[ Page 487 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Lunch program in schools. Mr. Williams –– 487

Job training for the mentally handicapped. Ms. Marzari –– 487

Teachers' benefits. Mr. S.D. Smith –– 488

Disability allowances. Mr. Cashore –– 488

CPR ships terminal lease. Mr. Blencoe –– 488

Teachers' benefits. Ms. Campbell –– 488

Mr. Rose

Mr. Ree

CPR ships terminal lease. Mr. Blencoe –– 489

Non-union firms in B.C. Mr. Miller 489

Tabling Documents –– 489

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

Mr. Gabelmann –– 489

Mrs. Gran –– 493

Mr. Rose –– 494

On the amendment

Hon. Mr. Strachan ! 497

Mr. Hewitt –– 498

Mr. Clark –– 500

Mr. Mercier –– 503

Mr. Miller –– 504

Mr. Jansen –– 509

Mr. Lovick –– 509

The House met at 2:05 p.m.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: We're very pleased and honoured today to have in our midst a delegation from the Osaka, Japan, Chamber of Commerce, led by Mr. Keizo Saji. I would ask that we all extend our good friends a big welcome.

A lot of the time occupied in my office on getting things through is thanks to the parliamentary secretary, Mr. David Poole. Unfortunately, because of the many hours he spends each and every day of the week, he doesn't see his wife Barbara that often. So I'm very pleased that she's with us in the House today. I would ask us all to extend a big welcome to Barbara.

MR. G. HANSON: We have visitors from New Zealand in the precincts today: Alec and Sue Muir and their sons, George and Ben. They are from the small town of Te Puke in New Zealand. Would you join me in welcoming them.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Hon. members, on behalf of Mr. Speaker, would you please welcome Don Sheldon and his son Scott from West Vancouver.

MS. A. HAGEN: Visiting in the House today, with quite a number of them joining us for the first part of our sitting, are 47 people from my constituency of New Westminster. I see a number of them in your gallery, sir. The trip has been organized by the New Westminster NDP women's group, which has a long history of being interested in parliamentary democracy and issues of concern to the people of the province. They are here to see us in action in a very important debate today. Will you join me in bidding our guests from New Westminster a hearty welcome.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, in the precincts this afternoon is Mayor Gordon Campbell and members of his staff, who have been here today to meet with some of my cabinet colleagues. I would ask the House to please bid them welcome.

MS. CAMPBELL: In the precincts this afternoon also are two visitors from Vancouver who are my constituents: Mr. David Whitelaw and Carol Henriquez. Mrs. Henriquez is one of the founders of Arts Umbrella, one of the most active and lively cultural organizations in Vancouver which brings instruction in all types of art to the children of Vancouver. I'd ask the House to make them welcome.

MR. RABBITT: Mr. Speaker, with us today holidaying in Victoria are two former residents from Yale–Lillooet, neighbours and friends of mine. I would ask the House to give a warm welcome to Len and Elaine Wells.

Oral Questions

LUNCH PROGRAM IN SCHOOLS

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Premier. It is following up questions of yesterday and the statements by the minister responsible for social concerns. It centres on the question of seeing this problem as one of reporting and one of neglect by children. I wonder if the Premier has been able to reflect on his answer and the minister's answers of yesterday and reconsider the position, and whether he's considered the possibilities of a school-based nutrition program for hungry children that arrive in our schools.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, following the question in the House yesterday, I called Mr. Robb, the principal at the school that was mentioned here, and I received some first-hand information from him. I think the gentleman is certainly doing a good job and I appreciate his efforts as principal of that school. I advised him that we would look into it further.

MR. WILLIAMS: I note that the principal of Seymour school, which is in the Strathcona–Woodlands area of Vancouver, was making similar comments today on CBC. Clearly there is a problem of poverty, at least from that principal, that they must face. Could the Premier advise the House, then, that there will be a thorough review of this and that a possible supplementary program might well be considered in this regard?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, again I would appreciate the name of that principal, and I'll give the principal a call as well.

I think I should mention, however, that the principal I spoke to was very helpful, but I think he realized that it's not a totally new problem. I'm sure that we've seen over the years many children in various schools who weren't always packing the appropriate or proper or any lunch, and perhaps often have arrived without breakfast. It's not necessarily a problem of someone not having the necessary funds; it may be a problem at home, which is why we should, through the Ministry of Social Services and the offices locally, follow up on these problems.

I think as well the question infers that somehow we ought to investigate a means by which we may make some lunch available to children at schools like this. I'll take the question on notice, and we'll certainly investigate it further.

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the assurance of the Premier, and hopefully he could investigate the cost-effectiveness of these kinds of programs in terms of preventing problems in the future, as the principal from Seymour school indicated today.

JOB TRAINING FOR THE
MENTALLY HANDICAPPED

MS. MARZARI: Mr. Speaker, I too have a question about poverty. About 150 mentally handicapped people are presently off welfare and in the workforce under a work stations program sponsored by the Vancouver Richmond Association for Mentally Handicapped People. An attempt to increase this program — to get more mentally handicapped people off welfare — has been turned down, the rationale being that the Ministry of Advanced Education and Job Training is to provide practical training to persons with disabilities who have a realistic potential to benefit from their participation in the workforce. I would ask the Minister of Advanced Education and Job Training if there is any intention to change this regulation so that, in effect, we can get more people born

[ Page 488 ]

with mental handicaps off welfare and into the kind of job station program we're talking about here, without having to fall back to welfare.

HON. S. HAGEN: Mr. Speaker, thank you for the question — it's a good one. I can assure you that our ministry is working together with the Ministry of Social Services and Housing to make sure that these people have every opportunity to enter the workforce and not only enter the workforce but enter it in a trained manner so that they can contribute in a useful way.

MS. MARZARI: My question here is that the special achievement program under welfare doesn't really do the job — it's sheltered. We're talking about real people in real jobs with real potential. Would you decide to revise the JobTrac program to assist people with mental handicaps if they prove themselves in the community?

HON. S. HAGEN: I would think that we can work within the JobTrac program to see that that happens.

TEACHERS' BENEFITS

MR. S.D. SMITH: I have a question to the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Brummet). Several teachers who have been in contact with me and with others in this House have expressed concern and have related information they have received that certain benefits they now enjoy, including sick leave and pensions, may be in jeopardy of being lost to them. Can the minister assure teachers, through this House, that those benefits will be protected during that period of transition which may occur between matters being contemplated by this House and agreements being entered into between school boards and local teachers' associations?

[2:15]

MR. SPEAKER: I will say to the member, as I did yesterday, that that issue is before the House, and the question is out of order.

DISABILITY ALLOWANCES

MR. CASHORE: This is a question to the Premier. It too is a question about poverty.

When the federal government increased the disability allowance contained in the Canada Pension Plan by approximately $150 at the beginning of this year, the federal Minister of National Health and Welfare wrote to all provinces asking them to pass on this increase to disabled people. Instead, the B.C. government has reduced its own contribution so that the increase intended for disabled people disappears. Why is this government robbing disabled people of increased benefits that should be improving their standard of living?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, I'm glad there is a whole lot more enthusiasm and optimism out there generally in British Columbia than what we see from the ranks across the way. All we hear about is poverty.

I'm sure that our visitors from elsewhere, and those who are viewing British Columbia today as visitors, don't see it as a place where all we can talk about is poverty. We have much to be proud of and there is a great deal to be thankful for.

That's not to say that we can always as a people address all of the problems immediately or that we have all of the answers for all situations. However, we attempt to address these as favourably and as fairly as we might. I would defer this particular question to the Minister of Social Services (Hon. Mr. Richmond).

MR. CASHORE: On a supplementary, the Premier has said that he supports the efforts of Rick Hansen. Does the Premier intend to meet with the representatives of the disabled community to explain why this increase has not been passed on and to explain to them that you indeed do plan to pass it on?

HON MR. VANDER ZALM: This Premier gets many requests for meetings — as a matter of fact, hundreds in the course of a month. I attempt to meet with as many groups as possible, and I'm pleased to say that I've had several meetings with those representing the disabled community. Yes, we've also announced and will be proceeding with the establishment of a council to advise government on the problems faced by the disabled. I would be pleased to take that up as one of the items for the meetings.

CPR SHIPS TERMINAL LEASE

MR. BLENCOE: I have a question for the Minister of Municipal Affairs in her capacity as minister responsible for the Provincial Capital Commission.

On March 10 this year, in a special meeting hastily called, the Provincial Capital Commission made a secret agreement to offer Dr. Arne Lane, who is well known as a Social Credit fund-raiser in this area, an extension to 1998 of his lease on the historic CPR ships terminal here on the harbour. I should also add that the city of Victoria representatives were not present at that meeting. Was the minister aware of the agreement, and will she order an investigation into all the circumstances surrounding the agreement?

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: I'd like to thank the member for the question. I was aware of the discussion that was to take place at the meeting. I have not yet seen all the details, and to the best of my knowledge, there is nothing to investigate.

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Speaker, does the minister intend to recommend that the Provincial Capital Commission once and for all begin to conduct its business in public, so that such backroom deals are subject to public scrutiny and evaluation on their merits?

TEACHERS' BENEFITS

MS. CAMPBELL: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I would respectfully submit that the substance of the question asked by the second member for Kamloops (Mr. S.D. Smith) does not relate to a matter that is before the House, and I would therefore respectfully reiterate the second member for Kamloops question and ask that it be answered by the minister to whom it was addressed.

MR. ROSE: I'd like to speak briefly on the same point of order. It is the practice in this House not to question the Speaker's ruling during question period, because that eats up

[ Page 489 ]

the clock. If the hon. member wishes to raise that point of order, later, I think she would be welcome to do it.

MR. SPEAKER: That is the ruling, and we will discuss it right after question period.

MR. REE: On a point of order, if the point of order is brought up after question period, when the person asking the question has been denied the right, will he have an opportunity to ask that question again, after question period? Or is his full right disallowed on that day?

MR. SPEAKER: The tradition in this House, Mr. Member, has been that points of order are raised after question period, and when that happens, the question would obviously be asked the next day.

CPR SHIPS TERMINAL LEASE

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary on the previous topic to the Premier. This building on Victoria harbour is a special building. It is Rattenbury's last addition to the harbour. On November 18 of last year, in keeping with the fresh start that the Premier offered, I wrote to him, asking that he take a look at how the Provincial Capital Commission does business — secret meetings . . . . We have here a special deal, made to a well-known Socred in this area, for major expansion of the extension of his lease. Does the Premier approve of such secret meetings, meetings in camera, particularly when they deal with sensitive buildings on the Victoria harbour and local Socred supporters?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I think it is unfair to accuse someone of having received a special privilege when there is certainly no evidence of that. To raise it in the House is perhaps one thing, but it is obviously very unfair. It may be that some people are more aggressive and certainly take far more initiative to seek out those opportunities, and we should credit them with being progressive and helping Victoria, such as this particular person has done in contributing so much to the city and its tourism potential. Having said that, I appreciate the member's reminding me of a letter he did send which had some good suggestions in it, and I'll look again at those. I thought they were very worthy of consideration.

