that resource sectors are in a crisis. We only have to look in the papers every day and look what's happening to forestry, to mining. It's appalling what the policies of this government have done. We are losing jobs. We are losing taxes, because there are fewer jobs. B.C. is seeing an alarming rate of job losses in businesses.

We heard in the debate members who have spoken before me talking about 107 companies -- and counting -- that have moved out of B.C. into Alberta. That can't be good for our economy. The rate of economic growth is continuing to lag behind most of the rest of Canada. The speaker before me spoke about the TD Bank releasing their report on July 9. I can't underline it enough. They say that B.C. is in a recession, and it's due to the mismanagement of this NDP government.

The TD Bank is forecasting a big, fat zero percent economic growth for B.C. How can anyone be proud of that? How can any member on that side of the House stand up and say: "We're proud that B.C. is going to be having zero economic growth for 1998-99"? I think the reason none of them stand up and speak to any of these motions or amendments is because they're ashamed to. They're embarrassed, because they know that the numbers speak for themselves. When you have reports like the TD Bank predicting economic growth . . . . Look, they predict 5 percent growth for Newfoundland and 5 percent growth in the Maritimes.

Isn't that amazing? Alberta, our neighbour -- and we keep hearing about bad Alberta -- it's 4.1 percent economic growth. That's compared to -- what? -- ours at zero percent.

We've heard other members go through the list, but I think it's really important to go through it. Prince Edward Island, 2.3 percent. Here's a little island. They can't have that much of a diversified economy or that many people working in their job force. But guess what. What an entrepreneurial spirit they are showing. They're going to have a growth rate of 2.3 percent. I heard one of the members talk earlier about Quebec as well. That is a province that has seen some hard times in the last few years. Their province has been torn by

[ Page 9936 ]

uncertainty over unity, over separation, all kinds of stuff. But you know what? They are going to see economic growth of 2.9 percent.

It's not that an NDP government can't do it or doesn't know how to do it, because we know that Saskatchewan, which has had an NDP government for the last five or six years, is going to show an economic growth of 3.4 percent. There's a government that somehow did things right. Maybe it was by mistake; I don't know. But they did things right. They've had five balanced budgets. Maybe their B.C. cousins can take a lesson from them. We can only hope. I won't hold my breath, because I've lived here seven years, and I really haven't seen this government do anything right. What I've seen is a lot of things done wrong.

The taxpayer-supported debt in this province climbed by $14 billion -- that's 135 percent -- since 1991. And you know what? Balanced budgets are still a dream. It's still a dream of this government and everyone in this province, because they haven't been able to achieve it. In fact, we have seen debt management plans go nowhere in this province. The members on the opposite benches come up with all these plans, but do we ever see them put into motion? Do we ever see them meet a target or a goal? No, it's hit-or-miss all the time. Well, that doesn't do very much for investor confidence.

If a government can't even manage its own books, its own finances, why on earth would an investor want to come to B.C. and work under that kind of mismanagement? They wouldn't, and they're not going to. We know that in large part, government taxes, regulations and unbalanced labour laws have a lot to do with investor confidence, with investors coming to B.C. or not coming to B.C., and with businesses either surviving or not surviving in B.C. We have seen a negative business climate, because this government creates an unfriendly business atmosphere. It creates a very unfriendly business climate.

More people are leaving B.C. than are coming here, and we read about it all the time. In fact, I picked up my copy of the Province on Sunday. What was the headline? "Why More B.C. Families Are Fleeing to Alberta." The members opposite might want to stick their heads in the sand and say, "No, no, it's not happening," but there were interviews in the paper of families and people saying exactly why they were leaving. In fact, the subheading says: "Plenty of jobs, cheaper homes, lower taxes . . . and it's a lot easier to commute." So they're not only financial but also lifestyle kinds of choices. And you know what?

That's a shame, because seven years ago, when we moved to B.C., it was for exactly those kinds of reasons -- lifestyle choices and, we thought, for financial reasons. But you know what? In the seven years that I've lived here -- which happen to be the same seven years those members have been in power -- I have seen the province just go downhill. It's been horrible. We have seen our friends leave, we've seen businesses in our community leave, and we've seen friends go bankrupt. We've seen young people leave their communities.

I think I've said it more than once, but it warrants saying again: I'm not ashamed to say that I'm from Saskatchewan, which is a good place to be from -- that's what everybody says, and I do think it is a good place to be from -- but it was the kind of province where you had to leave home to find a job. I grew up in Saskatchewan knowing that some day I would have to leave the province, because it was one of the poorer provinces. But you know what? Today we see people moving back to Saskatchewan.

In fact, we've had friends that have recently moved back to Alberta and Saskatchewan, and they're citing the same kinds of reasons: lower taxes, better quality of life, not as much stress in the lifestyle, cheaper homes. And frankly, they're laughing at us.

They're laughing at us here and wondering why we choose to stay: "Why do you choose to stay in a province where you're paying high taxes, where you have a government that doesn't care about business -- where you have a government that doesn't care about a lot of things, actually." When you look at the state of the resource industries, health care, child welfare in this province, it makes you want to give all of them a shake and ask: "What are you doing to this province?"

Last week I said goodbye to one of my workers in my office, a lady that's worked for me for two years. Her husband has struggled for the last five years looking for a job in B.C. He ended up doing one of those fly-in, fly-out jobs -- you know, where you go to the Northwest Territories or the Yukon and live in a camp, and then you fly back. That's what he was doing for a couple of years until a year and a half ago, when he found a job in Alberta. He wasn't going to go there, but he found a job in Alberta.

He took his elder daughter with him, and the younger daughter lived at home with the lady who worked in my office. Friday was one of the saddest days I've had in the last few years, because I had to say goodbye to someone who had worked for me. He's got work in Alberta for at least another three years, and they couldn't live with the family torn apart. They all wanted to be together. She is quite confident that she will be able to get a job in Alberta -- in Calgary, as a matter of fact. They have a house in Calgary now, and they were packing up the truck. She said goodbye to me last week.

It hits awfully close to home when you see people you know and love, people who work for you, moving away. That really hurts.

He tells me that things are so good in Alberta that when he's . . . . He's in the construction industry, and when he's working on a site, it is so busy that people are scrambling for good workers. He has had contractors come and offer him jobs and up the ante so he'll come work on their sites. That is the kind of competitiveness that's going on in Alberta, the kind of job growth and economic revival that's going on there. People are actually going to other job sites and saying: "Hey, come work for me."

You know what? That reminds me that that's going on a little bit here in British Columbia. I recall a newspaper story and a story that BCTV did about a month ago on recruiters coming to Campbell River, and they said they had lots of jobs. They were recruiters from the oil and gas industry coming to Campbell River for two days, and they thought that maybe they might get a few workers out of this. Over 100 people showed up each night. They were absolutely amazed. But the amazing

part is that the recruiters were from Alberta. They were coming to B.C. and trying to get good people to come to Alberta to work, because Alberta has a problem. Alberta has a problem that I think everyone in this House and everyone in B.C. wishes B.C. had. Alberta has too many jobs. Can you imagine that? It has too many jobs and not enough workers. They're coming here now and taking away our good, skilled workers, because our workers here don't have jobs. They need to provide for families and make sure they can make ends meet.

Unfortunately, some of those families are going to be in the same position that the family of the lady who worked for me was in. They don't have homes they can uproot. Their children will probably be going to school in the little community of Campbell River while Dad goes and works for long periods of time in Alberta, probably, and commutes home very, very rarely. I know how stressful and how hard it was on the family that I knew intimately, so I can just imagine what that kind of situation will do to families in these little commu-

[ Page 9937 ]

nities who are absolutely strapped. They need to find work, and they have to go that far away to find it. I guess it makes me angry because of what this government has done to the economy and to families at level in British Columbia.

[7:15]

That's not right. Families shouldn't have to be torn apart the way they are today. Families shouldn't have to worry about where the next dime is coming from, and they certainly shouldn't have to worry about how dad is doing or how mom is doing when they're commuting provinces apart. That's wrong. I don't think that is the kind of British Columbia I had envisioned seven years ago when I moved here. Absolutely not.

What this amendment proposes to do is to decline second reading of this bill and basically stop the government from doing any further damage to B.C. I keep hearing the Labour minister saying: "No one's proved that this is going to do any damage to B.C. No one's proved that it is going to damage the economy." How can he possibly know that? He hasn't done any studies. He hasn't done an economic impact study to see if this bill will indeed damage the economy, and that should be his responsibility.

He shouldn't say: "Prove to me that it will damage the economy." He should have to prove to everyone else that it won't damage the economy. That is the responsibility of the minister when he brings in legislation as controversial as this one. That is his responsibility.

It's interesting, because his own chamber of commerce . . . . Again, the Labour minister says that opponents have told him that the code is bad for investment and the business climate, but they haven't proved this. His own chamber president in Nanaimo said that the Labour minister hasn't proved that it's good for the economy. He said, again -- and as chambers across the province reiterate -- that it's this minister's responsibility to do an impact study; it's imperative that the study be done.

