1987 Legislative Session: 1st Session, 34th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 1987

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

747 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Victoria Foundation Act (Bill PR402). Mr. Huberts

Introduction and first reading –– 747

Oral Questions

Protest on legislature lawn. Mr. Sihota –– 747

Rent review process. Mr. Blencoe –– 748

Job assessment and referral project. Ms. A. Hagen –– 748

Vancouver regional transit commission. Mr. Mercier –– 748

Job assessment and referral project. Ms. A. Hagen –– 748

Planting of seedlings. Mr. Williams –– 749

ICBC and WCB premium penalties. Mr. Sihota –– 749

Assessment appeal board appointment. Mr. Clark –– 749

Industrial Relations Reform Act, 1987 (Bill 19). Second reading

On the amendment

Ms. A. Hagen –– 749

Mr. Gabelmann –– 751

Division –– 761

On the main motion

Mr. Skelly –– 761

Hon. L. Hanson –– 765

Division –– 766

Teaching Profession Act (Bill 20). Second reading

Hon. Mr. Brummet –– 766

Appendix –– 768

The House met at 2:10 p.m.

HON. MR. VEITCH :

In the gallery today is a very good educator from Burnaby who is not

teaching just at the present time, and a very good supporter, Mrs.

Irene Lewis. I would ask the House to bid her welcome.

MR. KEMPF :

With us this afternoon in the gallery is Mr. Dave Chapman, a logging

contractor from Smithers. Would the House please make him welcome.

MR. CLARK :

In the gallery today we have a visitor from the riding of Skeena. He's

a strong trade unionist and a New Democrat. I'd like the House to

welcome Bruce Ferguson.

HON. MR. SAVAGE : I rise in

the assembly today to ask for recognition of long time neighbours, a

farming family in the Delta constituency: Mr. and Mrs. John Friesen,

who have worked considerably hard for our cause.

MR. HUBERS :

I would like to ask the House to welcome members of the Young Socreds,

one of the largest political youth groups in Canada, who are in

Victoria today preparing for the British Columbia Young Socreds

provincial affairs conference at UVic on May 13. With us today are

Darin Nielsen, president of the British Columbia Young Socreds, and

Kevin Falcon, Zdenka Burik, Diana Buric, Sharon Ducharme, Ray Irvine

and Ryan Beedie. Some of these members may very well be members of this

House in the future, so let's give them a great welcome.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON :

In the gallery this afternoon we have three guests visiting us from

Surrey: Dale Sidhu, and Mr. and Mrs. Sunil Ahuja. I would ask the House

to please make them welcome.

MR. RABBITT : With us

today in the precinct we have the first shift of 100 grade 11 students

from Hope Secondary School and several teachers. The trip, I believe,

was organized by one of their social studies teachers, Mr. Donald Dale.

I would like the House to join me in giving them a hearty and warm

welcome.

MR. BLENCOE : I don't know if the members are aware, but today is St. George's Day.

Interjections.

MR. BLENCOE :

So what? He's the patron saint of England. And in Victoria, of course,

that is a special day. I should also tell the members that St. George

is the warrior saint, and I'm sure he'd feel extremely happy in this

chamber. Would the House please give a hand to all those who support

St. George's Day.

HON. L. HANSON : Mr. Speaker, in the gallery today we have three members

of the Okangan North constituency, residents of the city of Vernon, the top

of the Okanagan. They are Mr. Harold Thorlakson, Mr. Wayne McGrath and Mr. Alan

Hill. Would the House please make them welcome.

MR. LOVICK :

I noticed a few moments ago two very dear friends from Nanaimo in the

precincts, and I would like the members to join me in welcoming them. I

might mention, Mr. Speaker, apropos of St. George's Day, that these two

people are members of the arts community in Nanaimo, and probably among

the very few in this area who have actually read Spenser's Faerie Queen

and know about St. George. Please join me in welcoming Roy and Jane

Plater from Nanaimo.

MR. MOWAT : It's my pleasure to

introduce to the House today, in the members' gallery, Randy and Nina

Sandhu of Vancouver — very strong supporters. I'd ask the House to make

them welcome.

Introduction of Bills

VICTORIA FOUNDATION ACT

Mr. Huberts presented a bill intituled Victoria Foundation Act.

MR. HUBERTS :

The Victoria Foundation is a successful non-profit foundation. It was

founded in 1936 by

an act of this House, and the bill is designed to

alter the act to bring it up to date. By bringing this act into 1987 we

will equip the foundation to handle its growing role in this community.

Bill

PR402 introduced, read a first time and referred to the Select Standing

Committee on Standing Orders, Private Bills and Members' Services.

[2:15]

Oral Questions

PROTEST ON LEGISLATURE LAWN

MR. SIHOTA :

My question is to the Provincial Secretary. The court has chosen in a

decision this afternoon not to rule on the matter of rights accorded to

either the Crown or to protesters with respect to the incidents at the

Legislature last week. That leaves open, of course, the potential for a

repeat of the incidents of April 8 to 11. As a member of the board of

internal economy, has the minister decided to take this matter to that

committee so that guidelines can be drafted immediately to prevent a

repeat of the incidents that occurred between April 8 and 11?

HON. MR. VEITCH :

While I'm not a lawyer, and the hon. member is, I would not even

approach anything that might be considered sub judice in this chamber;

so I'm not going to comment on anything that the hon. judge said.

However, I certainly am still vehemently opposed to using the front

lawns of the Legislature as a tenting ground, as I'm sure the hon.

member is. You have members as well on the board of internal economy,

and I'm sure this will be one of the items that come up. The board is

not really constituted yet by statute; however, we've been having some

ad hoc meetings and we'll bring that up there, as well as elsewhere. It

will be dealt with.

[ Page 748 ]

RENT REVIEW PROCESS

MR. BLENCOE :

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Labour and Consumer

Services in his capacity as the minister responsible for residential

tenants in the province. In two highrise apartments in my constituency,

250 to 300 long-term tenants, mostly seniors, face leaving their homes

due to very high rent increases — some as high as 20 percent. It

appears that the volatile rental market in Victoria is failing to

supply adequate affordable shelter for seniors. Has the minister

decided to establish a rent review process that would prevent such

exorbitant rent increases and ensure secure tenancy, and if he hasn't

done that, why not?

HON. L. HANSON : I certainly am

aware of the concern that the member has raised. I had a considerable

briefing from the Rental Housing Council of B.C., and the circumstances

that he is alluding to I don't think are entirely accurate. In any

case, the answer to your first question is no; the answer to your

second question is that it is future policy of the government, and we

will not be commenting on that until it is evolved.

MR. BLENCOE :

Does the minister agree, though, that particularly senior citizens,

those on fixed income and those who have been hit hard in the last few

months with other increases.... Doesn't he agree that there should be

some mechanism whereby huge rent increases can be reviewed in the

interest of fairness and of protecting the homes of those senior

citizens?

HON. L. HANSON : Mr. Speaker, the

information that I have been given is that relative to the market value

of rental facilities in Victoria, the increases were not excessive in

terms of the competitive market. While the difficulty of senior

citizens is certainly something that we on this side appreciate, there

are mechanisms in place through the Ministry of Social Services and

Housing to assist people who have difficulty with their rentals.

MR. BLENCOE :

A supplementary for the Minister of Social Services and Housing. But

first I should mention to the Minister of Labour that many of these

rent increases are over $100 a month, Mr. Speaker.

I'd like

to ask the Minister of Social Services and Housing what study he has

done on the impact of increased rents for persons on fixed incomes and

the resultant increase in demand for services provided by his ministry.

What studies has he done?

HON. MR. RICHMOND : We have

an excellent program in place with the B.C. Housing Management

Commission and the federal government to address just the concerns that

the member is speaking of. In fact, this year in the province of

British Columbia we will be building 1,886 units of housing for senior

citizens.

MR. BLENCOE : Mr. Speaker, the supply of

senior citizen housing is nowhere near adequate in the province of

British Columbia. The minister is also aware that shelter allowances

have not been increased for a number of years. Given these huge rent

increases, what budget planning is the minister putting into effect to

take care of the increased demand for this sort of huge rent increase?

Is he looking at increasing shelter allowances in the province?

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

It was announced in the budget earlier this year that we are increasing

the shelter allowances by some 4.5 percent later in 1987.

JOB ASSESSMENT AND REFERRAL PROJECT

MS. A. HAGEN :

My question is to the Minister of Social Services and Housing. In

trumpeting the results of the job assessment and referral project and

its extension to greater Vancouver, the minister's press release of

last week made no reference to the actual numbers of participants

placed in jobs or training as a result of that program. Can the

minister tell us how many people actually got jobs out of this program?

HON. MR. RICHMOND : Yes, I can, Mr. Speaker.

VANCOUVER REGIONAL TRANSIT COMMISSION

MR. MERCIER :

I have a question for the Minister of Municipal Affairs. It has been

reported that there are changes contemplated or already made in the

directors of the B.C. transit authority. Would the minister confirm the

changes that have either been contemplated or made that were announced

and referred to?

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON : I don't have to take that on notice. I read the information in the Vancouver Province

myself this morning, and it was very interesting to see the report. But

I can confirm that changes are contemplated, as is the case with all

appointments to boards and commissions that are made provincially.

JOB ASSESSMENT AND REFERRAL PROJECT

MS. A. HAGEN :

To the Minister of Social Services and Housing. Would the minister care

to report to this House the numbers of people who have received jobs

out of the assessment and referral project that is about to be extended

to Vancouver?

HON. MR. RICHMOND : Yes, I would. I

have the numbers in my office right up to date, as a matter of fact, as

of this morning, and I'll try my best to quote from memory. In Kamloops

and in Surrey they have just started to implement the placement of

people into jobs; the total in Kamloops is 38 placed in jobs and

another 19, I believe, in the process, and in Surrey it's about 28 or

29 actually placed into jobs and another 15 or 16 in the process, plus

numerous people who have been referred to the appropriate training

courses — and the number is increasing every week. So for a program

that was really designed just to computerize information to assist

these people to get jobs, it's working very, very well. The actual

placement has only been going on for about two or three weeks.

MS. A. HAGEN :

The project identified 62 percent of the participants as job-ready,

with 31 percent needing new training. In spite of the minister's

statistics on the slow increase in the number of people getting jobs,

it's clear that there is a lack of jobs and a lack of adequate training

in the province. What new programs to create jobs is the minister now

prepared to

[ Page

749 ]

recommend to this House, in view of the large number of people in his ministry

who need jobs in this economy?

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

The creation of new programs has been well delineated in this House,

not only by me in my ministry estimates but also for other ministries,

notably Economic Development, Tourism and Advanced Education. In fact,

the amount for job creation in this year's budget, if my memory serves

me correctly, is $81 million.

PLANTING OF SEEDLINGS

MR. WILLIAMS :

A question to the Minister of Forests. A couple of days ago the

minister was asked about the Prince George region and whether ten

million seedlings would be trashed or whether they would have to rob

other programs. Can the minister advise the House what decision has

been made?

HON. MR. PARKER : A reply will be tabled in the House later today.