MR. BLENCOE: I don't know if the Premier is aware. . . . He refers to this gentleman in question as a tourist operator, but I would also tell the Premier that the lease does not expire for three years. Will the Premier himself take a look into the circumstances of why this lease on the most prestigious building on the Victoria harbour, three years before it was up, was extended to 1998? Will the Premier undertake such an investigation if the Minister of Municipal Affairs won't do it?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: The Capital Commission certainly acts on behalf of the capital city and strives to better facilities in all of the operations as they affect the capital city. Therefore, if there's any question as to the advisability of that particular transaction, the member should really address it to the Capital Commission, which certainly is a respected body in this city.

NON-UNION FIRMS IN B.C.

MR. MILLER: My question is to the Minister of Tourism. In today's Sun the minister is quoted as saying he's all in favour of helping his friends who are fighting to keep unions out of a road-building company — that they're "just two British Columbians who deserve the government's help in their fight against unions." Is the quote correct?

HON. MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, the question is out of order and I won't answer it.

MR. MILLER: A supplementary. Does the minister not feel that these kinds of statements are one of the reasons we have some labour strife in this province?

Hon. Mr. Couvelier tabled the annual report of the auditor-general dated March 1987.

MR. SPEAKER: I may ask the first member from Vancouver—Point Grey if she'd like an answer to her point of order. The question that she was talking about must offend the rule of anticipation. The time to bring the matter before the House is when the bill is called for debate. We discussed this matter yesterday, and I think both sides would agree that if we start stretching that order, we'll be offending the rules of the House.

Orders of the Day

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

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS REFORM ACT, 1987
(continued debate)

MR. GABELMANN: This morning I bounced around a number of issues that were of concern to me, and I discussed some of the concerns in what might be described as a rather philosophical way, in an attempt to have a debate on second reading that was meaningful in terms of the impact of this legislation. This afternoon, in the remaining 35 minutes or thereabouts that I have, given the time limits, I want to express — if I can raise my voice above the general hubbub, Mr. Speaker — some comments on some of the major sections of the bill seriatim. I do not, by doing this, mean to transgress into committee stage debate, and I won't do that. Nor do I suggest, by talking only about some of these sections, that others are not important. Every section in this bill, with the exception of the ones that change the name from "board" to "council," are amazingly significant.

Before I start that, I just want to say again that the more time one gets to read and study and analyze, and to talk to people about this bill, the more one realizes its implications — deliberate implications or otherwise. The effect of this bill on the industrial relations climate in this province is yet to be measured fully, in my view, because I think the full understanding and analysis of this legislation has not been completed. I saw, for example, one analysis of the bill that ran to 80 pages, and in a discussion with the author of those 80 pages, it soon became evident that there were additional points that had eluded the author in the first run-through of the bill. This is incredibly complicated legislation. It deserves — and we will make this a major point during the course of this

[ Page 490 ]

debate — much more time, thought and consultation than the government seems prepared to provide.

Mr. Speaker, section 5 of the bill is amended to allow for what I think is an unheard-of practice in labour relations. It allows for an employer to campaign actively and openly against workers who may choose to certify into a trade union. Coercion or intimidation cannot be used, but campaigning is now wide-open. Traditionally, and I think properly, in labour relations, the question of whether or not to join a union is a question for the people involved, not for people outside of that area, and in particular not for people who can make an impression on workers. Employers have a variety of ways of making impressions upon employees, even under the existing Labour Code provisions. Many Labour Relations Board hearings have been held on this subject.

[2:30]

The legislation now will allow for employers to openly campaign against certification. It is none of the employer's business whether workers choose to bargain collectively or to bargain individually. If they choose not to belong to a union, that's a choice to make personal or individual contracts, or to just accept whatever the boss provides. It's a choice they can make freely and appropriately. But it's up to the workers themselves to make the decision about how they want to conduct their bargaining. It's not up to the employer to say, "You should bargain collectively," or "You should bargain separately." That's a decision for employees to make. It's a long-standing tradition in labour relations, an appropriate tradition, one that should be maintained in British Columbia, and one that will be lost by this amendment. .

Section 6 of the bill effectively makes illegal the prosecution of hot declarations. What's going to happen with the hot declaration being made illegal? Not the declaration itself, but the prosecution of the declaration. When you do that, small companies in particular, but many medium-sized ones as well, who strike-break and who continue to operate while a strike is on . . . . Because they have their strikebreakers crossing the picket line, the production is still going on, so there is no economic pressure against the employer; the business still produces goods or services and the profit is being made. The only effective clout that the strikers have, in terms of exerting economic pressure, which is what bargaining is all about, is to declare — and it's rarely done; it's done with discretion — a secondary boycott so that the product or the service that is being produced behind the picket line can be affected, so that purchasers are affected directly in buying that particular service or product. Otherwise there's no clout left for the striking union. Otherwise, if you're going to strike an employer who is prepared to hire strikebreakers, you might as well forget it; you're gone.

So this is notice to any employer who wants to break the union and get rid of it. It's simple. What you do is force them into a position where they have to go out on strike. They now go out on strike. They've got no economic clout because they can't prosecute the strike with a secondary boycott or through a hot declaration. The strikebreakers continue to work and the product is purchased. The business is profitable, and in a year or two down the road the strike peters out. We've had many cases over the years. I remember when I first got involved in this business. Dominion Motors in Vancouver was one of the first of these kinds of situations. There have been many, many in the service and small retail industries over the years.

This is effective strikebreaking and effective union-busting, because there's no clout left without the possibility of a hot declaration. It will also lead to longer strikes in bigger operations where the strikebreakers aren't going to end up being permanent employees as a result of the strike. The strike will last longer, for the same kind of reasons I was giving this morning in terms of the lack of economic clout on one side.

Section 7 of the bill is 5.1 of the Code.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Is that committee debate?

MR. GABELMANN: No, it's not committee debate; these are principles. Let me tell you, when we get to committee, Mr. Speaker, to the House Leader, we will then start to get into technical detail. This is principle, all this stuff.

Section 7 of the bill, in effect, is the first step towards right to work. I will acknowledge that, in my view, this is not a right-to-work bill, but there are several clauses within the bill that start us down the road towards right-to-work legislation, and this particular section is one of those particular sections. Paul Weiler has said — and he's written a book about it — that B.C. unions are among the most if not the most democratic in North America. I think that's generally agreed, that the unions in this province are democratic. But the amendment in this section prevents democratic decisions, made by a majority of members in a democratic union, from being carried out. And the government talks constantly about democratic rights and freedoms. A democratic decision made by the membership of a union to carry out a certain activity can be wiped out by this particular section. People can be disciplined by their union, can have their union card revoked in a union shop, and can still continue to work. That is a step through the door to right-to-work.

Section 9 of the bill I've just been talking about. Section 10, which is 9.1 of the Code, is entitled "Freedom of Association." It is exactly the opposite. What it does, in specific terms, is to restrict the rights of the affiliation clause in places like Duke Point or Whistler, or a number of those situations that we've talked about over the years. In fact, because the definition of "construction" is so broad, workers will not have the right that is apparently guaranteed them in another section of this bill to affiliation-clause protection. I'll deal with that in more detail again during committee; it's an important point.

Section 10 of the bill also prevents union workers from, by their own free choice, saying: "We want the uniform we wear to work every day to be made in a union plant." That's a right that workers should have. This particular section denies a union the right to negotiate that particular provision in a collective agreement. Pretty picky stuff; pretty inappropriate to prevent employers and employees from freely reaching an agreement that . . . Sure, the goods used, or the services provided, have to be union. Why not?

Mr. Speaker, I want to take advantage of this particular point to make another general point about the legislation, and that is this. There are a number of sections — half a dozen at least, and probably more — that are similar to this one, in which a right or a provision that has been negotiated by a union . . . . And when provisions are negotiated, something else is given up. Sometimes it costs you money: you give up having an extra 10 cents an hour, Or you give up another clause, you give up something else you want. Whenever you get a clause in an agreement, you give something else up.

[ Page 491 ]

This bill, in a number of sections, including section 10, takes away from collective agreements clauses that have been bargained; it just strips those clauses from those collective agreements. It doesn't give people back what they gave up in order to get those clauses. As you go through the bill, in every instance of that kind of change, the clauses in fact take away from unions something that they have struggled hard to get and have in some cases gone on strike to get. It's been taken away by law. After they've struggled to get it — freely reached between them and their employer — it's taken away; but what they gave up to get it isn't given back to them. That's not fair in a free and democratic society either. If the same principles were being applied in terms of business contracts, relationships between individual businesses in terms of purchasing goods and services from each other, or whatever . . . . If that kind of law was brought in, there would be howls of outrage from the business community, and properly so. What we have here is the government interfering with the sanctity of a freely reached agreement. That is an inappropriate principle, especially when applied retroactively, as this is.

Section 11 is the religious clause. This morning I talked in philosophical terms about the religious-exemption-from-paying-dues clause. What the clause does is say to workers who pay their dues to a charity: "You don't have the right to vote on votes that are conducted under the statute." But those workers have the right to get the wages that other workers' dues have paid for. The other workers' dues have paid for the bargaining that goes on to get those wages; and these people who pay nothing for it, these freeloaders, still get the benefits of the collective agreement. Not only do they get all the benefits of the collective agreement in terms of salary, wages and protection, they also get the collective agreement applied to them in terms of unfair dismissal and a whole variety of other things that could happen to them. They get all the provisions of the collective agreement, and it's free. Why? It's inappropriate. If they don't want to pay, fine. They shouldn't get anything that the contract provides.

You start going down that road, and the next step is right to-work. You've taken that first step by saying that there are certain rights that they don't have, and these are the rights to vote on a strike vote or ratification vote. You are setting up a situation in this and other clauses where, bit by bit, the framework is established for further amendments that may come down in the years to come, that will just complete this circle of bringing in right-to-work in this province. I thought I needed to make that point on this particular section, and we'll do that again in detail in committee.

Section 18 — just moving along and missing all kinds of other important issues in the bill — is the famous section 27 of the Code: the intent, the purpose, what the Code is for. Stripped of its verbiage, the Code called for harmonious labour relations. The objective of the legislation was to achieve good labour relations between employers and employees, keeping in mind the public interest — that was there in the old words. This amendment takes that major objective out and replaces it with the philosophy that what counts in the marketplace is all that matters. I guess that the burden of my comments this morning and this afternoon relate to this point. When you take away from the adjudicative body, the Labour Relations Board or the Industrial Relations Council, the mandate to pursue good labour relations, and say that they are now to pursue benefits to the market economy instead, you open the door to unrest, to disputes, to difficulties, because their mandate is no longer harmonious relations. It's a major principle of this bill that is wrong in practice, wrong in theory and wrong in philosophy, and we'll debate that too.