Business leaders and job creators across the province are telling this government that this bill is going to affect the cost of doing business and that it will foster more unionization of small business. Frankly, small businesses are saying that they can't afford it. Small businesses are saying that they would move, as the young gentleman whose letter I read said he would move, rather than stay here and watch his business go downhill. Small and medium-sized businesses and job creators are also saying that this bill will take away not only employers' rights but workers' rights.

It will kill jobs and it will kill investment. That is what they're saying to the minister, but he chooses not to listen, and it's a shame.

Now, I know, hon. Speaker, that you've seen the ads in the paper too. Businesses are doing everything they can to try to get this government's attention. It's amazing what they'll do, the extraordinary steps they are taking. We're not just talking about one or two businesses; we're talking about some of the major, major business groups in the province. When I read the letters to the Premier that I'm getting copies of -- business leaders are writing to the Premier and sending us copies of the letters -- it's amazing who the letters are coming from.

They're coming from accountants; they're coming from banks; they're coming from chambers; they're coming from little mom-and-pop shops. The kind of response that this bill has got from the people who actually create the jobs in the province is absolutely incredible.

When I see the ads in the paper, I wonder why . . . . What is it going to take? Why doesn't this government listen? What's it going to take for them to pull back and give this a second look? What we know is that the economy is worse this year than last year, and last year we had Bill 44. We saw the kind of negative impact it had on the business community, and we know that the business community this year, looking at the economic climate in the province, is just as frightened with what is in Bill 26. When this minister says that this is just a modest bill, just modest changes . . . .

Well, we've seen what they mean by modest in the past. They said the same thing about the gambling expansion, and we know that it was a massive gambling expansion. We know that. We saw what they meant by modest changes to the ICBC product, and that was their no-fault insurance. And you know what? The community, British Columbians and groups across the province, had to rise to defeat that.

When we hear the word "modest" used by the socialists, we know it's not modest at all. We know that. We know that it takes an incredible fight to beat it back into its place and ask the government to take a second look at it. That's what had to happen last year with Bill 44, and unfortunately, because it seems to me that these socialists don't seem to learn -- they don't listen -- it's happening again. It is taking an incredible fight from the business community and from groups opposed to these changes across the province to try and get the message through to the government. I think it's sad.

I'm looking at the kinds of groups that are rising up and saying: "Listen, the economy's not in good shape. We're the ones that create jobs. We're the ones that look for the investment for our businesses in this province. We are not getting the kind of investment we need. We're the ones that can pack up and leave, thank you very much." And they can. You know, we have to find ways to keep people in B.C. If we keep the job creators in B.C., they will create jobs, and there will be work for workers.

This government says that this bill is good for workers. What good is it for workers if the workers won't be able to find a job after they pass the bill? That is the concern: that there will not be work for those workers after the bill is passed.

The government also says that this bill will not influence any changes in the residential construction industry. But you know what? I can't tell you how many letters I've got from construction firms that say that's not so, that it will affect residential construction. I know for a fact, as I've mentioned before, that my own office is commercial on the lower level and residential on the top. I don't know how you separate the two. Do you have a certain group of workers working on the lower level, and then you punt them out and say: "Okay, now the residential ones come and build the top"?

Well, I don't think so; I don't think that's the way it works. We know that there are going to be changes. The bill is going to influence changes to the residential construction industry. I'm just overwhelmed by the fact that the government doesn't listen. I'm sure the Premier and the members opposite probably have ten times as much mail as I've got. I know I have already got boxes of it in my office in Kelowna.

When I think of what it's going to do to unemployment . . . . We know -- and we've heard it from other speakers -- that the unemployment rate is incredibly high. The unemployment rate right now in B.C. is higher than the national average. When we look at all the factors that come into play in trying to keep people at work and bring in investment and keep businesses going in the province, we know that the unemployment rate is one of them. Who's going to come and invest and stay here when that rate is that high?

Certainly we see a lot of young people leaving. I read that in the papers every day. On Sunday there was a story about young people leaving as well. We know that the youth unem-

[ Page 9938 ]

ployment rate is unacceptably high in this province. The Premier, I believe, wrote a letter to the paper on Sunday and made the comment himself that the youth rate is very, very high. It's over 17 percent. That is the highest rate of youth unemployment west of Quebec, I understand.

Interjection.

S. Hawkins: The hon. member for Okanagan-Vernon tells me it's 22.9 percent. Well, that is shameful! I don't know what other word to use. That is shameful; that is nothing to be proud of.

We know that private sector investment is the fuel that drives an economy. We've learned in the last seven years that it's not the government that creates jobs and that it's certainly not the government that's attracting businesses to come and invest here. We know that. Somehow in the last seven years people have survived, and I think they've done it in spite of the government. We know that the government has imposed many, many hardships and handicaps on business. Frankly, we've heard them squeal: "Enough is enough." Now we're hearing them scream: "Stop!" Frankly, a lot of them have spoken with their feet.

Many of them have moved out of the province; many of them have taken that walk across the border, either down to Washington or over to Alberta.

Frankly, we're almost the laughingstock of Alberta. I went there for Mother's Day. I went to a wedding on Saturday night, and one of the gentlemen I met there -- I hadn't seen him for a few years -- said: "You're elected in B.C., aren't you?" I said: "Yes, I am." He said: "With all due respect, we really like your government there, and we hope it stays." I said: "You do?" He said: "Yes, it's the best thing to happen to Alberta." It was a big joke at the wedding that night. The best thing to happen to Alberta is that this Premier got elected in B.C.

In fact, the joke of the evening was that Alberta should name this Premier as Alberta's man of the year because he has done more to create jobs in Alberta and drive investment out of B.C. and into Alberta than perhaps Albertans could have done themselves. I don't think we can be very proud of that kind of information when we go across the border.

We need a healthy business climate if we're going to be successful here, if jobs are going to be maintained and if jobs and businesses are going to stay in B.C. We know that there are many issues facing small business. It's hard enough to get started in the first place. But the last thing you need is the government to make it even harder for you. We know in this province that business is not the enemy. In fact, business is what helps drive the economy here. The small and medium-sized businesses are the job creators in this province.

But you wouldn't know it from this government -- you sure wouldn't -- because of the kinds of burdens they impose: the kinds of taxes, the kinds of regulations and the inflexible, unbalanced labour laws.

Now they're trying to tip the balance again. I don't think that is good for B.C. I can tell you that the majority of people in British Columbia are worried about the economy and about jobs. They don't feel it's best at this time to be doing that, either. I think that if this bill doesn't get second reading -- and I hope every one of the members across the way will stand up and support this amendment -- it will send a good message to British Columbians.

It will send a positive message to the business community and the investment community that this government is going to listen -- that they are willing to put this bill aside and actually listen to British Columbians. So I will be voting for the amendment.

Deputy Speaker: Just before I recognize the next member, the Chair needs to remind members in regard to the standing orders on repetition. Hon. members, repeating one's own arguments and those of others leads to much repetition of debate. So members should respect the House's decision to move on, to come to a decision on this debate and exclude discussion that doesn't contribute to that process.

M. Coell: I can say that it's with some regret that I have to stand tonight and speak again on Bill 26 and the motion put forward by the member for Matsqui not to proceed with this bill -- that it shouldn't be given second reading. I had first planned, as a matter of fact, to go over some of the arguments I had made previously that weren't successful in getting the government to have second thoughts. I had tried to get the Finance minister and members of government to change their minds and vote against this bill or withdraw it. Those arguments weren't successful.

So I'm going to try a different tack tonight, a tack that may drive home some of the problems the government is forced to face with this bill. I think one of the things . . . . Hon. Speaker, you may remember the debate around the neutron bomb, the bomb that just killed citizens and left buildings standing. What's happened here is that this piece of legislation is part of the bomb. The bomb is being built by the NDP government, the socialist government here in Victoria. They're building a bomb bit by bit. They started with high taxes, then with labour legislation.

They started with basically badmouthing anyone who wanted to come and start a business in British Columbia -- red tape, more labour legislation.

[7:30]

This is sort of the finishing touch on the NDP neutron bomb. They're about to pass this legislation, I suspect, and then drop it on union workers. Yes, they're going to drop the NDP neutron bomb, Bill 26, on union workers. It's going to kill union jobs in this province, and it's going to leave all the factories standing vacant, with the wind blowing through them. All the people they purport to protect -- their friends, the union workers of this province -- are the people hurt by this bill. They're going to be hurt, as they already have been, by the legislation and the red tape and the unfriendly business attitude that has put so many union workers out of a job.

I look at the forest industry, the fishing industry, the mining industry, the civil service -- all union jobs -- devastated by this government. Do they stop; do they reflect; do they think that maybe we're hurting the people we purport to represent? I don't see that reflection; I don't see it at all. It's just more of the same: grind out the same legislation; grind out the same thought.

Mr. Speaker, this government may be incapable of changing direction. And that may be the best thing that happens to this province: that the government is incapable of changing their thoughts and their direction, their manner of bringing budgets forward -- or not forward -- their manner of bringing legislation forward, their manner of respect for the Legislature. That may be how they're going to continue for the next months, year, and that may be the best thing that happens to this province, because the province will throw them out on their ears.

