[ Page 4669 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

High school graduation requirements. Mr. Rose –– 4669

Sale by BCBC of government buildings. Mr. Cocke –– 4670

High school graduation requirements. Mr. Rose –– 4670

Late payments from Ministry of Human Resources. Mr. Blencoe –– 4670

Investment in province's economy. Mr. Howard –– 4671

Tabling Documents –– 4671

Police treatment of accident victim. Hon. Mr. Smith replies –– 4671

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

Mr. Gabelmann –– 4672

Hon. Mr. Bennett –– 4676

Mr. Howard –– 4679

Hon. Mr. Smith –– 4682

Mr. Lockstead –– 4684

Mr. Kempf –– 4687

Mr. Lauk –– 4689

Mr. R. Fraser –– 4692

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 1984

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, we have on the floor of the House this afternoon three ministers from western Canada: Hon. Connie Osterman, Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs from Alberta; Hon. Rick Folk, Minister of Culture and Recreation from Saskatchewan; and Hon. Larry Desjardins, Minister of Fitness, Recreation and Sport from Manitoba. These ministers are all shareholders of the Western Canada Lottery Foundation and will be meeting with the British Columbia shareholders this afternoon, shortly after the question period. I'd like the members to welcome them here today.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, I would like the House to join with me in congratulating the Kamloops Oilers junior hockey team for winning the western Canadian championship last night. I know that all members will like to wish the team well as they continue on to Kitchener, Ontario, to bring home the Memorial Cup to Kamloops.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, on the grounds today is the largest band ever assembled on the legislative grounds; the band is the Sacramento Union Academy orchestra with 90 members and their choir consisting of 75 members. I would like the Legislature to welcome them to the precincts.

Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce two young gentlemen who are enjoying a bicycle tour of the province: Philip Charrier from Ottawa and Peter Moliner from Sherbrooke, Quebec, both former Pages in the House of Commons. I would like the House to make them welcome.

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the first member for Surrey (Mrs. Johnston) and the second member for Vancouver–Little Mountain (Mr. Mowat), I'd like to welcome from sunny Surrey the Squire of Surrey, Tom Andersen. Would the House bid him welcome.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, this is lottery day in British Columbia. I'd also like to introduce in the gallery the chairman of the Western Canada Lottery Foundation and a group of directors from western Canada.

MR. PELTON: Mr. Speaker, I would ask leave to withdraw Notice No. 2 standing in my name on Orders of the Day.

Leave granted.

Oral Questions

HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS

MR. ROSE: My question is directed to the Minister of Education, and it concerns the new high-school graduation requirements. The schools have not yet been provided with any information that I know of to enable them to counsel grade 9 students who are going to be asked to make lifetime career choices in their early teens. In light of the representations made to the minister already about this problem, will he see fit to delay possible implementation of any new regime until 1985?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, the White Paper on proposed curriculum changes makes reference to the fact that there will not be implementation until September 1985. It's now within the document. I might also suggest that those forums that are now being conducted throughout the province are well received in most communities. I might also suggest that the constructive criticism which is coming in is most helpful; all of it will be taken into consideration.

Yesterday I met with superintendents from the lower mainland–Fraser Valley portion. Interestingly enough, I thought that if this particular question was of some concern to the superintendents, being the educational leaders within each of their respective districts, that matter would have been raised; it wasn't. They were aware that we put our thrust for this change for September 1985. Any changes incorporated within that document will take place then and not before then. As far as the item of children in grade 9 making career choices at that age, we're not asking for that at all. They're making elections in the schools right now; everybody is saying that there isn't any streaming. The fact of the matter is that there is.

MR. ROSE: That particular answer is extremely interesting. I'd be interested to know whether he believes that in order to qualify for grade 11 and 12, the non-elective courses that are going to be increased.... Does he not agree that students in grade 9 have to make those decisions because of prerequisites required by those grade 11 and 12 courses? The prerequisite will be given in grade 10.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Many of the courses being taken by students in grade 10 are in fact prerequisites for those they'll take in grades 11 and/or 12. Our concern for September 1985, and why we have it out now, is that they will at least have some idea of what may be coming down the pipe. In the course selection in grade 10, if somebody is taking mathematics or science — or English, which is carried through in any event — I don't understand why there should be such alarm for those who are going into grade 10. It really hasn't come back yet. I'll find out more about this, if the member is that concerned, as a result of the forums now being conducted in the province. The purpose of those forums is to see exactly what the people think about it.

MR. ROSE: I would be reassured if I were convinced that these are not merely forums for consultation and that nothing will result from the briefs that have been submitted. We all know that it's not just this member who's concerned about it. We know that the Vancouver School Board has been concerned about it; they've had a brief. The superintendents of the province have been concerned about it. The concern is not limited just to this side of the House. I'd like to know how the minister plans to address the problems of a curriculum change of a massive nature which everybody says is underfunded, delayed planning, and also no adequate counselling to prepare students for the changes.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: How do I correlate your remarks with the comments I listened to last night in a forum?

MR. ROSE: Where?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: In the Fraser Valley.

[ Page 4670 ]

MR. ROSE: You were in Abbotsford last night? That's not my information.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: In a number of places.

The opening comments were: "We agree with what you are doing. The thrust is right. But we have a couple of suggestions for you." That's fine, and we're picking this up throughout the province. That's why it was called a White Paper, a discussion paper.

MR. ROSE: When I first asked the minister whether he planned to have discussions, he hadn't even considered it until I asked him. Was the minister in Abbotsford last night hearing discussions on these briefs? That's what he intimated by "in the Fraser Valley." My information is that he wasn't in Abbotsford last night; that he sent a couple of his acolytes along to take the flak.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Acolyte? It's a religious term.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I guess we've got a new name for our civil service. I'm not sure. They'll be pleased. We'll relay that to them.

MR. ROSE: Were you in Abbotsford?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I met with the superintendents from the valley yesterday afternoon starting at about quarter to three; after that I met with the school board, at which time I discussed the brief, which was one of the briefs presented at the forum. I was not at Abbotsford school at the time the forum was conducted...

MR. ROSE: No. You're damned right you weren't.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: ...but I was there to receive the brief from the school district — one of them — that was put forth. I've also had a full report of what went on at the forum last night.

MR. COCKE: I have a question I would like to ask the Provincial Secretary.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Filler question.

SALE BY BCBC OF GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS

MR. COCKE: A filler question for the Provincial Secretary. He couldn't answer a question, in any event, so it must be a filler question.

In the vicinity of the Legislature precincts there has sprouted a small forest of real estate signs. The minister, through B.C. Buildings Corporation, is unloading some 20 or more properties around the precincts — properties that were acquired. Why is the government dumping all the properties at this time onto a depressed real estate market?

HON. MR. CHABOT: Well, Mr. Speaker, that's a very interesting question.

AN HON. MEMBER: Now listen to the answer.

HON. MR. CHABOT: It's one that I'm sure involves a certain degree of investigation, and one I'll have to discuss with officials of the B.C. Buildings Corporation. I'll bring the information back to the House at the very earliest opportunity.

MR. LAUK: Can you do it before the buildings are sold?

MR. COCKE: While the minister is speaking to the B.C. Buildings Corporation, he might mention to them that since W.A.C. Bennett and successive governments have acquired properties in the precinct area as part of a comprehensive development plan.... Why has the B.C. Buildings Corporation abandoned the process, which was very desirable, was thought to be desirable and has been thought desirable for years? What's going on, Mr. Minister?

HON. MR. CHABOT: I'll take that question as notice and bring the answer back to the member to satisfy his curiosity at the earliest opportunity.

HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS

MR. SPEAKER: The member for Coquitlam-Moody.

HON. MR. CHABOT: A filler question.

MR. ROSE: Actually it's a question, but also a kind of question of privilege. It may be just to clarify. The minister said he wasn't going to implement this until '85. Right here in his guide, he says: "Revised graduation requirements will begin as an implementation pattern in September of '84. Students entering grade 10 at this time will make grade 10 course selections which will qualify them for the new curriculum organization." It simply means that they have to be counselled in grade 9, which is what I'm asking you about. Either you've misled us or I've misunderstood you. I'd like you to have the chance to clarify it.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, the curriculum proposals are for grades 11 and 12. We understand that. We wanted the material out so that they would have some idea When you make reference to the matter of counselling, it should be that the people involved in counselling students have some idea of the direction in which the government is moving. They make a number of selections going out of grade 9 into grade 10 right now; we know that. I don't think there's any argument about it. In September 1985 they will have some idea. I think it was only fair that we let people know. The response we're getting from the field has been very good.

[2:15]

LATE PAYMENTS FROM
MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCES

MR. BLENCOE: I have a question for the Premier of the province. All across this province there are hundreds of organizations that are not receiving government funds, essential funds — organizations contracted to the MHR in day care and other essential areas. They're up to six weeks late with cheques. Their financial future has been jeopardized by

[ Page 4671 ]

this government. I want to know: is the government so completely short of funds — has this government squandered so much money, gone into so much debt — that it has to make desperate attempts to threaten the financial stability of these organizations?

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair regrets that the question cannot be put because it is out of order.

HON. MR. BENNETT: The answer is no.

INVESTMENT IN PROVINCE'S ECONOMY

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis), who is on an extended junket to Europe, I wonder if I could direct a question to the Premier. Inasmuch as the principal point in the 1983 budget was that it was designed to attract investment into British Columbia, can the Premier tell us what factors were contained in that budget that caused a decline in 1983 of some $815 million in investment money in the province over the year before?

HON. MR. BENNETT: The international recession, Mr. Speaker.

MR. HOWARD: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Inasmuch as the force of the budget of this year — which hasn't yet been concluded so far as the examination of estimates is concerned — was also designed to attract investment into British Columbia, can the Premier tell us what factors are contained in this year's budget that caused a further $539 million of decline in projected investment in British Columbia?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Well, Mr. Speaker, the budgetary proposals of the government were to attract business investment over time. Now if the member fully under....

MR. LAUK: Over time?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Yes, over time, Mr. Second Member for Vancouver Centre.

One of the factors in our budgeting that will attract business and industry is the containment of the cost of government that will not carry future tax implications that would not only not attract new investment but would make it unattractive for business and industry to stay here. This government's success at implementing this program is being watched carefully and being appreciated by those who wish to make future investment decisions.

The member for Skeena asked the question as if turning investment on and off was as simple as dealing with a water faucet. Unfortunately investment decisions aren't made on that basis, nor are they accelerated in a difficult economic climate, except when they can see long-term strategies of economic planning on which they can base their investment decisions.

Mr. Speaker, the budgets that the Minister of Finance has presented have been responsible budgets, particularly compared with many other jurisdictions, and are appreciated by those who will make those decisions. But that is just one of the factors that have gone into the budget. Other areas will attract business, particularly in that part of the budget that deals with the Ministry of Industry and Small Business Development and the very statement the member made as part of posing the question — that is, our international marketing strategy — in which he was by statement implying that he was critical that the Minister of Finance was in Europe at this very time encouraging investment in this province, speaking to the financial institutions.

Those are just some of the factors that went into the budget. If the member would care to follow up, I would be pleased to give a number of other factors to assist him in his own party's finally coming up with some economic proposals that at least will let the people of British Columbia think they're sincere when they take their places in this Legislature.

Hon. Mr. Richmond tabled the annual report of the Ministry of Tourism for the year ended March 31, 1984.

POLICE TREATMENT OF ACCIDENT VICTIM

HON. MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, on May 3, 1984, the member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown) asked me a question about the Harvey Jack case and the proposed meeting between various native groups on Vancouver Island and the staff of the RCMP. I want to respond to that question and advise her that the meeting, which had been planned for about a month, took place yesterday in Comox and was attended by Assistant Commissioner Wilson of the RCMP, the subdivision commanders of the RCMP on the Island, most of the RCMP detachment commanders and senior officials from my ministry. Also in attendance were the tribal council chiefs of Vancouver Island. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Bob Warren, the president of the United Native Nations Victoria local, who planned this meeting with the RCMP officials.

It was an excellent meeting. It addressed the concerns that the native community had not only about the Harvey Jack case but also about the perceived treatment of native people by the police and before the courts in the province. I understand that it was a frank meeting and that in the future regular consultative meetings are going to take place, and another meeting of this kind will be scheduled. I understand that a number of the questions were addressed.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, the Chair has been advised by the second member for Victoria that he has a matter to raise under standing order 35.

MR. BLENCOE: I indeed rise under standing order 35 to ask leave to move adjournment of the House to discuss a definite matter of urgent public importance. The matter relates to the late payment of agencies contracted to the Ministry of Human Resources. I understand that there are now other agencies and departments of this government who are not issuing cheques — like legal aid. Many agencies have not received their government funds for April and May of this year. This has created enormous financial difficulties, forcing many of these agencies to borrow funds to continue operating, and for some, the layoff of staff. This matter has been raised twice in this House in question period this week, but many agencies have still not received their provincial funds. The matter is of extreme public importance and must be rectified immediately to take care of present and future payments. I would urge that you consider this a matter of extreme and urgent public importance.

[ Page 4672 ]

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you. Hon. member, the Chair will undertake to review the matter and bring a response back to the House at the earliest opportunity.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: Leave to proceed to bills, Mr. Speaker.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: First of all, if I might have leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: From the delightful city of Kelowna and the great riding of Okanagan South we have the manager of CKIQ, Mr. Walter Gray. Nice to see you here.

I call adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 28.

LABOUR CODE AMENDMENT ACT, 1984
(continued)

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

MR. GABELMANN: I too would like to welcome Walter Gray, someone I've known for some years as well. I'm sure Walter would have been particularly delighted with the changes earlier this session in the Constitution Act.

Interjections.

MR. GABELMANN: It went over everybody's head, I think, Mr. Speaker — well, not everybody's.