There is a series of sections between 21 and 24 — but 22 and 23 especially — that adopt a principle all British Columbians thought we were rid of, and that's the involvement of courts in labour relations. The destruction of the privative clause . . . . This amendment makes it the weakest privative clause in labour relations in Canada. The original Code was written with a privative clause that was very carefully worded so that we could avoid having labour relations appear in the courts, except in unusual and very specific circumstances. What happened when labour relations ended up in the courts was the chaos we had in the sixties right through to 1972, leading in some cases in those days to actual violence, including violence perpetrated on a former member of this House, unfortunately. That was the kind of reaction that occurred as a result of a variety of provisions, but especially the fact that the courts had control of labour relations.

The whole idea in establishing a Labour Relations Board with a strong privative clause was to set up the LRB as, in effect, the court for labour matters. The impact of all these amendments, in particular section 23, which is "finality of decisions and orders" and if you're not a lawyer, you read it exactly backwards — is to open up every decision to the courts. Every single decision of the board is now available to appeal in the courts.

[2:45]

Disputes are going to go on for ever and ever, and they're going to be bitter. The professionals, the people who understand the business, aren't going to be making the decisions. We're going to be turning it over to Supreme Court judges and whoever else on the bench: good people, educated, well versed in law, not involved in the day-to-day nitty-gritty of industrial relations in the way that people who sit on an adjudicative council or a labour relations board are. As a result, we'll make mistakes; we'll make the wrong kind of decisions, and we'll tie up matters for such a long time that the dispute will fester, leading again to weakened or worse relations out in the community.

The employer now has the right, under these changes, to go to court without the approval of the board. The board or the council should have the right to say no to that, because it should have been pursuing the goal of harmonious relations. The moment you give unfettered access to the courts by anybody in this process, including the unions — it's equal in that sense — you end up delaying, you end up festering, and you end up with bad labour relations. The government will rue the day that they once again opened the courts of this land to labour relations issues.

I want to talk a moment about double-breasting. I covered it this morning. I want to reiterate that section 25 of this bill in particular, and other sections when read together with it, do allow for double-breasting. I talked this morning about how that can happen — how an employer can in fact doublebreast. For the benefit of those members of the House who don't know, double-breasting is simply a mechanism that a unionized company uses to avoid using the unionized employees to do the work. They set up another company and do the work non-union. That is now going to be available under this legislation, despite what the minister said earlier today and at first reading. In addition, the way the legislation is worded, nothing discourages the employer from trying to double-breast. In the construction industry, the job will be finished by the time the process is complete through the

[ Page 492 ]

council and the courts, and there's no retroactive penalty for having double-breasted during the course of the job, which may be two or three weeks, or a month or so. They do it, and while it's being adjudicated the job gets finished. It has then successfully gotten away with double-breasting, even if the council were to rule later that it was illegal. So we have doublebreasting in British Columbia if this bill passes.

Another way in which unions can avoid or get out of their commitment in law to deal with the trade union representing their employees is contained in section 28 — the two-year clause. The Wall and Redekop case is the standard decision on this one. All that a company now has to do is to contract out all of its work except non-union supervisory work; in other words, the non-union superintendent or whatever is the only employee of that company. Everything else is contracted out for a period of two years. The certification dies. That kind of manipulation of the law was prevented by the Labour Relations Board, and that's the Wall and Redekop case, as I understand it. Now, two years later, having contracted out all of its work — not had its own workforce — that contractor can have the union certification cancelled by the council.

Another bit of wording in that particular section talks about certification being cancelled upon abandonment of the certification. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees will be spent debating this particular section, I guarantee you. There will be efforts by employers to say that the union has abandoned the certification and therefore the council should decertify. What you're doing is contrary to what I think are all of our goals in labour relations, which is to delegalize the whole process. As much as possible let's get the lawyers one step removed and return industrial relations to the people who know something about it, who deal day to day with it, who aren't making a living practising law. We've got too much of that at the present time. We all have to depend on lawyers to begin to get through this stuff. This abandonment section is just . . . . If I were a young lawyer in law school I would learn about the abandonment stuff and set up practice and become a millionaire on this section.

Section 29 of the bill, successor rights — section 53 of the Code — is famous because of all the discussion over the last few months about sections 37 and 53. Section 29 opens the door wide for businesses to be transferred or sold without selling the certification, especially in construction; but it's true in a whole range of areas. In the bankruptcy section at the top of page 9, the minister will say that the words "a deliberate attempt to evade collective bargaining" has to be proven prior to the use of bankruptcy to get out of the certification. The language here is weaker than in the United States, and it is the language Continental Airlines used to get out of its certification. It declared bankruptcy, got rid of its union and resumed operations.

Under the. American legislation, as I understand it from a non-legal point of view, not being a lawyer, the rules are tougher than they are here. You cannot prove, or you can have a great deal of difficulty proving, a deliberate attempt to evade collective bargaining. The reason you go into bankruptcy is to make a deliberate attempt to evade collective bargaining. How do you prove intent? How do you get inside the employer's head? How do you prove what it was that he or she was thinking when they made that decision to go into bankruptcy? It happened in Continental Airlines in the United States, and under this wide-open barn door, it will happen here in British Columbia too. So there is yet another example of how successor rights are not protected by this particular piece of legislation.

I am puzzled by sections 32 and 33, on a couple of counts. These are the sections that relate to councils of trade unions and accredited employer organizations. I want to make two points. The effect of the legislation is to say that there are different rules if you are a union than if you are a company. If you are a company, you can get out of your accreditation simply by waiting two years and making an application nine months prior to the expiry of the agreement. If you make the application following those rules, the council is required to automatically accept or agree to the withdrawal from accreditation. On the other hand, a trade union following the rules outlined here has to apply to the council, and the council may or may not approve the union's application to pull out of the council of trade unions. It's not even-handed at all. Lawyers can do it on their own volition without any impediment; unions can only do it if the council agrees.

But more importantly in this section, the destabilization that will come in labour relations will come as a result of this. We have moved since the early seventies to bargaining with councils of unions and accredited employer groups, because it provides some stability, because it prevents the whipsawing that can go on and because it just makes more sense to have one set of negotiations in an industry with a lot of employers and a lot of unions than it does to have a whole myriad of negotiations with different expiry dates, where whipsawing can take place. That's why councils of unions and accredited employers' organizations were established.

I'm not saying we should make it impossible for unions or employers to get out of a council that they've joined. I think the freedom to do that should be there. But what you've done is to make it wide open, make it easy and, in the case of employers, make it possible to do so without even any reference to the council. So the management of industrial relations does not have as its task any more a decision as to whether or not, in the public interest — to use that term again — there should be a council of unions or an accredited employers' organization. It may so decide, given the facts and after hearing that the council should be broken up, but what you have done with the legislation is to say to employers: "You can do it if you want, and the council has no say whatsoever."

Mr. Speaker, I am rapidly running out of time. These new two-hour limits are difficult. I wouldn't have gone as long as Don Phillips or Rosemary Brown, but I could have used a bit more time.

Tech change. I have made some favorable comments to the media about the tech-change section, because it provides 90 days' notice. But you know, when you look at it more closely, I wish I hadn't been so generous. The reporter said to me: "Say something nice about the bill. Find something nice." I said: "Well, 90 days' notice for tech change; good." Then I read the bill, and the definition of tech change, and I found that the whole thing has weakened so much that the 90 days is irrelevant anyway. So my praise of the government was wasted and wrong, and I hate to make those kinds of mistakes. It leads one to be very careful about praising. But in any event, I just make the point: the tech change section is now so watered down and so irrelevant that it is not going to be of much use to anybody.

The picketing section in 48: again, the effect of it is to lengthen strikes. Slade and Stewart is the law on this one. If you can't picket the place where the struck goods are being delivered, you can't prosecute the strike, which means that

[ Page 493 ]

the strike will go on forever. Slade and Stewart is the retail-wholesale case, and that one is a classic. The point that needs to be made about it all is the same old point, and it's the point that it delays, makes longer, strikes, creates more industrial unrest — the opposite of what it is the government says it wants.

Section 49 I think we should entitle the "orphan's clause." Remember the old joke about a child murdering his parent and then asking for clemency from the court because
he was an orphan? He applied for clemency from the court because he was an orphan; the reason he was an orphan was because he'd murdered his parents. That's what this section is. When you wipe out section . . . . Section 91 of the Code is repealed by this particular section — that's the so-called orphan's section. In labour relations it's "clean hands." The clean hands principle, which applied in the Code which we're still living with, is now gone, completely gone. This orphan will have the right to appeal for clemency because he's an orphan, even though he murdered his parents. To do that in this legislation is absurd, and we'll deal with that too in some detail later on.

[3:00]

The productivity fund: there we had a good idea, an idea proposed by management, by unions, and accepted by the government — a small start, the 500 grand, and good, appropriate, but in effect wiped out by the failure to consult on everything else. This fund will not work, because you don't have the cooperation of the parties to make this legislation work — another example of where something good is going to be lost because of a failure to consult and a failure to discuss, and I regret that.

I talked at length this morning about the disputes resolution section, the whole new provision of the bill that sets up these awesome powers, and I'm not going to repeat all of that now; but in concluding my comments, Mr. Speaker, I want to appeal for a couple of things.

I want to reiterate my contention, and I believe the contention of anyone who's had a look at this, that this legislation is so complicated, so complex, so far-reaching and potentially so devastating of our industrial relations, that we should take some time; we should take some time about this legislation. We should either postpone the second reading for a few weeks at least, perhaps a month or so, so that full discussion can be had with everybody who's affected by it, once they get a full understanding of it; failing that, we should depart from the normal traditions of this House and refer it to a parliamentary committee, the Labour and Justice Committee, with the power to do the normal things that committees have the power to do — to summon witnesses, to listen to briefs, to seek opinions, not just from the participants in the piece but also from the public, because they've never had a chance to comment on these proposals. They've had a chance to comment to the minister through the public hearing process about what they would like to see in labour relations; they've never had a chance to comment on all of the proposals and implications in this particular bill.

Either some delay so people have time to talk to all of the MLAs on both sides of the House about what this means, or — and maybe even more appropriately — failing that, a reference to a committee; not the Committee of the Whole where we can only talk to ourselves and where we can't, with rare exceptions, bring people here to talk to us about what it means, but a parliamentary committee. Put a time limit on it — I'm not suggesting that that would be used for delay; I'd certainly give my commitment that it wouldn't be used for that purpose — and seek opinion.

If you don't take some action like that, whether it's a delay now or whether it's a committee or some other mechanism of that sort, the result will be exactly the opposite of what the government says it intends. I believe — some of my colleagues don't but I believe — that the government is sincere in its attempt to bring in legislation that will bring peaceful labour relations; I think they really thought that this could do it.