The people of this province will throw them out on their ears, because they're not flexible. Flexibility is the key to the future of job creation in this province -- flexibility to find out what works and to put it into action. If something doesn't work, get rid of it quickly.

That brings me to what I want to centre in on: the flexibility to throw things out that aren't working. We had a budget that goes along quite neatly with Bill 26 in that it basically acknowledged some problems. It didn't acknowl-

[ Page 9939 ]

edge the reason for the some of the problems, but it acknowledged some problems, and, then it did nothing to deal with the problems. We have a nice economic plan to make B.C. more competitive. It's printed by the government, and when you read it you think: "Gee, they must know what's going on." But when you read it just a little bit further, you find out that every promise is for next year. Every promise is two years, three years down the road -- after their mandate runs out.

Well, they must think that people who start businesses -- whether it's individuals or corporations, small or large -- don't read, don't pay any attention. One of the first things that people who invest in places like British Columbia do is read. They read to see what climate they would be investing in. When they see a government that acknowledged . . . . They were told that maybe there are some problems, and they acknowledged it by doing -- nothing? In order to get this economy back on track, you need to act and act quickly, not act three years from now.

That will only create more unemployment; it will only create more companies moving to Alberta and Saskatchewan. You know, it used that we were just saying that they were moving to Alberta. Now it's to Saskatchewan; now it's to Ontario. They're moving anywhere in North America except B.C.; that is probably the simplest way of putting it.

Government needs to act, and it doesn't need Bill 26. The bill itself, once enacted, becomes part of a bomb dropped on union workers. That's what this bill will do: more of the same out of government and less action to stimulate the jobs that are needed. I think, hon. Speaker, you've heard me mention a couple of times that the idea of creating jobs is that you create jobs. Whether they're union or non-union will be determined through a process that's laid out in labour legislation, but you have to create the jobs. You have to create union and non-union jobs. You just create jobs. This government is incapable of doing that, because it isn't flexible.

It isn't flexible, and this legislation proves that. As I say, it's the last piece of a neutron bomb dropped specifically on union workers. What's going to happen is that jobs won't be created; buildings won't be built; factories won't be opened; expansions of businesses won't happen. Do you know what that means? That means people out of work. It means union people out of work. And this government doesn't care; this government doesn't act. It won't create the climate that will create the jobs. It isn't flexible. It doesn't see the problems and doesn't correct the problems.

You can't just click your heels and go back to Kansas. You've got to be realistic; you've got to make some changes. This bill furthers the commitment to centralized, socialized, sanitized government. But what's needed is flexibility; what's needed is change. What's needed is a realistic plan that will create jobs.

I want to outline a few of those changes that this bill doesn't address. In the budget we had tax cuts -- little tiny wee tax cuts that were seen as a joke this year and didn't take effect for three years. But the legislation must happen this year, without discussion, without any input from industry, without any input from the people who create the jobs -- the good-paying union jobs. They didn't talk to those people.

Government increases red tape daily. We have environmental legislation coming through, increasing red tape. We have labour legislation coming through, increasing red tape. But this bill has to go through. What's important to the government -- doing what's necessary to create jobs, or this labour legislation? I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that it's this labour legislation. Delivering truth in budgeting, bringing in a balanced budget . . . ? No, the government didn't do that.

As a matter of fact, we're just about to find out how many hundreds of millions of dollars the government is out on their own budget after the second quarter, which is just coming to an end. It's a coincidence that government would want to debate this legislation before looking at the second quarter financial results. I think all of us are going to be shocked at the mismanagement this government has dealt the people of British Columbia. But this bill has to come first, before looking at the financial state of this province.

Dealing with your debt. This government has had three sort of laughable attempts at legislation to deal with their debt, but they can't. But this piece of legislation has to go through before balanced budget legislation. We had a lovely

article in the Wall Street Journal talking about B.C.'s disastrous government and the disastrous job they've done of managing the economy, but this piece of legislation has to go through this week. The government still doesn't balance its books, doesn't pay its debt, hasn't eliminated red tape and hasn't cut taxes, but this bill is so important to them that it has to go through. All these other things that are important to job creation -- to union job creation, to people who will work in this province -- are not important to the government, but a labour bill, part of a bomb . . . . Build that bomb, and drop it on the employees and the workers of this province.

One of the things that would help is balanced labour legislation that is predictable year after year. When someone invests -- whether it be one person, a small business or a large business -- they want to know what the labour climate is going to be for ten years or for five years -- for two years maybe. Every year there are changes to the labour legislation. This is just

chapter 1 of Bill 44. Someone looking at B.C. would say: "Well, I can't predict what the labour legislation is going to change next year, and I honestly don't think taxes are going down, so I'm not going to invest." So more jobs are lost. This bill doesn't just represent the bill that you see before you; it represents this government's continued encroachment on entrepreneurs, free enterprise and jobs. And for me, entrepreneurs and jobs are one and the same. They're both equally important and both equally to be respected.

An entrepreneur can't generate that third or fourth job if the first two jobs don't materialize in the first place, and without all of these things that set the climate for job creation, we have unemployment.

In my opinion, we have an embarrassing situation for the young people of this province. I don't know how any member of the government -- especially the cabinet -- can look at the 20 percent unemployment for youth of this province. Twenty percent of youth 17 to 24 are unemployed in this province. What is the government doing about that? I'll tell you what they're doing. They're bringing in more legislation that will hurt those people. They won't even give them a chance to lose their job; with this government, they'll never get a job in this province.

I think we all know that that is not, and will not be, acceptable to the Liberal opposition. Our first job is to create jobs and put that group of 20 percent of unemployed youth back to work. They deserve it. They deserve this government's attention first. They may not be card-carrying members of the NDP or whatever card they wish them to carry. They're unemployed, and they haven't had a job, and this government brings in this bill, which will further drive down their chances of working in this province. They'll end up moving out of this province. What a loss!

We're already losing talent and education out of this province, but what a loss, to lose the youth of this province. They give up on the NDP government, they give up on socialism and they leave this province.

[ Page 9940 ]

I don't know how we can go on delivering this blow to the young people of this province. We have all strived over many years for better education and job training in British Columbia, and I think right here in B.C. we're now training and educating the workers for the rest of Canada and probably for the United States. We're spending money training, and as soon as they get their ticket, as soon as they get their degree, they're gone. Now that can't make the government very proud -- a government that's pretty proud and thumps its chest about education and training.

How do you feel when all you're doing is training the employees of Alberta? Alberta says there's a good mix between employment and job creation, job creation and employment, and this government doesn't understand that. This government doesn't understand that you don't just educate and train; you've got to supply them with jobs.

But Bill 26, a guaranteed job-creator? This is a guaranteed job-killer. This is the neutron bomb. It's going to kill jobs and leave buildings intact, with the wind blowing through them. And this government doesn't care.

[7:45]

Interjections.

M. Coell: You know, some of the members on the other side get a little testy when you hit close to home, when they know that their government is keeping their kids from ever having a job. They know their government is just training the workers for Alberta. They know that this is a disastrous government for job creation, and they bring in Bill 26 to add to it. It's amazing to me that a government could think that a piece of legislation like this, coupled with all of the problems they're having, is going to create a job. Who are they listening to? Or are they listening to themselves?

Maybe they just get in a little tight room and talk to themselves. Maybe this is the sort of idea they come up with for job creation.

We had a budget; we've had legislation . . . . You know, we've lost jobs since the budget came down. They killed jobs in this province, and they haven't even passed the legislation yet. They're all pumped up because as soon as they get this legislation, there are going to be job losses. Can you imagine that, hon. Speaker? Job losses. People are going to say: "I don't think I'll build that building." That's what this government is expecting. I've got to tell you, hon. Speaker, that some of these members aren't quite as strong in the corridors as they are in this House in front of their Premier.

There are a lot of people on that side of the House who would like nothing better than for this piece of legislation to fail.

An Hon. Member: No.

M. Coell: Yes.

An Hon. Member: Then why don't they vote that way?

M. Coell: Well, there's a reason for that. It's because some of the folks on the other side -- the socialists -- do know that business is a generator of jobs. It must be innate in some of them. They know that business is a generator of jobs and that governments don't generate jobs.

An Hon. Member: So why don't they vote that way?

M. Coell: Well, I think they're probably going to vacate their chairs. That's a way of sending a message to cabinet that all's not well in NDP land, when you can't get your legislation through and the House is in disarray and your members feel that possibly they've gone down the wrong yellow brick road.

I want to touch on a couple of issues that I think may bring it home. I know that we're in a last ditch effort here to try and convince government. We know that government is intent on this legislation. I guess the reason we as opposition are spending so much time trying to convince government that they've made a mistake . . . . I think many of my colleagues have shown seven years of horrendous mistakes, just saying: "Hey, this is the last . . . . You can't afford to do this. You can't afford to cut any more jobs in this province." But those in cabinet don't seem to care. I know the back bench is a little different; they're starting to think.

Interjection.