In picking up the debate on the Labour Code amendments, Bill 28, I want first of all to continue discussing the whole question of multiple-employer certifications and to clarify what I think will be a wrong interpretation of my remarks. Upon reading this morning's Blues, I saw that I had indicated some concern about section 5 of the bill in respect of multiple-employer bargaining. The way that should have been stated, to be more accurate than the way I did state it, would be to talk about this with respect to future government policy signalled by the changes in section 5, and also by the changes the minister hinted at when he was quoted following some discussions by some of the forest companies about their unhappiness with collective bargaining through the Pulp and Paper Industrial Relations Bureau, and the desire on the part of some of them to bargain independently. I recognize that this particular series of amendments that we're dealing with today does not deal directly with the accreditation of employers' organizations, section 59 of the Code, but rather deals with other sections relating to applications by trade unions for certification in situations where there is more than one employer.

My concern, which I did not express in the way I would like to have expressed it, is as follows. The hint contained in that particular amendment, together with the comments of the minister on the airwaves and the response of the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland), who applauded the kind of direction of the possible elimination of accreditation, causes some concern, not necessarily from the point of view of the policy direction but from the fact that clearly some discussions are going on behind closed doors now about that particular move. I just want to say to the government, and to the Minister of Labour in particular, that the idea that a majority of the employers involved in that particular industry should be able to determine whether or not there is accreditation is a sound one, and the idea that an individual employer can opt out is not. That intent is clearly signalled and indicated in a more narrow area in the amendment to section 40 of the Code. So I wanted to clarify that before the minister gets up and tells me that I'm all wrong in how I've interpreted section 5 in the amendments. If he said that based on the precise words I used, he would have been right.

Clearly in debating this Code the details of the sections in terms of their impact on the industrial relations community are best left to committee, and I had indicated that earlier. Nevertheless, it seems to me there are a number of principles contained. I had begun the process of going through this bill in respect of those principles, and I want to continue to do that before I resume my seat.

I dealt with the question of certification in some detail, without getting into the nitty-gritty. For example, I left out the fact that under this proposed series of amendments we will not have the opportunity, as happens in Nova Scotia.... I would ask the minister, when he does respond in second reading on this bill, to give some indication as to his views on the Nova Scotia legislation in respect of the five-day period in which certification votes are required to take place. I ask him what will happen, in his view, without that particular limitation, inasmuch as the field is wide open now to lawyers to get involved in asking for delays of various kinds. Certification votes, in many cases, will take place a long time after the date of application is filed with the board, thereby making it very difficult for trade union organization. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is now virtually impossible, given an intransigent employer, for a new trade union to be certified in an area that was previously unorganized — I stress the words "given an intransigent employer." Many employers — certainly progressive employers are included in this — are happy to have trade unions in their workplace, because it makes the whole question of dealing with the workers far easier and more civilized. As I said, most of the major, big, progressive employers prefer collective bargaining to individual bargaining.

[2:30]

Having said that, I would like the minister to tell me why he is introducing legislation that, in effect, will preclude the opportunity for people to join unions if their employer doesn't want them to. That's a fact as a result of this legislation. I've outlined some of the reasons why: there is the opportunity for employer interference; there is the opportunity for the employer to stack the representation vote; there is the opportunity for legal challenges to be made on the part of the employer which can delay the vote to a time when the bargaining unit is more appropriate to the employer's desires — there are a variety of other techniques involved in that particular approach.

Furthermore, it creates incredible difficulties for building trades or for construction organizing. I'll tell you why: on the surface it appears as though the government has been generous and magnanimous in creating a special section for construction organizing. Section 8 of this bill will establish a new section 45 of the Labour Code. On the surface of it the contractor can begin work on a project, and union organizers

[ Page 4673 ]

can go in and sign up 55 percent of the workers and automatically obtain a certification, if everything is in order. Unfortunately, most construction jobs — particularly now, with the definition sections the way they are — will have been finished before (a) the organizing drive is finished, (b) the application is filed, and (c) the labour board has had time to award the certification, if everything was in order. Most construction jobs will be over.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: I can say that. It's a fact. Take any bridge being built in my riding — there aren't very many of them, unfortunately, at the moment. Nevertheless, if you take a bridge being built, and if you take the time which each particular trade spends on that job, it's not long. Given the fact there are no time limits for the Labour Relations Board to deal with the application, in many instances — not in every one, I didn't say that — the job will be nearly over by the time the certification is approved. Then the certification falls apart the moment that job is completed.

The other and even more important problem with this is that if a building trades union wants to obtain a more permanent form of certification with a construction company, they have to go through the other section. They have to go through what will be section 43 of the act, presumably the same one under which the industrial unions are now being invited to make representations for applications. In that case we are going to run into incredible difficulties in determining the appropriate bargaining unit. As a result of the changes in the definition, we're going to have arguments about whether it's an appropriate application. Whenever section 73(l) is imposed, there will be total confusion. As a result of this legislation, if a trade union, under this proposed amendment, gains certification for one part of that contractor's operation, it will then be denied the opportunity to organize in any other part of that particular operation. I don't believe that was the intent in drafting this legislation, but it certainly is the effect. So I think some very careful consideration needs to be paid to the certification procedures.

The minister was off to his meeting earlier this morning when I talked about moving to this American model which I find totally inappropriate for Canadian labour law. I trust he recognizes that when you have the opportunity for the so-called rogue employers to fight union drives, in the way that J.P. Stevens did, and the ensuing industrial unrest, the ensuing uncertainty in the community and the bad feelings that then develop as a result of bad relations between labour and management, that does no good whatsoever for the economy. That does no good whatsoever for industrial harmony and progress. This legislation, in that respect, allows for that odious southern-U.S. practice to come into Canadian labour law.

Moving to another topic, the whole question of the economic development projects, the minister has said frequently that he is opposed to right to work. Mr. Speaker, section 73(l) is right to work in the building trades. Let's talk about what right to work is. Right to work means that an individual can go to work alongside a union worker and work for less money. It means you are able to go in.... Right to work in an industrial situation would be as follows. You've got a guy on a green chain pulling lumber, working under an IWA-FIR contract....

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: Let me finish the sentence. You've got a guy doing that, working for $12-something, or whatever the rate is, plus benefits and being protected by the collective agreement. Right to work would allow that employer to bring in somebody else to take that job, or to work beside that individual for a lower rate of pay outside the collective agreement. Right to work means being able to work in a job, where a union contract is in place, for terms and conditions less than are called for in that contract. People say, "I have the right to go to work in that plant," and the employer says: "I have the right to hire this person and I can determine an individual agreement." I know that "right to work" has a whole variety of meanings, but that is one of the essential and, as far as I'm concerned, most important meanings of that term. It means "right to work for less."

Right to work laws go further and allow for an entire plant to be composed of people who are no longer in a union, all working at different rates. What are we going to have at Expo if it's declared an economic development project? We're going to have people doing the same work at different rates of pay for the same employer, Expo Corporation or whatever it's called. The fact is that Expo Corporation hires contractors to do some of the work, but the employer is Expo. People will be working alongside other people at a lower and/or a different rate — not just in wages but in terms of security. If that isn't right to work in the classic definition, I don't know what is. If the minister wants to argue technicalities about whether it's precisely right to work, the fact is that it sure opens the barn door.

What this legislation does is finally accept the wishes of the Social Credit Party, despite the valiant efforts of the cabinet — even though the Premier stays in the corridor during those debates on occasion — and despite the valiant efforts of....

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: The time Allan Williams was fighting that battle on the floor, the Premier was in the corridor.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nonsense!

MR. GABELMANN: It may be nonsense, but it's true. The fact is, this is right to work. The rank-and-file Socreds, the Kerkhoffs and the anti-union employers have gotten their way from this government. What is wrong, Mr. Speaker, with honouring the traditions that have been developed in this province, time-honoured traditions which have worked well, traditions which have allowed the dams in this province to be built on time without industrial unrest, traditions which allowed that stadium to be built on time?

What the government is doing is taking advantage of bad economic times, incurred by the economists whom they listen to, the Friedmans and the Walter Blocks of the world — the Fraser Institute.

Interjections.

MR. GABELMANN: I don't know what these inane interjections are, but they are nothing more than inanities.

[ Page 4674 ]

Section 73(l) of the Code, as amended by section 13 of this bill, has to be read in conjunction with 83(3) of the Code. It is a curious situation. What it means....

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: It's not Expo legislation. I heard the Premier several times talking about the fact that legislation was going to be brought into this Legislature to make sure that Expo was built. This has nothing to do with that. You know, the leaders in South Africa and the Soviet Union can teach this Premier something about how to get projects built on time. It's called slave labour, and that's what he wants to do.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: That's precisely what you're doing when you deny people their rights. You're doing exactly what those countries have done.

Mr. Speaker, what this section does is allow cabinet — not some independent agency but the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, as I read it — to declare any part of any construction project — and subdivide any part within that part, if it so chooses — an economic development project. There is nothing wrong, as I read it, to pick up on the minister's quotes in the Globe and Mail about the Tasmanian pavilion, with saying that the painting of that particular pavilion is an economic development project. You could do that.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: It doesn't matter what you intend to do; it matters what you say. I wish we could be reasonable, but when we're presented in this House with legislation as ambiguous, as badly written — either badly written or deliberately vague and ambiguous, allowing for any variety of activities.... Any construction project in this province can be declared an economic development project — no guidelines about its importance or about anything else. "Special economic importance" — what does that mean? It means whatever the government wants it to mean.

But let me get back to my point. The Premier has been screaming around this province about bringing in legislation and making sure Expo is built on time, despite the fact that the corporation and the unions agreed to do it. But he wouldn't let them. Then he says: "I'm going to bring in legislation to make that happen." This doesn't do it. The CLRA building trades agreement expires, they go on a legal strike, and it lasts six months, let's say. Nothing happens at Expo. This legislation doesn't deal with it.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: I didn't say you did; I said the Premier did.

Mr. Speaker, what the legislation does is in a sense far more odious. It gives the cabinet a clout to say to any construction union in this province on any construction project now or in the future in this province: "You step out of line, you do anything we don't like, and we'll declare you an economic development project. Then your non-affiliation clause doesn't apply. Not only does your non-affiliation clause not apply; neither does your right to strike on health and safety grounds" — the way it's written. That's how sloppily written the legislation is, as far as I can read. This section refers to 83(3) in its entirety, not simply to the amendment of 83(3), and 83(3) is a much broader section. This section says to building trades workers, if they're working on an economic development project: "You must continue to work even though you know that crane is going to fall down on you." And if you don't think that's true, read the lousy drafting that's been done.

[2:45]

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: I read it. It refers to the entire 83(3). Section 83(3) is amended by adding, not by renumbering. Unless you declare them a special economic project.... The minister laughs. The minister is saying to me, as he said to the Globe and Mail reporter, that the Tasmanian pavilion could be declared a special economic development project. But under this legislation, so too could the painting part of that building. When that happens, the affiliation clause is out the window. I think what the government wanted to do — odious as it is — was to be able to say that a work stoppage on the Tasmanian pavilion couldn't stop work on the Polish pavilion. That's what they wanted to say, but it's not what they say in the legislation. We'll get into that in more detail during discussion in committee stage.

The picketing section is equally woolly. I'm going to leave comment about the details of it until later. But I want to say to the minister and the government that what they have done by this section is to ensure that strikes that might ordinarily be resolved quickly will last longer. One of the reasons a strike or lockout can be ended quickly is that there is severe economic pressure on the parties involved. That's when you get resolution: when the workers start to hurt or when the companies start to hurt. One of the ways you get resolution is by ensuring that the particular product or service is not able to be supplied by an ally or by the same company elsewhere. The way this section is written leaves that wide open. In addition to that, one labour lawyer suggested to me that if, for example, a pulp mill were on strike and a construction project was going on inside that pulp mill, the primary picketing of the pulp mill would be considered as secondary picketing in respect of the construction project inside the pulp mill.

How do you exert economic pressure, which is what the strike-lockout provisions in collective bargaining are all about, if you're denied the right to do it? While there is discomfort, economic pain and all the rest of it as a result of strikes and lockouts, this section will make it worse rather than fixing it. Unions and companies in the service and small manufacturing sectors of our economy will be particularly hard hit. I predict that as a result of this section any operation which is scabbed will never have the strike resolved, because there cannot be the economic pressure imposed upon that employer with the limitations in this section. We'll deal with that in more detail later on.

I want to wrap up my comments in general by talking about the important issues involved in this legislation. Apart from the day-to-day penalties imposed upon ordinary people, the overwhelming impact is to delay even further British Columbia's opportunity to join in whatever economic recovery is developing in North America. For the government to have policies that say to one segment of our society, "We do not want you to be involved in governing your own lives; we

[ Page 4675 ]

do not want you to feel that we're treating you fairly; we do not want you to be involved in the overall progress of this province; we want to cast you out, leave you outside of the equation, while we and the small non-union businesses continue to run this province and tell you what to do," will guarantee that we will not have the industrial peace and harmony that we all want.

If the government was serious about developing a climate in this province that allowed for harmony in industrial relations, they would not take advice from those people who are inciting hatred and disharmony out there — the Kerkhoffs of the world. That's where their advice comes from in this bill. If the government was serious about trying to generate some economic recovery in this province, they wouldn't just talk about being competitive; they would talk about how to become competitive. You become competitive when you have a willing and productive workforce working in cooperation with their employers and in harmony with their government. But when you bring in legislation like this which says to the unorganized workers who want to join unions: "That's finished, people. By the way we designed this law we're no longer going to allow you, except in the odd, occasional or unusual circumstance, to join a union anymore...."

AN HON. MEMBER: Nonsense.