The fact is, now they're being told by everybody out there that this doesn't do it. Labour is saying it; the employers in a muted way are saying it, particularly in reference to Ed Peck's powers; the newspapers are saying it. They aren't always the best judge but both the Sun and the Province have editorials today. The Province is saying the bill should go to a legislative committee; the Sun is saying: "Seldom has a government proposal had such high potential for defeating its own purpose." These are important words from editors who have had some experience in politics in British Columbia. "Seldom has a government proposal had such high potential for defeating its own purpose." Not to be too sincere, but as non-rhetorically as I can say it — and as sincerely as I can say it — if the government is sincere about providing a framework for harmonious labour relations in British Columbia, it will pull back on its timetable, it will open avenues for consultation and it will accept opinion, from wherever it comes, on how to bring in legislation and what that legislation should be, that will create harmonious relations. I talked this morning about those tentative steps that were being made by the B.C. Fed and the Business Council as they were beginning to get together; all of that gets fractured by this kind of legislation.

The government's purpose will not be achieved by this bill. This bill will create unrest and so much disruption that investors who may want to invest in this province will be more scared to do so than they ever were before. Pull back. Let's take some time. Let's have some discussions, and let's get some labour legislation that will work. This will not work.

MRS. GRAN: I'd like to compliment the member for North Island on his good presentation. I don't agree with his views, but he made an excellent presentation.

Mr. Speaker, the budget, and now Bill 19, demonstrates for all to clearly see a government serious about its mandate to represent all of the people of this province in a fair and equitable manner. Bill 19 introduces a regard for the public interest for the first time in many years in this province. The Industrial Relations Board has a mandate that is clear and unbiased, and it must take the good of the public into consideration as well as the rights of individuals and the rights and obligations of the parties involved. There is a positive change in philosophy indicated within Bill 19, a change that shows that our government is committed to solving problems — not creating them, as the opposition suggests.

The hon. members of the opposition want the people of this province to believe that they are capable of leadership, and yet they see the Industrial Relations Reform Act as negative and want us to study it to death. Why? Because the opposition represents special interest groups in our province, and not average citizens. Both organized labour leaders and the NDP are the authors of their own fate. After a great deal of public consultation, this government has a duty to see Bill 19 become a reality in this session. Negative thinking is why

[ Page 494 ]

labour peace has been difficult if not impossible to achieve in this province. In the few short years that the NDP formed government in British Columbia, they managed to scramble an omelette that has taken some 10 years to unscramble. And they now talk about state intervention, when they proved to be the masters of state intervention.

Mr. Speaker, with the tabling of this legislation the Minister of Labour and Consumer Services has brought British Columbia into step with the rest of Canada. For too many years radical union leaders have intimidated and misrepresented their own union members. It became evident during the last election, when more union members than in any other election joined the Social Credit Party and worked hard to get this government elected. The opposition would be well advised to take that into consideration when opposing this bill. There is no way this government would have been elected with the strong mandate that it has without the help of union members. Those members are unhappy with many of the decisions made by their leaders. They're tired of confrontation and intimidation. The people of this province have demanded these changes, for they too are tired of confrontation.

Last year, in my own constituency, a labour disturbance resulted in violence and the need to bring in the RCMP tactical troop. A court case followed. The Chief Justice expressed his concern at the growing tendency of some unions to disobey the law and found the bargaining council of the building trades union in contempt of court. Condemning the lawlessness and violence that occurred between June 5 and 6 on a picket line at the Langley construction site, the judge said: "No class of society can, with impunity, take the law into its own hands."

I was an alderman in the district of Langley at the time. In the council meeting immediately preceding the incident, the chambers were filled with irate union sympathizers. Ironically, most of these people were also NDP supporters and officials. They criticized the RCMP for employing its tactic squad at the site. Of that the judge said: "The criticism is not well-founded. I commend the police for doing their duty and doing it effectively."

This is just one example of the many incidents that have served to cause bitterness both between organized labour and management and between organized labour and the public. I believe many of these incidents have been politically orchestrated. Now, because it's politically expedient, the opposition wants us to leave everything the way it is and we'll all live happily ever after.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, I urge the opposition to join us in supporting Bill 19. This is an opportunity to cooperate for the good of unions, management and the general public. I can say with complete confidence that this government is not interested in union-busting. We are interested only in the welfare of the people we serve, all British Columbians, union and non-union. Both the opposition leaders and leaders in organized labour have an opportunity at this time in our history to join this government in ensuring the very best employment opportunities in the country.

In summary, the Minister of Labour has given us the tools to negotiate in good faith. He has given us the choice to be union or non-union. Best of all, he has given British Columbia back its self-respect.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

MR. ROSE: The debate seems, at the moment at least, to be rather moderate and reasoned, if partisan. I suppose that's the way it should be. I would just like to tell the House, though, that the only power working people ever have is the power to withhold their labour. No matter where you go in this world, there are demonstrations, whether or not the right to strike is granted in legislation. There are jurisdictions, such as Australia if I'm not wrong — and I can be corrected — where the person-days lost through a no-strike arrangement exceed our own. We don't lose as many days in management disputes — I won't call them labour disputes — as we do through the common cold in this country.

So you can blow that up all you like, and you can make it as large an issue as you like. You can make your own straw man and then push him over if you like. But when working people get pushed into corners, they're going to react, whether it's within the law or against the law. I could name you a few very celebrated people who broke the law. One of them was Jesus Christ. Another one was Mahatma Gandhi. Another one was George Washington. We all honour them today. The Americans don't believe in revolutions anywhere else in the world. They only believe in one. They don't think there should be an instant replay anywhere else where people demand justice. Only for Americans.

I'd just like to say that the only power we have in this House is time. If the only power that working people have is to withdraw their labour, and to have some sense of security while they're doing it so they're not just picked off . . . . Otherwise it isn't labour; it's slavery if you don't have any choices.

[3:15]

I'm not going to inflate the rhetoric, because it's not believable when you do that, but I would argue that this is a very serious matter. It is going to affect all working people in the province, whether they be union or not union. I'll get into that a little more later.

Mr. Speaker, democracy functions only when it rests on the consent of those governed. If there's consent out there to hammer everybody, if during restraint you talk about . . . . The hon. first member for Langley (Mrs. Gran) talks about confrontation. Where was she for the last four years? I mean, what are people supposed to do? Are they just to say: "Yessuh, mastuh. Whatever you say"? Of course not. They have a right to express their opinions. They have a right in a free and democratic society to demonstrate, just as those people who are concerned about mining or nuclear armaments or Candu reactors have the right to a public premises such as our lawn to make their protest public. When you start taking those things away from people, you strike at the very root of democracy. And I don't care what your polls tell you, public opinion can shift rather rapidly.

I wouldn't accuse the minister, Mr. Speaker, of having sinister motives. I think he genuinely believes that this is going to be helpful. I think that he's going to be cheered on by those who want to bash any kind of organization, any kind of organized labour. He might be cheered on, but I think he might be misled. I don't know what his experience is in labour relationships. The only sort of feedback I've ever had in terms of his reputation is that he dealt fairly with employees, and I wouldn't see any reason for thinking that has changed. But I do think that he perhaps hasn't the background that some people have in this very important field, and therefore I think that a second look at this would be worthwhile.

[ Page 495 ]

This is a very long and complicated bill, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It's a package, and there are little things here and little things there and little things elsewhere that make this bill very, very tricky. It's not something that you can study and determine and debate intelligently in five minutes. You have to have time to think about it, and that's why it's important to receive the consent of those people who are being governed. Those people who are going to be affected by this bill should have an opportunity, not just through their elected representatives, to come to the House or to the committee and express their views.

One of the most pernicious parts of this bill is the appointment . . . . I could again inflate the language and call Mr. Peck a czar. I mean, that is a pejorative, but undoubtedly he is going to be a very powerful figure. He has been a very powerful figure in the public service up to now. Just ask the schoolteachers. I don't know whether the minister and the government have thought of it — and they probably have — but they aren't simply bringing in Bill 19 or Bill 20 as they affect the teachers. And I'm not going to comment on legislation in the future; I'm not commenting on that at the moment.

One of the things is that Mr. Peck's organization, the public service compensation stabilization program, or whatever it was called, ignored the School Act. So we had the ridiculous situation, the ludicrous situation, of a teacher group required to bargain with a board . . . . This is the kind of ping-pong they had to go through. They negotiated up until compulsory arbitration, and then Mr. Peck would get at it. Whatever agreement came, whether it was a negotiated agreement or an arbitrated agreement, he'd say, "Well, you can't do that; it exceeds the guidelines," and he would send it all back down the line, after we'd spent thousands of dollars of public money on lawyers and thousands of dollars of time.

There may be a possibility of a repeat of that same thing here unless there are some changes made to other acts such as the School Act. So this is ping-pong by Peck with teachers: negotiate and then arbitrate — that's for lawyers; Peck would cogitate, then he'd dictate. We've been through that far too many times in the last four years. So don't talk to me about confrontation, because that side invented it.

How do you expect people to react when they're being punched? Of course they're going to punch back. What do you expect? Do you think you're going to get peace out of this? This is virtually . . . . It's not a dove of peace. It's probably grounds for war, and that is what you might face. What that is going to do to our future in terms of developing a prosperous province, I can't imagine. Some people say it's all great; some people say it's not.

I would just like to correct the minister on something that he might not have known. I don't know who wrote his speech, but I was surprised to learn that principals and vice principals wanted to get out of the BCTF. I checked, and at the last convention they had, a resolution to the contrary was passed overwhelmingly. So where the minister is getting his information is beyond me — I have no idea.

This morning the minister said that this is really important for investment, and we had some Japanese investors up there. We've got investors coming out of our ears in Canada. Do you know that since we got rid of FIRA — that's the Foreign . . . .

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Out of your ears. All right?

Do you know that we've got so much investment in Canada — the largest foreign investment anywhere in the sort of developed world — that nowhere else is . . . . Last year 48 percent of the profits of Canadian corporations was shipped abroad, and you guys want more. Since the Mulroney government took over, 1,400 firms are no longer Canadian; they're foreign-owned. You know, if this keeps up, we'll be hewers of wood and drawers of unemployment insurance. Mr. Speaker, we're not traders; we're just pedlars.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: You want to have us competitive, eh? Does that mean we have to take $1 to $2 an hour less in, say, our agricultural products than we get currently? And that's at the minimum rate. Is that what you mean by being competitive? Is that the competitive edge that we're fighting for? That's what I would like to know. Is that what you're talking about? You want productivity? We've got productivity in the woods industry. They retooled, they became modern, they fired 20,000 people, and America has nailed us for a 15 percent countervail. That's performance. That's what we've done in our forest industry. Sure we've got to be competitive, but when we're working in this kind of an atmosphere, it cannot be that simple.

Mr. Speaker, I don't mean to be critical. I am a very optimistic, positive person, but I just want to say a few words . . . . In my view, this legislation strikes at the very essence of what we are in a democratic society. Again, that may be considered inflated language. But how do we live together today in a complex, urbanized society? That's really the question here. I think we have to remember that we're no longer as rural, agrarian and independent as we once were — a nation of small farmers producing most of the things we used, and getting the rest from Eaton's mail order. And we found great use for the out-of-date catalogues. That's not our world any more. We either work for people we know in small local concerns, or we're employed by huge, faceless, multinational corporations with their head offices in Toronto or Montreal perhaps, or New York, Hong Kong or Singapore — or somewhere. I wonder if this bill is perhaps not designed to accommodate those corporations. If the unions in, say, Sudbury get too strong, what happens to Canadian Nickel? They go to Indonesia. I have a Buick made in Canada — very lucky to have it. Its motor was made in Brazil. We talk about this international market, but we're not employed any more.