M. Coell: Maybe they're starting to look for jobs, one of my colleagues says, and they will be.

An Hon. Member: Three more years.

M. Coell: Three more years, the member cries out. I wonder . . . .

Interjections.

M. Coell: Yeah, it's starting to resonate from the other side: three more years. Can you imagine how much damage this government can do in three more years? There won't be a soul left here. It will be "The last one out, turn out the lights" in British Columbia. There won't be a job left in this province if we let these guys have three more years -- not a thing. It will be: "The last one out, turn out the lights." The Minister of Health will be the last one out, and she'll turn off the lights -- and the Minister of Education.

Interjection.

M. Coell: The lights are out.

I don't think we can show this government how serious we are about this bill putting people out of work, that it doesn't put any life into the economy.

Interjection.

M. Coell: Hon. Speaker, I've got one backbencher coming over to our side. Are there more?

Interjection.

M. Coell: Ah, that's music to my ears. There's room for some of those members on this side. We've got the Reformers on our side. We'd like to have some of you, because when you're elected government, you're supposed to represent all the people. We've got room for a couple of you over here too. When we're the government, we'll be representing 100 percent of the people in this province -- not 35 percent, like this government. This government only represents a very small group of people in this province, and they don't do that very well. They're putting all of them out of work.

We've got to start having a government that represents all the people in this province, and this government clearly doesn't represent all the people in the province.

This bill shows they don't even understand what the province needs. They don't even understand how much . . . .

[ Page 9941 ]

Interjections.

M. Coell: I enjoy the heckling, but it's not making any sense. It's babbling, not heckling, over there. If they would heckle properly, it would be more beneficial to all of us, but babbling and drooling doesn't help.

This government, with this bill, is killing jobs . . . .

Interjection.

M. Coell: The member says that that's 33 times I've said this bill is killing jobs. If I have to say it a hundred times, will you listen? For some of these people, you have to say it a hundred times for it to sink in.

This government will go down in history in this province as chasing more jobs out of this province than any other government in the history of British Columbia. And they're going to be chasing them out for the next three years. As the hon. member said, "We're here for three years," to chase the jobs out. The scary thing is that I believe that member. This government is going to chase every job out of the province. And you know what? A very big percentage of them are going to be the union jobs that you purport to represent, and that should hurt, because it's hurting a lot of families in this province. It's hurting a lot of individuals, and it's hurting a lot of young people in this province.

An Hon. Member: What do you care about union families?

M. Coell: Everything.

I don't know whether this government doesn't care . . . . This government doesn't care about union families. This government does not care about businesses. It does not care about young people. It has proved it every day, and it's proving it today with Bill 26. This is an "I don't care" bill. This is an "I'll put you out of work" bill. This is a "we don't want you in our province" bill. This is a bill that throws the entrepreneurs out, throws the union workers out, throws the non-union workers out. This bill doesn't work, and the members are intent on crushing this province -- as the last great socialist experiment in North America, I suspect.

Interjection.

M. Coell: The member says "the world." Their Whip says the world, and I believe him.

We've seen this government's experiments. The last little bill kind of puts the nail in the coffin for me. It should for the government too. I know it does, I know they . . . . They're misguided, and they're saying: "We have to do this. It's all we know. We don't know how to change. We don't know how to be flexible. We don't know how to create jobs. We can create legislation." They're great at creating legislation, except it doesn't work half the time because the real world -- the global economy, flexibility, entrepreneurship and partnership with business and labour -- is not part of their agenda.

That's not part of their way of thinking. We just keep going down this tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel, I don't know . . . . NDP nirvana? Everyone out of work? Everyone just sitting around looking at one another? But, you know, at the end of the day, we don't have a balanced budget, we don't have a debt management plan, we've have the highest unemployment rate in the country, we have more unemployed teens in this province than anyplace in the country.

We've got a government that hates business, a government that's showing with this bill that they hate labour, a government that doesn't want anyone to get ahead, doesn't want to give the young people of this province or the unemployed a chance and a government that will continue down this road until they're satisfied that they've killed this province.

But I can tell you that this opposition is not going to let this happen. Every chance we get, we'll speak out against legislation like this and a government that doesn't care about the workers of this province, doesn't care about job creation in this province and doesn't even know how to create a job -- doesn't have a clue. But they can use FRBC funds to create a job for a friend, to create one job. They should be proud: during their term they've created one job. They've used taxpayers' money to give it to a friend.

[8:00]

Mr. Speaker, this province is waiting for change, for flexibility and for jobs. Bill 26 is a job-killer; it's a bomb. Six months from now, when the economy has turned down even more, and the government still isn't prepared for it, isn't prepared to make the changes necessary to turn this economy around, isn't even going to take the time to rethink this bill, to rethink where they've been, where they're going . . . .

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, member.

C. Hansen: Earlier today, my colleague the member for Matsqui moved an amendment to second reading of Bill 26. The amendment reads as follows: "The House declines to give second reading to Bill 26 for the reason that the bill, in principle, risks further damaging investor confidence and the provincial economy." I know that there is a tradition in this House that prescribes the format for the kinds of amendments that have to be put. Certainly this is one of the formats. It's not something that we in the opposition can make up. We can't create a whole new amendment. It's fairly tightly scripted.

We can move an amendment to hoist it for six months. We did that and tried to get support from the government side to take a look at this thing for six months. We put an amendment forward to send it to committee. There, the prescribed format is that we can fill in the committee that would be most appropriate; in this case we felt it was a committee on economic development. Again, this would have been a good opportunity for this House to look at some of the problems that are associated with Bill 26.

The third amendment that is allowed under our rules is, of course, the motion that we put forward which says the bill should not be read a second time for a particular reason. We have set out today -- my colleague from Matsqui -- the reason: " . . . further damaging investor confidence and the provincial economy."

But it's interesting that another way of putting that same motion was one that was put forward by the NDP in a debate on Bill 19 in 1987. It's actually interesting. Mike Harcourt was the member for Vancouver-Little Mountain at the time, I believe. He put forward an amendment to second reading of Bill 19. The reasons that he put in that case are applicable today and applicable to the motion that we have in front of us.

In that standard format of inserting reasons why a bill should not be moved a second time, he moved this amendment to second reading: " . . . for the reasons that it is contrary to the interests of democracy and our traditions of free collective bargaining . . . . " Now, I find that interesting. We could have moved that exact same motion today, hon. Speaker. But

[ Page 9942 ]

where this is directly relevant to the motion in front of us is that free collective bargaining is in fact part of our healthy economy, something that we have as a tradition in this province. I think, as this reference to 1987 indicates, it was the New Democratic Party that used to champion free collective bargaining in this province. How many times did we hear members from the government benches -- members of the New Democratic Party -- talking about how important free collective bargaining is?

What we have before us here today in Bill 26 is a piece of legislation that flies in the face of free collective bargaining. What we've got is a bill that is going to further erode our economy; it's going to further erode investor confidence in this province. One of the reasons it's going to erode investor confidence and our economy is because of the attack on free collective bargaining.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Bill 26 is a bill that imposes master collective agreements. It doesn't allow for individual groups of workers who form a union on their worksite to go out and negotiate a collective agreement that meets their needs. Instead, what we have is legislation that flies in the face of that principle, one of the underlying principles of free collective bargaining, by saying: "Fine. If you are unionized, if you are certified at your workplace, no secret ballot." There's no demonstration that that is in fact the wishes or the will of that group of workers.

But what they're also doing with this legislation is saying that not only do they not have democracy in the workplace and the democratic right to vote in a secret ballot for the trade union of their choice but also that Bill 26 denies them their right to be part of a process of free collective bargaining. Bill 26 denies them the right, as a trade union, to sit down and negotiate an arrangement with their employer that will reflect their interests and allow for the long-term security of their jobs.

It's interesting that the former leader of the NDP certainly recognized that. Actually, if Mike Harcourt were still a member of this chamber today, I question whether he would vote for Bill 26, because of the motion that he put forward in 1987 where he talked about Bill 19 being "contrary to the interests of democracy and our traditions of free collective bargaining."

It is clear that democracy is going out the window. Democracy is no longer a part of the trade union movement in British Columbia when it comes to the right of workers to have that secret ballot. As I will point out later, there are other areas that are being brought in where they are saying that there has to be a secret ballot, and there has to be a vote of workers. The hypocrisy in there is interesting, because they want to give the right for secret ballots in some very limited areas that serve their interests, but they don't want to give secret ballot votes in other areas. That's blatantly undemocratic and blatantly flies in the face of the principles of free collective bargaining.

I know there are members opposite who were very much part of the trade union movement before they were elected to this chamber. I would like to see them stand up in this chamber during this debate on this amendment. I would like to see them stand up and defend Bill 26 as a tool that does not jeopardize collective bargaining. I would like to have any one of them stand up during this amendment debate and explain to the chamber where the democracy is in Bill 26. Where's the democracy for the workers?

Secondly, I'd like to see them stand up and talk about the right for free collective bargaining. I'd like to see them dig out some of those speeches that were given by NDP members when they were in the opposition benches. I'd like to see them stand up and deliver the same wonderful, principled views on collective bargaining and then defend those same views today in terms of Bill 26. That's clearly not what Bill 26 will achieve. It is the opposite of democracy; it is the opposite of free collective bargaining.