MR. GABELMANN: That's a fact. I'm going to have to go through it again. The certification procedures are to make sure that workers cannot get organized in this province. If the government believed anything different, they wouldn't allow the employers to stack the vote, as they do under this section. They wouldn't allow the employers to influence the vote. They wouldn't allow the Labour Relations Board to delay the taking of the vote, and they wouldn't allow the lawyers to get involved as they will as a result of this legislation. What the government is signaling to those small, non-union, anti-union companies in this province is that they're going to make this province just like Alabama, whether the rest of us like it or not.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. GABELMANN: That's right. You introduce the concept of right to work in section 73; you introduce the American concept of certification in those sections. What other message is being delivered to the people of this province, and why? There is an ideological agenda designed partly in the back bench, but even more so by people like those people employed at the Fraser Institute: an ideological agenda to change the face of this province. If you can't quite make it like Taiwan, the Philippines and the Sri Lankan free trade zones that you'd like to make it, where a dollar a day is a good wage, you'll go at least halfway and get it to be like Alabama, Tennessee and Louisiana.

MR. REID: Garbage, garbage, garbage.

MR. GABELMANN: It's not garbage, Mr. Speaker. There is a deliberate attempt on the part of the government to incite workers in this province so that the government can yet again bring in more repressive and anti-labour legislation. What we need at this time more than any other time is cooperation. [Applause.) The members applaud cooperation.

MR. REID: Stay on that tack and we'll stay with you.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Now you understand.

MR. GABELMANN: My whole tack has been that what we need in this province is cooperation and harmony. You do not get cooperation in labour-management relations when you bring in legislation without consultation. What consultation is there when at five after six some leaders of the industrial community are invited to see the results of the minister's consultation in a bill introduced at 6 o'clock, and it is so different from anything they envisioned that they don't even know what half of it means? It says to me, Mr. Speaker, that if you don't know what the words in a bill mean, then you haven't had much to say about what went into it.

As I said before, consultation and cooperation do not necessarily mean that those being consulted and cooperated with get their way. No one argues that. There is a give and take involved, but what give and take is involved here? How many small local unions — who are the ones who are really affected — were in the minister's office talking to him about certification processes? How many small plants and industries were also in the minister's office talking about how the certification process works in that area? I don't know how many of the business people were in, but I do know that none of the small unions were in, and they are the ones who are hurt by this.

Those people out there in the service industries in particular, and in the small manufacturing industries, who so desperately need the opportunity to organize, were not consulted about this bill. The building trades were not consulted about the construction sections. And on and on it goes. What's important in labour-management relations is that there be cooperation. The back-benchers applaud that, and the minister spouts it in his opening speech, but why say it and applaud it if you don't do it?

MR. REID: Cooperation takes two parties.

MR. GABELMANN: It sometimes takes more than two parties, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I mentioned earlier that when the Manitoba government decided it wanted to think about new directions in labour relations, it didn't have an advisory committee bound to secrecy and not able to say what its recommendations were, which were accepted and which weren't, and which components of the advisory committee recommended different things. It didn't do that. It didn't bring in a bill saying what the final nature of the labour relations act in that province was going to be. What did it do? It used a White Paper. What's wrong with that?

During question period today there were questions to the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Heinrich) about the White Paper relating to curriculum. The second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) talked about it being democratic to have a White Paper. What's wrong with a White Paper on labour relations?

MR. REID: That's what Bill 28 is.

MR. GABELMANN: Oh, I'm told that Bill 28 is a White Paper. I'm delighted to hear that. It doesn't say so, and it's not written that way, but I'm delighted to know that it's a White Paper, because it means that following debate it doesn't

[ Page 4676 ]

become law; it's just a discussion paper. I'm delighted to hear that.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: It's not only a black paper, it's a black day

I don't know how to say it any more clearly than this. What this province so desperately needs now is not to have a government that deliberately pits non-union worker against union worker, that deliberately incites fear and hatred on the part of some sectors of our society, and deliberately foments mistrust among major segments of our economy. What we need at this time is a plan, a program, a course of action that involves everybody in the community who wants to participate in making this province great again. You don't do that by bringing in blatantly anti-labour, pro-management legislation of this kind — at least, not without first having gone through a consultative process which might teach you something.

[3:00]

The minister claims to have gone through a consultative process. It didn't teach him a damn thing. This minister in the hallways is an affable gentleman, and I enjoy having chats with him, but he is an absolute disaster as a Labour minister. Any time there is a difficult dispute, he can't solve it. He doesn't know how to get involved in appropriate ways to bring resolution. He has to resort, as he did in the pulp industry, to legislative action. When he has a difficulty in the question of industrial relations, he doesn't know how to solve it, except by bringing in heavy-hammer legislation designed to meet the needs of the right-wing community in Langley. It doesn't meet the needs of this province. It doesn't do a damn thing to bring economic harmony and economic progress. It doesn't do anything to make sure that there's peace in construction. It doesn't do anything to make sure that poor people working in low-paying jobs have the opportunity to be organized. It doesn't do anything for those workers in up to 1,500 construction companies who, because of the recession imposed by this government, haven't worked for two years, whose collective agreements will be thrown out and who will therefore become non-union.

What kind of impartial legislation is this that every step of the way takes a hammer blow at one side and not the other? What kind of government is it that says, "We want a government that stays out of people's lives, a government that stays out of the marketplace, we want to privatize everything, we don't even want to regulate violent pornography, just leave that to the individuals involved," and then brings in legislation interfering directly in the way trade unions conduct their business? Why is it that when it comes to business, the government says hands off, and when it comes to labour it's hands right in? Why is it that when it comes to consumer affairs in this province and companies ripping off consumers, the government gets rid of its staff, weakens its legislation and does nothing? Labour, on the other hand, is the whipping boy. That's fair enough. The government may have been elected on a policy to represent management and not workers. They can then bring in laws representing management and not workers, but they'd better remember that when they do that, they're doing untold damage to the economy. When they do that, they are making sure that production won't be as high as it should be.

They're making sure that there will be more strikes and lockouts and more unrest, because when there is suspicion — a feeling that you're being treated unfairly — you react, sometimes, irrationally. But quite often you react rationally, and you do your best to defend your position. As a result of that, you often have situations in which the best for the whole community isn't happening.

If the government really believed in what it says when amending the Labour Code — about which there's no quarrel; changes should be made to legislation — they would go through the process.... They would sit down with the big employers and with the little employers. They would sit down with all the trade unions and representatives of people in other areas so that everybody was involved, every interest and point of view expressed.

When that process is over, people will say: "I may not have gotten what I want but, by God, at least I had a chance to argue my case, and I did get this even though I didn't get that. As a result, I'll live with it for a time, and maybe we'll have another chance another day to renegotiate those terms and conditions" — of the labour law, in this case. That's what happens in collective bargaining every day. Nobody goes away from the bargaining table happy. They go away having given something up and having gained something in exchange. They go away committed to the conclusion of the process. Nobody goes away from the conclusion of this process committed to it, because they weren't involved in it.

What's the result? The result is yet further damage to our economy. Why the government is interested in doing that is beyond me, except that when I listen carefully to the minister talking about being competitive with markets in other parts of the world, I then know that what he wants to be able to do is drive down wages and working conditions in this province so they're at the same level as the ones in those parts of the world that they so like: Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the free-trade zones in Sri Lanka, etc. They know they can't quite get away with that, so they'll settle for Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana, right-to-work and a smashed trade union movement, because that's their objective.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I rise to support the legislation put before this House by the Minister of Labour, so well thought out and so well discussed with interested members of the community not only over the last few months or the last year but for some time, with people having an opportunity to speak to government.

I reject a number of the things said by the member for North Island. I'm embarrassed for him and I'm embarrassed for his party that he is the official spokesman on this matter and on labour matters in this House. What he says is no longer a personal opinion which he expressed years ago when he was a back-bench member of the New Democratic Party when it was government and voted against his party. At that time I knew he spoke as an individual, but today he's taking the official line, and what he says he is saying on behalf of all of the members on that side, including the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea), who has taken a different tack — or at least was taking a different tack — from that of his party in his bid to try to modernize, change and soften it, and make it more representative of the broad community in our province, rather than a narrow, confined representation for only a few if they ever get to government.

In fact, the implication just recently was that government should negotiate legislation as contracts are negotiated in the private sector, whether they be business or industrial relations contracts. I reject that. Governments are elected to do what's

[ Page 4677 ]

right. Because that member represents a party that now negotiates its policies for support, it no longer has a clear idea of what is right and wrong. It no longer has a clear idea of what its job is in this House in representing all citizens — not only when you become government, but when you become the opposition as well. What is right is not negotiable with power groups in this province from the right or the left, or from business or labour. Government is supposed to be for all of the people, and that is what the minister and this government have done in bringing in amendments.

The member suggests that it should have been a White Paper, that there should have been more discussion than the months and years that went into discussion — and, yes, the advisory committee. I remind him to look back. The most sweeping changes ever made to industrial relations and the Labour Code were made without that consultation and without a White Paper by a party, which that member belongs to, which was government — the New Democratic Party.

Over the last few days I've taken the opportunity to review the headlines of that time, and to review the stories and the editorials. That member has a selective memory to go along with a very poor view of how governments and parties should act. Mr. Speaker, this legislation is for all of the people. The member made the statement that this takes away rights. This legislation does not take away rights. Rights are given under the Charter for everyone. Those tools for bargaining that the member talks about are given legislatively; they're not rights. What is legislatively given can be legislatively adjusted. In that member's mind and that party's mind, tools and tactics now become rights.

The Minister of Labour heard from many parties in this province that secondary picketing was affecting not only other labour union members with valid contracts, but affecting the rights and economic well-being of individuals and communities. Do you mean that the member and that party stand for the right of one union, such as in the recent case with the pulp workers? That they could close off jobs for IWA members who had negotiated a legally valid collective agreement to go to work? Is he saying today that that should be the standard, and that some people who are union members can at any given time, having no part in the dispute and no benefit to gain, be made unwilling victims because of secondary picketing? Does he believe that our ferry workers, who have not caused a disruption in our ferry service in years, and when they have a legally valid collective agreement, can take the abuse and be shut off the job by others in public employ who wish to use them and inconvenience the public as part of their bargaining, causing ferry workers to lose a day's pay? Does he believe that that is right, that that is a right and is part of what he calls a sane industrial relations climate that inspires confidence? Does that inspire confidence from labour union members? Does it inspire confidence from investors? Does it inspire confidence from communities such as Mackenzie, which felt the full impact when those events took place earlier this year? Not at all.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

The people of British Columbia, union and non-union, management and non-management, professionals....

There are a lot of people in this province who don't fall into the easy categories that the member for North Island defines; he attacks some and defends one on behalf of his party in this debate. He suggests that this government, by doing these things, is legislating for one segment of society. Nonsense! His very argument is for a very narrow segment of society. He speaks of workers as though all those who work in this province chose to be covered by a collective agreement. He speaks of others as if all management were the same, and all business — large and small — and professionals and others were the same; yet it is not so. People of British Columbia will be very interested to read how he views this province in his very narrow definition of us against them — the us being those to whom he is committed to legislate, both in opposition and if he ever became government, to the detriment of the many. That type of viewpoint will not serve the interests of British Columbia, nor does it serve the interests of a calm and capable industrial relations climate in which we can keep on and get on with the building of our economy in what will be a more competitive world. The Minister of Labour brought in these changes to calm the waters so that people did not have to fear the type of disruptions that have taken place. He did it not just to create a climate for new jobs but to let the IWA workers know that when they have a valid collective agreement, they can stay on the job in this province.

[3:15]

The member for North Island talks about his view of the just society. Well, it's just for a very few who have purchased that viewpoint with donations, to the detriment of all others who should be represented in this Legislature. The Minister of Labour has done an outstanding job in trying to clear up some areas in which difficulties have became apparent to every British Columbian, almost without exception, except those few faces that sit in this Legislature across from us on a random basis, and a few others who feel in jeopardy because their positions are based and maintained on them causing conflict, creating confusion and attacking. This legislation attacks no one; it protects the many in this province.

That member should well remember when he was in the New Democratic Party government and they brought down legislation. Maybe he didn't feel the sense of responsibility you have to feel as government, but I remember the headlines and I reviewed them again. There were the same spokesmen — or the people speaking from the same positions; some of them are retired now — saying that there would be disruptions in the future because of the upheaval of this new legislation. It's the same thing we're hearing now from that member. Yet this legislation is designed to prevent that from happening and to try to bring some security to IWA members so that when they have a collective agreement that's valid, they can't be shut out of their jobs by a dispute in which they are not a party. That's an important part of this legislation. I don't see how that member can argue with this type of simple democracy: voting procedures for members on certification and decertification. I leave it for the public to decide that somehow the votes of the majority are sinister or too expensive, and that a democracy would be too expensive in his view — when it suits his purpose and that of the party. He is the main speaker in enunciating their views on how this province would be conducted had they been elected last May.

I would like to deal with some of the other areas where, in attempting to make his point, he has made our point. I've tried to get the quotes. He talks about the fact that the government hasn't recognized the collective agreements of the building trades. What we have done is allow them to have work in Expo once it's declared an economic site, to have their clauses dealing with the job they get. Whether it's a $10 million building or a $50 million building, we're suggesting

[ Page 4678 ]

that that building shall be a project, such as the stadium, which he uses as an example of what should take place. The stadium was a single contract. It was carried out by a union firm, and that is exactly what will take place on the Expo site.

The Expo site is 165 acres, larger than almost every downtown area in this province — every main street in British Columbia is smaller than that site. The member is suggesting that where there are a number of different contracts put out for tender, downtowns everywhere should be called a common site. What we are saying with Expo and in this legislation is that there will be a lot of bids. A lot of single projects will be taking place over 165 acres. Where a union company wins the job, it gets the job and all of the parts of it and traditions based on the job will be honoured. Where a non-union firm gets the job, the same thing will take place. That open bidding can take place, as the public should expect. The public expect the market factor, which has hurt them in a recession, will start to work for them sooner or later in lower prices, which means lower taxes and lower costs.