The bill talks about the new reality of internationalism. We're supposed to rush headlong to the siren song of competitive advantage. I'd like to know what that is. It treats with contempt our whole tradition. This bill wipes away traditions we've built up over a century on how we live together and work together and bargain for our services. I think it defiles the graves of those who fought for bargaining rights in the coal-mines of Nanaimo and Comox, and for the Dunsmuirs and all those other wonderful forebears of ours. We were an attractive country to millions of people, the children of whom are perhaps sitting right over there or over on this side. They came here because they were looking for an opportunity and they were looking for freedom. They were looking for a place to contribute, a place to work and a place to prosper. You can't change it. What you want to do is change what they were looking for because you don't know the traditions. You don't know the traditions; that's it exactly.

[ Page 496 ]

The bill is not British Columbian, it is a foreign bill. It talks about the code. Where did you get the code? Is it Alberta that we are trying to match? Or is it Alabama? It is a fundamentalist, right-to-work piece of republicanism. That's what this bill is. That is exactly what this bill is. It is a Moral Majority Jerry Falwell-Jim Bakker bill; that's what this bill is.

Interjections.

MR. ROSE: I know. You're going to tell us God is a free enterpriser pretty soon too. All our ancestors came to Canada. We came from the downtrodden peasantry of Europe or the rotten factories in the big cities of England or somewhere, and what were we looking for? We were looking — even the people who landed at Plymouth Rock were looking — for new opportunities and new freedoms and a chance to contribute, to work and develop. That's why they came here.

Through it all we developed certain kinds of traditions, and those are under threat. This is a free trade precursor. This is what we are getting ready for so we can set it up, so that we can become more of a branch plant than we are already. Well, whether the Roses happened to come to this country in 1800, or the Duecks came from the southern Ukraine or wherever it was, say, after World War I, or the Vander Zalms came after World War II, we all came here really for the same thing. Canada was something we wished to experience. We wanted to grow. Whether they were poor potato farmers as my ancestors were, or they were kulaks in the Ukraine or wherever they were, or whether they were bulb growers who came after the Second World War, we all came for something, and that was to be more prosperous than we were. It wasn't the winners who came to Canada, you know, friends. It wasn't those people who were the high rollers that developed this country. It was the city and urban losers who came here. They were our ancestors and they looked for something. If we try and think we are going to relive that agrarian society, that is a clodhopper mentality. That is the kind of rural dumb-headedness that is going to lead us into lots of trouble.

I think the bill shows no wisdom. It ignores our traditions and it is a dumb bill. It is a dumb bill because people who support it, I think, are not people who are wise people, they are indoctrinated people. They believe in all the old slogans, you know. They think that's right.

Let's talk about individual rights over group fights. My colleague from North Island touched on those. What is an individual fight in our society? Is it paramount? I mean, how will this government tolerate individual fights? Does a person have unlimited individual rights? We all know that is not true. You can't run around infecting somebody with some horrible disease and say that that's your right because you have the liberty to run around and spread something like AIDS. That is not a right. But the right to check out of some group thing like a trade union or some organization, that's got to be a right you cherish, don't you? Of course you do.

We will see how your individual rights work. First time you need to vote against your own government, we will see how many of you stand up and do that. It is your individual right to do it. I'd like to see you do it. I've never seen it yet and I've been here for four years. I've never seen it yet.

[3:30]

As a matter of fact, the member for North Island on the previous labour bill did break with his government and voted on his own.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I welcome you. It's a great experience for you. You should try it some time.

That's an example of individual rights. So much for that. If that happened with your government, Mr. Speaker, it would destroy your government over there. There is a need to join forces for a particular objective, to further a particular cause; I don't deny that. But if that is true for the survival of your government, then the right to subvert individual rights to preserve something for the group is also paramount. This isn't even the Rand formula. He can give it away to charity somewhere; he can give it away to anything. I don't see how that is tolerable. Again, it defies all the traditions.

Competitive advantage. I'd like to tell some of those bureaucrats about competitive advantage. I think that I would be willing to give up a certain degree of income — say, going from $10 an hour to $8 an hour — if those bureaucrats would, or if you would, over there. What about your competitive advantage? You know, we're all paid the same here. What about your individual rights to come here and work for less? Why don't you work harder for less money? Why don't some of you say: "I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker, I'm getting too much money here. It's bad for my competitive edge. Actually, I would probably work a lot harder if the marketplace determined my pay." You probably would, but you probably wouldn't get as much money as you do now. The reason that you get what you do — some of you might even be worth it — is because you've got a closed market and a monopolistic system, and I don't see why you aren't fighting that one. I don't see anybody running into the House trying to get rid of that. Mr. Speaker, that kind of protection . . . . What you want is the insecurity foisted on others but security for yourselves; that's what you want. Because it will make them sharper.

Mr. Speaker, a few years ago I read in the Sun this little satire by a man by the name of Gary Engler. He was talking about all the business about restraint and all that claptrap that went with that. It had nothing to do with restraint at all; it was just a hammer to the civil service. But let's not relive that old debate. He said: "Canadian workers would be better off . . . .

Interjections.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, I don't know whether you recall that during the speech of the minister here a little while ago we had the Attorney-General get up (Hon. B. R. Smith) in self-righteous indignation because there were certain hecklers over here bothering our friend the minister. Now I'm having to suffer. As a relatively new member here, I have to suffer this kind of claptrap from across the hall.

Let me read you what he said. Remember, this is a satire. I think maybe you might believe this one; I want everybody to know that I'm fooling. I've got to underline that, because I'm quite sure that somebody will believe it. Engler says: "Canadian workers would be better off if they were paid less. "We hear this all the time — in order to become lean and mean. He goes on to say: "Poor people must be given less money, and that will make them work harder. Rich people need more money to expand the economy." See, that's good. "Rent controls cause rents to be too low" — which is bad. "Free market causes land prices to soar, which allows speculators to buy hockey teams and baseball teams and football teams,

[ Page 497 ]

which is good." Hear that, Nelson Skalbania? Do you hear that, Peter Pocklington? "High interest rates are necessary to reduce inflation, make work for bankruptcy lawyers and create opportunities for the happily unemployed. Unions are going to destroy this country by fighting for better pensions, proper health care, safety legislation, medicare, equal pay, the minimum wage for farmworkers, decent maternity leave. B.C. forest workers should take wage cuts, in order to expand the American economy and get more houses built."

Then this concludes: "Tighten your belts, Canadians, and expand the military. Tighten your belts and compete with the dollar-per-day, militarized, beaten, tear-gassed South Koreans" — anybody driving a Hyundai? All right. Well, I think that's what this legislation is all about. It's not designed for labour peace; it's designed to downsize. It's to beat back the standard of living that we enjoy. That's what it's all about: to make us competitive. With who? The South Koreans? Is that what you want? Everybody's got your number. I know where you get your lessons, too, but I'll tell you some other time.

Anyway, I think what it is is it's designed for the Bechtel corporation, the George Shultzes of this world and the John Turners — the guys who want to build Candu reactors and things like that all over the world. That's really what it's all about. That's what it's for. It's for the international multicorporations that shift their production all over the place. I wouldn't want to say that you people are lackeys of that, but you're sure falling into the same kind of claptrap.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I did not say that that was how you felt about it.

Is it designed so that we can harmonize our traditions with those of our competitors? Do you want to harmonize your tradition with the Koreans, or perhaps the Taiwanese? Or even the Americans? People are Canadians because they don't want to be Americans.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Not at all. They don't want to be Americans.

Is this designed to pay off the Kerkhoffs of this world? Is this designed to protect contract-breakers like Maximum Contractors and Sonny Zappone and Ike Unger — is that what it's for? — that flaunt agreements and try to beat people out of unemployment insurance? Because they're the contractor, but these guys are all subcontractors, eh? Is that what it's for? You want to see what kind of contract Maximum wants to wring out of their truckers? They can't belong to any teamsters' union. They're bad. Remember Jimmy Hoffa? He may be sleeping happily now on the New Jersey turnpike somewhere. I don’t know.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, the bill talks about freedom. Whose freedom is it? Whose freedom is this bill all about? Is it freedom from fear? Is it freedom from hunger? Is it freedom from a school lunch program? Or what is it? Is it more like freedom for employers to be free of regulations? Is that what it's for? I mean, there are lots of other countries that are doing quite well. Sweden was mentioned earlier and West Germany and Japan. There is not a reluctance on the government and labour and companies to manage and plan and have an industrial strategy. Is it the old business like a century ago? The people who talked about freedom were the slave-owners.

They're the people who talked about freedom. Freedom what? Freedom to smash unions. Freedom for employers to do as they like. Freedom to anything. Government get off the backs of the people. I just think that the whole thing, aside from the sort of diatribe which I have mounted against it, is probably as sad as it is anything else, because I think it's going to lead us down the line to more and more trouble. Again, I think it's absolutely foreign to our own traditions here. It is un-British Columbian. It is not something that I think we can be that proud of.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is extremely complex. There hasn't been enough consultation. My colleague for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) made that point, I thought, very ably and eloquently. I don't think that he exaggerated. I don't think he was even as impassioned as I sometimes become. Maybe he's got better control over himself. But I think he spoke with a sincerity that we all wish to express. It is not unusual for legislation to be sent to a committee for study. It is a common stage in many Legislatures. It's all very well to say, "Well, we did it that way in Ottawa and that's why Ottawa's in so much trouble." They're not in any more trouble than we're in right here. I don't know whether you've looked at the difference in the unemployment rates in British Columbia compared to something else. That isn't just because Ottawa's stealing all our money. I agree that we sometimes don't get all the breaks we need to, but that isn't the main reason behind it. This legislation is very complex. There hasn't been enough consultation. We'll never know its implications. Its implications are profound and far-reaching. People should begin to think about that.

So, Mr. Speaker, I would like to move that the motion by the minister that Bill 19, Industrial Relations Reform Act, 1987, be read a second time now be amended by leaving out the word "now" and adding the words: "on this day six months' hence." I believe the motion to be in order.

I hope that the intervening time would be used to study, consult and, if you like, rap, and have a rapport with a wide segment of society, and use that time to . . . . Sure, we need improvements in legislation of all kinds and certainly in legislation of this kind, and I think that would give us an opportunity to do it.

Let me close in the same way that I started. The success of a democracy rests on the consent of those governed. This is popularly known as a six-month's hoist, Mr. Speaker; I believe it's in order, and I'd be very pleased to turn it in.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member. The amendment is in order.