ICBC AND WCB PREMIUM PENALTIES

MR. SIHOTA :

A question to the Minister of Labour, who I understand is in charge of

the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. Both the Insurance

Corporation and the Workers' Compensation Board are charging interest

on premium penalties or other penalties in excess of 20 percent per

annum. Those are credit-card interest rates. What is the government's

rationale for those charges, and is the government willing to

reconsider and lower those rates?

HON. L. HANSON :

First of all, the Crown corporation of ICBC has its own board of

directors who establish their interest rates. Secondly, I might just

comment that the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia is not a

financial institution. The interest rates they charge are an

encouragement to collect premiums, not to make money from the financing

of them.

MR. SIHOTA : The Insurance Corporation

clearly is acting as a financial corporation. My information is that

those interest rates are established by government regulation. That

notwithstanding, interest rates for damage deposits in this province

have been steadily reduced, from 8 percent last year to 5.25 percent as

of February 1 this year. How can the minister responsible for

protecting consumers reconcile this contradiction in policy?

HON. L. HANSON :

First of all, the reason that ICBC has outstanding accounts receivable

is because people haven't been paying the billings that are

accumulated. ICBC is not in the financial business and doesn't finance

the premiums on insurance other than indirectly.

The rate that's established in the security deposits — I imagine that's what you're referring to —

that are put up for the protection of rental units, is tabbed to the

rate the individual would earn had they their money in a savings

account with a financial institution.

[2:30]

ASSESSMENT APPEAL BOARD APPOINTMENT

MR. CLARK :

A question to the Finance minister regarding assessment appeal board

No. 6. Mr. Douglas McBride was the Social Credit candidate in the

Nanaimo constituency in the last election. Could the minister tell the

House what bearing that had on his decision to appoint him as chairman

of assessment appeal board No. 6?

HON. MR. COUVELIER :

This particular member seems to have an affinity for attacking the bona

fides of British Columbia citizens who happen to have the sense of

community spirit to offer their services to public commitments. I find

that a little bit disconcerting and disturbing.

The fact of

the matter is, the government is seriously looking at the operating

style of the Assessment Authority appeal system, and has spent a great

amount of its energy looking at past practices and future prospects. It

became quite evident in that process that we must not only expand the

number of boards that we have in place, but we must also make certain

that we recruit the proper kind of talent in order to perform that

function. The questioner might have noticed, Mr. Speaker, that in those

new appointments we were particularly focusing on those people who had

the appropriate background, legal, property appraisal or technical

financial, to be able to weigh the heavy matters they have to

adjudicate from time to time. These initiatives were undertaken in an

effort to provide a better level of public service. and to ensure that

the average British Columbian's interest, when he brings an appeal

forward to the system, gets due consideration. It is only by the

appointment of qualified people that we can ensure that the system will

work properly.

The appointment of this particular

individual suits our requirement of making sure that we have people

from all parts of the province appointed to these areas, so that we can

properly ensure that there is local input on these matters. If he is

interested, I would be happy to supply the speaker with the curriculum

vitae of the individual in question.

Hon. Mr. Michael

tabled an answer to a question placed on the order paper by the first

member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich). [See appendix.]

Hon. Mr. Parker tabled replies to two questions taken on notice on April 21, 1987. [See appendix.]

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. STRACHAN : Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 19.

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS REFORM ACT, 1987

(continued)

On the amendment.

MR. SPEAKER : The member for New Westminster has 13 minutes.

MS. A. HAGEN :

As I adjourned debate at lunchtime, if I can in fact recall exactly

where I was in my comments at that time, I think the issue that we were

discussing was the matter of flexibility and some degree of pluralism

in dealing with the very complex matter of negotiating labour matters

between

[ Page 750 ]

employers

and employees –– I was noting the singularly oppressive and inflexible

powers that had been accorded to Commissioner Peck, and referring to a

schema, which is really very complex in its outline, of how the new

dispute mechanisms would work if Bill 19 goes forward without amendment.

There

is no question, as we have said on many occasions in the course of our

discussions, that the willingness of people to be governed depends on

the fragile relationships that come out of people's recognition of the

reasonableness of the laws which govern them. As a number of my

colleagues have stressed in their comments today, the role of working

people in that regard is one that has evolved over many years and has

become increasingly complex but at the same time increasingly

sophisticated with the parties recognizing the many roles that they

must fill in arriving at working relationships.

There is no

question in any legislation that the right of working people to control

their labour, which is in fact the tool that they bring to the economy

in all of its many facets, is one that should not be put in any

jeopardy without very careful consideration. In controlling that labour

the worker has the opportunity to influence his or her employer in many

ways. In most instances that influence occurs around the bargaining

table, often at great length and with many convolutions, but there is

always the right to withdraw labour and to inform the public about that

withdrawal. In fact, there's always the right to inform the public in

the broader range of the operation of a particular business or

enterprise. And with that withdrawal of labour there is pressure on the

employer to take action, and there is some balancing of the kinds of

issues that are still on the table.

Very clearly, in the

realm of labour negotiations over time there has grown up a very

sophisticated body of workers and employers who know the nature of that

table. As I was saying earlier, the diversity that exists is really

quite remarkable. I've been involved in negotiations with teachers

moving from simply bargaining salaries and bonuses to discussing a much

broader range of bargaining, and I know the care with which those

issues needed to be developed. In organizations where there is a long

history of collective agreements with employers, there are very complex

agreements in place. It is clear that the parties have evolved a

knowledge and a working relationship that makes for self-government.

a democracy we are looking at pluralism. We are looking at the rights

of many individuals to exercise their responsible authority over

matters that concern them, and the role of legislatures in that regard

has evolved equally slowly and with some ups and downs.

seems to me that to some considerable extent we have been reinventing

wheels that were looked at 20 years ago, and in the ten years that

followed that period one of the reviews that I read had a very

interesting commentary that I think we as politicians might take to

heart. The discussion is around the question of having very stringent

and inflexible rules such as those that are associated with the

commissioner and those who work with him against what in this

discussion was called ad hockery — the ability of legislatures to respond to specific situations as they occurred and in the context of those situations.

number of people are debating this issue with considerable expertise in

their background. In fact the discussion had been motivated by a very

serious and comprehensive review of labour legislation over a period of

ten years by Jim Matkin, and a number of actors were then discussing

some of the perspectives that Mr. Matkin had put on the table. I'm

going to read some comments of Mr. Carrothers about ad hockery. He is,

in case it is lost to members, speaking with some irony and some tongue

in cheek. In the spirit of St. George's Day, perhaps recognizing that

there is some tilting at dragons, where we need to stand back and see

the results of that particular kind of flirting, he says:

"Feeling

strongly pressed to devise an alternative to ad hockery in public

service disputes, we decided to go into a collective trance."

Something

that might perhaps be equivalent to what we have been involved with in

our first stages of looking at this legislation.

"We

put Abbe Dion in the chair for the time being and then engaged in

hyperventilation for a few minutes, and eventually made contact with

Mackenzie King's mother. She said she would 'ask my boy Willy,' who was

after all the authority on these things, and we eventually obtained a

penetrating glimpse into the present. It was necessarily transient. We

decided to try to find some means of bringing aid to the political

process, without usurping the function or responsibility of politicians

in the circumstances where the government as sovereign must supersede

the government as employer.

"The public interest disputes commission was the product of our collective judgments. It was rejected by labour, management and" — interestingly, aside from the quote —

"government, largely because they didn't think that the country

contained the requisite Platonic guardians to compose the commission.

It was, in other words, viewed as unrealistic. This indicates that we

must take the political process and the behaviour of politicians as a

given and recognize that there is a good deal of theatrics in the

political process, including the posturing, grandstanding and

upstaging, to say nothing of the use of cosmetics. Particularly in the

wage/price issue, there is probably a need for an external stimulus to

the political process within parliament."

He concludes:

"My

own thinking is that ad hoc legislation is not as bad as people

perceived it to be in 1966, and within our political process it may be

a perfectly legitimate choice to make in the determination of

procedures for the containment of a public interest dispute."

That

quote was very much associated with public sector employees, but I

think it's germane in our discussion around the whole issue of public

interest and who are going to be the actors in this regard. There is no

question that the role of the Legislature and of elected people needs

to be in place, and there are times, to be determined on the basis of

circumstances, when the Legislature may in its wisdom decide that it is

going to act.

But in the spirit of good labour legislation

evolution and a recognition of the work that has been done by all

parties in making the rules and regulations and developing the

processes important for a good climate for economic development, there

is no question that the proposed legislation. . . . To use the words of

the member for Kootenay (Ms. Edwards), in the "dragonian" process of

enshrining the powers in the hands of Commissioner Peck, we are going

backward, not forward.

[ Page 751 ]

I would

hate to be reading ten years from now a review of legislation that was

put in place where the second thought, the careful consideration and

review and amendment had not occurred — to have us recreate some of the

circumstances that we got into 20 years ago and that proved to be

ill-advised, ill-considered and unproductive. It suggests that we are

not looking at the way in which pluralism, decentralization and the

workings of democracy, where people freely gather to achieve the goals

that they enter into with collective agreements. . . . I'd hate to see

us moving backward to the day when that kind of situation is again on

our doorstep, and all of the aspirations that we have spoken about to

the voting public, around peaceful working relationships between

partners freely entered into, are being set back in time. Our time warp

is one that should have us looking forward, not just paying lip-service

to the statements that we make in political debate and discussion

during elections and in the House, but rather ensuring that the

processes are in place with legislation.

This amendment

suggests that we learn from history, take that second look and accord

to democratic process and free collective bargaining the potential that

it has in this province. We should get on with the work of the

province, with those people who are looking to us as legislators

carrying out their roles and us interfering in those roles only when we

can determine that there is an issue of such merit that we have to

interfere with those freely-entered-into agreements.

[2:45]

MR. GABELMANN :

Mr. Speaker, it may be that my comments this afternoon will take longer

than the 30 minutes. Given that I believe we haven't used a designated

speaker yet on this motion, it may be necessary for me to operate under

that designation. I'll try, however, to be briefer than the. . . .

AN HON. MEMBER : Two hours.

MR. GABELMANN :

No, I have no intention of speaking for two hours just because two

hours are available; I want to speak for the time that I think I need

to make some points, however long that is, within the two-hour

framework.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the minister indicated that in response to our moving

an amendment, to quote from the Blues: " . . . I would give my undertaking

as the Minister of Labour that we will give very serious consideration during

the committee debate on the specifics of the legislation to the specific issue

you have raised . . . ." And of course that issue was the question of 8.1

of the Code, or

section 62 of the bill.

This

afternoon I want to try first of all to talk about some philosophical

questions and then some practical ones, and then following a general

overview deal with particular clauses and issues involved in

section 62

of the bill. I think that will be in order, given the terms of our

amendment which relates to the awesome powers — or, as the government would say, sweeping powers —

accorded to the commissioner of the council and also the chairman of

the disputes resolution mechanism agency within the council.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

want to start by quoting briefly from a couple of newspaper articles,

both of them February 22, 1968. The first one is an

article written by

George Dobie, whom members of this House I'm sure know well, datelined

Victoria: "British Columbia's proposed new peace-keeping labour law

unveiled Wednesday will abolish strikes and lockouts wherever the

provincial cabinet believes they could affect the public welfare."