The member suggests that it is this government that is interfering with the contracts, interfering with what takes place at Expo, and that we have an intrusive government. In fact, that is not what we are doing; that is what the member is suggesting be done. He's suggesting that the government — or someone under the government's direction — intrude in the marketplace to set a pricing factor that is higher than the market presently can afford to pay or is paying in the open, free, competitive bidding that is taking place around this province. That is exactly what that member is suggesting. He is suggesting the same sort of heavy-handed big government they have always stood for and which we faced in this province between 1972 and 1975. He doesn't recognize the market, he doesn't recognize that there can be benefits from a market, and he doesn't recognize that there should be adjustments. He tries to make the argument that while most British Columbians have suffered during the recession, as have most Canadians, and as have most Americans, Swedes, Norwegians and people from other countries, some people should be protected.

Now I am a great supporter of our building tradesmen. They have built our projects in this province, and where they got competitive bids they've done it well. They've built up a wage structure that in better times did allow them to make that money. It was competitive; people felt that they could pay it at those times. The inflationary psychology encouraged people to accept higher costs because they felt they would be higher in the future. But when the reality set in, people no longer had the inflation psychology, and now they go for value. I don't begrudge anyone in that climate getting as much for their labour as they could or people making as much in the way of profits that were fair. But today, when every other person in our society has in many cases to face layoffs, unemployment and reductions or to reduce their expectation or their demands in the market because nobody is there to purchase it....

But that some privileged few — not everyone — could maintain costs, fees and charges that were built up in an economy that does not exist today, that is not fair.

Much as I admire the working men and women that may work in the trades of this province and be unionized, they themselves would recognize that they don't want special status; they just want it to be fair. We have not asked anyone nor provided for anyone to do anything that isn't normal, fair and equitable in British Columbia. Particularly when things have been difficult, and where you have so many unemployed, to deny anyone — by creating special status at Expo — whether they work with their hands or their skills or are a small owner, a small builder, a small company or large one.... To deny them an opportunity is somehow unjust. To me it provides great difficulty how those who would advocate such a position can offer themselves as compassionate and fair people. They want to leave most British Columbians with a monopoly on hardship and others with a monopoly on privilege.

This government could not accept that. I can't accept it in good times and I certainly can't accept it in tough times. As government we will rise or fall, be elected or defeated, on the fairness of this proposal. The day we have to purchase support by offering privilege to one group of British Columbians over all others in order to get support and financing is the day we no longer deserve to be government. That's why some will never be government again in this province.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation does not deal with wide-ranging new concepts. What it does is come down to dealing with some very basic flaws that have shown up in our system and some very basic opportunities that by far the largest majority of the people of British Columbia support. They support them because they're fair and they will work equitably for everyone. The Minister of Labour has done so as part of our economic package of trying to do what is fair and what will bring economic stability to assist us in trying to keep people working and get people working again through investment, through competitiveness and, above all, through applying the simple rules of democracy that we expect in this House and on the hustings...to take place in the workplace as well.

I don't know, Mr. Speaker, how anyone — unless they have a very narrow view that only those they choose to think they represent are right and only they should be represented — could oppose this legislation or argue against it. To me it is unarguable on any basis for that opposition to oppose what the Minister of Labour has proposed. It is positive. It will help. There are those who don't want it to help. There are those to whom dissent or having the right to political strikes are more important than seeing the province work. I was quite surprised to see the change in the definition of strike criticized — that political strikes will not be considered as part of the economy in the workplace. That's the same definition they have in other legislation across this country. To somehow suggest that we are out of step with the rest of the country is wrong; what we are doing is getting in step. I think the public will decide. Had they seen the type of disruptions in other parts of this country, the way political strikes were allowed to take place as part of the solution, or do they see the fact that that hasn't taken place as justification for us getting in step with the rest of the country? I would leave it up to the people of British Columbia to make that judgment. Again, along with the logic, justice and rightness of what the minister has presented, to me his case is unarguable for those who would oppose.

I support this legislation. I urge all fair-minded people in the opposition — those who are questioning the status of their party, what it has become and whether that party has a relevant place in the British Columbia of tomorrow, a debate that's been taken onto the hustings by those who seek to lead that party and either change it in order to have a role in this province in the future or keep it on the tack that the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) expressed for them today,

[ Page 4679 ]

the tack that will lead them to oblivion.... I ask them to stand up and not only vote for legislation that is right but make a statement that you want your party to have some relevancy in this province in the future.

[3:30]

MR. HOWARD: I do regret that the Premier saw fit to engage at great length in a personal attack against the member for North Island.

AN HON. MEMBER: Shame! A personal attack!

MR. HOWARD: Yes, indeed, a personal attack. The statement of the Premier's was filled with innuendo and smear and distortion of what the member for North Island said. The member for North Island put forward the rational, carefully thought out idea of a White Paper on legislation of this nature. That was taken by the Premier and twisted into the word "negotiate." All the member for North Island said was: "Why don't we have a White Paper put forward? If a White Paper on the part of this government was good enough for education, why isn't it good enough for labour-management relations in this province?" That's all he said. In his discussion about relationships between labour and management in this province, the Premier looked continuously at the past. The Premier may think that the future of this province is in the past, but we don't. The future of this province rests in fair-minded and decent-minded people attempting to do something for the future.

There's an almost classic definition of what fascism is: it is that philosophy that declares that intrusions into fundamental rights are safeguards. It's the philosophy that says the state is always benevolent, even when it puts on the cloak of a dictator. It's a philosophy that says that when freedoms and rights are taken away, they are taken away with regret. It's a philosophy that says lies are truths. After listening to the Premier, I can understand clearly why he felt disposed to make the statement he made a month or so ago classifying the unemployed people in British Columbia as "bad British Columbians."

AN HON. MEMBER: That's not true.

MR. HOWARD: I've got the statement of the Premier on tape. If you want to hear it, I'll bring it into the chamber and you can listen to it.

There is great rhetoric on the government side, great clichés, great statements with not much objective substance to them. It seems to me that they substitute rhetoric for concept, principle or ideas. It's the public relations game of dealing with matters of some substance.

What we're dealing with here is basically power. Let's not kid ourselves. We're talking about the power to control, dominate, centralize and intrude upon rights and freedoms. Anybody who has any semblance of understanding or feeling about working people, whether it's in this province or any other part of the world, knows full well that working people are basically powerless. We know that in this province power resides in two elements only. One is government, and that's power that is continuous, power that is financed by the extraction of money from taxpayers — from working-class people. The other form of power is corporate power — and that's continuous. Corporate power has all of the attributes of the human being except a soul. It even transcends the normal lifespan of three score and ten, or whatever it might happen to be at any given time. We are talking in this particular bill about power.

We are also talking about the necessity of having a revival of economic activities. That seems to be the purpose of the bill. Apart from tinkering with some of the administrative mechanisms — making them worse, more cumbersome and difficult than they are now — the newly declared fundamental thing seems to be a revival of our economic activities. The record of this government and its philosophy with respect to the economy and job creation is extremely dismal. The budgets that were referred to during question period pose some questions to us.

Let's look at what creates economic activity and lays the groundwork for job creation. Why is it that there has been a surge of economic activity in the United States of America, and in British Columbia a continuous decline since this government was re-elected in 1983? Ask yourselves why that is so. What contributes to that economic activity? One of the fundamental parts of it relates to the movement of capital in and out of a country, and the amount of capital that is available within a country or province, or within an area within a province. The amount of capital available to invest in plant, equipment and modernization — new plant or repairs — is what creates employment. The reason that economic activity in the United States, our neighbour to the south, has been so dramatically on the upswing while ours has been going down is that the United States, as a result of deliberate policy, saw retention within that nation of capital, of investment money. By contrast, as a direct result of the policies of this government — which doesn't exist right at the moment, if you look at the treasury benches; not a single cabinet minister anywhere in sight in the chamber, but that's their business if they're not interested in discussing economic activities — as a direct result of the absent, almost abdicated government, capital movement from British Columbia has been net outward. There has been less capital available for investment in British Columbia as a result of this government's activity.

Let's look at some figures to substantiate more than just to declare. You'll find here a distinct contrast between the approach that we take to economic matters and that of the Premier. The Premier is intent on smearing and attacking people; we're intent on putting forward positive ideas about what can be done. We look to other lands and countries for examples of how they do it there, which is more than I can say for this government. The figures for 1983 — the year for which I have figures available; they may be available on a quarterly basis into 1984, but I don't have them — point out that capital moving out of the United States plummeted from $118 billion to $38 billion. The net result of all of this capital injection of extra money into the U.S. was $53 billion extra in 1983 than was the case in 1982. That $53 billion net surplus of extra capital investment money was available to create jobs in the United States.

What happened in British Columbia? In the first place, the provincial government, which should be caring for the lot of all people in British Columbia, doesn't do a single iota of research into capital flow in and out of the province. The information is available, but in terms of collecting it, analyzing it and relating it, there's not a bit of interest. Out of every dollar of gross provincial product in British Columbia, and those figures are available from the ministry of Industry and

[ Page 4680 ]

Small Business Development, 25 cents goes out of the country — it's lost. That's a net figure that relates to gross provincial product, the purchase of imports, the outward distribution of dividends and debt-service charges and the like. Twenty-five cents out of every dollar that we produce in this province goes out of the province someplace else to create jobs someplace else. That's what this government does. That's what this government believes in: they believe in creating jobs in the United States; they believe in creating jobs in Japan; they believe in creating jobs anywhere else in the world but British Columbia. If there's any designation about a "bad British Columbian," it's got to apply to this government, because they don't have faith in the prospects of this province. They don't have faith in the ability and the desirability of the people in this province to work and create wealth and provide for themselves and their families. It's a government that has a miserable record in that regard.

Even the much-touted Vancouver Stock Exchange, discussed from time to time as being the vehicle for the raising of venture capital, the mechanism through which investors say: "I have a few dollars in my savings someplace or another and I'll invest it through the Vancouver Stock Exchange.... That money invested through the Vancouver Stock Exchange in rights issues or new stock issues or whatever the case might be, you would think, because it is the Vancouver Stock Exchange, would be here creating jobs for British Columbians. The business reporter for the Vancouver Province, in January of this year, made an examination of all the statements of material facts — all of the prospectuses. He made a survey as to how much money was raised in new capital through the Vancouver Stock Exchange last year. The amount raised was $133.9 million. That's not a great deal when you think in terms of the billions of dollars to which I just referred in the United States; nonetheless, $133.9 million. Eighty percent of that money raised on the Vancouver Stock Exchange went outside of the province, and 50 percent of that went south to the United States to promote development in the United States. How are you going to create and promote jobs in B.C. when you have the official government policy that says: "Money in this province available for investment should go outside of the province to the United States or anywhere else in the world but not in British Columbia"?

When the Premier classified the unemployed as "bad British Columbians," he should have been talking about himself being a bad British Columbian with that kind of record. He's got the unmitigated gall to come into this House — him and the Minister of Labour betwixt and between them — and make, by sneering and by innuendo, personal castigating attacks on members of the opposition. The temperament of the Premier's speech indicates how little faith he's got in his own legislation. There's not a word from him about the necessity of job creation. Not a word from him about industrial development. Not a word from him about the fact that with his endorsement, 80 percent of the money raised on the Vancouver Stock Exchange goes outside to create jobs elsewhere. Not a word from him about the fact that 25 cents of every dollar of GPP goes outside to create jobs elsewhere. That's what we need to have in terms of the promotion and enhancement of the potential for harmonious labour-management relationships. We need to attempt to do something in a positive way to create jobs and employment in this province, not to be negative and on the attack all the time, as the Premier is.

[3:45]

We talk about cooperation and consultation as being valuable factors not only in our relationships in this chamber but in our relationships in society. We talk about the need for cooperation and consultation in the development of law. Cooperation, someone said a while ago, takes two people. Somebody else interrupted and said it maybe takes more than two. It depends on how many personalities or groups are involved in it. Yes, cooperation takes more than one person, and that's exactly the point I want to make. When you engage in an activity of cooperation, you've got to have the expectation that your input in that cooperative discussion, debate or activity will result in some acceptance of your ideas. Cooperation is not a one-way street. When we talk of consultation in terms of preliminaries, again there has to be the expectation — the very process of consultation almost demands that there is an expectation — on the part of the people with whom you are consulting that they will see some of their ideas realized in the final documents produced as a result of consulting. I don't say all; I say some. That's what cooperation and consultation is all about. It is not the one-way street that this government seems to enjoy engaging in all the time.

We want to have, in our labour-management relations, the spirit of cooperation. Historically, the very force of the law in North America stemmed from a decision made sometime in the 1930s by the late President Roosevelt in dealing with labour-management relations in that country, and Canada adopted that concept at the beginning of the Second World War. At the end of the war, various provinces, because the jurisdiction was provincial insofar as non-federal activities were concerned, adopted again the principle contained in that early Franklin Roosevelt concept of labour-management relations. The force of the law speaks a great deal about collective bargaining in good faith. It doesn't talk about cooperation, but about collective bargaining in good faith. I think that declaration in the law is honoured more in the breach than in the observance. Collective bargaining in good faith seems to be a strange kind of factor when it comes to actual collective bargaining; nonetheless, it's there.