Last year we had a bill presented to this Legislature called Bill 44, the Labour Statutes Amendment Act, 1997. Of course, there was a great outcry at the damage that it was going to do to workers in British Columbia and to our economy generally. At the time, it was said that Bill 44 was going to drive jobs out of the province. Even after the Premier and the then Minister of Labour announced that Bill 44 was not going to be proceeded with, those that create jobs in the construction industry in this province said: "That's not good enough." They said: "It's not good enough for this Premier to stand up and say that they're not going to go ahead with Bill 44 because they want to consult."

What was needed, hon. Speaker, was for someone to stand up at the time, either the Minister of Labour or the Premier, and say that nothing in Bill 44 would be proceeded with. It was said at the time by those in the construction industry that anything short of that was going to cause the continued erosion of confidence in our economy, of their ability to create jobs. Because at that time, during that Bill 44 discussion or debate, it was clearly pointed out that it would drive jobs out of the economy.

When the Premier stood up and said they weren't going to proceed with Bill 44, what he said was that it was not because it was bad legislation. In fact, he said he thought that it was very good legislation, that he agreed with everything in it, or words to that effect, and that the only thing he would admit to was that they had proceeded with Bill 44 without adequate consultation. So they went out to do the consultation. But all of the other signals that came out of this government were that they thought Bill 44 was good. They were going off to do the consultation, and then they were going to bring back something similar. That's exactly what we've seen happen with Bill 26.

But last Friday, which I believe was July 10, the latest labour force survey came out -- here is the indictment of this government's record and the effect of Bill 44 last year, because there are some interesting numbers in that survey. One, for example, is that they talk about the job employment levels. They refer to how employment levels in British Columbia are 5,000 jobs below what they were even in August of last year. But this is a

summary of the labour force survey that comes out of HRDC. It's interesting, what they say about the construction sector. June of 1997 was the month that Bill 44 was brought in. Now we have the numbers, through the labour force survey, comparing June of last year to June of this year in the construction sector. That's 12 months for the effects of Bill 44 to do their damage on the economy.

Do you know what those results, those statistics, show? They show that the construction sector in British Columbia lost 9,000 jobs between June of last year and June of this year. The government had an opportunity to do something about that, to do something last July when Bill 44 was pulled off the agenda. They had the opportunity to stand up then and say they would not proceed with sectoral bargaining or any other form of master collective agreement with the construction sector. They could have put a lot of those fears to rest.

As a result of that one announcement that they could have made, there would have been construction projects that would have gone ahead in this province. Instead, they failed to do that.

Now we are paying the price for that. What we are seeing is 9,000 jobs lost in the space of one year. But this isn't just a

[ Page 9943 ]

statistic, something as impersonal as the pages in a StatsCan report. These are 9,000 human beings -- 9,000 fewer people are employed. That's 9,000 families that no longer have a high-wage job -- because, granted, most construction jobs are high-wage jobs in this province. That's 9,000 families that are being deprived of their ability to meet their mortgage payments; 9,000 families that aren't going to be able to pursue education dreams for their children.

You know, we can look at the construction industry. As we all know, construction isn't year-round employment. I think in most full-time jobs you wind up with about 220 days of employment per year. In the construction industry, most people don't see 220 days of employment. So it's not a case of us saying that there are 9,000 people in total that have lost their jobs. We're only taking one little snapshot of one month last year and one month this year, and they are 9,000 fewer positions.

I think that the Premier of this province should address those 9,000 people with an apology for destroying the economy of this province and destroying the job-creating ability of the construction industry with Bill 44, and an apology for bringing in Bill 26, which basically cements the pessimism that was started with Bill 44. On Friday, I was talking about some of the reality checks that we have to get when it comes to jobs. The reality checks happen when we have stats like that coming in, and that's the sad part.

When I last had the opportunity to speak on Bill 26, I was talking about a report that was commissioned by this Minister of Labour by a Dr. Joseph Rose from Hamilton, Ontario. I questioned why this government had to go to Ontario to find an academic who was prepared to comment on Bill 26, an academic whose sympathies they obviously must have known, and known the kind of report he would come back with. It's interesting that they would not go to some of the respected economists we have in British Columbia today to do a précis of Bill 26.

We've talked before about the fact that there has been no economic impact study done. Well, there has been some work done by economists in British Columbia on what's in this legislation, and I can understand now why this government had to go to Ontario to find somebody to give them a favourable review. What I think is clear is that economists in British Columbia, who are in touch with the day-to-day realities of the B.C. economy and in touch with the realities of the construction industry in this province, are probably unlikely to give the government the same kind of favourable review that they got from Professor Rose writing from his desk in Hamilton.

One of those respected economists in British Columbia is Dr. Roslyn Kunin. I know that the government has very high regard for the work of Dr. Kunin, and I've in fact heard her work being quoted on other occasions by government ministers and government members to justify certain initiatives they have taken in the past. Dr. Roslyn Kunin is certainly not somebody who's on the right side of the political spectrum. She is somebody who is respected, I think, by all parties. She has also done a review of Dr. Rose's report, and I think the response we have from a British Columbia economist on the work that Dr. Rose did is quite interesting.

[8:15]

In this report she has done, she notes that Dr. Rose justifies separate labour legislation for the construction industry by the fact that such exists in other parts of Canada. This is obviously not something that only Dr. Rose has said but something that the Minister of Labour and other members of the NDP caucus have said in this debate -- that this is legislation we see in other provinces. But as Dr. Kunin points out: "However, over time the construction industry is becoming less unique and more like other sectors, given higher skill requirements, more off-site production and greater interprovincial and international competitiveness."

I think this is directly relevant to Bill 26, because what they're bringing in . . . . Granted, other provinces may have some forms of master agreements or some form of sectoral bargaining, but not in the form Bill 26 has come in. As Dr. Kunin points out, we have a unique construction industry in this province compared to others in that our construction industry is not that much different from other sectors of our economy. Perhaps in other provinces the construction industry is so radically different from other areas of the economy that they need separate legislation, but, as Dr.

Kunin points out, with the kinds of structures we have, this is becoming less unique over time and more like the rest of our economy.

She notes: "These factors make it harder to argue that construction needs its own set of rules." That's what Bill 26 is. Bill 26 is putting in place a whole new

section of the Labour Code that deals specifically with the construction sector. What we are seeing is a construction sector that is becoming more and more like the rest of our economy. The only thing that was unique about our construction sector are these jurisdictional lines we have, which are a diminishing part of our construction industry today. Our construction industry is generally becoming more like the traditional industrial-style unions. So she questions the need for this separate set of rules.

She goes on to talk about Dr. Rose's support for the expanded roles of the Construction Labour Relations Association and the bargaining council for the building trades unions. She points out that Dr. Rose completely ignores the plight of small and medium-sized companies when it comes to being part of this sectoral bargaining approach to collective agreements. She points out that the voices and the interests of these smaller companies will be swamped by larger organizations. She says that it is the small and medium-sized enterprises, not the large firms, that have been responsible for net job creation since the 1980s recession.

When it comes to jobs, we have seen the decline in jobs. As Dr. Kunin points out, it's not the big firms that have been driving job creation in British Columbia, but it's the small and medium-sized firms. What we're doing with Bill 26 is taking their interests and lumping them in with all of the other employers -- some of them very big employers -- within construction labour relations. When it comes to the interests of our economy today, it is the small and medium-sized enterprises that are driving the interests of our economy.

It is the small and medium-sized enterprises that are producing the job creation in this province. What we have in Bill 26 is a slap in the face to those companies. What we're saying to those small companies that have been creating jobs is: "Now your interests are going to get lumped in with the interests of everybody else. You can no longer be competitive with other companies and the big companies. You're going to get lumped into the same bucket as everybody else." With it, I fear, is going to be a lot of the initiative that resulted in what little job creation we've seen in this province.

Dr. Kunin goes on to comment on Dr. Rose's study, pointing out that he fails to recognize the weakness of our provincial economy. Something the B.C. Liberal members of this assembly have been talking about consistently is the fact that you can't compare what's been happening in other

[ Page 9944 ]

provinces with British Columbia, because in British Columbia we have an economy that has been fundamentally weakened by the policies of this government. This is being imposed in that environment. What she says is that Dr. Rose ignored the fact -- in regard to Bill 26 -- of the weakness of the overall provincial economy, including the construction sector of this province. She points out that the latest figures indicate that Vancouver is the only major urban centre in Canada where housing prices are falling, and a similar gloom hangs over non-residential construction.

Here we are in British Columbia, the only province where we're seeing those kinds of negative economic clouds for the construction sector, and the government has picked this time to impose Bill 26, which is going to be one more kick in the side of what little optimism there is there.

Dr. Kunin goes on to point out that most construction projects barely break even, and even a marginal rise in labour costs could mean that projects would not proceed. But I will talk about this a bit more later in terms of the very narrow margin of profitability there is in construction today. So when you start looking at Bill 26 and the increased costs that are going to be imposed on companies, all it takes is a very small increase in costs to turn companies from basically being in a position of not making any money into a position of losing money in this province.