On the amendment.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: On behalf of the government, just let me say that we reject the motion. Beginning in January, the minister held well over 250 hearings with respect to industrial relations in the province, and we feel there's been adequate and fair hearing progress in terms of putting this legislation together. Further, the minister did advance the bill to the member for North Island some time in advance of its being given first reading last week, and at that courtesy advance notice was a senior official who played a large part in drafting this legislation.

On the basis of that, the government must reject the amendment as proposed.

[ Page 498 ]

MR. HEWITT: I was going to rise and speak in support of the bill, but now I'm quite prepared to speak against this motion. I always enjoy the member for Coquitlam–Moody speaking in the House; it's very entertaining. He did, however, make one comment, I guess, that I found a little disturbing because I hadn't heard it from him before, and I didn't think he would go quite so far. He mentioned that the bill really is grounds for war. I would hope that the member, in retrospect, will himself wonder whether he really meant that.

[3:45]

MR. ROSE: On a point of order, if that is what I said, I would be very pleased to apologize to the House. What I thought I said, or what I meant to say, was that I felt it could be considered by some as grounds for war. That's what I intended; we'll check it with Hansard, but if I didn't say it, I have no difficulty apologizing to the House for that.

MR. HEWITT: My compliments to the member. I wish he would refer to Hansard, because I wrote it down when I heard him say it. I hadn't heard you say anything like that before, because you're such an entertaining speaker.

The member mentioned salaries — you know, maybe we should work for less. I can tell the member opposite that we have worked for less on two occasions. When we came into office in 1975, one of the first actions this party took was to reduce the salaries of MLAs by ten percent; we again reduced it by ten percent in 1982 or '83, 1 believe, and we did so to show leadership. I would also mention to the members opposite and to my colleagues on this side of the House that it was that party, the party that's concerned about those people who are at the poverty level and less fortunate than us, that doubled the salaries of MLAs from $12,000 to $24,000 a year when they took office in 1972. So I have difficulty with the socialists sometimes when they speak about being a responsible government.

When I looked at this legislation the first time around, I had some difficulty as well. To be quite honest with you, I had difficulty with regard to the teachers' right to strike, because I felt that teachers have a responsibility as a profession because of their line of work: to provide our young people with an education. To have a work stoppage in an education system is of great concern to me, because the one who suffers most is the child. So I had difficulty when the bill indicated that the teachers could have the right to strike.

I had difficulty also with the compensation stabilization program and the fact that this legislation does away with that concept, which I think has worked reasonably well over past years to hold public sector settlements down to a level that is reasonable and within the ability of the economy of British Columbia to pay. But then I read the bill further and in more detail, and I found the main thrust was very positive and very needed at this time, and that was workplace democracy and freedom. When the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) spoke, he said that the legislation interfered in people's lives. Yet when I read the legislation I find that it talks about democracy in the workplace, and individual freedom.

Maybe I can identify some of the items that, when I look at this bill as a package, indicate to me that that's really what we're talking about: true democracy in the workplace and the recognition of the individual and not special-interest groups, which is what we seem to have done over the past years. The goal of the bill is long-term stability, and it's not because the minister sat in a darkened room or sat in a room with advisers and dreamt this up. This minister went out, along with other representatives of government and staff, and listened to the people, travelled the province, and put in long days and nights to get a feeling from "individuals" as to what they found wrong with the present Labour Code in British Columbia. They didn't hear just from the multinationals or the small businessman or the medium-sized business. They didn't hear just from the labour leaders. They heard from a lot of individuals. A lot of people who are "the innocent third party" to a labour dispute often get hurt because there is a management-labour conflict and it extends into the marketplace and hurts innocent third parties.

I believe something like 700 submissions were heard. That's a tremendous credit to the minister and to his people — to get that information first before they introduce a bill. So let's not talk about lack of communication or consultation, because it was there and it was with the right people. What the opposition tries to lead you to believe by this motion is that we did it without any consultation. The consultation they talk about is: "Hey, you've got to sit down with the leaders like Jack Munro; you've got to sit down with some of the other labour leaders." Sometimes I have difficulty with their names.

AN HON. MEMBER: Georgetti.

MR. HEWITT: Georgetti, thank you. Another one, Elsie McMurphy. You've got to sit down with those, and why? Because that's a special-interest group, political in their own sense as leaders but quite often out of touch with their members who came and spoke to this group that went around the province to get input from the people, from the individual, and not from the special-interest groups. There was a message in that process. There was a need to recognize, as I mentioned, the impact on innocent third parties.

The impact on investment in our province. We see it in the paper all the time. The comment is made that yes, we want to invest in Canada, but we're not too sure about British Columbia because of all the concern over labour.

Impact on trading partners. Can we guarantee a secure supply of our product offshore when we don't know whether we're going to be shut down for one week, one month or one year?

Those were the concerns expressed at these meetings. And the impact on the employer, the small businessman or the medium-sized businessman. And the impact on the employee. I think the members opposite tend to forget sometimes that it's not "the union" that we're dealing with here; it's the union member. When there is a labour dispute, it's not the union that suffers; it's the union member, the employee, who suffers because he can't get his paycheque, he can't put food on the table, he can't make the car payments or the mortgage payments. The little guy is forgotten by those people who would preach to you all the time that they're for the little guy. They aren't; they're for special-interest groups, and that's all they're for, not for the individual.

Mr. Speaker, in the few minutes I have, let me try and elaborate on that point of workplace democracy and freedom. Is it wrong that an employer should have the right to speak to his employees about the effect of the work stoppage in his plant? Is it right or is it wrong? I say it is his responsibility to be able to communicate the impact of a work stoppage in his plant on the employees. But the people opposite would tell

[ Page 499 ]

you that he is going to intimidate them and harass them. That was what one of the members spoke about a few minutes ago. That's not what he wants to do. He wants to say: "My God, my employees recognize that if they demand too much from me, I can't compete in the marketplace. Therefore I don't sell my product, we don't have production, you are out of a job and I go broke." So think about it. It is the employer's responsibility to communicate to his employees the impact of a work stoppage.

Is it wrong, Mr. Speaker, for an employer to want to do his bit in training young people, to hire an apprentice? Is that wrong? The answer is no, it's not wrong, but under the present system the union has the say in some of those shops where it cannot be done unless the union has a part to play in it. But who owns the business, and what is so wrong about hiring an apprentice and giving that person the ability to learn a trade?

Is it wrong that an employee has the right to say: "Because of religious beliefs, I do not wish to belong to a bargaining unit"? The answer to that is no, it's not wrong.

Interjection.

MR. HEWITT: Somebody says "yes it is." Well, I say it isn't.

Interjection.

MR. HEWITT: I don't want to get into a debate with my learned friend across the floor; he'll have his opportunity to speak. All I'm saying is that the Labour Code that's being debated in this House today gives that individual that right, and that's democracy in the workplace, Mr. Speaker.

Is it wrong that teachers may or may not form a union? They may decide to go and form an association, but it is their personal decision — each one making that decision, determining by vote which way they want to go. What is so horrible about that? That's democracy in the workplace. If they want to be a union, they now have the right. If they want to be an association, they can have that right.

Is it wrong that an employer's final offer may be presented to the employees, not denied by some faceless union head office negotiator, which is what happens now? That's exactly what happens. At least at this point the employer can say to the commissioner: "I would like my final offer presented for a vote by the employees." Is that so terrible? Is that so wrong? The answer is no, it is not wrong.

Is it wrong that there's a cooling-off period of 40 days that could be invoked when the public interest is going to be seriously affected? It is a responsibility of government to ensure that a labour code includes that type of provision. We're talking about a seriously affected public interest, where a shutdown could seriously impact on the community.

Is it wrong that parties affected by illegal strikes or lockouts should have access to the courts? Under the present Code we have to go to the Labour Relations Board and debate that issue ad infinitum before we find out whether we can go to the courts. We're talking natural justice. We've got a few people on that side of the House who understand the law. Why should we have to go through this third party? If I'm impacted by this labour dispute, where else should I go but the court to have my say, to hear pros and cons to the argument?

Mr. Speaker, I cannot understand, on the items that I've brought up at this particular point — and there are many others . . . . Many of those people on the other side should be recognizing that this Labour Code does bring democracy to the workplace, and is not an attack on the unions. It says that in an organized or developed society we have rules by which we must play the game, and they must be fair and equitable to all. And by "all," we mean individuals, both on the union side and management side.

Is it wrong to ensure voting by secret ballot? The most disturbing thing I ever saw on TV regarding labour and management disputes was a vote that was taken, and the TV cameras were on it. The people walked up, and they had one box marked "yes" and the other box marked "no."

[Mrs. Gran in the chair.]

AN HON. MEMBER: Makes counting a little easier.

MR. HEWITT: That makes counting easy, and they determined that that was a secret ballot. I'm sure we all saw that on television. I was very disturbed by that, because I would think that, as we do in our election or for any other political member or any board member, whether it be hospital or school board, you would have the privacy to make your decision, and it would be yours alone. Yet on TV I see where you walk up and put your ballot into a "yes" box or a "no" box. And I'm sure if you were going against the wishes of the "union leaders," they would certainly be able to identify quite easily whether you voted the right way or the wrong way. I don't think the members opposite should find that difficult at all.

Is it wrong for an employer to make that decision to withdraw from an accredited association? I would imagine that the members opposite would be quite in agreement and would say, "Oh, that’s great," mainly because they don't like the employers' accredited associations, because that means that employer groups, small as they may be — for example, municipalities — may band together and negotiate on behalf of a group of municipalities, as opposed to having part-time aldermen negotiating with full-time professional union negotiators that are brought to the table by CUPE.

The association of municipalities, I think, has worked well in the past, but at least this Labour Code addresses the question of whether or not they should have the right to associate or not to associate. It's no different than the teachers making their decision as well.

Madam Speaker, in my view the Industrial Relations Council, the body that is being struck now, has two major functions, one in the disputes resolution and the other in the adjudication division. Interestingly enough, it is headed by a man by the name of Mr. Ed Peck. People over here, particularly the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann), were taking offence with him this morning and saying all these terrible things. For the benefit of the members here today, you might be interested to know that Mr. Ed Peck was appointed vice-chairman and chief administrative officer of the Labour Relations Board by the NDP in 1973. You appointed him; you put him in office. He's done some tremendous things over the years, yet you stand today — after you appointed him — just because he is very responsible, dedicated and concerned about the labour relations in this province . . . . But just because he is in this position — I would think you would very quickly say: "Thank goodness

[ Page 500 ]

it's a man of his stature" — you attack him. Yet you appointed him in 1973.

[4:00]

Madam Speaker, the role of Mr. Peck and of the Industrial Relations Council and its two divisions is to assist the employers and the employees to achieve resolution without work stoppage. That is its role: to do its utmost to bring the parties together, to use all the tools they have available to them to avoid the work stoppage because of the recognition of what it does to the B.C. economy, what it does to the employees, what it does to our international image in the world marketplace. That's its role. Yet the members opposite can find all sorts of reasons why this is a terrible thing: it is administered by bureaucrats, or by the super-bureaucrat, as I think the member for North Island called him. It is there to assist. That's primarily its role.