What exists is confrontation. Let's make no bones about this. Those who are married to the capitalist system, who think it's the greatest thing that ever existed in terms of economic activity, and who pay attention to the forces that are there within the capitalist system, should appreciate that labour-management relations under the laws of this land basically function on the same principle. The activity of the certified bargaining agent — whatever it might be — is to look at the employer with whom they are engaging in collective bargaining and.... They are following the tried and true capitalist principle which says: "Let's get everything that we possibly can out of this set of negotiations." That's all they're doing. That's the marketplace. If there is a breakdown, if the expectations of management or labour in this structure are not met to their satisfaction, generally only one course of action — two, I would think — is available to each side. On management's side the course of action is a lockout, or signing the contract on the terms of the collective bargaining agent. A lockout is what took place in the pulp and paper industry. With respect to the members of the collective bargaining agent, if there's dissatisfaction with the final position available to them, their only recourse is to sign that final position and accept it, or end up on strike. Either way, lockout or strike, it's confrontation.

[ Page 4681 ]

This government has made no attempt whatever even to recognize the fact that the last-resort approach, strike or lockout, is probably outmoded; yet it's the only one available. The government has made no attempt whatever to find or to see if there is an alternative to that, except by way of intrusive legislation, taking away rights, putting the heavy hand of government into the mechanism and saying: "Do it this way." Look at the pulp and paper bill that we passed a while ago. That was an indicator of the government's limited perception of what's necessary.

If we don't have a free and open consultative and cooperative approach with respect to the law of this province relating to labour-management relations, then we are never going to find the alternative, if there is an alternative. Blindly accepting confrontation as the only thing available will mean that it will be the only thing that will function; in the final analysis there will be difficulties if no suitable alternatives are sought.

I'm not the only person who talks about labour-management cooperation. A number of industrialists have commented in the last few months — I have some here — about certain things that may need to be done. One of them is Robert Bandeen, who was the Canadian National Railways president, I believe; he's now chairman and president of Crown Life Insurance Co. He said in February or March of this year that business and industry, labour and government must work together to achieve national goals; the Canadian public will insist upon it. All we have to do is substitute provincial goals, because that's the jurisdiction within which we are discussing matters at the moment. I agree with Robert Bandeen. This bill does not satisfy that gentleman's presentation. This bill does not lay any groundwork for business and industry and labour and government working together to achieve provincial goals. These are not my words; these are other people's words.

I know the minister had great thoughts and support for the idea of work-sharing a while ago. In this House we classified it as a misery-sharing and were laughed at.

Let's see what Carl E. Beigie, vice-president and chief economist for Dominion Securities Ames, has to say about work-sharing. This is from an article he wrote: "Finally a brief comment on work-sharing. Over the decades the average hours worked in some industries have declined because technological progress improved productivity enough to allow the same — in fact much higher — annual earnings for many fewer hours on the job.... Therefore work-sharing has often effectively translated into unemployment-sharing." Those are not my words; they are the words of a very respected economist.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I'll pick one or two others that are of a similar tone. I think I have one from Brian Mulroney, no less. There are quite a number of them; admittedly I am being selective.

This is John Stoik, president and chief executive officer of Gulf Canada. He said: "In developing a range of adjustment policies Canada" — these are at the national level; you can readily put British Columbia in there as a substitute word — "needs to devise a mechanism of consultation and cooperation between government, business and labour."

Those are statements by very learned people — even one, as I said, by Brian Mulroney. At one time he was the president and chief executive officer of Iron Ore Co. of Canada. I think, as a matter of fact, he wrote in that capacity, but he had a similar kind of declaration about the need for cooperative solutions to our problems. It fails to meet that test.

If there is any validity to the concept of cooperation, and there is; if there is any substance to or acceptance of the principle of cooperation.... You must remember that one of the fundamental principles of the New Democratic Party is the cooperative approach to doing things, not the confrontational approach; the cooperative approach of people themselves trying to do things for themselves and not being ordered to do it by big government. If there is any hope whatever of cooperation being the order of the day, then I submit that what the minister must do is put this bill to one side and establish a mechanism for cooperation.

One of the members — the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) I believe it was — called this bill a White Paper. If the minister wants to withdraw the bill from the House and say it's a White Paper, we'll listen to ideas about it and revise it. That would be fine. That would be paying respect to the principle of cooperation if the minister did that. If he wants to just leave it on the order paper and not proceed further with it, it doesn't really matter. If he wants to issue a different or an additional paper called a White Paper about the broader perception and concept of labour-management relations, we'll go along with that. If he wants to use the Committee on Labour and Justice, I believe it is, to listen to and to participate with the elements in society that are engaged in collective bargaining and are faced with collective bargaining mechanisms, that's fine with us.

If the technique and the avenue used to get that spirit of cooperation working and functioning — whatever that avenue is — leads in the direction of the cooperative spirit, we'll go along with that. We're not married to one procedure or mechanism over the other. We're here in this Legislature to represent. It's part of the oath of the office that each of us took when we became MLAs. It's part of the concept within our emotion about matters of this nature, and other matters of a public nature, that we are here to protect and to preserve the public position and the public integrity and not become slaves to one segment or another. Regretfully, if the bill is to be proceeded with and come to a conclusion on its second reading, we will have no choice but to vote against it — no choice whatever.

[4:00]

If the minister wants to move in the direction of cooperation and consultation in an attempt to find agreeable middle grounds, common grounds that will promote labour-management harmony in this province, then our course of action might be different. But the bill in its present form, its present philosophy, its present principle, which is the heavy hand of government intruding upon the rights of people in this province without regard whatever to the principle of cooperation and consultation, fails miserably.

It's on that basis that we would need to vote against it. It does nothing whatever to promote additional jobs in this province. It does nothing whatever to promote the value-added concept. It does nothing whatever to deal with the thousands and thousands of people in this province — most of them young — who have been out of work for months and years on end as a direct result of the budgetary policies of this government. It does nothing to offer any hope to them that they have a chance — many of them with young families — to find a job and work at it and earn a decent living for themselves and their family, put clothes on their kids or buy the books and send them through school. It does nothing

[ Page 4682 ]

whatever to deal with those fundamental questions, and it's because of that that there is no choice but to vote contrary to the bill.

Interjection.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member has about ten minutes left.

MR. HOWARD: I'll gladly yield my place to the Attorney-General, who is late coming in.

HON. MR. SMITH: I thank my friend opposite for the tumultuous applause and also the member for Skeena for winding up his remarks ten minutes short of his allotted time.

I enjoyed the speech of the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) as well. But the comments that I've heard on Bill 28 in the last day or two make me wonder whether any of the people commenting on it have read the bill. The bill, as I understand it, is a bill to attempt to redress the balance and to bring about a Labour Code which contains some equilibrium, a Labour Code which is not just a trade union protection act, as the old Labour Code was seen by some, but a Labour Code which protects the rights of management, trade unions, workers and the public. The great forgotten segment in the field of labour relations in this province for many years was the public. The Labour Relations Board, worthy body that it was, peopled by serious practitioners, dominated by labour lawyers, mostly contended between big management and big unions. Often it did not deal with the concerns of individual workers — union democracy and membership — and certainly not of the public.

To try and redress that balance, the minister has changed the definition of a strike so that we won't be able to have in this province any more political demonstrations, demonstrations for some noble higher purpose, demonstrations that are believed to be authorized by some higher being, which allow people to lay down their tools, walk off their jobs, leave their classrooms, come out in protest and say that they are somehow not violating the law of the province, not violating their collective agreements, not interfering with the rights, as so often they were doing, of other people who have lawful labour contracts and who wish to work.

Interjection.

HON. MR. SMITH: The member for Victoria asks if we are in Poland. Well, I wondered last fall, when I saw some of these so-called political strikes, if they weren't in Poland, because that's exactly what it seemed — that they were in Poland.

In any event, it is not right and it is not fitting in this province if you have people exercising and asserting rights based not on contracts that are negotiated, based not on the Labour Code, but based on some higher being which asserts the right to political protest. That is not part of our law; that is not legitimate dissent; that is not freedom of speech. That is licence for anarchy. The minister in his bill has defined a strike. It's not a wild departure from our Canadian experience. It's not a radical piece of legislation in its definition of a strike. It's basically the definition that's been in Ontario labour legislation all these years. It makes it clear that you can only strike lawfully.... Any kind of cessation of work or slowdown or study group or political love-in or sit-in is a strike. It's not something else. That's one thing that this minister's done and I commend him for it.

Then there's democracy in the workplace. What does that consist of? Well, it consists, first of all, of making it clear that the trade unions, who have many rights under the Labour Code and other labour laws of this province — and have had for years and indeed should have, because there were many times in the past when they represented workers who were oppressed in various sweatshop industries and in other industries where management was insensitive and not interested in their plight; so they were given a number of rights....

One of the rights they were given was the right to organize. They need the right to organize. But what has happened? During the last decade, the right of a union to organize and to certify has become a paramount, overriding right and obsessive preoccupation with the Labour Relations Board. The fastest thing that the Labour Relations Board did was certify a group of people who wished to join a trade union; the slowest thing that the Labour Relations Board did was decertify a trade union which had long since ceased to represent the wishes of its workers.

Interjection.

HON. MR. SMITH: That's based on a number of years of experience in dealing with the Labour Relations Board, which I had, and in observing them and reading their judgments. I do not think that they gave enough attention to the rights of people to decertify, but they gave a heck of a lot of attention to the desire of union organizers to obtain certification.

Now let's see what this radical change is that's been brought about here. It is now said that there shall be a representation vote; a representation vote will take place prior to certification. That is a horrendous departure, isn't it, Mr. Speaker — that there's going to be a vote? But the Minister of Labour has, I think, acknowledged that in at least one industry — that is, construction — the needs and problems of the workforce there are considerably different, with shifting personnel, single-project work and the vagaries of the workplace. He has built into the certification change provisions a fast-track certification provision for construction, so that it will be lawful and appropriate for a union organizer to organize a construction union on the basis of the membership slips and, having obtained 55 percent, to get instant certification. It will also be open to that same union to organize by way of a vote; or they could organize on the fast track, start their project, and then they could go the vote route and get a permanent certification.

I am going to have considerable mirth, Mr. Speaker, when I see the lawyers who represent clients on the other side of this House going to court and arguing, as they will no doubt do, that these certification provisions, which give the democratic right to workers to vote on representation votes, are contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of Canada, because they deny workers the right to be certified without a vote. That will indeed stretch all the talents and loquacity of a Mr. Laxton and a Mr. Baigent when they go before the board and the courts to make that argument. It is fair certification for the construction industry fast track; it's certification with a representation vote.

The other horrendous change is that certification shall not be forever. It won't be eternal. It won't last for dynasties. Certification will expire if certain things happen. For a fast-

[ Page 4683 ]

track construction certification, it will end with the project. For the certification of a company which has not been doing business or employing people for two years, that shell of a company will not have hung around its neck a dormant certification for decades; it will expire after two years. Surely that's fair. Look at all the companies in the present economy in North America that have not done business for the last 18 months or two years. They will have to be organized afresh, and I say that that is fair as well.

Another horrendous change which is complained of is that it now becomes prohibited for a union to take disciplinary action against one of its members "because that member has decided that they're not going to participate in some unlawful activity." What does that mean? I'll tell you what it means. It means that when we had illegal work stoppages last year on the part of teachers in this province, who left their classrooms for the higher purpose of solidarity — illegally, and did it repeatedly.... When that occurs, and when teachers do not agree with breaking the law and do not agree with the Kuehn leadership but decide that they are going to enter the classroom and teach, and when you have members of other unions like CUPE — secretaries and aides who work with the handicapped in schools — and they, perish the thought, are going to obey the law and cross an illegal picket line and go to work, they can't be disciplined and put through some Mickey Mouse kangaroo court afterwards for violating some tenet of the union. That will not be allowed. I am sure it will be argued that that violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Boy, I sure wouldn't want that brief if I were a labour lawyer.

The other provisions in here that have to do with secondary picketing are provisions which don't outlaw secondary picketing but permit it, with an order of the Labour Relations Board for an ally. But they stop the kind of secondary picketing that we've had in this province and the abuses associated with it. These were never more clearly illustrated than when the two pulp unions were locked out, and they picketed and attempted to picket the mills which were certified by members of the IWA, which prevented those IWA members from going to work under their lawful collective agreements, and produced and stimulated violence, ill feeling and a state of siege in towns like Mackenzie and others. That is being prevented. My goodness, I suppose that is a further violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This bill makes all the participants in the labour relations field — management, unions and employees — more accountable and responsible. Secondary picketing being limited, as this bill does, is something that will be supported and welcomed by the overwhelming public in this province. Also, it is supported by a lot of trade union members from one end of this province to the other, and don't ever mistake that it isn't.

Another thing that this excellent bill does is to limit and alter a doctrine espoused by the Labour Relations Board but not enshrined in statutory law: a doctrine of the common site, a doctrine that if a certified union in one of the building trades unions works on a job on a major site, like Duke Point or Expo, they somehow receive the right under the law, going with their certification, to picket other jobs on some other remote part of the site, and to close those other jobs down not just on the basis that the job may be a non-union labour job but on the basis of their non-affiliation clauses. They can refuse to work on their jobsite on the basis that on another neighbouring jobsite there's a non-affiliate union working.

[4:15]

Interjection.

HON. MR. SMITH: Well, we've had examples of that, where the CBRT or some other union that is not affiliated with the building trades may come to do a delivery on a site and bring supplies on, and then we have a laying down of tools on the unionized building trades jobsite, enforcing the non-affiliation clauses. That is the kind of reactionary, restrictive, medieval provision in our law in this province that has crept in. It's crept in through contracts. I fully agree that these were freely entered into, supposedly, between construction companies and the building trades unions. But do we want those clauses to go forward in the 1980s, the time of economic redevelopment, when we so desperately need projects in this province? Do we want those clauses to prevent, as they will, and to stifle the development of economic activity at Expo? Do we want it to be possible for a union working on a pavilion to close down the work on another pavilion maybe half a mile away, or do we wish unionized workers to lay down their tools because they are protesting about non-affiliate labour on another part of the site? No, we don't.