These days we talk of public interest; in 1968 they talked about public

welfare — same point. Later in the article: "The legislation will set

up an all-powerful mediation commission which will bring down final and

binding decisions in labour disputes referred to it by the cabinet."

Further on:

"Section 18" — of that bill, Bill 33 — "says no

employer of a private company can strike and no employer can lock out workers

when the cabinet has referred a particular labour dispute to the commission,

which will set up in Vancouver. In addition, an existing strike or lockout must

stop immediately a dispute is referred to the commission by a cabinet order."'

Then there's further discussion. There was a lot of concern that year about

an impending woodworkers' strike. In those days the bargaining was more

fragmented, and there had been a strike in the interior and there was one threatened

on the coast. It parallels with our striking today, in my view.

I'll come back to that in a moment, but first just another quote from .

. . . That incidentally was the Vancouver Sun and this is the Victoria Daily

Times . Mr. Les Peterson, who at the time was Labour minister also Education

minister, if my memory is correct — said:

". . . our object is to ensure industrial peace in the province,

which is necessary to permit our economy and our people to progress."

If you think about that, it's very similar to the things being said today

in terms of the Premier's and the Minister of Labour's comments about

the need to secure an industrial climate in British Columbia that will attract

investment.

Jack Moore —

since deceased — was regional president of the IWA at that time. He

said something that turned out to be quite true: "This will blow right

up in their faces sooner or later." He said that compulsory arbitration

"has been tried in many places and ended up by getting governments and

industry and everybody else into a big mess."

Well, the history of the Mediation Commission — under first of all Labour minister Peterson and then later Labour minister Chabot —

is one that we should look at carefully in considering what we're doing

with this legislation and the powers that this new Industrial Relations

Council will have, because the parallels are there. There was concern

at that time about strikes and lockouts, particularly in the forest

industry. The same concerns appear to exist today: concern about public

interest, defined, then as public welfare; concerns about investment

and our economy. The same issues were on the political agenda of that

day.

A mechanism was chosen at that time that was similar

to the one that's being proposed now under this

section of the bill. It

didn't work. There are a variety of reasons why it didn't work, but the

overriding one of course is that compulsory arbitration — however it's dressed up —

has never worked in a free and democratic society anywhere in the

western world. The Australians tried it for years and suffered more

labour unrest as a result of the law, and finally of course they've

gotten rid of their compulsory arbitration system. Western European

industrial relations are civilized, I would suggest, and lead to very

few labour disputes in economies where unionized workforces include as

many as 90 percent of

[ Page 752 ]

the workforce, operating under a free collective bargaining system — very centralized, mind you, particularly in the Scandinavian countries, but nevertheless a free collective bargaining system — without agencies of this kind established.

The

government in '68 decided to try. It established the commission. It

never really functioned very well, and the main reason it didn't

function, apart from the philosophical problems, was that one side felt

that it was set up to beat it down. The labour movement decided that it

couldn't live with compulsory arbitration, and decided not to

participate in efforts to make that particular agency work. As a

result, it didn't work. In effect, a boycott was launched, and trade

unions refused to take their disputes to the Mediation Commission.

Finally, the thing fell apart and was, of course, abolished with the

introduction of the Labour Code in '73.

I don't want

to go through a long recitation of what happened and why in '68-72, but

I think it would be worthwhile for the minister, in his consideration

of what he intends to do in terms of possible changes to the bill as it

stands now . . . . It would be quite instructive for someone in the

research bureau of the Ministry of Labour to do a neutral

summary of

what in fact happened in '68-72, and why that particular process didn't

work.

This proposed IRC is more complicated than the old

Mediation Commission. In some ways it's less straightforward; there are

more options available. But the bottom line remains compulsory

arbitration. The bottom line still is that a non-elected person,

sitting in an office in Vancouver, not accountable to anybody, will

have the right to impose collective agreements, vary collective

agreements, intervene in the process at any stage and publish documents

which he can compel parties to provide, such as, presumably, financial

statements or the minutes of a local union meeting at which tactics and

strategy have been determined — a whole variety of things that, I

think, both labour and management would be most concerned about, in

terms of the confidentiality of their processes. But I'll get to some

of those issues and others when I get to the more detailed part of my

comments.

I think the government should think about how it

went about determining public input into the drafting of this

particular legislation. I don't think I can be proven wrong on this

particular point: for the most part — and there are exceptions —

legislation works better when it evolves from a process that the

parties are involved in. I put that badly, but I'm basically saying

that legislation of any kind that governs relationships will only work

if the people governed have some real say in how that governing is

determined. The hearings that were held by the government around the

province prior to the introduction of this bill did not in fact deal

with the details in this bill. I'm not going to criticize the hearings.

They were a good thing to do. But they didn't deal with a presentation

to the public which said: "Here's an industrial relations council, with

all of these powers, and we're going to have hearings to solicit your

response." The public didn't know that this kind of agency was being

proposed.

Mr. Speaker, I think someone would like to make an introduction. If that's the case, I'll just sit down for a moment.

MR. RABBITT : I'd like to thank the hon. member for interrupting his speech so that I can ask leave of the House to introduce a class.

Leave granted.

MR. RABBITT :

As I mentioned earlier today, we have 100 students from Hope Secondary

with us, and we have the second shift of the men with them today —

accompanying them is one of their teachers, Mr. Bill Scott. They're

here to witness democracy in action. I ask the House to join me in

offering them a very warm welcome.

MR. GABELMANN : I

was just talking about the need to involve parties who are going to be

governed by legislation in determining the makeup of that legislation.

That did not in fact happen this time around, because parties, the

public and concerned individuals were asked to make presentations about

labour legislation, and what they thought should be included in it, in

a very general kind of way. No one had an opportunity to respond to

this particular legislation.

Also, it's quite clear —

difficult to prove, but quite clear that the legislation evolved from

something very different than the public hearing process that was held.

Both the Premier and the Minister of Labour have suggested that the

legislation is a result of these public hearings and that every item

that's included in the legislation comes from some presentation made at

one of the public hearings. In fact, when you look at the history and

the bill, it's clear that someone in the government, presumably at a

senior level of the bureaucracy in Victoria, was keeping a list for the

last four or five years of every court decision and every Labour

Relations Board decision that went against management. They just kept a

list of those issues. Every one of the major ones has found its way

into the bill. So that's one source of the legislation.

Clearly,

in many ways, another source of the legislation is the report Ian

Stewart did for the former government in 1984. Many of his proposals

have found their way into this legislation, but I think he would no

doubt be appalled by the extension of his proposals, which really were

calling for a non-interventionist model: a model of an agency that

could assist parties in dispute resolution, but in a

non-interventionist way, based on the government not getting so

involved in collective bargaining, as they do by this process.

[3:00]

I don't

happen to share Mr. Stewart's view of the way to solve labour

relations. I found his report particularly troubling and, I thought,

unbalanced in terms of a fair balance between labour and management.

But that's arguable. Different people have different opinions about

that; that happens to be mine. But it went so far that many people in

the industrial relations community said, "It's unworkable because it

goes too far in terms of intervention," even though he described it as

a non-interventionist model. This particular legislation takes his

proposals and magnifies them tenfold, in terms of the kinds of powers

that are given to the commissioner.

We had the shopping

list of issues, we had Ian Stewart's report, we had the Premier's

decision last fall as he struggled with the IWA-FIR dispute — his

determination that some mechanism should be in place so that he

wouldn't get dragged into it the way he was during that strike. When

you put all of those things together, you've got the bill. The bill as

it sits could easily have been written prior to any of the public

hearings that were held — and, in some form or another, probably was.

Not in its final form, no doubt, but in my opinion the work had been

done last fall and was ready by the new year in one form or another.

Perhaps legislative counsel

[ Page 753 ]

hadn't dressed it up yet, but certainly that formulation had been made.

In addition to that, we now learn that some private sector lawyers have also been contacted by drafters of the legislation —

non-political drafters of the legislation; not a canvass of the

industrial relations legal community to get a neutral and unbiased

opinion about what should be in the bill, but in fact discussions with

Jordan and Gall, who end up getting most of the attention because they

are fairly dynamic and represent a lot of employers and have a keen

interest in securing management rights for their clients. What I think

is more than curious, and perhaps an appalling situation, is public

servants of this Legislature, employees, contacting a legal firm — at least one, perhaps others —

who are clearly partisans in the field, to get their opinion about

certain sections of the bill. That's entirely inappropriate, in my

view. If there's going to be that kind of discussion, it should be

public, and it should be with any parties out there who may want to

have some comment.

I won't say much more about that,

other than to make the general point that it's clear the bill was

drafted prior to public consultation, public hearings; that it was

drafted with an agenda in mind, an agenda established by those people

who lost fair fights time after time with the labour relations board,

and in the courts on occasion. And what do they have? They have all of

their decisions and all of their positions reinforced by new

legislation.

I want to say to the minister on this

question of consensus and developing a mechanism for communicating with

the people who are affected — I guess I've made this point before —

that however it is done, there needs to be an opportunity for the

affected parties to have full and open consultation with the government

about the language of this legislation. I would prefer that it be done

in a public forum so that everybody's cards are on the table and we all

know what is happening; but however it's done, there needs to be a

fairly lengthy consultation process with everybody out there who is

affected. I want to make it clear that I include the public in that

particular comment. It is not just the private preserve of trade unions

and industrial relations people acting on behalf of the employers.

There needs to be that public process; otherwise, this legislation will

suffer the same fate that the Mediation Commission Act suffered in 1968

to 1972. The real loser of that particular legislation was the economy

of British Columbia, because our reputation was affected quite badly by

the tumult and the furor that came from that. I don't like to predict

it, but the same result is going to happen with this legislation.

Mr.

Speaker, we are talking about this particular section, with all of

these wide powers, and what it really is an expansion of mediation

services whereby the government made available personnel who could

assist parties if they were having difficulty. Or if the Minister of

Labour thought the parties needed some assistance, the minister could

inject himself into it by appointing a mediation officer. Those

mediation services were generally effective, in my view, they needed to

be beefed up, needed to have the provision of outside people in some

cases — a useful kind of thing. If the minister is serious about trying

to achieve the goal of peaceful relations out there, about trying to

avoid the kind of lengthy disputes that we had last fall, then what's

required is a beefing up of the mediation services, number one, and

number two, the development of trust between the parties. That, of

course, is not done by this legislation at all. What is done is to make

certain that government intervention will become a regular feature in

bargaining.

Once government intervention becomes a regular

feature, it becomes expected, and once it becomes expected, it becomes

depended upon. Once it is depended upon, the ability of parties to

freely negotiate is virtually out the window. I don't know that that

point is understood very well by a lot of people either in this House

or in the public. Bargaining is successful in any matter, not just for

a collective agreement, if people feel there is an objective that can

be reached; if people feel they can live with whatever result is

reached, then that bargaining can take place in good faith, and will

take place on repeated occasions, not just on that one occasion. But

the moment you interject the third party — in this bill, in some cases even a fourth party; we'll get to that later —

you start to take responsibility for living up to the agreement away

from the parties, because they're no longer involved in making that

agreement, and by a succession of procedures.

It is my

concern, and also my prediction, that bargaining in British Columbia in

fact will become dependent upon government intervention. It may start

out slowly, but it will become a regular feature. I just think that

will lead to relationships between the parties that will not reach or

deliver the goal that the government says it wants, which is peace and

productivity, because if an agreement is forced upon you, you are less

likely to feel obligated to honour it. We'll get to that point again

too in a little bit of time here.