This bill does something that has not been achieved heretofore: it recognizes the individual worker. That's really what it does. As I say, I was concerned when I first read it because of the few areas where I thought that we were going a little too far. But when I read it through, I found one main theme all the way through it, and it really was down to dealing with the individual worker, dealing with the individual employer, dealing with the marketplace and the impact that work stoppages have. I think as a package it addresses the concern of the individual, of democracy in the workplace and of freedom, etc., but it does not deal with special-interest groups. It doesn't deal with either the union on the union side . . . . There is no favouritism there, and no favouritism on the employer's side. It comes straight down the middle, recognizing everybody in the same manner, the individual worker and the individual citizen. Isn't that government's responsibility: to protect the interests of the individual in this province, each and every one?

I just ask the members opposite to look at this piece of legislation as a package and recognize that it provides for fairness, equity and democracy in the workplace. For that reason I support the bill and am voting against this amendment that is being proposed.

MR. CLARK: Madam Speaker, I thought I was supposed to speak on the Labour Code this morning, and I was told I am speaking on a hoist motion. I guess the new members would agree with me — that I always thought a hoist was some kind of mechanical device. It's news to all of us, I am sure. I looked up Erskine May, and for the sake of the new members I will read what it says: "A traditional way of opposing the second reading of a bill is to move an amendment to the question, by leaving out the word 'now' and adding the words 'upon this day six . . . months.'" It goes on to say that it is a motion of non-confidence.

I want to assure the members that they can vote in favour of this motion of hoist, and it shouldn't be perceived as a motion of non-confidence.

MR. WEISGERBER: You're not trying to trick us now, are you?

MR. CLARK: No, we're not trying to trick you. What we're trying to do is genuinely and sincerely delay the legislation for six months in order that we can have more debate and discussion. Now how can someone be against delaying for six months such a controversial piece of legislation? So I think you should vote in favour of it and not feel threatened by the solidarity of the party. We've had lots of discussion about that. Feel free to exercise your individual rights as members to vote in favour of this hoist motion. It doesn't mean you're voting against the legislation.

MR. WEISGERBER: You've got 25 minutes to convince us.

MR. CLARK: You mean that took five minutes? I will say why I think there is reason for hoisting this legislation for six months, and I'm going to try and use measured words, not flights of rhetoric, and not get too carried away with some of the pejorative language that I could use and have used in the past. My friend from Prince Rupert and the islands will, I'm sure . . . . But I think this legislation, when you look at it as a package, is radical, ideological legislation. It's really a fundamental shift in the industrial relations practice in this province.

It's a dramatic, fundamental departure from our traditions and the way that we've conducted business, and for that reason it requires a lot of deliberation. It places, for example, a single individual . . . . The member before me talked about Mr. Peck. Well, I'll talk about some of his duties later, but it's not the individual that I'm concerned about at all. It's the job; it's the institutional structure and the power that is vested in that individual. He's all-powerful. He's basically a labour relations czar and can impose the heavy hand of government intervention.

What happened to Adam Smith and the invisible hand of the marketplace? This government that professes to talk about the invisible hand and the freedom of the marketplace and the discipline of the marketplace has brought in legislation that is the most intrusive, the heaviest in terms of government intervention, that we've seen both in Canada and in North America. It is really a dramatic change that means that one individual — a bureaucracy — has the power to impose tremendous constraints on the past traditional way of doing business. Those constraints used to be solely the preserve of this chamber and the people here.

It was a decision for politicians to make on the question of the public interest and on whether or not we felt things had got out of hand and required that kind of heavy-handed intervention. From time to time that's been done by both parties, as a matter of fact, in this House, but it's an extraordinary thing. What's happened is that this legislation allows one man, a bureaucrat, to determine those kinds of things. I find that offensive on this side of the House, and I would think that the members over there who profess freedom and the invisible hand of Adam Smith and these kinds of things would find it offensive as well.

I think the government has bought the line that we're really a labour relations basket case in this province. I think that's the rhetoric that we hear from the other side, and we hear that from the newspapers, but it's not the reality. It's really not the reality. In British Columbia 95 percent of all collective bargaining between parties is settled without any dispute whatsoever, without any recourse to industrial action at all. It's only 5 percent that have any kind of disruption. So we're bringing in this legislation, this dramatic legislation that centralizes power in one individual, because of 5 percent of the collective bargaining situations in the province.

I think it really is a kind of ignorance — and I don't mean that in a nasty way — of the process of collective bargaining, and that carries through not just in this chamber but across the

[ Page 501 ]

province and in terms of the media. I, for example, have participated in collective bargaining from one side, and I am sure some members over there have, and they know that the give and take of collective bargaining forces each party to explore all avenues to reach a consensus. I think it's probably the most satisfying thing that can happen when you go through this process of give and take, of discussion and hotly contested debate and maybe a little flexing of the muscles, in the end to come up with something that both sides can live with and agree to. That is what happens in 95 percent of the cases in this province.

But now we have a dramatic departure from that. We have this thing hanging over everybody's head, with tremendous power — the power of government — vested in one man. He has the power to determine whether or not collective bargaining will continue, whether it will be stopped, whether there will be intervention, whether there will be votes. All of these things are now removed from the participants in the process. Those participants, as I've already said, reach agreement amicably, or at least reach agreement without any disruption, 95 percent of the time. So it's quite dramatic. I think, as my colleague from Coquitlam–Moody mentioned, it really runs counter to the lessons of history, both in Canada and in British Columbia.

We've talked about this, and I want to talk about the kinds of briefs the minister has had. I have just picked up one of the briefs, the B.C. Federation of Labour's, and looked through it. They have embarked on — at least initially, with this new government — an attempt to be conciliatory and to genuinely attempt to seek a new consensus in British Columbia. They reviewed it, and I'll just read it into the record.

"Any review of labour legislation and policy in the British Columbia context is of necessity a delicate task. The central reason for this is that any changes must be perceived to be fair. The Canadian experience, and the British Columbia experience in particular, with legislation that is perceived to be unfairly weighted, has been entirely negative.

"The example which is perhaps most easily remembered is the experience in this province before the enactment of the 1974 Labour Code. Prior to 1974, legislation was in place which was widely perceived to be biased in favour of the employer community. The trade union movement responded to that situation by widespread refusal to be bound by the existing law. In addition, in 1972, for example, in this province we had one million employed workers, but in that year we had two and a half million days of productivity lost due to strikes or lockouts. This is an astonishing ratio, never achieved elsewhere" — in 1972, that is, prior to the implementation of the Labour Code.

"In 1973, the government moved to change the balance so that it was more equitable" — so that there was a level playing field. "It is worthy of note that the trade union movement was not in favour of a great many of the changes proposed by the then New Democrat government. However, there can be no doubt but that many of the changes in the legislation since that period of time have been weighted solely in favour of the employer community, thus significantly altering the balance of industrial relations.

"If we are to avoid repeating the sad history of the early 1970s, the early 1940s and the periods before that, we must learn that any revisions to labour policy and legislation must be perceived to be balanced and fair."

That too is the sentiment of most of the academics in the field, and the one who has written about British Columbia extensively was the original chairman of the Labour Relations Board, Paul Weiler.

He said — and this isn't the academics talking; this is proven by history — that every attempt to stifle collective bargaining has led to increased conflict and confrontation. Every single attempt throughout history in the western world that has attempted to impose a government solution on a problem between the parties has led to increased confrontation and conflict. That's not a threat; that's the historical record; that's the fact not just in British Columbia but everywhere in the western world.

[4:15]

The Mediation Commission in the seventies that I referred to, the sorry record in 1972, the worst record in history in British Columbia — and I think one of the worst records in the world that year — was as a result of similar legislation to what we're seeing here today. This is very similar to the Mediation Commission: again, government-imposed, artificial solutions to complex industrial relations problems. It didn't work then, and it quite simply won't work now.

Good labour relations, I think in everybody's view, depend on consensus. They depend on a consensus between the parties. Legislation that is imposed from above by government won't work. Legislation that is imposed or recommended by other people or by one side won't work. Legislation that's balanced one way — either in favour of labour or in favour of management — simply won't work, by its nature. The legislation has to establish a level playing field for it to work.

I believe this government talked at great length about the fact that it was a new start — a fresh start, they called it. I believe that there really was, prior to the introduction of this bill, an historic occasion. The government had an historic occasion to deal fundamentally with labour problems that have been developing in British Columbia, and to deal with disputes like the IWA dispute. That moment in history came about because of good will on the part of most of the management community in this province — I think of the Business Council, for example — and good will on behalf of the B. C. Federation of Labour; clearly a consistent attempt over the last few months by both of those groups to put forward constructive, non-partisan and non-inflammatory suggestions for the Labour Code. As I said, I have the B.C. Federation brief before me; I've seen the Business Council brief, and they really attempted to put forward balanced changes.

But what did we get? We didn't get a response based on the kind of reasoned, rational approaches by the parties involved, and those parties have a long history of conflict. But they put it aside because they took the Premier at his word, and they said, "Let's really try to develop a consensus," and they did. And then this legislation comes down, which doesn't deal with any of the suggestions made — or hardly any of the suggestions made by the business community and virtually none of the recommendations put forward by the labour movement.

What does labour say about these changes? I've seen the headline "B.C. Fed Pullout Launches Protest Against Labour Laws" in the Vancouver Sun. And I think we've seen

[ Page 502 ]

very moderate and modest rhetoric from the labour movement — rational and reasoned responses again, although clearly hostile.

I have before me a letter from one of the most moderate trade union leaders in the province, and I just want to . . . .

AN HON. MEMBER: Fred Randall.

MR. CLARK: Yes, Fred Randall of the operating engineers. I thought I'd read it into the record.

"As the elected business manager of the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 115, representing 10,000 members in the province, I have some serious concerns regarding the recently introduced legislation. First of all, no one understands it, including the press, who feed the information to the public. The legislation should be put on hold until it is fully understood by the public, the legislators who will vote on it, and the elected representatives of the workers. We have tried to arrange a meeting with the new Premier since his election at Whistler, to discuss various labour matters, but have been unsuccessful to date.

"I know many of the MLAs from both parties in the Legislature, and find it hard to believe that they could support what is being proposed, if they really understood it.

"My views must have some credibility with the government, as I sit on the board of governors of the B.C. Institute of Technology and the Public Service Commission on their behalf."

I understand that the appointment to the Public Service Commission was very recent, so this government must have some faith in this labour leader's opinions on those kinds of matters.

He says at the end:

"I would like to make some comments on what I understand to date, as I have not had the opportunity to read all the material or get a legal opinion. Again, time is needed for all of us."

So clearly, even the most moderate labour leaders, who use temperate language and have very cautious but tough criticism of this legislation, have asked all of the legislators to delay it. This hoist bill clearly is not meant to be a motion of non-confidence in the government. It's meant in a genuine non-partisan way to delay the legislation for six months for further discussion.