AN HON. MEMBER: They don't want to.

HON. MR. SMITH: They don't want to either. It is not necessary to use those clauses to exercise union security either, and don't let anyone tell you in this debate that union security has been destroyed by this bill, because it has not. The bill very carefully preserves the right of the non-affiliation clauses, if they're negotiated, but to be used only on the project that that union is working on. If on their own project some non-affiliate or non-union labour comes on, then they can exercise those clauses. That's the only place they'll be able to exercise them if the area is designated as an economic development zone. It's a reasonable approach. This is not heavy-handed legislation. This is legislation that protects the public interest.

I noticed that Mr. Weiler was quoted yesterday in the Globe and Mail, having made some statements in Vancouver on the legislation. Mr. Weiler was a highly distinguished first chairman of the Labour Relations Board under the Labour Code. He was chairman from 1973 to 1978. He was the darling of the left, and he was the guru of the labour relations industry. Articulate, intelligent and powerful as he was, he had a particular point of view. His point of view was that the greatest happiness and stability in labour relations came about by massive and total collectivization. But yesterday Mr. Weiler, if you notice his remarks as they were reported, very carefully said that while he didn't think that introducing legislation at this time was a very good idea and that it was confrontational, he did not believe that this legislation did very much to alter the balance adversely, one side against the other. He thought it was fair.

MR. REID: Even he thought it was fair.

HON. MR. SMITH: That's right. I had many differences with Mr. Weiler in my day as a labour practitioner, and we used to argue those differences out, not always in board hearings — he always had the last say there — but on the tennis court after we played. We didn't agree on a lot of things, but in recent years when I have read the writings of Paul Weiler and looked at his new book and listened to him,

[ Page 4684 ]

he's changed. He knows now that you cannot have political strikes. You cannot have abuses of some of those rights that took place. You have to have greater stability.

The importance of this legislation is that if we're going to have economic recovery in this province, attract industry from abroad, and get high technology and manufacturing and other industries to come in here, we're only going to get them if we have modern labour legislation, not if we have legislation that encrusts and enshrines rights that materialized in legislation 10 and 15 years ago; rights which, imbedded in legislation, really encourage unions to become old-fashioned and outmoded, to do things in their own ways, to not modernize, not become productive, not get rid of their featherbedding, not get rid of all the things they were used to. They've got to move — as we've all got to move — into the eighties, and find better and more efficient ways of doing things; have part-time people working sometimes, not always full-time people; have flexible shifts; have people working on the basis of productivity and profit-sharing. You can't do these things on the basis of a labour regime that was encrusted in the early seventies and enshrined in the old Labour Code, which really wasn't the old Labour Code but was the trade union protection act. It has to be changed. Changes have to occur.

None of these changes is put forward in a punitive, confrontational way. If they're taken that way, we can only assume that the great reactionaries in British Columbia in the 1980s are really the trade union leaders who are resisting this, and the NDP who are supporting them because they haven't got the wits to study the matter and understand it. We have to change. We have to do things differently — economically and in labour relations. We've got to move forward. There are not reactionaries on this side, I can assure you. My friend the Minister of Labour is a forward-looking, progressive character who understands economic development. Look at him! He knows, as he wears his other hat as chairman of the economic development committee of cabinet, as he travels abroad to help sell coal, as he works on these economic projects, that you can't be a labour minister and be the protector of the status quo and the past; that things have got to change. This is the start of change, the harbinger of the future. Support the bill. I call on you over there to throw away the old ways and do things differently. You've got a great chance.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I gladly take my place in this debate in second reading to oppose this bill. It's really hard to know where to start on a massive piece of legislation like this, there are so many facets to it. And it's bad legislation, legislation that was not required in the province at this time. I was going to respond to some of the remarks made by the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith), but I really didn't find too much to respond to. Perhaps just one item — he talked about abuses in the labour movement. For goodness' sake, in any organization that you can possibly imagine — big business, banking, certain churches from time to time; yes, believe it or not, even government agencies — from time to time abuses are uncovered. Nobody's that pure. Certainly from time to time there have been abuses in the labour movement, and this bill will not stop those kinds of things from happening. From time to time there are perhaps abuses here in this Legislature, or abuses of ministerial spending of public funds for worldwide travel. Some people would consider that kind of thing an abuse. Nobody's perfect, and there's always room for improvement.

But that's not what we're here to talk about today. The government has given, as the reason for bringing in this legislation, the economic situation in the province, that in fact these are difficult times and we need this legislation. The Premier said during his presentation, and I made a note of it, that we need this type of legislation so that these projects can proceed and taxes and prices can be reduced in this province. With a couple of minor exceptions, I would like somebody to tell me when prices or taxes in this province or this country have ever been reduced. The only example I can think of was when the present government reduced the sales tax prior to a provincial election. After the provincial election, they brought the sales tax back to where it was in the first place. That was a political move. If anybody in this province believes that bringing in legislation like this is going to reduce taxes, costs and prices, they're living in a dream world, I can tell you that right now.

I believe this government has embarked upon a deliberate strategy to cast working people and labour in a bad light in this province. They are succeeding. At the present time there are a number of ordinary people, voters, people in the street, whatever.... The deliberate strategy of this government — and they've been successful in their strategy — has been to blame all of the economic ills of this province on labour bosses and working people. That, of course, is nonsense, Mr. Speaker; you know it and I know it. But a lot of people out there at the present time don't blame the multinationals; they don't blame federal government policies; they don't blame the banks; they don't blame provincial government policies. They're blaming all of the economic ills of our present recession — depression, if you're not working — on the working people of this province. That is complete nonsense. In fact, this government is largely responsible for the economic ills that we're suffering today. When I'm talking about economics like this, I believe I'm speaking within the confines of the bill, Mr. Speaker, as did the Premier and other speakers, because the government in bringing in this piece of legislation tied it into the economic situation of the province. I'm blaming this government, as I have probably in previous speeches, at least to a large part, for the economic ills of the province today.

[4:30]

You must admit, Mr. Speaker, that our province has the highest rate of unemployment of any province in Canada, with the possible exception of Newfoundland. I'm sure the point has been made many times in this House over the last several months that while other provinces, some slowly and some more quickly, are recovering from the economic recession, this province is not. On the financial page of one of the major newspapers the other day, one of the leading economists predicted that we would not be out of this recession by 1986; in fact, we're possibly looking at 1990 because of the policy actions taken by this government in terms of economic recovery.

This government has laid off or is in the process of laying off nearly 25 percent of all government employees under the guise of restraint; maybe rightfully so for some of them. On this side of the House we feel that a number of agencies should not have been terminated, as you know, Mr. Speaker, but I'll get into that in a minute. When you lay off 10,000 or 15,000 public servants — I forget the exact figure — it's not only taking that money out of the economy that these people earn but also taking that tax base away from the provincial and federal governments. You're also hurting

[ Page 4685 ]

business in the smaller communities all over this province. How this bill is going to solve this problem, as suggested by a number of government speakers, I don't know. But when you take that money out of the economy, those people have a great deal less money to spend in local businesses in their communities. In turn we have this very high rate of bankruptcies — the highest bankruptcy rate, I believe, in all of Canada, if the information is correct in this bulletin I received just a day or two ago. As I said, I largely blame this government for the economic ills of this province and the fact that we're in this economic recession. We are not about to pull out of it very quickly, and if this government has a strategy or policy, it's keeping it pretty well hidden.

People who have had years and years of experience in labour-management relations — the Attorney-General discussed Mr. Weiler a few minutes ago — are opposed to this kind of legislation primarily because it affects the very delicate balance in labour-management relationships in this province. What we had under the Labour Code of this province, Mr. Speaker, was a system that worked fairly well. It wasn't perfect, but it was good enough that at least seven of the other ten provinces of Canada have brought in similar legislation, and 26 states in the United States of America, as well as states in Australia and New Zealand, have more or less used the Labour Code of British Columbia as brought in by the New Democratic Party in 1973 under the next Premier of this province, Bill King.

MR. KEMPF: Oh, is that right?

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Well, that's just my view. I'm going to have a vote at the convention, and you never know your luck.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, this is a serious bill and I don't want to deal with it too lightly. That bill was good and it was working well — not perfectly, but well. But you know, Mr. Speaker, since 1976 the record in labour relations of this government has been the most abysmal in Canada. This government has been chipping away at labour legislation, not only the Labour Code — and there have been previous amendments to the Labour Code before this House, rammed through this House....

AN HON. MEMBER: Do you remember 1975?

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Yes, I remember it. Mr. Speaker, I'd be very pleased to respond to the questions being posed by the members opposite, although they don't have the floor. That's fair enough — I occasionally interject myself.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

I'll talk about '75, but I was attempting to make a point at the present time, and that is that this government has continually chipped away at progressive labour legislation in this province and purposely brought about this confrontation in labour management. No, no, you have. Mr. Speaker, the member interjects, but I want to tell you that this government has deliberately brought about labour-management disruptions in this province so that they could bring in legislation like this so that they could get a large proportion of the people of British Columbia in a position where they would blame all of the economic ills of this province on the labour movement.

The net result of all of this is the type of legislation we have before us here today.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: He asked me about secondary picketing on the ferry service. The present Labour Code, because we still have the Labour Code in effect here in British Columbia — I'm going to answer that member's question, if I can — is still in effect and will be until these amendments are rammed through this House. In any event, the present Labour Code allows for secondary picketing situations and for the people within the Labour Relations Board to deal with those situations in a very impartial way.

I'm addressing the Chair, although I'm looking at you. I'll change my view. I'll take a look at the Attorney-General for a while.

In any event, Mr. Speaker, the law was there for those situations and was applied equally and fairly by an impartial Labour Relations Board. This legislation that we're talking about now will remove that right of the Labour Relations Board. It's exactly as if the provincial government would pass laws in this House restricting judges in the courts of British Columbia to perform their duties as judges efficiently and impartially, and that's the kind of thing we're facing here in many of these amendments that we have before us today. It's the same thing.

The member, I don't think, has read the previous Labour Code that was in effect, a Labour Code that will not really be meaningful after these amendments are pushed through this House.

Further, Mr. Speaker, this government has fallen into the habit, particularly since the last election.... Prior to the election the government ran on a platform which was pretty clear. People understood it and voted for this government. The Social Credit Party received 49 percent of the vote. Our party received 45 percent, which was a pretty good percentage as well, but they are the government on 49 percent of the vote. It was based on the platform that they put before the people prior to the May 5, 1983, election. Yet as soon as they were elected in June of last year, a whole host of legislation was brought in by this government that was not discussed during the election campaign, never mentioned on the campaign trail or prior. They made arbitrary decisions as if they knew exactly what everybody wanted. But they were wrong, and they found that out very quickly. They did back down a bit, but not much.

One of the bad habits, Mr. Speaker, that this government has fallen into is that when they start picking on people and groups, they start on the weakest in our society.

Interjections.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: They do. Yes, those least able to defend themselves. Let me name a few of those groups, Mr. Speaker: human rights and other services for groups lacking political and economic power; tenants' rights in relation to landlords; the representatives and advocates for abused children and families. They're all down the tube. The enforcement of consumer protection law serving unorganized consumers is gone. What are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to muster outside on the lawn and get 30,000 people? Of course not! That's impossible. Supplements to students from lower-income unemployed families are gone.

[ Page 4686 ]

Marginal small business operators were dependent on cancelled lending programs. Associations dependent on public funding, such as Status of Women, transition houses, senior day centres, are all gone. What do we expect? Fifty thousand seniors out there because they have taken away many of the services to senior citizens? Not likely, but those are the kinds of groups that this government is picking on.

The $50 a month to the handicapped, which the minister at one point in this House during question period, after weeks of questioning, said she would reintroduce. She hasn't yet, and that was many months ago. That $50 to the handicapped has not been replaced, even though the minister did say it would be. What's $50? Probably most members spend this much on dinner once a week, and that's okay. I'm not knocking that, but $50 to a handicapped person on Mincome, who has to pay light, utility, rent and is trying to have a bit of independence, is a great deal of money. And the list goes on. We've been through that so often in this House, but I just wanted to remind the government that these are the kinds of groups they're picking on, and now on a larger scale.

I must admit the government has been very crafty: they have built up public opinion. They applied a strategy, and it has worked. I would say about at least 55 or 56 percent of the public of British Columbia — isn't that the figure you've in your polls, Mr. Minister? — would at least initially approve of this legislation.

[4:45]

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: It's 62 percent? I believed the figure was 56 in your poll. In any event, Mr. Chairman, the government knew when it brought in this legislation that a large proportion of the public would agree with the government, maybe not with every clause of the bill but with the general thrust of the bill at this time, thinking that it will make it easier for somebody to get a job. It won't, because the jobs aren't there. We have about 17 percent unemployment in this province at the present time, but certainly in some areas it's very much higher. As a matter of fact, last week my MP and myself spent five days in the smaller communities on the northern coast of British Columbia, and we went to every Indian band. It's horrendous! Bella Coola has 64 percent unemployment in one band alone. We discussed at length with them, and with many other groups in the area, potential job creation, assistance for various projects and those kinds of things, but where do you go to get a job? At one point in my area, the Powell River region, we had an unemployment rate of 36 percent; it's down to about 31 percent overall at the present time. The real unemployment rate is horrendously high and should be unacceptable, and this government should be doing something now, developing an employment strategy not only for the unemployed but to assist everybody in the community. We have put forward a number of alternatives at least to address ourselves to these problems....

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Here's the minister for Ocean Falls entering the House; he's talking already, and he's hardly in the door.

We have put forward a great number; every member on this side of the House has put forward a number of positive alternative policies and suggestions. This government won't listen, because the only people they listen to are the Fraser Institute and Mr. Michael Friedman.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's Milton Friedman.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: That's the guy.