I'm going from notes, Mr.

Speaker, rather than doing an off-the-cuff kind of thing, because I

want to make sure I cover all of the issues. I want to talk later about

the requirement for voting and the opportunity for employers to demand

that a vote be taken by a union. I want to talk, too, about retroactive

legislation. I want to talk about how provisions for freely negotiated

agreements have been taken away. I want to talk about some of the

provisions that take confidentiality and make it a thing of the past in

industrial relations, both on the management and the labour side, and I

want to talk about how much authority is needed to ensure peaceful

resolution of disputes. I made the argument, of course, that this bill

contains far too much authority.

Leaving aside those kinds

of philosophical concerns, many of which will come up as we go through

it in detail, let's just deal with the practicality of the bill. Will

it work? Will the legislation actually achieve the stated goal of

bringing industrial relations peace in British Columbia, assuming that

we don't already have it? You could argue that we have it already in

British Columbia, given the fact that our work days lost are fewer than

many other provinces. Looking at the situation out there right now, I

don't think there's a major dispute of any kind in our society. But

let's assume that we do have bad industrial relations; let's assume

there is a problem. How is this particular legislation going to resolve

it? Would the legislation, if it had been in place last fall, have

resolved the IWA dispute? Clearly not. We'll get to that as well in

dealing with the particular section.

Essential services, which were once a narrow kind of issue — health, firefighting, police; those kinds of issues —

now have been so expanded that every labour dispute of any consequence

in British Columbia can be included under the essential services

definitions. The so-called right to strike for teachers is clearly not

available — except, as I said somewhere else, that teachers will have

the right to strike from July 1 to August 31. But under this

legislation, the moment they

[ Page 754 ]

have

a strike that lasts longer than a day and that would affect educational

services, that ability to bargain freely, which presumably includes the

right to strike, will be taken away by the legislation.

The

public interest advocate concept. How does the government think that

the establishment of a public interest advocate, who is not elected,

who is not accountable, and who has no terms of reference as to what

the public interest is, can possibly deal with that very difficult

concept of public interest? This person will not be accountable to the

public. More importantly, in a sense, this person will play a role in

negotiations which will deflect — take away from — the issues on the

table by interjecting this other issue of so-called public interest,

frustrate bargaining and make it difficult for parties to achieve the

goal, which should be peaceful resolution, because it interjects a

whole new concept and a whole new issue, and puts it onto the table in

a way that will, in my view — and I'm just asserting this for the moment — make more difficult the resolution of the differences of opinion between the employer and the employees.

Let's

just spend a moment on public interest. What is the public interest?

Obviously in last year's IWA dispute the public interest is a mutually

agreeable settlement. That, I assume, would have been the public

interest — to have the strike ended. But under what terms? If the

strike was ended and employers lost everything that they were trying to

get, and as a result the issues continued to be underground for a while

but then up on the table again in the next round, is the public

interest served by resolving it in that way? On the other hand, is the

public interest served by imposing agreements such as were proposed by

one of the parties involved whose report could have been made binding

under this legislation, which would have allowed companies to operate

for 180 days of the year — every day, people working seven days a week, continuously for 180 days of the year — and then shut down for the next six months? That was one of the provisions.

[3:15]

Would that have been appropriate? That kind of provision was made in

one of the options for settlement. The Premier obviously decided that

it wasn't appropriate for him to recommend that that report be made the

contract. Would Mr. Peck be different somehow? Would Mr. Peck's

operation be more powerful than the Premier's? Would Mr. Peck's ability

to pick a settlement be wiser than the Premier's? Not likely. In fact,

the whole question of our needing this legislation to shorten disputes

such as the one last year is ridiculous. I find it difficult to find

the right words for it, because everything that the government wanted

to do in terms of resolving it, including all of the mechanisms that

are proposed in this bill, was available to it by a recall of the

Legislature. All of those mechanisms were available.

The

government chose not to do so, for very good reasons. If the government

chose not to take advantage of those or other mechanisms, for good

reason, why would Mr. Peck be inclined to take advantage of those

provisions? Wouldn't he, too, think that the same good reasons that

prevented the government from acting would prevent him from acting? And

if he didn't act, wouldn't we then have a long dispute?

haven't listened to everybody's speech; I haven't been able to do that.

But I've listened to a fair number of them on both sides of the House.

I've heard no one explain to me how Mr. Peck's options are better, more

effective or stronger than the options that were available to the

Premier last fall, and how this legislation will enable him to shorten

that kind of dispute. No one, to the best of my knowledge, has made the

case for that. Yet that seems to me to be the foundation upon which the

bill sits: that we can't afford to have these long disputes. We all

agree that they're difficult and we can't afford them, but how does

this bill deal with that? It doesn't seem to touch that question at all.

I want

to talk about the other thing the government keeps talking about: the

rights of individuals in unions. It goes on at great length about

needing to protect the individual's rights. Yet on the other side of

that question, they change the legislation in a way that makes any

corporation a person, for legal purposes. So a big forestry company

becomes a person, for legal purposes, yet none of the shareholders can

be consulted.

What about the rights of the shareholders?

What about the rights of the members of the boards of directors?

They're not protected in any way under this legislation. If a

shareholder objects to a decision relating to industrial relations made

by the board of directors of a company, that shareholder has no access

whatsoever under this law. In the union, of course, every individual in

that union who wants to take a different position than the union has

the right to do so, and now will be protected; his job will be

protected in the closed-shop situation. That's not at all a balance of

powers between labour and management.

There's the

assumption somehow that once shareholders elect boards of directors,

the shareholders are no longer in existence, for labour relations

purposes. The board of directors or the management become the body, and

there are no rights any longer for the shareholders under the law. But

on the union side, once the union has democratically elected its

leadership, the law purports to give more power to those members to

thwart the democratic decision of the elected leaders, and that's not

balance either.

Mr. Speaker, dealing with the powers of Mr.

Peck's office, the commissioner's office, one of the things he will do

is order votes in some cases. Under new

section 55.1 of the Code, we

now have a situation where . . . . What are politely called "scabs" in

less polite circles are called "replacement workers" in civilized

places, I guess. We all know in British Columbia what "scab" means;

it's a useful term, and I think I'll use it. Scabs will now have the

right to vote on whether to accept or reject a collective agreement.

Let's just talk about a hypothetical situation: this is a vote that can

be ordered by Mr. Peck at any time on an employer's last offer, or at

any other time if Mr. Peck so chooses. Let's take a hypothetical

situation, a plant with 200 people working in it. They go on strike.

Because of the reduced picketing powers and because of the inability to

prosecute a strike through secondary boycotts, hot declarations or any

of the other mechanisms that have been available, the employer is able

to "scab the plant" and hires 210 people to do the job that the 200 did

before, and then puts a "final offer" on the table.

Under

this legislation, 410 people are eligible to vote. Now if the final

offer is just a routine kind of offer, the 210 replacement workers are

not going to vote for it, because if they do, the original 200

employees will go back to work and these 210 replacement workers will

lose their jobs. So they certainly are not going to vote for a

settlement. They will vote to keep the strike going. Alternatively, in

the final offer put by the employer, there can be a clause which says

that the seniority list is gone and that the employer has the right to

pick and choose who will be working once the strike is settled, and

that clause is in the agreement.

[ Page 755 ]

in that case, the 210 replacement workers vote for the final offer and

the original 200 workers are gone. Unbelievable power is given to an

individual — Mr. Peck — to order that kind of situation. The power to

order that kind of vote is available under 8.1. The opportunity for

scabs to vote is available under 55.1.

In 137.4, automatic

reporting of disputes: what problem is that intended to resolve or to

solve? "Where strike or lockout has commenced, the trade union or

employer commencing the strike or lockout shall immediately inform the

chairman in writing specifying the date the strike or lockout

commenced." That's 137.4(l). The parties already would have had to

report to the council that the dispute was in process. Presumably

through its mediation services, council would be aware and would

probably have a mediation officer there. Prior to a strike being

allowed, a mediator would have had to book out. So why have a

section

in there having a requirement that the parties report that a strike has

commenced?

What happens in the case of a partial strike?

What happens where it's perhaps a rotating strike or where it's a

refusal to work overtime or where because of essential services a union

has decided to leave 60 percent of its workforce at work? Is that

reported as a strike? It's not quite clear. I don't understand why this

Section is in, and I don't understand what the problem is that it's

attempting to resolve.

I also don't think that the drafters

of the legislation have thought about what happens more and more

frequently in labour disputes now. You do have strikes that aren't

full-scale strikes, like the IWA one was last year, where in fact you

have a certain portion of the workforce out, or you have rotating or

you have a variety of combinations.

The legislation doesn't

seem at all to deal with that particular issue. But after you report

your strike or your lockout, then Mr. Peck has to report to the

government after 28 days saying it's in place and then every seven days

after that he has to report to the government. I'll give you an

example. In September 1985, Beacon Hill Villa went on strike for 17

hours. Under the Code, if you don't go on strike within 90 days, I

think it is, the strike vote is invalidated and you have to go through

the process again. So in order to validate the vote, they went on

strike in September 1985.

They went back to work after 17

hours, and they still don't have a settlement. Does Peck have to report

to the government every seven days since September 1985 that the

dispute is still in progress? Dominion Motors went out on strike in

1968. The place was successfully scabbed and the strikers walked the

picket lines for God knows how many years. They don't walk the picket

lines anymore, but under this legislation Mr. Peck would be reporting

every seven days for 19 years, and probably forever, because . . . .

MR. WILLIAMS : The price of pulp would go up again

MR. GABELMANN :

I don't want to be flippant about it. These are serious issues, but I

raise that kind of issue just to illustrate the point that I don't

think much consideration has actually been given to practical effects — how this legislation is going to work.

The

40-day cooling-off period, which has been an option available to

cabinet under legislation to date, is now, of course, available to Mr.

Peck. I assume from the minister's comments in the press that he is

rethinking that particular provision. Nevertheless, it is in the bill

as we have it right now, and that's all we can debate. Is there an

assumption that people lose their heads in bargaining, that they get to

a certain point and need to cool off, and that 40 days later they will

have somehow cooled off and be able to resolve a dispute? That is

occasionally the case, but almost always is not. In fact, people break

down for a variety of reasons, but not because they have got

hot-headed. A cooling-off period seems to respond to people losing

their heads, but that is simply not the way it works.

The problem the government is trying to address, lengthy disputes — and I talked about how it won't work —

comes about when you have an imbalance between the parties. The reason

the Dominion Motors strike is 19 years old and long abandoned is that

the parties were not equal. The company was able to hire replacement

workers and carry on in business, and the ability of the trade union to

prosecute was unequal. Slade and Stewart and literally hundreds of

other issues in this province were lengthy disputes because the parties

were unequal. The same thing happened last fall. In my view, the IWA

dispute was as long as it was because the parties were unequal. The IWA

membership were hurting, no question of that. The employers were making

profits they hadn't made in any previous year of this decade. Why?

Because the pulp mills and the paper mills were churning out the

product.