She notes that there was a survey conducted last spring of construction employers, and it's interesting that there were only 20 percent who were not considering leaving the province. Can you believe that? Of the construction firms surveyed, only 20 percent were not considering leaving British Columbia. Fully four out of five companies in this survey were thinking about -- or were, in fact -- acting upon initiatives to go to other jurisdictions.

Let me just wrap up Dr. Kunin's comments here when she talks about her conclusion. "In conclusion, Rose's comments do not appear to take into account either employers' concerns or the current serious economic situation in British Columbia. Had he done so, his opinion of the report and subsequent proposed legislation may well have been less favourable." We have an academic from Ontario, who this government went to find. It went out of the province to find somebody. His report has not only been repudiated by me in the House last week but has been repudiated by one of the leading economists in this province.

I thought it was appropriate to look further at some of the views of Dr. Kunin, who is very widely respected, so I went back to get a report that Dr. Kunin had prepared on sectoral bargaining in the construction industry. This is a report that was prepared this year. In fact, it was April 20.

Interjection.

C. Hansen: I know that the Minister of Finance is asking me what date: April 20, 1998. I know that the members are going to point out that this was before Bill 26 was introduced, but it was based on . . . .

Hon. J. MacPhail: No, we know it's relevant.

C. Hansen: The minister says that it's relevant, and it is relevant, as I will point out. If she listens, she will, I'm sure, learn something.

When Bill 26 was introduced, they picked up basically the same wording that was in the Kelleher-Lanyon report. I think most people in the industry felt that there would be a much watered-down Bill 26. We know that this government had debts to pay when it came to their relationship with the building trades unions in British Columbia -- the union bosses in the building trades and in the B.C. Federation of Labour. We knew that there was a debt to pay and that they had made the promise that they would amend the Labour Code.

But they did not have to bring in the measures that were in that construction industry review panel report. They didn't have to bring in that draft legislation. They could have brought in something that would not have damaged the economy so badly. They could have brought in something so they could have said that they'd delivered on their promise but which, at the same time, didn't do the damage to the economy that Bill 26 does.

The report of the construction industry review panel clearly said that they didn't think that this should necessarily be brought in at a time when the economy was the way it was. They questioned that -- wisely so, I would say. When Dr. Kunin prepared this report, it was prepared in the context of the draft legislation that was in that review panel, so it's totally relevant to the issue that's before us today.

The way this report was approached was that Dr. Kunin and others who worked with her approached employers in the construction sector. They were careful to select a broad range of employers -- both craft unionized and non-unionized employers, as well as employers that were unionized with other unions that used the standard industrial model, not the craft model. While they recognized that it is not the kind of survey where they can make empirical claims that will represent all construction employers, they have been very careful to make sure that it is at least representative.

They asked, in their research . . . . They started out by asking this very basic question: what is the estimated range of labour cost change that sectoral bargaining will bring to the construction industry? They used an example of a construction project. Let's say that the example they started out using was a $10 million project in the industrial, commercial and institutional sector -- which is the sector that Bill 26 hits directly.

Look at that $10 million project, which of course will include the cost of land and all of the other costs that will go along with a project of that nature -- typically, about 25 percent are the actual construction costs. In the case of a $10 million project, your actual construction costs would be about $2.5 million. What their research shows is that of this, typically about 45 percent would go into the cost of labour.

They raised the point that if this labour cost was subjected to a 20 percent increase in worker pay and benefits as a result of a master collective agreement being imposed, or as a result of this sectoral bargaining being imposed, that would increase the cost of that one project by about $225,000. Just stop and think about that. Here we have $225,000 applied against a total construction cost of $2.5 million. That is almost 10 percent.

I can appreciate that the math is difficult for this government, because I know they have difficulty with other numbers, but here we have a noted economist saying that, to construction, the added cost of sectoral bargaining and imposed master collective agreements would be almost 10 percent of the construction cost. When you're talking about an industry that has margins as small as they are, that's the difference between projects going ahead and projects going down the tubes. That's the difference between jobs being created and jobs not being created.

That's the difference between projects that are going to get built in this province. On that $10 million project, it's the difference between whether that project is going to be built in this province or in some other province.

[ Page 9945 ]

If I can just summarize the points that Dr. Kunin came up with when she looked at the risks that this presents . . . . First of all, there's the inability to "contain" sectoral bargaining to just the ICI construction. I'll summarize each of these points now for the members, and then I'll come back and explain them in a bit more detail, so they'll understand what . . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Hon. members . . . . To the member who has the floor at the moment, the red light is now on.

C. Hansen: Hon. Speaker, I am the designated speaker.

The Speaker: Thank you very much.

C. Hansen: Thank you. I was just getting warmed up.

There are seven points that Dr. Kunin came up with. I'll read them, and then I'll try to explain them in a bit more detail so that the members opposite can understand some of the implications of Bill 26. I think what's important here, as they listen to some of this report, is that we know they didn't do an economic impact study, which they should have done before this bill was brought in. If they had done that economic study, I don't think they would have ever brought in this legislation. But here we have a noted British Columbia economist who has done some economic research on the implications of what's in Bill 26.

The message that it shows is not a positive one for Bill 26. The message is the reasons why they should pull Bill 26 before it has the opportunity to do the damage to the economy that we know will happen. The first one is "the inability to 'contain' sectoral bargaining," which I mentioned earlier. The second one is the "disruptive, negative changes to labour-management relations" in the province that it will have. The ramifications are quite serious. It goes beyond just what is in Bill 26. It affects the entire labour relations climate in British Columbia, on which I will get into more detail.

[8:30]

They talk about the loss of business control. Business control is the ability of a job creator in British Columbia to run their company in a way that will continue to create jobs, a way that will give stability to the workers who are there. As Dr. Kunin points out in this report, Bill 26 is a loss of business control. The fourth point is a "lack of control of worklife by employees." This is an interesting one.

She points out that the environment in which workers work will be beyond their control and that they will be put into a whole different style of labour-management relations compared to the traditional industrial-style union, say, that they may be in today, or to the non-union environment that they may be in today.

The fifth point, which she refers to as "unclear specifics on how proposed changes will be implemented," is the whole uncertainty of Bill 26 -- the questions that are not answered and are probably as important and as serious as what's actually written in there, the things that we do understand. The things that are not in there and that are not explained are perhaps a bigger concern than what is actually clear. The sixth point is that "the changes add to an already complex situation." Rather than trying to explain that one at this point, I will come back to it later.

The seventh point is that the "changes do not address more pressing issues," the more urgent issues in labour management relations, in our economy and in the construction industry per se.

The second overall question that they asked when they put this research together is: how will these risks -- these factors that I've just outlined -- affect overall development project costs, and how will this change in cost affect demand for construction? Demand for construction translates into jobs -- jobs for union workers, craft union workers, traditional union workers and non-union workers in this province. This is how she summarizes the answer to that question. She says: "Without a quantitative figure for the above question, this question too cannot be answered with an exact numerical projected loss to the economy."

Hon. Speaker, the answers aren't there. They can't tell you the damage that this bill will do to the economy of British Columbia. What's interesting is the very next sentence. She says: "The outlook is not positive . . . . " This is one of British Columbia's most respected economists saying that the impact on the economy -- while they can't quantify it exactly, given the research that they were able to do -- is negative.

She goes on to say: "Many potential projects will be considered unfeasible or unfinanceable if changes are tabled and passed." She says that a majority of the respondents to the survey -- these are the companies they went out and talked to -- talk about "shifting some resources -- effort, people, capital -- out of the province."

That's a

summary of the work that Dr. Kunin did. Those are a few highlights from the "Executive

Summary." I wanted to pull some of these particular points apart, because I think the work that Dr. Kunin has done is quite instructive. If the members in the government caucus had, in fact, given a good read to this work, I question whether they would have supported the introduction of Bill 26 in the first place.

As an aside, before I get into some of those arguments, she includes in this report a

summary of the kind of capital that we have in construction. She actually breaks down the amount of dollars that is spent on ICI construction -- this industrial, commercial, institutional construction sector. She breaks that out from the rest of the construction industry. She draws on Statistics Canada's numbers, the most recent of which were from 1995. Granted these are a couple of years old, but I don't think they vary that much from at least the percentages that we have today. We know that overall construction investment is down from 1995, but the percentages probably hold true.

She points out that in 1995 industrial building construction was $416.8 million, the commercial building sector was $980 million, and the institutional building sector -- which was largely government at that time -- was $987 million.

What we see in total is a little bit under $2.4 billion for this ICI sector that we've been talking about, that Bill 26 is going after. That amounts to just over 25 percent of the construction sector in British Columbia. Bill 26 is going after that sector with the imposition of master collective agreements on every employer that is unionized by a craft union that does any work in the ICI sector. Here we find out that it is almost $2.4 billion of construction. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of jobs, and it's those jobs that are going to be threatened as a result of this legislation today.