AN HON. MEMBER: They walk in the same shoes.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Yes, Michael Walker and Milton Friedman.

I want to spend a couple of minutes discussing a paper put forward by Mr. Spector and worked on by a couple of deputy ministers not too long ago. It's very difficult to know exactly what the Social Credit government's strategy is, because they really do not produce too many documents, and when they do they're full of clichés and these kinds of things, so it's very difficult to get a handle on them. Maybe they have no economic strategy. Maybe they're operating by the seat of their pants. If they have an economic strategy, it's a disaster.

But there was a recent document entitled "Provincial Economic Development Program" circulated to deputy ministers on April 4, 1984, by Mr. Spector, deputy to the Premier, and David Emerson of Finance. Here's the jargon they used; I'll just translate. I won't go through the whole thing. There are literally pages of it. But one or two sections do deal, in a sense, with the bill we have before us, because they deal with labour and working people as a force in the economy.

Number one says — and here's the jargon in the document circulated from the Premier's office: "Remove barriers to the efficient operation of markets, including the labour market." What that means, translated, is that wages and working conditions take the blame in Socred thinking for the poor performance of the B.C. economy. That's what I was trying to speak about a few minutes ago. "These wages and working conditions could be reduced except for the fact that working people have organizations to protect their interests. This is a 'barrier' to be removed, in stages, as political opportunities can be developed." I must admit that on that particular item this government has done a good job. They have developed those opportunities to reduce the labour movement and the working people, and if they could they would squelch them right into the ground, if they thought they could get away it.

MR. MICHAEL: Who said that?

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I said that.

To continue my quote: "The policy is a low-wage policy in B.C. The implementation is in the Labour Code amendments — at least in part." We are dealing with the amendments we are dealing with here today. That's exactly what we're dealing with here today.

I'll do a another couple of these, because they are kind of interesting.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Your heart isn't in the debate at all.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I've got my whole heart and soul in it, and I'm going to tell you guys that this is one of the bills that are going to get you defeated in the 1986 provincial election. We'll be sitting on that side of the House and we'll be bringing in economic policies and providing an economic

[ Page 4687 ]

strategy that will truly provide jobs and investment in this province, not drive out investments like you people over there are doing — and close down towns, like poor little Ocean Falls.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: You don't really believe that, and you know it.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Of course I believe it.

Here's another line of jargon in a document that was circulated to people high up in the government: "Programs should be directed away from simply subsidizing jobs and income and toward wealth-creating activities." Sounds fine, doesn't it?. Here's the translation. Here's what it really means when in the hands of that government.

The government has bought the trickle-down theory, hook, line and corporate welfare. It supposes that enough private wealth in the hands of the Socred coalition members will probably result in B.C. Investment and maybe even enough new jobs. After all, Edgar Kaiser eventually got tired of owning the NFL Denver Broncos and sold them. Perhaps he will even invest some of his fortune in the B.C. venture. Well, not very dam likely. Not in this economic climate. But it's interesting to me, Mr. Speaker, that people like Edgar Kaiser came into this province, made hundreds of millions of dollars, flogged off the company to BCRIC, which is now called Westar, and to this government at taxpayers' expense.

Interjections.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: What employment? That was creating no employment. You bought an operation that was already operating. In fact, there have been laid-off employees in that operation since the government has, in effect, taken control of the operation.

I could go on and on about that document. It was extremely interesting to me. The reason I mentioned this, particularly that first quote — "remove barriers to the efficient operation of the markets, including the labour market" — was that this government has, as I've said before, deliberately created a situation so that they could bring in legislation such as we have before us here today, and not receive the type of flak that they would under ordinary circumstances.

I guess we could go on all day and ask questions like: "Who designates the so-called economic sites?" Who will make that decision? I think I know. It's the cabinet — a political decision. So the cabinet can, on any site at any time or in any place where there's a mining operation, say that's an economic site — no strikes. They can declare a logging operation an economic site — no strikes. What we're doing, basically, under this legislation is once again centralizing — taking the jurisdiction away from the Labour Relations Board and creating labour-management unrest in this province, putting that jurisdiction into the hands of the cabinet, who have more jurisdiction now than they need and have demonstrated they can't handle. They can't handle what they have now, never mind more jurisdiction and control through cabinet. They simply can't handle it well, and they've proven it time and time again, particularly over the past year. What I'm saying to you is that when this bill is rammed through the House — which it will be, as the government has the majority — every person in British Columbia will be a bit poorer for it. Labour-management relations will not be any better. You will have disrupted a very delicate balance that was in existence between labour and management. There will be more government interference in labour-management matters, as witness the recent legislation in the pulp and paper lockout. That matter has not been resolved and may not be for some time. The government is just making a bad situation worse. This bill will not do one single thing for the economy of British Columbia.

MR. KEMPF: I'm absolutely astounded.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Again? You were astounded yesterday.

MR. KEMPF: Almost to the point of speechlessness, but not quite. I have never, in my nine years in this chamber, seen or heard the kind of weak debate that I'm hearing this afternoon on this bill. The debate that we're hearing from the so-called defenders of the labour movement of this province is absolutely pathetic. Not only is the debate pathetic, Mr. Speaker, but in the last hour and a half — and I see that there are five opposition members in their seats at this time........

MR. LOCKSTEAD: There have been two government members here for the last half hour.

MR. KEMPF: We don't have to defend this bill. We don't have to defend those so-called workers out there. You are in this chamber as the defenders of the labour movement.

This is the first time that this Labour Code has been opened up since 1973, and for the members opposite, who have professed over the years that I've been in this chamber to be the defenders of those people on whom this bill is a so-called attack, not to be in this chamber or not to have any more valid debate than I've heard this afternoon is absolutely ludicrous. It's pitiful. The lawns are empty, the galleries are empty, the speeches from the opposition are empty, and yet they call this an all-out attack on the labour movement of this province. I'm sure their friends in that labour movement are proud of them today.

I rise with great enthusiasm to speak on Bill 28.

MR. COCKE: You're just a big powder-puff.

[5:00]

MR. KEMPF: Great enthusiasm, Mr. Member for New Westminster.

This is a bill which has been long awaited by not only myself in my years in this chamber, but by more of the people of this province than any of us on either side of this floor will ever know. I commend the minister for bringing in Bill 28. This is a bill which, like no other that I've seen in my years in this chamber........

MR. COCKE: Have you read it?

MR. KEMPF: Yes, I've read it, Mr. Member.

MR. COCKE: What does it do?

MR. KEMPF: Just give me a few minutes and I'll tell you what it does. I'll also tell you what you do, Mr. Member — or what you don't do in this chamber.

[ Page 4688 ]

This is a bill that will return to the working people of British Columbia........

MR. COCKE: You've never worked a day in your life.

MR. KEMPF: I was one of the working people for many years, Mr. Member for New Westminster — for many more years than you have or ever will be.

This is a bill that will return to the working people of British Columbia some of the seriously eroded democratic rights which were taken from them little by little over the years, to a point where today they have very little say in the workplace regarding their own destiny and whether or not their paycheques, for the care and needs of themselves and their families, will be ongoing — next week or next month — or, as has been the case in many instances over the past two years, whether they would have a job at all. We have, by allowing others to make those decisions for them, denied them their democratic rights through a democratic vote — the type of vote, Mr. Member for New'Westminster, on which we have based our very democratic system of parliament, a system that some would say is the best, but certainly all would agree it's the fairest in the world........ We have denied them, through the erosion of their freedoms, their ability to express themselves in a democratic, secret-ballot way. Some right in the workplace, as I've heard members opposite speak of it. As well, for years we have denied the employers of British Columbia, large and small alike, freedom of speech, a fundamental right under our own constitution in this country. We have denied them the same right as that given to union organizers: the right to speak freely and openly to their employees. It has been a shame and a sham.

The amendments in this bill are long overdue in this province. It will right the wrong that the working people of this province have experienced for a number of years. We don't have to look very far afield to see what irreparable harm has been done to this province and to its people because of the denial of those very basic human rights, certainly democratic rights, of which I speak.

I'd like to cite one instance where one of our citizens........ There are thousands of similar incidents. Granted, few of them ever see the light of day, because of fear and intimidation. But they are nevertheless situations that we in this chamber........ The members opposite laugh, and I hope the people of British Columbia take note of that. The people of British Columbia won't laugh about this issue. The workers of this province won't laugh about this issue. I know; I've been among them. I was among them for many years, Mr. Second Member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk). I'll tell you a little about that later as well. This situation, which all of us in this chamber should take heed of, happened in Prince George.

Interjection.

MR. KEMPF: You say, "Oh dear, " Mr. Member. Yes, oh dear, indeed. The situation in Prince George happened to one of our citizens by the name of Stephen Craig. I think we all remember the headlines and the TV articles at that time. Stephen Craig obeyed the law, and crossed an illegal picket line. The union subsequently not only subjected Mr. Craig to enormous verbal abuse; they decided to discipline Stephen Craig, to show him that if the union wanted him to break the law, then indeed break the law he must. A union tribunal ruled, in secret proceedings — very democratic — that Stephen Craig must be fined for crossing an illegal picket line; not only must he be fined $1,000, he was prohibited from attending another union meeting for two years. Either he didn't attend another union meeting for two years or he would be subjected to yet further fines. Some democracy in the workplace!,

The Charter of Rights guarantees Stephen Craig the fundamental freedoms of conscience, thought, belief, opinion and expression.

Interjection.

MR. KEMPF: It's got to do with labour-management relations, in case you don't know, Mr. Member. I wasn't going to bring names into this debate today, but hearing that chatter from the opposition, I would like to quote what a hero of the members opposite had to say in regard to Stephen Craig. I repeat that he crossed an illegal picket line. What he was doing was perfectly legal. Mr. Kube said, and I quote: "Stephen Craig is a scab." Mr. Speaker, the members opposite should hang their heads in shame.

AN HON. MEMBER: Do I look like a trade unionist to you?

MR. KEMPF: No, you don't look like one, Mr. Member, but I bet you talk like one when you get on your feet. That's the hypocrisy from the party opposite. Mr. Speaker, I'll tell you why that happens. I'll not only tell you why that happens from the other side of the floor; I'll tell you why that party's convention coming up later this month is an absolute sham.

MR. LAUK: No, no, it'll be a shame, not a sham.

MR. KEMPF: It'll be a shame and a sham, Mr. Speaker, when 280 of the delegates to a political convention — they expect 1,100 — don't even have to be members and carry an NDP card. They don't have to be members of the NDP to choose a leader of that party over there, who looks to be the Premier of this province some day.

MR. LAUK: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I am looking for the section on the amendment to the NDP constitution. I don't see it anywhere. What is it in here that refers to an amendment to the NDP constitution?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Perhaps if we let him continue, hon. member, we'll find out.

MR. LAUK: I am pointing out to you, Mr. Speaker, that his remarks are not relevant and therefore he should be called to order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, the debate, since it started this afternoon, has been fairly freewheeling, I would say.

MR. LAUK: With the greatest conceivable respect, Mr. Speaker, I listened most carefully to every word, and even the Premier kept his remarks within striking distance of the principle of the bill. The hon. member for Omineca is straying into constitutional amendments of the New Democratic Party. I mean, what next?

[ Page 4689 ]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member. I am sure that if we allow the member for Omineca to continue, he will be completely relevant.

MR. KEMPF: Certainly, Mr. Speaker, I'm always relevant. But we must have hit a nerve — 280 of the delegates to the NDP convention starting May 18 don't even have to be members. They're named by the B.C. Federation of Labour. Their convention is a sham and all of the words that they speak in regard to this bill on the floor of this House are also a sham. And the demonstrations they most certainly will attempt to organize will also be a sham. But they should take heed. Again I say: the galleries are empty; the lawns are empty; the debate from that side of the floor is empty.

[5:15]

They profess to be the mouthpiece of labour. It's no wonder that the member for Mackenzie (Mr. Lockstead) already announces that Mr. Bill King will be the next leader of the New Democratic Party in the province of British Columbia. He's got 25 percent of the vote before he starts. It's no wonder the working people of this province are fed up with the kind of treatment they've gotten with the type of Labour Code that we've had in place in this province since 1973. They look to government to give them an opportunity, unhindered by fear, to have a voice and to be heard.

Bill 28 goes a long way to returning to them that basic freedom. We need only travel a short distance north, and back a few days in time, to see for ourselves just how fed up the citizens — workers, housewives, small businessmen and, yes, union members — of this province are by what has been going on in this province due to the lack of the kinds of changes to the Labour Code that we see the minister bringing in. Long overdue is this breath of fresh air in this chamber; long overdue is this breath of fresh air in the workplace of the province of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I read headlines from my own constituency: "Residents Vow to Thwart Pickets." "Pickets Warned to Stay out of Town." "Pickets Fail at Northern Mill." I'd like to read from this particular article. One citizen said: "Labour disputes are bad for business and everybody in town feels the same way. It's different up here. People don't like being told that because you can't work we have to stop, too. It's not a small-town mentality, if that's what you think. It's just that they are fed up with people telling them what to do." When that lockout was lifted the union said: "Not on your life. We're not going back to work. We have 62 percent of our membership that says, 'We're not returning to work.' " The question I asked at that time, and the question I ask again today is — and it was one of the reasons for one of the amendments brought forward in Bill 28 — where was that 62 percent when they attempted to set up a secondary picket line in Fort St. James and were run out of town by housewives, businessmen, loggers, truckers and IWA members? Where was that 62 percent? People all over this province were being hurt and being denied the right to work. Union members are crying out for change. Citizens in all walks of life are sick to death of the political manoeuvring of a few, using as pawns the rest of the working people of this province. Even if the treatment of the union members was just and accepted by them as being fair — which it is not, but even if it was — what of the other 54 percent of the working people of British Columbia, the non-union workers?

MR. LAUK: I think we have your point.