If the intention of the government is to have a

short dispute, it could have had a very short dispute in that industry

by allowing secondary picketing and by allowing the employers' places

of business to be struck and picketed. People don't like that, and I

know that when I propose that kind of remedy, people say: "Oh, you

can't do that. You can't shut down all the pulp mills. You can't shut

down the whole industry." But if you want to prevent long strikes,

that's how you do it. There is no question of that when you took at

where strikes are resolved and where they aren't. Where they aren't is

where the parties aren't equal. Of course, given the new picketing

sections, the secondary-boycott sections and the hot-declaration

sections, given all of those new provisions, combined with the powers

that Peck has, the whole balance is completely gone, and what is going

to happen, stupidly enough, is more strikes, not fewer. We are going to

end up having more strikes. Many of them may be 28 days duration, but

there are going to be a lot more of them. You are going to find workers

putting money aside for an expected 28-day dispute, and that is just

one of the realities of establishing these kinds of processes and

procedures.

[3:30]

In these matters you need to have flexibility, and you need to have

options that are not institutionalized. You need to be able to pick and

choose how you are going to deal with a particular dispute when it is

happening, and not have a set of procedures outlined that the parties

know will have to be chosen among.

Those of us who are

looking at this bill tried to do a chart to figure out what happens in

bargaining. One of the people helping me with this suggested that

section 137 is really a merry-go-round. It is just a continuous circle

of events. I can't possibly begin to describe it, but what happens

essentially is that once the commissioner decides to intervene, he can

ask a mediator to get involved. The mediator can make a report; the

report goes back to the commissioner. The commissioner can then do a

number of other things. He may choose, if it is an essential service,

to declare a public interest inquiry board. He may decide to impose a

fact-finder. He

[ Page 756 ]

may

decide to do a variety of things, but each thing he does has to go back

to the commissioner, and he is then given another set of options he can

choose, including, finally, the special mediator, who is entitled to

bring in binding collective agreement.

[Mrs. Gran in the chair.]

you establish a merry-go-round of this kind and institutionalize it, in

the early days the softer parts of it will be used; but increasingly

the harder options will be used. I think that is demonstrable by

looking at the history of legislative intervention in labour disputes.

In the fifties and sixties W.A.C. Bennett rarely, if ever, legislated

workers back to work. We began that process in the seventies, and every

year we have more and more legislated return-to-work. Why? It was

initially used rarely, then became a recognized way of dealing with

things and then became depended upon. Some parties in some sets of

bargaining knew that they could rely upon the Legislature to bail out

their interests and so they did. We've seen that until this past year

in the pulp industry; we've seen it in other areas as well.

The

same kind of psychology will take place, given these powers, special

mediators and fact-finders, especially the powers of the special

mediator. They will be used very rarely initially — I'm sure of that.

Mr. Peck would be unwise to use it very much. But once he uses it once

it will become easier to do, once he uses it a few times it becomes

even easier, and once it's being used fairly regularly it will come to

be expected to be used. When that happens, you're going to have it

institutionalized. That will not lead to productive labour relations.

Why

would the government want to give Mr. Peck or his agents the power to

intrude into bipartisan negotiations when the parties don't need

someone involved, or are doing quite well by themselves, thank you? I

can understand the Minister of Labour wanting to respond to a request

for assistance, which comes more and more often these days in labour

disputes. But why would the government want to give Mr. Peck the power

to impose a mediator without the parties requesting and without even

the parties' acceptance of a mediator?

How does that improve industrial relations —

the imposition of a mediator in a situation where one may not be useful

or wanted? Won't that just cloud and make more difficult the resolution

of the dispute? If the answer to that is, "Well, we won't do it unless

it's needed," that power exists now under the minister's hands. I think

that if the minister was wise he would want to retain that particular

power. It's a power that should be used sparingly and only when

carefully considered. It's very much a political decision, because the

imposition of a mediator in a dispute where one isn't wanted is most

likely to be "needed" when there is some question of public interest at

stake. That's a political question, not a question for bureaucrats to

make.

I would suggest to the minister that he give

serious consideration to taking back that power, taking that power away

from non-elected people.

Technically, under that section, the mediator can be appointed before bargaining has even proceeded.

Another

section allows for the chairman of the disputes resolution council

to authorize the employment of consultants by special mediators: a public interest

inquiry board, a fact-finder or an arbitration board. In other words, special

mediators can be hired in addition to those formalized structures. That was

the point I made earlier about a fourth level of intervention. I don't understand

why that particular power would be required, as broadly based as it is.

I mentioned earlier the point about the commissioner having the power to solicit — or to demand, in fact —

information relating to the dispute from either party. I mentioned the

possibility of minutes, financial statements or notes of discussions.

Presumably it could be a tape recording of a meeting if one was taken — anything that the commissioner wants. This power is given in 137.7(1). I just want to deal with that for a minute.

The chairman — not just Mr. Peck in this case; I want to clarify that, by reading this section:

"Where an employer and a trade union have commenced collective

bargaining, the chairman or a person appointed by him" — and this could be

somebody outside the bureaucracy of Peck's office — "may inquire into

the progress of the collective bargaining between the parties, and the parties

shall, where requested by the chairman or the person appointed, supply to the

chairman or his appointees such information as he requests." Why? "Such

information as he requests."

That information can be anything that this person — who isn't even an employee

of the government perhaps, but is on contract to Mr. Peek's office . . .

. Any information that that person . . . .

[Interruption. ]

MR. GABELMANN : Any information that that person may request from either party shall be made available.

AN HON. MEMBER : Repent! Repent!

AN HON. MEMBER : Just a detonator.

AN HON. MEMBER : Hallelujah!

AN HON. MEMBER : It's the lights.

MR. GABELMANN :

It sounded like an electrical explosion, and I think that's probably

what it was, but I don't know where. Anyway, I'll try to continue. Just

while we do . . . .

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN : Electrifying speech? No, not this one.

I'll just take the opportunity, Madam Speaker, to introduce a few people in the gallery whom I happened to notice —

who are not responsible for the noise. My wife's sister from New

Zealand is here with her children. I'd like the house to welcome

Christine Bell-Booth and her children, Anna and Emily. Welcome to

Canada.

Before that interruption . . . . I'll see if I can get back to where I was.

It's the whole question of giving anybody the commissioner decides the power to subpoena any — not subpoena, just to request and demand —

documents of any kind from the parties, and later on the ability to

publish that, should he choose to. You know, you wonder why both

employers' and employees' organizations are concerned about the wide

powers that have been granted to Mr. Peck. This is yet another

[ Page 757 ]

example of those kinds of wide powers that are really quite inappropriate.

The question — this is in 137.7(4) —

of not allowing a strike vote until a certain stage of negotiations has

been reached. I think there's a misunderstanding, at least, about what

strike votes really are. When you look at a trade union, in almost

every case — and I think you might find exceptions, but in almost every case —

the leadership, the negotiating committee, is elected by the

membership, and they normally in the course of events have a pretty

good idea of what the membership wants, are trusted by the membership,

and are empowered to do the collective bargaining on their behalf. But

in order to demonstrate to the employer how serious the membership is

about the set of demands, they usually have a strike vote in their hand

or in their back pocket, to say to the employer, "Look, our set of

demands is supported by our membership," whatever the percentage might

happen to be. If they can't get that kind of strike vote based on the

demands they're making initially, then obviously the demands are out of

line. Normally they get a 90 percent strike vote because the demands

are in line with what the members are thinking. If you don't go to the

table with that strike vote in your back pocket, the employer says:

"Well, you don't have any clout. I don't believe your members really

want what you say they want. How do we know that this list of demands

is supported by your membership?" That's the way the message is

communicated to management about the seriousness of the set of demands.

you don't have the strike vote, you're not going to have meaningful

negotiations. They're just not going to take place until the union has

the strike vote in their back pocket and can say to the employer:

"Look, we mean business, and our members support us." And that's

essential, I think, for resolution. We should keep in mind all of the

time what the purpose of all of this is: it's resolution of the

bargaining, and quick resolution, if possible — resolution prior to the

expiry date of the collective agreement, if possible. This kind of

provision where you say the bargaining has to take place and reach a

certain level prior to the taking of the strike vote means that it will

be sham bargaining for the most part. And why start off something as

important as collective bargaining with sham bargaining in the first

place? That seems to me to poison the whole atmosphere and attitude of

the parties as they try to work toward an agreement.

many ways, apart from those practical concerns, it is really quite

insulting to trade unions to suggest that union members don't trust

their bargaining committee to use the strike vote judiciously. There

are very few examples in British Columbia labour history of where

strike votes have been used injudiciously by union leadership, and

where that has happened the leadership has been thrown out at the next

local union election; and they know it, so they are not going to use it

in an injudicious manner. It really is an insulting kind of approach to

take.

[3:45]

But it goes a step

further, and I find it difficult to understand why the government would

want to put the employer in charge of the union strategy. To date,

unions have had the ability, as have employers, to determine their own

strategy, when they will take votes, what the right timing is and all

of that. Now the employers are able to demand that unions take a vote

at a certain point, and it has to happen. There is no choice there: the

vote has to happen if the employers demand it, as I read the

legislation. The union members are not given the right to demand that

the bargaining committee for the employers take a shareholders' vote —

perhaps board of directors or, if it is a council of employers, an

accredited council, they can demand that the accredited council take a

vote. That is parallel to local unions taking a vote, and the

legislation doesn't say that local unions will have to take a vote if

the employer suggests that one be taken. It says that every member of

the union has to take a vote. But the balance isn't there either, in

terms of the shareholders.

I am not suggesting that

unions should have the right to demand the shareholders speak out on

all of these issues. It would be quite rightly absurd. Similarly, it is

absurd that the employer would have the right to demand that the union

take a vote at any particular time.

I have some

concerns about the changes that occur in 137.5, which is the new first

collective agreement provision, which used to be

section 70 of the

Code, if my memory is correct. It empowers panel members appointed to

. . . In very limited ways; it sets out specific rules and

requirements. If you are going to have the imposition of first

collective agreements imposed, you need to have some flexibility. It

might be that a one-year term is not appropriate in that particular

industry, for some reason that would become clear during the course of

the discussion leading to the imposition of the first agreement.

I should

say at this stage that this principle was first established in Canadian

labour law in this Legislature in 1973 by

section 70 of the Labour

Code, where the whole concept of imposing a first collective agreement

was given to the Labour Relations Board. I should tell members that I

voted against that

section in committee stage in 1973 because I thought

it was wrong. I think the proof of my position is that it was never

used. Why wasn't it used? Because in every case, if it had been used,

it would have been to the benefit of employees, because all of the

instances where the first collective agreement needed to be imposed are

instances of places of employment where a strike or a lockout proceeds

and replacement workers are employed; so the employer continues to make

his profits and doesn't have any need to sign a first collective

agreement, and the workers walk the picket line for a few years and

eventually abandon the picket line. Governments have chosen never to

use the powers of imposing a first collective agreement because it

would have aided and assisted the union in virtually every case. So

they don't do it.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN :

I am hearing, Madam Speaker, from behind me, that the same principle

will apply with Peck, that if you put something in law . . . . If I am

hearing the interjections correctly, he won't use them, and it is just

there as a bit of an incentive, just a reminder that . . . .

SOME HON. MEMBERS : Oh, oh!