As I say, we know that construction is down because of the policies of this government, so the overall number is probably down, but the percentage is probably still quite true. As I've pointed out before, the impact of Bill 26 extends well beyond that sector; it extends well into residential sectors and other construction sectors as well.

Dr. Kunin sets out some of the arguments against sectoral bargaining, and she clearly points out that what's in Bill 26 -- contrary to what has been put forward by this government --

[ Page 9946 ]

is in fact a form of sectoral bargaining. We can have all kinds of arguments about the semantics of what defines sectoral bargaining, but clearly what it's called is not important. What is important is the impact that it will have.

She points out four arguments against this form of sectoral bargaining. Firstly, she points out that the nature of sectoral bargaining means that once every three years there is going to be the potential for "industrial paralysis." Once every three years you're going to have this one big huge master collective agreement that's going to affect so much of the construction sector in British Columbia, and, as is the case with every negotiation, there is the potential that that collective bargaining could shut down an entire industry.

Now, we're not just talking about shutting down a company, and we're not talking about shutting down things that will affect one particular community; we're talking about shutting down an entire industry. She notes that that could lead to industrial paralysis.

Secondly, she points out that it will "raise the cost of doing business for small and medium-sized firms." As I mentioned before, these are our job creators. When you raise the cost to those companies, you force them out of business. You force those small and medium-sized businesses to cut back on their number of jobs, not to continue to create jobs.

Thirdly, she points out: " . . . interprovincial and international competition is such that investment will likely not stay in a jurisdiction with strong, newly introduced sectoral bargaining, at least not in North America. There may be jurisdictions somewhere else in the world where bringing in this kind of sectoral bargaining regime would bring some kind of stability, but it's not going to bring stability to British Columbia. Certainly it is the kind of legislation that will scare away investment and jobs from this province.

Finally, the fourth point that she notes as an argument against sectoral bargaining is: " . . . the argument that workers need the extension of unionization in the construction industry is spurious. Wages are among the highest in Canada and safety, workplace, training, wage and other standards are in place regardless of unionization" -- certainly regardless of Bill 26.

I want to come back to . . . . I summarized the points she had raised, but I want to deal with each of them individually, because I think it's quite instructive. She talks about the first concern -- the number one concern -- that she has about what's in Bill 26. That is the inability to contain sectoral bargaining. She notes that many firms -- builders, general contractors -- do not work only on ICI projects. Many of these contractors, these companies, will do work in a variety of construction sectors.

It's not just in the industrial, commercial and institutional sector; they will work in a variety of other areas. She notes the case in point of high-rise residential work and master plan community development as areas where a lot of these other companies are involved, in addition to ICI. Clearly this kind of sectoral bargaining regime is going to extend into those other sectors as well.

She also notes that there is a "lack of trust" in the government's intentions. I know there has been a lot of talk, especially over the last two years, as to whether or not this is a government that you can trust. There is a lot of suspicion out there. There are a lot of people in British Columbia who truly question what the intentions of this government are.

There is a belief that the rules that will be put in place as a result of Bill 26 will be slowly modified to become more inclusive, and that it's not just whatever we wind up with as a definition of ICI -- which is one of the big unanswered questions -- but whatever we wind up with in the end is going to be subject to change. That change may take place in the years to come, either through new legislation which this government may bring in . . . . Also, I think they have argued as to . . . . I think the Minister of Labour had one

interpretation as to whether or not there was new legislation in the future, and I think the Premier had a different spin on that. They themselves probably don't know whether or not this is only stage one in the latest changes to the Labour Code or whether there's going to be more to broaden the reach of sectoral bargaining.

Clearly we've seen examples before where ministers of the Crown in this government have been the last ones to know what's going on because the Premier tends to hold those cards pretty close to his chest. This may well be one of those cases where the Minister of Labour is going to be the last one to find out there are going to be Labour Code amendments coming in again next year. I guess the one message that we hope comes through loud and clear from this second reading debate is that there should not be any changes to the Labour Code by this government.

If there were to be any further changes to the Labour Code by this government, this opposition, these B.C. Liberal members, are going to be standing here in their places, and we will, at length, debate the damage that is being done. But I'm not convinced that that's not in the offing next year, because of the comments the Premier made when Bill 26 was first introduced last month.

The other thing that Dr. Kunin points out is that it doesn't take just legislation to broaden the reach of Bill 26. What it takes is

interpretations of rulings by the Labour Relations Board, and we can see that, through that, there are so many things in Bill 26 that are left to the decisions of the LRB. Through that process, as we have seen in the past, we can see the labour relations environment in this province becoming more and more union-friendly, tipping the scale more and more in the balance of the trade union movement -- beyond the radical imbalance that is there today.

In this survey that they did of these companies, there were some words used to describe Bill 26, and one of the quotes is that it's the "thin edge of the wedge." That's a quote that we've used and pointed out many times. They talk about a wolf in sheep's clothing. I'm not sure that I would agree with that quote to describe Bill 26. It's probably a very nasty wolf in the clothing of only a little bit nasty wolf -- certainly not a wolf in sheep's clothing. They talk about it as a smokescreen.

Well, there are certain things in Bill 26 that are quite transparent to us in terms of what they're trying to do to make things easier for the trade union organizers in the craft unions -- not in the other unions, just in the craft unions. They're being given this favourable treatment. So to say that it's a smokescreen is probably true. This legislation is probably a smokescreen, but it's not to say that that smoke hides the damage that is done in a transparent way. It's just that when you blow the smoke away, you realize that Bill 26 is even more damaging than it first appears.

[8:45]

The second concern that Dr. Kunin pointed out was the impact that this will have on changing labour-management relations in British Columbia. She says: "The present competitive, stable mix of non-union, 'wall-to-wall' and trade union shops will likely not harmoniously evolve if the playing field of labour-management relations is changed substantially." She goes on to say that the expected likelihood -- this is the expectations of those job-creators that she interviewed -- is that Bill 26 will result in "a more adversarial situation on all fronts."

[ Page 9947 ]

So what we've got today in British Columbia, in terms of labour relations in the construction sector, is relative stability. There aren't great problems in terms of the craft-union sector -- in terms of days lost to strikes, at least; there may be in terms of their ability to compete and get jobs for their members in this province. There's no great instability in terms of the wall-to-wall unions or the industrial-style unions, hon. Speaker, because they've actually had significant growth in their membership these last few years.

We certainly don't see the instability in the open-shop workplaces that we have in British Columbia. What we are likely to see as the result of this bill is an effect on labour-management relations that will be negative and a situation that's going to bring in more instability in terms of our labour relations.

She talks about how a more charged labour-management relationship that will develop. She says that the multiskilled craftsman who has built up trusting and often friendly relations with an involved owner-manager is going to pay a big price. Instead of that labour-manager relationship that's been built up, that mutual trust, mutual respect, fair wages, good job stability, and the understanding that the employer has to reach out and find new work constantly to keep his labour force engaged, we're going to see that going out the window as a result of this.

That worker who has built up that relationship is going to pay the price as a result of Bill 26, because we're going to see a shift from that traditional style of relationship to one that is more adversarial -- in a craft union tradition -- where the workers do not have that opportunity to build a good and constructive working relationship with an individual employer.

The third point that she came to was the loss of business control. She says: "Managers have different business plans, policies and personal styles when it comes to labour-management relations." She goes on to say that one medium-sized firm, that admitted in the survey that their wage scale was slightly below the union scale, was also being very conscientious about keeping its workforce on a year-round basis, on year-round employment. I think we have to ask the question: what is important to the individual worker in the construction industry?

Is it important to have a wage scale that is, let's say, $30 an hour, or is it important to have consistent, year-round employment? Here we have an employer, one of the employers that Dr. Kunin surveyed, say that that company felt it was an obligation to make sure they had enough work to keep that workforce engaged year-round, to make sure those workers had the ability to meet their mortgage payments on a regular basis -- not the kind of situation we see many craft union workers facing today, where they may get a few days work here and a few days there. It's inconsistent. It doesn't give that kind of stability.

That's the kind of loss of business control that a lot of companies are facing. They can't give that kind of assurance to their workers as a result of a craft union structure that may be imposed.

Another company that they interviewed wanted to keep control over pay scales so that they could reward productivity. If you go back to the purposes

section of our basic Labour Code, it talks about the need for productivity. The only way we're going to have long-term secure jobs in British Columbia is to make sure that we have productivity along with it. The one way you can have an economy that is stable, where you have rising wages for employees and you have enough profitability that allows companies to stay in business, the one way that everybody can have that cake and eat it too, is through rising productivity. Here we have an employer who takes a look at what is in Bill 26 and says: "If that's imposed upon me, I'm no longer going to have the ability to reward workers based on productivity." He loses that kind of control.

She also points out that business control also means control over bargaining -- collective bargaining. This is what collective bargaining should be all about. This is the kind of speech that those members used to give when they were in the opposition, standing up for the rights of collective bargaining, fighting for the interests of workers to be able to form unions and to bargain collectively. We see a government now that is totally turning its back on the principles of collective bargaining. We see it in Bill 26.