MR. KEMPF: I'm not ready to sit down yet, Mr. Member from Vancouver Centre.

And citizens as well, and due rights as well. Mr. Speaker, I don't very often agree with a columnist named Gorde Hunter, but I think he put it well when recently he wrote in his column:

"The wonder is: when and where did the trade union movement get the exclusive right to work in this province, or any province? Who gave the movement such exclusivity and why? Non-union workers — for whatever reason they are non-union — are taxpaying citizens who should have every single right under the law enjoyed by union workers. The constitution supposedly rules out discrimination in hiring, and discrimination should mean the right of union or nonunion........ "

The working people of this province are fed up with not having the right to gain employment in this province.

What of the teachers' walkout last fall, and of the harm done to students in this province by that illegal work stoppage, which this bill prohibits? Again I use not my words but words from an editorial in the Province on Wednesday, March 21, 1984:

"Teachers should ask themselves how far political action can go before it destroys or at least seriously damages their reputation with the students. Can they teach the kids the values of good citizenship, which includes staying within the law, if they resort to such drastic tactics to pursue their political objectives?"

What about our place in the marketplace? The minister spoke of that in his opening remarks, and I won't dwell on it. I'll only echo the words of a well-known columnist, who said recently:

"If you don't compete you don't eat. It's as simple as that in the marketplace.

"The answer is that the marketplace, whether it involves a lemonade stand or the pulp and construction industries, is a very real world, and those who ignore that reality and its danger signals don't survive."

Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on. Suffice it to say in summing up that I come from a long line of union members and union organizers. My father, God rest his soul, to his death was a strong, almost fanatic union sympathizer, and he had me brainwashed to a certain point in my life. But what's happening today in the area of labour in British Columbia is not what he fought for all his life, not what he argued about with me hour after hour. He believed very seriously — and I probably didn't see that until after he was gone — in the welfare of the working people with whom he spent his lifetime, as I do. He believed in the right of the individual to have his or her say without fear of intimidation or reprisal, as I do. Mr. Speaker, were he alive today and were he given an opportunity — without the interjection of outside political rhetoric — to understand what these few simple amendments are designed to do for the working people of British Columbia, he too would support this bill today, as I do.

[5:30]

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

MR. LAUK: I've never heard such a lot of rhetoric as in the last four or five hours in this chamber from the likes of Social Credit members who are defending this bill. Unlike some of the members of my party as a whole, I am not a

[ Page 4690 ]

person who defends trade unions right or wrong. I'm not one of those who claim that the trade union movement or the collective bargaining process is the answer to our economic woes. I recognize that from time to time there are certain injustices perpetrated both internally in terms of union activities and with respect to the activities of some trade union leaders in terms of collective bargaining in the economic system.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I want to comment on this legislation. It is not even-handed legislation; it's unfair. One must look at the legislation objectively to see whether it complements the system or detracts from it. In the last two or three weeks we have seen a charade, carefully managed and directed by the Premier of this province, to make it appear as if........

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: I can see that the member for Surrey agrees with me; she's applauding the fact that I have described the activities of the Premier as a carefully packaged, manipulated and directed charade on the people of British Columbia. This charade included the manipulation of the board of directors of B.C. Place and of the press, to the extent where the Wizard of Oz, otherwise known as the Premier of British Columbia, with smoke and mirrors created an image, a fantasy, an illusion that there was a problem on the Expo site that required the full force and weight of Her Majesty's government in British Columbia. And to put the cherry on the cheesecake, the Premier of the province, in his four-flag appearance on television, somberly looked out to Mr. and Mrs. British Columbia and said: "The most serious governmental intervention will be required if we do not have some agreement with the construction trades at the Expo site." Not only that: "Unless the chairman of Expo can inform me that some agreement has been arrived at, we're going to cancel Expo." Why it's marvellous, Mr. Speaker. I've got to give him at least three Academy Awards; it's one of the best performances we've seen.

AN HON. MEMBER: Tell the truth.

MR. LAUK: I always tell the truth.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: In response to my statement that I always tell the truth, the Premier said "When?" I know he doesn't know the truth when he sees it; he doesn't know the truth when he hears it. He has always got to ask that question. Well, I'll answer it now: I'm telling the truth now. After this four-flag appearance on television, he waited a few days. But you see, like Cecil B. DeMille, like Frank Capra, like other directors such as Stanley Kubrick and Norman Spector, sometimes the players don't read the script. So sotto voce asides to the press were made by the chairman of Expo saying: "Well, we had an agreement but you know the government; what am I going to do?" You know, with the cigar and the moustache.

The problem is, the Premier rehearsed this in public. There was never a problem at the Expo site. He was couching this bill and its introduction down the road in this feigned, contrived, so-called controversy involving the construction trades on the Expo site — a complete and utter fabrication by government designed to manipulate opinions through the press, to manipulate the opinions of decent British Columbians, and that is a terrible thing for a politician to do. It's a scandalous thing for a Premier of the province of British Columbia to do. He should not manipulate public opinion. He should not create a fantasy, a false or a fabricated issue or controversy and then try and come in and say: "I'm solving the problem." That's what this bill is. These Labour Code amendments are nothing more or less........

Interjections.

MR. LAUK: That is a classic example of why a speaker on his feet in this chamber should never pause for a breath. The only time I will pause is to let the second member for Little Mountain (Mr. Mowat) interject; it usually enhances our side of the debate.

Mr. Speaker, the point simply is this: is the Labour Code Amendment Act an even-handed proposition? Is it a series of amendments that will enhance labour relations in this province? Will it improve the possibility of building the exposition on time and on budget? The answer has to be no. I look at the provisions and say to myself: are they necessary to achieve those goals? And the answer again is no.

I look at those amendments and I say to myself: what is the likely response of the trade union movement, the responsible leadership as well as the irresponsible leadership........

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Name names!

MR. LAUK: I may have courage, Mr. Speaker, but I am not insane. Yes, the Premier has been threatened by me and challenged with good sense so many times, and he has failed to listen. On this occasion I say that what he has done is a deliberate inflammatory provocation to labour. Why? Why would he do this? If his stated purpose was to build the exposition, the only possibility of some economic activity in the lower mainland and probably the province with spinoff effects that would be beneficial, why is it that he would endanger the progress of this great exposition? Why would he deliberately throw a wrench into the works? What are the problems that the government is having with the exposition that would make him deliberately wave a red flag at this time? Why would he do that? I don't know, but it is a deliberate provocation.

The provisions on certification and decertification alone are not even-handed. They're clearly not fair. I would suggest that if these amendments were to improve the democratic action of trade unions in certification and decertification procedures, they would be even-handed. They are not.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, the second member for Vancouver Centre does have the floor and should be afforded the courtesies due him.

MR. LAUK: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Speaker's intervention on my behalf, because as everyone in this House knows, I am a reluctant speaker in these matters. I seldom speak in the chamber, and when I do so I speak softly,

[ Page 4691 ]

and I'm easily distracted by these other wits on the other side of the House.

These amendments on certification and decertification are not even-handed. They are undemocratic, and under the guise of democratizing the certification and decertification process, the Minister of Labour and the government have introduced these amendments. I'm saying that it achieves the opposite. By analogy, I'm sure it's been raised — or should be — that if we could sign up 45 percent........

MR. SPEAKER: The Minister of Industry and Small Business Development on a point of order.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: The second member for Vancouver Centre has defamed a number of union leaders in this province by calling them irresponsible. I think he should name names and tell us who he is talking about. He has accused a lot of union leaders of being irresponsible. That's my point of order, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: Or withdraw it — one or the other.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. All members will have an opportunity to take their place in debate, at which time they may make statements. Rising on a point of order which in fact is not a point of order is not the appropriate time for such speech-making.

MR. LAUK: There are couple of names that come to mind: Jimmy Hoffa, Cliff Michael and, from time to time, Ed Lawson.

The hon. minister for small business and curtailment of economic development fully knows when I say, "trade union leaders should, be they irresponsible or responsible.... . " that in every organization, including his own, leadership is sometimes responsible and sometimes irresponsible.

The objective point of view would have it that this amendment with respect to decertification and certification is undemocratic. Why do I say this? The percentage that is required to be signed to decertify is 45 percent. Now the argument will be that automatic certification could occur at 55 percent and so on. It's game playing. If in British Columbia we can get 45 percent of those registered to vote to call for another election, Would the government accept that? Is that part of the constitution? Is that supposed to be democracy? All the Minister of Labour is doing — and he should be receiving this advice........ He is being badly advised if he doesn't believe that these certification changes will cause chaos in labour-management relations. It will cause uncertainty in terms of certification and decertification, raiding and disruptions. There will no longer be a process of stability at the workplace and in many industries. I think it is shortsighted indeed for the Minister of Labour to introduce those changes to the certification process.

I think that fair and reasonable conditions of membership are appropriate. I think that the structure of the Labour Code to protect individual members should be more closely examined by all sides of the House for individual members to protect their interests as a trade unionist, a worker, and as a citizen in the province of British Columbia. But I do think that the Premier has delivered a message to the trade union movement, to the people of British Columbia and to the people and countries who wish to exhibit at Expo. "The fair is off, " is his message. He has deliberately thrown a wrench into the works. That is the kind of message that the Premier wishes to introduce.

Interjections.

MR. LAUK: Oh, I seem to have gotten a response.

The way to build Expo is to accept an agreement for no strikes and lockouts. Where's the agreement here for no strikes and lockouts? All it is is a deliberate provocation to shut down the sites as best you can. That's the kind of attitude this government has. People have been working very hard planning this exposition, they believe it can work and can create economic activity, and this government is sending a message to the country and the world that there's going to be labour unrest on the site. That is the most irresponsible action on the part of the government. That is the kind of reprehensible action I'm attacking today.

[5:45]

This government thinks it can do anything it likes. It thinks it's got a mandate for absolute dictatorship. They are leading the depression in this country and outside of the country. We've got the highest unemployment rate anywhere in the western world except for — what is it? — Alabama and Newfoundland. Each one of the budgets introduced in the last two or three years has been a recovery budget, and we've been steadily going downhill ever since. When is this government going to learn this message? It cannot use this feudal, backward, conservative philosophy to govern this province successfully. What they have done is created a depression where a recession was supposed to be the rule of the day. It was a recession, and now this government has created a depression where a recession ought to be. Instead of recovery, we've gone downhill.

The only light at the end of the tunnel, for those of us at least in Vancouver and the lower mainland, if not in the rest of the province, was that this exposition for 1986 would have delivered economic activity. It would have been a showpiece for the world.

MRS. JOHNSTON: And it's going to be.

MR. LAUK: Well, I sure hope so.

AN HON. MEMBER: In spite of you.

MR. LAUK: Don't say in spite of me, you hypocritical twit. You come in with legislation like this and say in spite of me.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. LAUK: People like me have crossed party lines to support the exposition, and I will not put up with that twit's remarks.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. Notwithstanding the heat of the moment, I'm sure that upon reflection the member will realize that his comments were most unparliamentary and will be very prompt in withdrawing, please.

[ Page 4692 ]

MR. LAUK: I withdraw those remarks, Mr. Speaker, and will not be distracted any further by a person who lacks the good will to not interrupt in that kind of a fashion.

Mr. Speaker, if I thought for one moment this would work, I would at least counsel accepting part of its major provisions, but I know through modest experience in labour management relations that it won't work. It will create such lack of confidence in the system on the part of trade union members, not the leadership, that it's very likely to cause the kind of disruptions that the government claims it's trying to avoid, particularly on the Expo site — and more is the pity. The promise of a successful exposition has been held out to not only the people of Vancouver but also to the people of the province as a whole. It's such a pity. This bill is not being supported by the federal government. It's already been viewed suspiciously by those involved in developing the exposition on the part of the federal government. It seems to me that this government has acted precipitously to fulfill the demands of the kooky right wing of the Social Credit Party, instead of governing with an even and objective hand.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: Is the decision concerning me? If it is, I'm speaking until 6 o'clock and then leaving quickly. I'll just be a couple more minutes, Mr. Speaker.

I want to say that although I don't quite agree with the way the government has approached the problem of individual membership in trade unions, I think there's a lot of room for protecting the integrity of the individual member of a trade union. I think that it should be dealt with by governments of the day and by the Labour Relations Board. Individual members who have their economic interests and their jobs at stake should be protected; and the trade unions, if they sometimes don't defend their individual members, should be forced to do so. There's no question in my mind about that. Being a part-time labour lawyer, I can tell you that section 7 is not an effective tool. It has to be strengthened to force a trade union to represent the interests of its individual members. There's no question on that point. But at the same time I'm looking at the problem of fair and reasonable certification, and I'm saying that that is the provocation in this bill. This is the sledgehammer that is not acceptable and should be withdrawn in these proposed amendments. For that reason, I will not be supporting the bill in principle.

MR. R. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, I look forward to joining in the debate, but due to the hour, I move adjournment of the debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, earlier today the second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe) rose under the provisions of standing order 35 to ask leave to move adjournment of the House to discuss a definite matter of urgent public importance. The matter related to overdue payments to certain agencies described as having contracts with the Ministry of Human Resources and the difficulties arising as a result of such late payments. While the matter complained of may well have created difficulties for the agencies involved, one of the questions with which the Chair must be concerned is whether or not the matter involves more than the ordinary administration of the law. Numerous examples are cited in Sir Erskine May's sixteenth edition at page 372, and I have concluded that the matter before me involves the ordinary administration of the law.

I also note that the member, in his written statement, alleges that the matter had been raised twice in the House in question period during the current week, which leads me to conclude that the matter must fail on yet a second ground, in that it was not raised at the earliest opportunity. I refer the hon. members to Sir Erskine May's sixteenth edition, page 370.

For the above reasons, the hon. member's motion does not qualify under the rules relating to standing order 35.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:53 p.m.