MR. GABELMANN : That's what I am hearing.

you don't intend to use a legislative provision, don't write it into

law. If it's there as a threat or as intimidation, it shouldn't be

there. That's not the place of this Legislature.

Anyway, I was making a different point until the interjections. The point I'm making about this particular

section — the first collective agreement

section — is that there are very

[ Page 758 ]

strict

and specific rules laid out in the five subsections, and one of those

rules particularly concerns me: that is, that the agreement must be for

no more than one year. This might be appropriate because of the nature

of the business, the nature of the relationship between the parties,

and a clear understanding that one year later the agreement will be

abandoned by the employer and "replacement workers" will be hired

unless there's time for that certification to take hold, to take root,

and time for a proper relationship to develop between the parties. It

may take longer than a year. If that's the case, then the people

imposing a first collective agreement should have the right to do that.

They don't have the right under this section.

Section 137.91 —

all of these complicated numbers in an effort to preserve the numbering

system of the old Code. I'm not sure it was a particularly useful way

of designing a bill. In any event, here we go.

I want to

ask the minister, when he looks at this particular

section in his

review of this bill, to think about some recent Supreme Court of Canada

decisions in respect of the right to strike, because under this

section

Peck clearly has the right to order people back to work. There is a

formal mechanism that requires legislative approval — retroactively in most cases, I would suggest —

but the Legislature isn't going to vote against something that Mr. Peck

has done; rather than do that, they would fire him. Or if the

Legislature did vote against a settlement proposed by Mr. Peck, he

would quit. It's ludicrous to imagine a situation whereby he would do

one thing and the Legislature would later retroactively undo it. It

just wouldn't happen. So to have the sham in here that the Legislature

is actually involved is really just that — a sham.

I want

the minister to consider the effect of a decision . . . . Even the

Chief Justice now holds that there is some right to strike beyond the

reach even of legislatures. That was a minority decision, as I

understand it, on that particular decision, and only two . . . .

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN :

I've got some lawyers behind me trying to teach me law. I've learned

over the last couple of weeks, in talking to lawyers and trying to

understand this bill, that I'm delighted I chose never to enter law

school. To digress for a moment, I got into the black hole of

administrative law trying to have lawyers tell me what that means, and

having lawyers of similar political views give me entirely opposite

views of how administrative law works in relation to this particular

bill; but we'll get into some of that stuff in committee stage.

any event, it's clear that the right to strike exists in this country;

it's clear that the majority of the Supreme Court have said that those

rights can be limited by a legislature; but the question of whether

those rights can be limited by an appointed official has not been

tested, as I understand it. I wonder if the minister or the

Attorney-General sought legal advice as to the constitutionality of

that particular provision. If they did, I assume their advice was that

you have to have the Legislature involved at some point, so you do it

retroactively. I really wonder if that would stand the test of a court

decision. And I wonder why the government would want to risk all of the

turmoil that ensues from continual legal fights over the meaning of

words, or over the powers given to a particular individual.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair]

AN HON. MEMBER : You don't need to be scared of lawyers.

MR. GABELMANN :

Some of my nervousness about lawyers, Mr. Speaker, is rooted in living

in this Legislature for some years with the member for North

Van-Capilano (Mr. Ree).

Section 137.92(6) — these numbers

are unbelievable: "A public interest inquiry board may determine its

own procedure and is not bound by the laws of evidence applicable to

judicial proceedings," etc. I am curious to know why, in this

particular case, the government wants to give wide powers to this

public interest inquiry board without any reference to rules of law

whatsoever.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN :

The first member for Vancouver-Point Grey (Ms. Campbell) whispers

behind me that it is not a court. I agree. But in any

dispute-resolution procedure, you need to have rules of procedure that

are understood and clear so that the parties know the rules they are

playing by. In this case, it is wide open. The rules can change in

every situation, even during the course of one particular hearing. I

suspect that that too will have some trouble in the courts. It defies

natural justice and is possibly, I am told, unconstitutional.

I have mentioned in earlier debates on this bill,

section 137.9(7) is

in principle the most appalling

section of the powers that are given.

In this case, it is not powers that are given to Mr. Peck; it is powers

that are given to the employer. That is the question of a situation

where an employee may disobey an order of the commissioner, of the

Industrial Relations Council. The penalty for disobeying an order of

this quasi-judicial agency is that the employer can fire. That's the

penalty. There is no penalty in law or penalty that the IRC or the

courts would impose.

The employer would be given the right

to fire an individual for violating an order of the IRC, and the powers

of an arbitration board are curtailed by another

section in here to the

extent that the dismissal cannot be varied. The only power that the

arbitration board has under this law is to determine whether or not the

individual in fact violated an order of the Industrial Relations

Council, and if the arbitration board finds that it was violated . . .

. Somebody may have been ordered to report at 8 o'clock, and if that

person actually showed up at 8:30, it is a violation of an order, and

the employer can fire. If that in fact happened, the penalty couldn't

be varied.

Arbitration boards normally have the power to

overturn the dismissal in dismissal cases, to confirm the dismissal or,

more often, to vary the terms or to put a suspension in for six weeks

or six months or varying solutions. Well, under this law you violate an

order of the government, and the employer can fire you, and there is no

opportunity to have a variation of the dismissal. The right of the

employer to fire under this

section should not exist in the first

place. That should be clear and understood.

[4:00]

If an employer violates an order of the Industrial Relations

Council, the trade union can't do anything to the employer. No worker

of that employer and no representative of the workers in that employer

situation can impose a penalty

[ Page 759 ]

the employer. The worker can lose his job; the equal penalty should be

the right of the union to say: "Okay, we'll confiscate your capital."

The only capital the worker has is his job or her job, But there is no

quid pro quo, nor should there be, because the first

section shouldn't

exist to begin with. The whole idea that the employer is allowed to be

the enforcer of law in this province is absolutely wrong and

inappropriate and has to come out of this legislation.

Section

137.9 (3) is this public interest stuff. We keep running into public

interest in this legislation. If we are going to say the public

interest is affected badly by industrial relations disputes, the public

interest is affected too by the high cost of milk. It is in the public

interest to have lower prices for milk and bread. We don't have a law

in British Columbia that says that milk and bread should be priced

lower because it is in the public interest. We don't have a law in

British Columbia that says it is in the public interest for capital to

invest in British Columbia, therefore it has to. We don't have a law in

British Columbia that says it's in the public interest for corporations

not to reduce their workforce because that puts people out of work and

is a burden on unemployment insurance, on the community and, in

particular, on individual workers; so we don't have a law saying it's

in the public interest to prevent workplaces being shrunk or closed

entirely by employers. I'm not advocating that we should do that, but

that kind of legislation is logical if you have this kind of

legislation.

Why is the worker and the only weapon the

worker has, the right to withdraw his or her labour, the only area

where public interest applies? Price increases in goods and services

are often against the public interest. The high price of riding a bus

in the lower mainland or anywhere else in this province is against the

public interest. We don't have a law prohibiting the high cost of

riding a bus. Why is it that only one sector in our society is selected

to bear the burden of responsibility for public interest issues, and

that's the workers? If it's in the public interest for workers to keep

working, then surely to God it's in the public interest for capital to

keep investing. Capital has the right to go on strike, and there is no

law in British Columbia that prohibits capital's ability to go on strike —

and they've done it in this province. I'm not suggesting that we should

or could make a law requiring that capital be invested in British

Columbia, or requiring that it not be deinvested. But we say that to

workers about the only capital they have, and that's their labour. Is

it in the public interest, for example, to have a merger between CP Air

and PWA in which thousands of jobs are lost and competition is reduced?

We haven't made laws in this province about those kinds of issues. If

we don't do it there, we shouldn't do it to workers either.

Section

137.95, the interest arbitration

section of the bill. I don't

understand why it's in there, except for the public sector. For the

private sector, the ability to choose interest arbitration exists now

on a voluntary basis. You put it into legislation that it's available —

again. I don't understand why that particular

section would be put in.

The parties can always agree to interest arbitration if they so choose.

I think putting it into legislation creates a climate out there that

reduces the ability of these parties to choose alternatives such as

that, because they don't want to participate in this kind of

legislation, so they won't choose that kind of remedy, which makes the

ability to reach collective agreements weaker again.

I want

to talk for a minute or two about the compensation stabilization

program. In his introduction to the bill in first reading the minister

announced that compensation stabilization was ended in British

Columbia. In fact, the compensation stabilization program has been

strengthened and is more in place than it ever was under the old

program. The ability to pay becomes a permanent feature, and is

paramount in the public sector. If anything, CSP II, as we might call

it, will be more restrictive than the first version. I think the

minister should, in his response at the close of second reading, agree

that if he intended CSP to be abolished, as he announced it was, he

would need to withdraw this particular

section of the bill in order to

accomplish that.

I dealt before with the issue of

compulsory arbitration, and I don't want to do more of that, other than

to say that it just hasn't worked anywhere, at least in free societies,

which ours still is. It hasn't worked and it doesn't work for a variety

of reasons, the most important being that when you have an

institutionalized conclusion to a process, people will delay and not

use alternative mechanisms, but will wait for that institutionalized

mechanism to come into play. If you're going to go to an arbitration

board for settlement, you're sure not going to take things off the

table in bargaining, because you want to make sure that you have all of

those items on the table before you go to arbitration. What that

inevitably leads to, of course, is a failure to bargain effectively.

The

special mediator's role. It's 137.98 and 137.99. The mediator's report

under this

section is deemed to be a collective agreement — just as

simple as that. There's no ratification. The government's fond of

talking about workers' democracy, but workers don't have the right to

vote on that. It becomes the collective agreement without any rights of

vote, with no right of appeal. The special mediator may have made some

dreadful mistakes in law, or in fact, or in his conclusions, and

there's no right to appeal and no due process of any kind. How can the

government talk about rights of workers, democratic freedoms and all of

those kinds of things, and have the special mediator impose an

agreement about which there can be no vote? It flies in the face of the

arguments made by the government.

Mr. Speaker, I'm going to

wind down my comments now by making a few conclusions. I want to talk

about respect for law in our society. I've made these kinds of comments

on many other occasions in the Legislature.

Society is held

together in a very fragile way. Society does not hold together because

we have huge police forces holding us together. We don't have those

state agencies that are envisaged in George Orwell's writing and that

we see in other parts of the world today. We don't have that; we have a

society that holds together because people agree that we should hold

together. They have an opportunity to participate in law-making; they

have an opportunity to elect or throw out governments. As a result of

all of that, there's a glue that holds our society together without any

heavy pressures. As a result of that, people will obey laws, even laws

they disagree with — for the most part.

If governments or legislatures introduce laws that people cannot live with — and I suggest that this law is of that kind —

then you begin the process of tearing down the glue that holds society

together, because you make lawbreakers out of normally law-abiding

citizens. When you make lawbreakers of normally law-abiding citizens

you diminish respect for the law, and eventually the glue will

disintegrate entirely.