We also see it in the course of labour relations in the education sector as well, where the government has basically thrown collective bargaining out the window and decided that it knows best. In Bill 26, they are taking away the ability of a small business to control their own collective bargaining.

The fourth point that Dr. Kunin points out is the lack of control of their working life by employees. It's not just the lack of control of businesses that we have to be concerned about; it's the lack of control that each individual worker has in terms of the kind of working environment they want to work in.

She notes: "This will strike particularly those tradespeople used to working in small, cohesive contracting or subcontracting firms." The carpenter, for example, is used to working at a worksite and doing his trade that he's been trained to work at to the best of his ability -- but also, in addition, to being a useful member of the team on that job site to make sure that the project gets done. Now, when they get forced into a craft style of union, that carpenter is going to find out that he suddenly has to worry about jurisdictional disputes, the jurisdictional lines.

He has to worry about what he is allowed to do as a carpenter, and he has to be careful that any portion of the work that he's doing on that job site isn't something that has to be done by the member of another trade. Those are the inefficiencies that we see built into the craft style of labour relations.

But it also flies in the face of the kind of working environment that those individual workers want to be part of. So you will see, as a result of Bill 26, a dramatic change in the kind of working environment that those workers are faced with.

Hon. Speaker, the fifth point is, as Dr. Kunin points out, that it is unclear how the proposed changes will address specifics. She talks about just a few of the variations that they have from project to project. Here we have, with Bill 26, a one-size-fits-all solution. What we have is one master collective agreement that's going to be imposed on every single workplace in the province that is unionized under this craft style, every workplace that is doing any kind of industrial, commercial and institutional work -- this ICI sector we talk about. She points out in here that not all projects are alike.

I think it's something that we realize, but she actually lists some of them. She talks about the project-to-project variations, which include municipal regulations. Doing a construction project in one municipality is totally different from doing that construction project in another municipality because of the local municipal regulations. That is a factor on costs; that is a factor on all kinds of things. The question you have to ask is: how can you impose this master one-size-fits-all collective agreement when the construction projects vary from municipality to municipality?

She also notes that the competitive price demands in the marketplace vary from project to project. She notes that the cost-of-living standards faced by employees vary. They vary from municipality to municipality. The cost of living faced by a worker in Terrace, British Columbia, is very different from the costs that are going to be faced by a worker in Vancouver. She talks about the windows when building can take place -- I'll come back to that one in a second -- in terms of the times

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that we have to complete a construction project being wildly different. The size of construction firms and the size of projects are different; yet here, under Bill 26, we have the same master collective agreement that is going to be imposed on all companies, regardless of how big they are and imposed on all projects, regardless of how big or small they are.

It also varies with the level of technical expertise that's needed. Clearly if you're on a project that requires a highly technical labour force, that can be quite different from a project that's building a commercial strip mall. Let's say that we've got a project where they're building a cancer facility in this province, an institutional facility. The requirements of the construction workforce on that site are going to be very different than the construction workforce that's on a commercial project with a small strip mall. But this master collective agreement is going to be the same for all -- one size fits all.

I mentioned when we were talking about the time-windows . . . . She uses a couple of examples, specifically Whistler versus Vancouver. Let's look at a construction project in Whistler as opposed to a construction project in Vancouver today. Particularly, what if that construction project in Vancouver is in a community where there's been some real concerns about the rate of growth? What we see in Whistler is that they have a very short construction season; you can't be building a new hotel in Whistler in the middle of February. In fact, that's true of so many communities in British Columbia.

A lot of construction projects can only be done during the months that the ground isn't frozen and the months that you can actually get equipment into some of these job sites. You've got times when either the ground is too frozen to work on or you've got the shoulder seasons where projects would be mired in mud because they're going through breakup in the spring.

Clearly the construction project in Vancouver is going to be totally different, because of the totally different climate. It may wind up that in Vancouver a construction project will be prolonged because of noise and other restrictions. There are construction sites in Vancouver today where work can't start until a certain hour of the morning, and it has to wrap up by a certain hour of the afternoon, because of noise bylaws that municipalities have.

In other areas, where there is ground that can only be worked on through a very narrow season of the year, they may want to work from dawn till dusk in order to get that project done while they have that very narrow construction window. Clearly one size does not fit all.

Her sixth point is that Bill 26 adds to an already complex situation. When I went through the executive

summary, I suggested that this may need some more explanation. As she points out, the construction industry is being hit by a variety of things at once. We have a weakening economy. We have a poorly perceived business environment. We have ever-more mobile capital flows, and unfortunately those capital flows have been going out of this province.

But in addition, let's look at some of the other challenges that the construction industry faces today. They're trying to keep up with technology. The construction industry, like any other industry, is faced with constantly changing technology -- probably more so than most industries in this province. New WCB safety standards are being brought in. The industry is trying to get used to and adapt to those standards and make sure that they are dealt with at the worksite level.

A new liens act came in last year, and it's going to take some time for the construction industry to go through some of the legal arguments that are going to be involved, some of the precedents that are going to be set, so that the industry knows what it's dealing with in the implementation of that liens act.

We have a new building code that the construction sector is trying to deal with. If you look at the ramifications of the leaky condo report that came out, there are implications for more changes that have to be dealt with. We have a review that will likely initiate structural changes to training and designation. The construction industry review panel didn't feel they could make recommendations on this part, and they suggested that more work be done. ITAC has been set up with a fairly broad base of support, and they're starting to look at how training should be done in the construction industry.

That's another whole change that the construction industry is facing at the same time as Bill 26 is being piled on top.

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We are seeing today some very tight financial markets for capital. I've heard of cases of construction projects that cannot go ahead because the capital markets aren't prepared to finance those projects, because of the uncertainty and instability that Bill 26 brings, the uncertainty in terms of

definitions. As Dr. Kunin says, on top of that we have the always complicated municipal system of development charges, regulations and the not-in-my-backyard foes.

These are all challenges that the industry is trying to deal with. These are challenges that Bill 26 will make worse. It's that kind of uncertainty and instability that's going to cause even more job losses in the construction sector.

Dr. Kunin also says in her report: "On a final note of concern regarding jobs in B.C. is the feeling that more of the off-site component of construction, which includes a lot of craft labour, is and will continue to be shifted out of province." She uses the specific examples of doors, windows and cabinets. This is the kind of value-added that this government at least talks about.

They talk about the need for more value-added in our forest sector, in the wood industry in British Columbia -- the need for us to be doing more construction and manufacturing of wood products, so that we can put more British Columbians to work building doors, windows and cabinets from B.C.-grown wood. They talk about it, but what we don't see are the actions that are actually going to translate into jobs -- real companies being able to hire people to do that kind of work in British Columbia.

Here in Bill 26 we have one more incentive for construction companies to go outside of the province to find those components. A lot of that construction work that was done by British Columbia tradespeople on the job site is now going to be contracted to firms outside the province. When it comes to constructing the doors and the windows and the cabinets, they can just as easily buy those components from Alberta and bring them here to install in our construction projects, rather than having British Columbia craftsmen build those products here in this province and create jobs for British Columbians.

One of the things that I think is quite important in Bill 26 is what is not included. You know, if you start looking at the construction industry review panel report . . . . The title of that report is "Looking to the Future," but the arguments that we've made from this side point out that when it comes to the craft style of trade unionism, that is not what the future should be about. It's not the direction that the economies in North America are going. We haven't been heading in the direction of these very narrow, rigid jurisdictional craft lines.

In fact, the construction industry has been heading in a totally different direction; instead, they've been heading in the direction of a form of trade unionism: the traditional, industrial style of unions -- the wall-to-wall unions, as they're called in the construction sector -- where basically you have one union that represents all of the workers and makes sure that their

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interests are protected. It bargains with individual employers to ensure that the best interests of those workers are served.

So I think this title that was given to the report, "Looking to the Future," is somewhat of a misnomer. It may be something like "Back to the Future," or it may be that in fact we're looking to the past to try to find answers for the future. This form of trade unionism, which had so much importance in the history of the industrialized world, has probably had its day. We've seen that in other jurisdictions. We've seen that workers have been better protected in other forms of unions. Those unions are faced with a challenge: they either have to adapt to this modern economy or they're going to disappear.

In fact, that's the trend that we were seeing in British Columbia -- that craft style of union was failing to adapt. They were failing to change. As a result, they did see a diminishing share of the construction sector. They saw their inability to ensure year-round employment for their members.

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to meet with the leaders of some of the craft unions in British Columbia. We met with each of the individual craft unions -- their business agents or their executive members. They talked about their diminishing ability to get jobs for their members. It comes back to this thing that I pointed out earlier: what's in the best interest of the worker -- a stable job year-round or a very high-paying wage for only a few days or sporadic periods during a year? What's important is that any institution in our society has to be able to adapt, to change.

If it's an organization that has a membership base, as a trade union does, then it's incumbent on them to work to ensure the interests of those workers are served by that institution. There are very few, if any, institutions today that can afford not to change. There are very few organizations whose members are being well served by an inability to change.

Yet what we have in Bill 26 is legislation that comes in to prop up th