For more than a hundred years in

this province, governments have passed laws that were designed to

frustrate, to delay, to complicate and to render ineffective the

efforts of

[ Page 760 ]

working

people to organize into unions and to bargain collectively. Governments

have said to miners, loggers and workers of all kinds, and now to

teachers, nurses and their own public employees: even if you have the

right to organize and bargain collectively, we will do everything we

can to frustrate any such efforts. We will wait for you to elect your

leadership, and no matter how properly and democratically you do it,

and no matter how massively that leadership may have been elected, the

government will run around the province declaring publicly that those

leaders don't really represent the membership. Then some members of

this House will stand up, as the Minister of Forests and Lands (Hon.

Mr. Parker) did, and make incredible speeches about union goons and

absolutely untrue allegations about the way unions operate, designed to

frustrate the efforts of people to work together.

There are

a couple of important things to say about that long and sordid history

of government involvement in intervention with ordinary workers and

their organizations. The first is that despite every effort over many

years, government's efforts have not worked. The unions are still here.

Despite all this hostility, despite all the comments made about their

leadership, those unions are still flourishing.

A more

important thing: with each time we go through this kind of exercise,

whether it was the 1959 amendments, Bills 42 and 43 in the'60s, the

Mediation Commission in Bill 33 in '68, the in my view unnecessary

widespread back-to work orders in 1975, the changes to the Code in '79,

the incredible legislative activity in the summer of 1983, the

amendments to the Code in '84, or this bill today, we as legislators

further destroy the glue that holds this society together. You build a

disrespect for law and for process when you do that, and you start down

a slippery road that leads to a society where law is not respected. To

quote Yeats: "The centre cannot hold." We see many countries around the

world, in the left and the right, where that in fact has happened:

where the only way society can police itself is by having heavy-duty

police state apparatus in place. Whether it's Chile or the Soviet

Union, it's the same solution. If we weaken our respect for law in this

country, we start on that road. I'm not suggesting we're at that place

yet, by any means; but we start on the path of weakening respect for

all laws. If for no other reason, this kind of heavy-handed legislative

intervention should be rejected.

[4:15]

What

should happen now with a bill that everybody agrees is inappropriate?

It contains powers that are awesome in the hands of the Legislature,

but particularly awesome and frightening in the hands of a non-elected

public servant. The provisions totally tip the scales one way and

overturn every court and labour board decision of the last 10 years

that went against management. The legislation clearly will not be

workable. Given the need of the parties to support legislation of this

kind if it is going to be workable, what should we do now?

I gather

that the government intends to take some time to have a look at the

wording. That's good, as far as it goes. But what is really required is

some full discussion and full consultation with members of the public

who understand the issues and the implications, and who understand that

in fact this legislation is going to lead to some pretty difficult

times in British Columbia, is going to lead to the kind of turmoil that

we went through from 1968 to 1972. I hope it doesn't lead to that kind

of turmoil that led to some fairly vicious incidents, including

incidents that affected members of this House at that time.

It's

my responsibility, I think, as a member of this House, to point out to

the government that that's exactly the kind of situation that is likely

to develop if this legislation is pushed through. An intention that it

go to a Committee of the Whole for further discussion is not

appropriate for legislation as complicated as this. The House of

Commons approach of sending legislation to a committee so that

witnesses can be called is far more appropriate for this bill. I

wouldn't argue that for every bill. But for a bill like this, where I

don't pretend all of the provisions — and I'm sure most members of the

House don't understand all of the provisions . . . . It's a bill,

people tell me, where they discover new things every day about the way

in which it can be interpreted. Keep in mind that it is not what the

government intends will be the law but what the words say, as

interpreted by either the IRC or by the courts, that will be the law.

We in this House don't fully understand what the words say.

would be well served if we were able to call witnesses. I'm not

suggesting a travelling boondoggle, nor am I suggesting something that

will take an inordinate amount of time. The government had a political

agenda, and it has the right to have that political agenda. It has the

right to achieve philosophical objectives that it feels are important

to it, just as we will have the right to do the same thing when we're

in government, after the election. That right exists, and we wouldn't

take it away. But it's essential that the legislation go through a

process, with people who can tell us not just what the words actually

mean or that they mean different things, which might lead to a

conclusion that you want to be more specific about the words, so that

they mean specific things, but in more general terms that the effect of

the law will be to lead to more chaos.

I'm not talking, as

I said, about a boondoggle; I'm talking about a process that could be

done in a few months at the outside. It could be done in Victoria; it

doesn't have to travel. We can ask people to come here to meet with a

committee of the House. We can do what they do in Ottawa, which is to

allow substitutions on the committees, so that if particular members

who have strong concerns don't happen to sit on the committee, they

could replace other members who sit on the committee for particular

meetings or for particular discussions. There's nothing wrong with us

devising solutions of that kind.

But of all the bills that I have ever had to deal with in this Legislature — and there have been many hundreds, I guess, over the years —

this more than any other requires that kind of expert discussion that,

with all due respect to all 68 of you, we can't do in this House,

because we don't live with this kind of law on a daily basis. We don't

know what it does. We can make rhetorical speeches, and we can make

suggestions about what we think, but we really don't know. There are

people out there who, if they don't know completely, have a pretty good

idea of the likely meaning of particular sections or the likely impact

of particular sections.

I want just to say as seriously as

I can that I think the bill should be withdrawn completely and we

should start from scratch. I recognize that the government is not

likely to do that. But let me tell you that if the decision is to do

that, we will applaud you, and full marks will be given. That can be

followed with a process that leads to new legislation. If, as I said

before, you want it to contain certain objectives, you

[ Page 761 ]

obviously have the power to do that, but at least the process would be one where the parties could be involved.

you don't do that, then let's have a discussion here. I think the

discussion here might well lead to a conclusion, if it's done in a

committee with witnesses, that you're causing more trouble than you're

solving. We can only assert that, and assertions aren't worth a heck of

a lot no matter how quietly they are asserted. We can only assert that

this legislation will lead to more labour trouble, as it's called, more

industrial unrest. I can assert, because I believe it, that it will

lead to more strikes, not less. I can assert, and I believe this too,

that it will lead to increased international recognition of B.C. as a

place where there's nothing but labour trouble, however that's defined.

If these assertions are incorrect, then that will come clear in

listening to people who know more about the subject than I do, or than

any of us in this House does, for that matter, as we go through the

process of committee.

I make that appeal not just to the

minister but to the cabinet. If that's not acceptable, then if we can,

within the rules of the House . . . . And I'm not familiar enough with

them to know quite how we can do this in an informal way, but if we're

going to have Committee of the Whole, maybe we should set some time in

that committee — and we can agree to some limits on this Particular element, I would think —

when we actually call witnesses here to the bar of this House in an

informal way, not in an intimidating way; and that we agree that we

won't do this forever, and we agree to try to organize it in a way that

will limit the number of participants.

If it can't go to a

committee, and we have to go to Committee of the Whole, as it appears

the government is intending to do, then let's have an opportunity to

hear witnesses on the bill. I make the suggestion in all seriousness,

and I make it with a commitment that I think I can offer on behalf of

the official opposition that we will work to make sure that that's an

efficient, manageable process and procedure. But let's find some way to

educate ourselves about the implications of this particular legislation.

tried this afternoon to pick a few of the sections in

part 8 that

concern us. In doing that, I recognized as I spoke that I lose the

ability to make an effective overall argument when I start dealing with

it piece by piece. But it's so complicated and so important that I

think it was necessary to isolate individual sections in that way; not

as a conclusive list of problems, by any means, but to suggest that

there are a variety of concerns — some of which are philosophical, most of which are practical —

that need to be addressed, and that we need to find a way of doing that

in an intelligent and informed manner. So I leave that with the

government to consider, and I hope that one way or another a way will

be found to have some proper consultation on this bill before it ever

passes through committee stage.

[4:30]

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS - 18

Marzari

Rose

Harcourt

Stupich

Skelly

Boone

Gabelmann

Blencoe

Cashore

Guno

Smallwood

Lovick

Williams

Sihota

A. Hagen

Jones

Clark

Edwards

NAYS - 33

Brummet

Savage

Rogers

L. Hanson

Reid

Dueck

Michael

Parker

Pelton

Loenen

Crandall

De Jong

Rabbitt

Dirks

Mercier

Peterson

Veitch

Strachan

B.R. Smith

Johnston

R. Fraser

Weisgerber

Mowat

Ree

Serwa

Vant

Campbell

S.D. Smith

Jacobsen

Messmer

Huberts

Gran

Long

HON. MR. STRACHAN : Mr. Speaker, continued debate on the main motion, Bill 19, second reading. The member for Alberni.

[Applause.]

MR. SKELLY : Thank you. What was that?

Interjection.

MR. SKELLY :

No chance. I'd have to give back my bagpipes. Well, I'd like to thank

you, Mr. Speaker, and thank the members for their applause. I'm sure

that after I've finished what I have to say we'll probably be seeing a

different story, but I intend to be fairly brief. I know we've gone

through close to three weeks' debate on this issue and that, in a House

where 49 percent of the popular vote elects 66 percent of the members,

at some point the number of opposition speakers expires and ultimately

we get to a vote, so I imagine that that's going to happen shortly.

I'm

sorry that the government rejected our suggestion to delay second

reading of the bill for six months, to give the government an

opportunity to consult with various groups throughout the province on

how this bill might be amended in order to improve it. I regret that

the government did not see fit to accept that amendment. I further

regret that the government voted against the amendment that was just

debated in the House, even though they accepted the argument that

excessive powers had been granted to Mr. Peck to interfere in the

resolution of disputes that take place throughout the province. So I

regret that the government did not accept those motions. I want to say,

Mr. Speaker, that the motions were not submitted to delay unduly the

debate on the bill, but were simply put on the floor to give the

government an opportunity to reconsider the bill in its entirety. And

it's the bill in its entirety that we are now back to discussing.

think the amendments have allowed one thing to happen, though, Mr.

Speaker. That is that more information has come to light about the

flawed consultation process that took place in advance of this bill

being presented to the House. The opposition criticized the government

for the consultation process that did take place. I think information

that surfaced recently in the Vancouver Sun

at least justifies the criticisms that were made by the opposition,

especially the story yesterday by Terry Glavin which indicates that the

government, in spite of the public consultation process, hired

consultants behind the curtain, behind the scenes, who actually took

part in the drafting of the bill and who in fact were hired through the

office of the Attorney-General (Hon. B. R. Smith) to draft the

legislation. It's interesting, although the government and

[ Page 762 ]

the

Minister of Labour didn't see fit to name the consultants that it

appointed, that one of the consultants indicated that he did assist in

drafting parts of the legislation, and at the same time drafted almost

a dozen of the submissions that were made to the public consultation

process.

[Mr. Pehon in the chair.]

I have to

ask you, Mr. Speaker . . . . This government has been attacked on the

issue of conflict of interest before, but here is a case where a firm

of lawyers was hired by some of the people who presented briefs to the

public consultation process, and was then hired by the government to

assist them in drafting the legislation. It's a conflict of interest,

because naturally those people are going to give more weight to the

submissions that they drafted on behalf of management in that public

consultation process than they are to those in the trade union movement

or to other people, members of the public, who also made submissions in

good faith to that public consultation process. The government allowed

these people to make submissions to the public involvement process, and

then turned around and allowed these lawyers to compromise themselves

by assisting in the drafting of the legislation and giving more weight

to the submissions that they made to that public involvement process.

So one of the advantages of the prolonged debate that we've had on this

bill and on the amendments to the bill is that the information is

gradually coming out about the flawed public consultation process that

took place.

I believe that this further supports the case

being made by the opposition, Mr. Speaker, that this bill, rather than

having second reading completed or going to committee stage right away,

should go either to a select standing committee of the Legislature or

to a public consultation process that involves both government and the

opposition members, and that also goes out to consult with those people

who are directly involved in the industrial relations process in the

province of British Columbia, so that we can have a good, worthwhile

consultation process that involves the people who are most concerned

about the issue of labour-management relations in the province.

think it would be worthwhile for the Minister of Labour to consider the

suggestion made by our debate leader, in his speech closing the debate

on the amendment that this bill, rather than having second reading

completed, should go to a select standing committee of the Legislature

which could consult with people involved in the industrial relations

area throughout the province.

The second point we made in

our amendment about the excessive powers of the commission . . . . It

was interesting that during the debate, Mr. Speaker, the government

backbench members, I guess coached by Social Credit caucus research,

strongly supported the powers that were initially granted to the

commissioner. Now they're turning around and saying: "Well, amendments

are going to come down." At first they said that these powers were

needed in the public interest; now they say that amendments are going

to come down to change those powers. It's interesting to see, during

the process of debate, how the back-bench members of the government

caucus have changed their tune in arguing in defence of this bill. It

seems to me that their arguments are more a rationalization for this

bill than a defense of its individual sections. So some interesting

things have happened during the period that we have been debating the

bill.

The minister has stated, in response to the reasoned

amendment that came down on Wednesday, that he had considered the

powers of the commissioner excessive and was going to present

amendments to change those powers, but he wanted to retain the intent

of the bill. Well, Mr. Speaker, it's the intent of the bill that we

find most repugnant. The

section that we devoted the amendment to, of

course, was the most repugnant of many repugnant sections. But the

intent of the bill is the repugnant thing that we would like to see

withdrawn, changed and submitted to a further process of public

consultation.

I know that the minister is aware of this,

and I know that the government is aware of it: the intent of this bill

is to undermine the effectiveness and the ability of trade unions to

defend their members, to negotiate on behalf of their members, and to

defend their members' interests in terms of working conditions, the pay

package and benefits, and occupational health and safety — all of those

things that unions are formed, through the democratic process, to

defend and to represent on behalf of their workers. This legislation is

designed to undermine the effectiveness of trade union leaders and

trade union administrations in defending the interests of their members

in the workplace and at the bargaining table. The result will be

divisions between trade union memberships and their executives, who, as

a result of this bill, will become much less effective. As a result, I

think we're going to see more and more decertifications in the

province. This bill is designed to bring about that kind of division

within the union membership.

It's interesting that during

the debate many government members made a distinction between the

leadership and the membership of trade unions, and they indicated that

they were defending the interests of the ordinary members of trade

unions as apart from the leadership. I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that

in the vast majority of cases, trade union leadership in this province

is selected by a democratic process, and those selected are, in the

opinion of the members of the trade unions, those people who can best

and most effectively represent their interests. That's why they're

elected in the first place. I hope that's why we're elected in the

first place here in the Legislature.

[4:45]

What

this legislation is doing, and what it's designed to do, is to

undermine the effectiveness of that trade union leadership in defending

the interests of their members. It's the equivalent, in that democratic

system of labour-management relations, of having the government pass

legislation which undermines the effectiveness of members of the

Legislature in defending the interests of their constituents on the

floor of this House. This bill, and its intent, is as much an attack on

democracy as legislation which would undermine the effectiveness of

members in this House. That's why we find not only the

section that we

referred to in the amendment repugnant; it's why we find the whole

intent and the whole bill repugnant.

Some government

members have suggested, as a result of our opposing the bill, that we

think the status quo is all right. That's not the case either, Mr.

Speaker. We've indicated that the status quo is not satisfactory in

this province, and that we do need some improvement in dispute

resolution in the industrial relations sector in order to protect the

interests of all of the people involved and all the citizens of British

Columbia. The status quo is not okay. It's not okay from the point of

view

[ Page 763 ]

of the government, the opposition, employers and employees, or people throughout the province.

represent a constituency that was severely negatively impacted by the

strike that took place in the forest industry in the latter part of

last year. The trade union members in my constituency who were involved

in that strike supported their leadership more strongly than I've ever

seen them support their leadership in any previous strike in the

history of my representing Alberni constituency over the past 15 years.

They were concerned about what was happening to their members in terms

of job security, and the problems relating to contracting-out, and they

were concerned about what was happening to their members who were being

pensioned off without adequate pensions. The strike was over good solid

issues, and the leadership of that trade union was solidly supported by

their members. At least, that was the case in my constituency, and the

case with every local of the IWA that I discussed this issue with

around the province.

However, there is no question at all

that that strike impacted on the economy and the community of Port

Alberni in a very negative way. People were out of work in an industry

that had suffered many setbacks in the international marketplace; 3,500

jobs were lost in my constituency, which only has a population of

25,000 to start with. That's a pretty serious job loss in that region.

So people were suffering in Port Alberni, and the economy was suffering

in Port Alberni as a result of that strike.

There's no

question that the public interest in Port Alberni and throughout the

province was negatively affected by that strike. People were asking for

changes in the way that industrial relations disputes are resolved in

this province, but they were not asking for this kind of legislation.

This came as a surprise to many of the people who are concerned about

the conduct of industrial relations in British Columbia. Some members

on the government side indicated that this bill is going to be

supported by ordinary British Columbians, but this Legislature is not

here to debate what's at the top of the most recent public opinion

polls. I'm sure that every public opinion poll you read — especially those that come out of the Decima organization —

will show that trade unions are not the most positively perceived

organizations in British Columbia, and there's a reason for that: they

always make headlines when they're involved in a dispute. The good work

that trade unions do from day to day in representing their members and

their communities, in putting forward the interests of their industry,

are not the subject of headlines throughout the province and around the

country. It's only the disputes that make the headlines, and it's for

that reason that trade unions are negatively perceived.

It's

for that reason that the public in general may accept this legislation

on the promise of the government that it's going to reduce the number

of disputes or the length and severity of disputes in the industrial

relations scene in the province of British Columbia. It's not going to

do that, Mr. Speaker, in the same way that similar legislation

presented elsewhere in North America and Canada has not been successful

in resolving disputes. Coercive legislation simply does not work in the

area of industrial relations. If the government was committed to a

worthwhile public involvement process, to a worthwhile process of

consultation, they would have gone to the parties involved. In the same

way, Mr. Speaker, if you were settling a dispute between your

constituents, you wouldn't go to all of the people in the neighbourhood

and say: "How can we solve this dispute?" You would go to the

disputants themselves and ask them: "How can we eliminate the

roadblocks to the resolution of disputes in this province? What do you

perceive those roadblocks to be? What are the impediments to settling

labour and management negotiations in British Columbia?" I think you

would get some good ideas from the disputants involved because they

know the process, they're skilled in the process, they're experienced

in the process, and they do a great deal of research in the process in

British Columbia and around the world. They know what the roadblocks

are, they know what the impediments are, and they know what has to be

done to eliminate those impediments and those roadblocks so that we can

resolve disputes in this province more quickly.

Both sides

have been in touch with the government. The employers' side and the

trade union side have been in touch with the government in good faith,

and they've presented suggestions in order to resolve these disputes

more quickly and more effectively from the point of view of both

parties and the point of view of the public interest. The government

rejected the information that they received from the employers and the

employees; instead, they went to consultants who had clearly taken the

management side in the public consultation process. It's almost like a

judge in court going to the Crown prosecutor and saying: "I want you to

help me write the decision that I'm going to make on this case." Do you

think the Crown prosecutor is going to give sufficient weight to

arguments that the defence counsel made in court? Of course not. He's

going to give more weight to the arguments that he made on behalf of

his client, the Crown. And that's what happened in this case when the

government hired management's consultants to help draft the

legislation. They even admitted it: "Jordan said he did assist in

drafting 'over a dozen' submissions to Hanson from employers and

employer groups that he declined to name." In addition, the same

consultant to management and employer groups went to the government.

through the Attorney-General's office, and acted as a consultant in

drafting the legislation — a direct conflict of interest. That

indicates that the consultation process the government went through was

completely flawed. As a result, the legislation is seen by the trade

union movement and by the people of British Columbia as supporting one

side rather than being neutral, which is all that employers and

employees ask in this province.

Some of the government

speakers indicated that we need this legislation because the number of

strikes, lockouts and labour disputes in British Columbia has affected

our reputation as a place to invest and our reputation as a reliable

supplier of goods to the international market. That argument has been

proven false over and over again. My colleague from North Island

indicated that it was the same argument used to draft legislation as

far back as 1968. I took a look at a paper submitted to a Social Credit

caucus meeting — maybe it was a cabinet meeting — at Whistler a few

years ago, which reported a survey of investors around North America.

It said that 95 percent of them were concerned about investing in

British Columbia because of the climate of labour-management relations

in the province. The 5 percent who didn't put that as their first

concern put it as their second concern.

So we do have that reputation out there —

there is no doubt about that. But how did we get that reputation? I

suggest to you that we got that reputation by the kind of legislation

this government presents, which is provocative, divisive and

confrontational, and which tends to divide the people of this province

and generate confrontation, which

[ Page 764 ]

then

generates the kind of headlines that result in a negative impression of

this province among investors and people who could be our market in the

international marketplace.

The facts these investors get

from consultants are quite different than the reputation of this

province that's portrayed in the headlines, in terms of the number of

days lost due to strikes and lockouts. Bill Bennett — and for the first time I can mention him by name —

our former Premier, boasted over the last couple of years that we had

the lowest number of days lost due to strikes and lockouts we'd had in

20 years. If that's the case, why the hurry on this legislation? Why

are we trying to ram this legislation through now, when we've got the

lowest number of strikes and lockouts, and when the only thing this

legislation can do is increase the division in our community, increase

the confrontation, and increase the split between employers and

employees? It just doesn't make sense at this point.

Some

government speakers also said that if we pass this legislation, we're

going to be able to attract more investment to the province of British

Columbia. Labour-management relations is not the real problem.

I'll tell you, I was surprised to read an

article in the Times-Colonist

in which Peter Moslinger, president of the Teamsters' Joint Council in

British Columbia, indicated that his union administers some $600

million in invested pension fund assets, and that that union is now

going to take economic sanctions against employers who support this

legislation. Mr. Speaker, $600 million is 6 percent of the total

investment in goods and repair in this province in 1985. When you

consider the pension funds in the hands of trade unions in British

Columbia and elsewhere in Canada, and the fact that they could take

economic sanctions against this province, this bill threatens to cut

back more investment than it would ever generate — and I suspect it's

not going to generate any. Six hundred million dollars is a lot of

money, and it's money that was won by trade unions at the bargaining

table on behalf of their senior members, so that they could enjoy a

decent future after they'd retired from the workforce. That's $600

million in the hands of one single trade union group. What are the

other trade unions going to do. in this province, when they see this

kind of anti-labour legislation coming down, designed to decrease the

effectiveness of trade union leaders and trade union administrations in

representing and supporting their members and in negotiating on behalf

of their members? They are going to pull their money out of British

Columbia.

There has been an interesting chang