Now what does the business community say about this? Do they believe that we should be rushing along and passing this legislation? Mr. Matkin, who represents the Business Council, has been very critical of this legislation. "Big business told Premier Bill Vander Zalm Friday his new labour legislation may well detract from labour peace in B.C. rather than contribute to it." That's very damning, coming from a strong supporter of Social Credit and this government over the years, and certainly now.

He says later on: "He said he told the Premier the employer community does not welcome the possibility for government intervention raised in the legislation. 'We said we don't like third-party intervention. And yet you've made third-party intervention a centerpiece of the legislation. And so you may adversely affect collective bargaining."' It goes on to say: "Matkin said the Industrial Relations Reform Act introduced Thursday does not make labour peace in the province a sure thing." That is understated.

I have some other comments which I think are very telling. We've talked about the labour reaction; now we are talking about the business community's reaction. He said a number of things on CBC. He said:

"I think the reality of our pluralistic society is that there's no one single public interest. If you say, well, this legislation is protecting the public interest, what you really mean is that it's protecting the public interest of third parties. Because there certainly is a public interest in employers getting a competitive settlement so that they can continue in business. There's a public interest in unions getting a fair deal so that they can continue to enjoy the advantages of life."

He goes on to say, and I am paraphrasing: the assumption is that protracted disputes would be prevented from continuing by this new Industrial Relations Council. A cooling-off period would be implemented, and eventually even binding arbitration. He says: "The difficulty I have with that is that I know quite a bit about that dispute last year," — meaning the IWA dispute — "there was a lot of intervention, a lot of third-party intervention, and it didn't succeed, and I think that knowing the dimension of the feelings of the parties, I doubt that this legislation would have prevented the long strike. It may have indeed made it worse."

These are the comments of Jim Matkin, a supporter of the government who has indicated very clearly that in his view this legislation may well make things worse and not better. It is rare that we get a consensus in the views of management and labour in this province. We have a consensus, and it is that this bill stinks.

Clearly it makes sense to delay it. Clearly, this hoist motion to delay it for six months would give us a chance to clean it up.

I think what they are saying, really, is that cooperation cannot be legislated. That is what this attempts to do. It attempts to impose a rigid, bureaucratic government organization on free collective bargaining, and it attempts to say that you shall do this, this and this, and this bureaucrat will tell you to do this, this and this. Not the government, not the Legislature, but one man can tell you what to do.

You cannot legislate cooperation. The government should know that the best way to deal with labour legislation is to operate with consensus, to engage in debate between the parties so that there is a consensus before moving ahead. This kind of radical legislation simply doesn't do that.

Now as we talked about fresh start, I want to look a little bit at what the Premier said about how he was going to proceed on labour questions in this province.

AN HON. MEMBER: What did he say during the election campaign?

MR. CLARK: I am just going to get to that. What did the Premier say during the election? We'll see whether he's fulfilled . . . . The Premier said, September 25, 1986: "People know the issues are too pressing to allow the politics of division to continue . . . . They want to be part of the solution. Main Street British Columbians want an end to partisan warfare. They want to set aside the sectoral strife which has become the unhappy hallmark of B.C."

Vander Zalm said he wanted government to be less intrusive. Nothing in this legislation deals with those remarks. All

[ Page 503 ]

of the labour comment has been negative. Almost all of the business comment has been negative. Yet he campaigned by saying that he wanted consensus, and then he said he wanted it to be less intrusive government. In fact, he's done exactly the opposite of what he said that day in September.

Then I have here an advertisement from the Social Credit Party during the election, with a picture of the Premier on it, who said: "We need to put aside partisan interests and adopt a new spirit of cooperation." He said: "Let's bring together representatives from labour and management to set a new tone for industrial relations." Well, no one thought a new tone meant what we're getting now in the papers in this province. No one thought a new tone meant that both management and labour would be arguing against legislation put forward by the government. On September 25, 1986, he added that he feels voters also want an end to expensive, wasteful warfare between labour and business. What else did he say? Oh, here it is.

Interjection.

MR. CLARK: The member says: "What did he mean?" Well, we're seeing now what he meant. The brakes were applied all of a sudden. During the election he said: "If you try and ram it down someone's throat, you create confrontation, " referring to the previous administration. So this motion, it seems to me, is clearly right in line with the Premier's statements during the election. We're going to get a chance to debate it more between the parties, try and reach a consensus, try to reduce that big bureaucracy that will result in legislation, and have a chance not to ram it down people's throats, but in fact to do the opposite, to build a consensus around the changing of the Labour Code in this province.

[4:30]

The other reason for supporting this hoist motion, it seems to me, is really the lack of consultation. I notice the government House Leader (Hon. Mr. Strachan) mentioned the hearings that were held in British Columbia, and that's true. So they heard lots of people, but it doesn't appear that they listened to very many of them. It seems to me that not one of the participants in those hearings recommended the kind of super-boss or super-czar of labour relations that we see in this legislation.

What is the role of this commissioner? I think it's very important, given that as legislators we used to have the power, or still have the power, to deaf in extraordinary circumstances with labour disputes. Now this commissioner has that power; it used to be ours. He has the power to assign panels, the power to sit on panels himself. He has to monitor all labour disputes in the province. He has to advise the Labour minister every time a strike or lockout has lasted 28 days. Then each week until it ends he has a duty to report to cabinet whenever he perceives the dispute threatens the public interest.

Every time he is advised of a dispute the commissioner may instruct the chairperson to appoint a mediator; to appoint a fact-finder to make non-binding recommendations within 20 days, at which time lockout action is suspended until 48 hours after the party has received the fact-finder's report; to talk directly to the parties and recommend a way of settling the dispute; and to order a final-offer vote by the workers if a strike or lockout has already started. And before a stoppage either party can require the commissioner to order a final-offer vote. In other words the employer can require the commissioner to order a final-offer vote. Where the commissioner believes the public interest is threatened, he may either impose a 40-day moratorium on strike or lockout action, or instruct the chairperson or a panel to designate essential services — the minister said essential service legislation was gone; here it is, buried in this legislation — and he can appoint a public interest board of inquiry which will hear evidence from the parties and the public, and report in 30 days. The commissioner may appoint a public-interest advocate and order the board to think again if he feels it may have not given enough weight to the public interest and the employer's ability to pay — there's the Compensation Stabilization Program.

AN HON. MEMBER: You've got three minutes.

MR. CLARK: Three minutes? I've only gone a tenth of the way through my remarks.

So this chairman has this enormous power to smother the process in process. First he could appoint a fact-finder, and that may take a while; then he could appoint a mediator after that; then he could appoint a special conciliator or something, and bury it in process. But the bottom line is that the frustration that results from that is going to cause more labour problems, not less.

Oh, I see my time is up, so I want to encourage all the members here to support the motion to hoist the legislation for six months and then vote against it.

MR. MERCIER: Thank you for this opportunity to speak against the motion to hoist the Industrial Relations Reform Act, Bill 19. 1 cannot agree to any delay in passing the bill, which I believe increases democracy in industrial relations. The intention is to indicate clearly that industrial relations affect virtually everyone in this province and cannot any longer be considered the exclusive preserve of organized labour and organized management.

To provide a perspective for the legislation, it is noted that B.C.'s total labour force as of February 1987 is approximately 1.5 million persons. The organized portion is now 460,000 persons, or something less than 40 percent of the total. We have heard comments from leaders of labour and teacher organizations ruffling their tailfeathers like angry grouse. It's appropriate to note that they speak for less than half the workforce in B.C., whereas the legislation is directed to benefit all British Columbians.

I'd like to comment on civil rights and the democratic process. There has been a perceptible shift in rights in our society from the rights of individuals to the rights of powerful organizations. Bill 19 is an effort to restore balance and enhance the rights of individuals. Also it recognizes the fundamental right that those not directly involved in a labour dispute should not suffer by that dispute.

The opposition critic has asked: why bring the act to the Legislature for passing at this time? The answer is why not? This government has a philosophy of freedom for the individual, and it has completed its research and is ready to pass the bill at this time. The opposition critic says why not take the bill to the public, for example, by having a committee travel about the province asking opinions? Where has the opposition been? What did they think was done? The answer to that criticism is that the government committee has already done that and incorporated the opinions of more than 700 written and oral submissions.

[ Page 504 ]

The government campaigned and was elected on the basis that changes would be made to improve individual rights in industrial relations. Bill 19 is a response to that commitment. We feel satisfied that the majority of British Columbians shall be served by passing the Industrial Relations Reform Act now. That is how, in a democratic system, a government entrenches its views and remains accountable to the electorate. The system is simple, if the opposition wants to know how it works. The words of the opposition, the words of newspaper reporters, the words of radio broadcasters are all important, but the government is accountable only to the electorate. Why should the bill not proceed? We have a leader who leads, a Minister of Labour with tremendous common sense and a caucus that is pleased with Bill 19. We are confident in the work that has been done, and we are satisfied that Bill 19 is good for all British Columbians.

I think productivity, not power, is the issue. British Columbia is competing in a world economy, where the competition is fierce. What profit is there to our people, if we have a powerful, organized labour base, but if we cannot sell the products we make, apart from natural resource-based products? I hope Bill 19 will help small business compete and expand their efforts virtually unencumbered. It's a certainty that I support strong labour unions to bargain for their members with huge corporations.

AN HON. MEMBER: What did he say?

MR. MERCIER: I'll repeat that. It's a certainty that I support strong labour unions to bargain for their members with huge corporations. It is equally certain that I speak today on behalf of approximately 105,000 small businesses operating in B.C. They, not like their larger brethren, require flexibility to grow, to increase their productivity. Let us ask the leaders of organized labour to keep this bill in perspective in a global sense. We are not talking about sending juveniles to work in coal-mines; we're talking about increasing productivity by eliminating minor barriers that have crept into our system which give unwarranted advantage to organized labour at the expense of all other British Columbians.

The proposed legislation — provided management and labour act in good faith — will improve the climate of industrial relations. The government's role in this is simple: the government has the right and the obligation to manage the affairs of the province. This government assumed the obligation to manage and promised this positive step to protect the public at large from the imbalance that was growing in the labour and management power ratio. Personally, I see the bill as a furtherance of a promise to assist small business to increase productivity and to reduce or eliminate artificial barriers. That is the limit to the government's role.

We want to clear the track and restore freedom to individuals, in particular the long silent, long-suffering small business enterprisers. Why do I say that? Small business, the entrepreneurs of B.C., carry more than their share of the tremendous burden of supporting our social programs and the costs of government. This legislation helps them and provides them their freedom to continue to do so. It is conjecture for the opposition critic to say — which was said — that the commissioner system will lead to a greater number of unresolved disputes or unsettled contracts. I say he has a cloudy crystal ball. The government position is clear and positive. The commissioner system is expected to see limited use because organized management and labour are expected to continue to settle their contracts through the free bargaining system. There is not a shred of evidence to support the doom-and-gloom view of the opposition critic.

The opposition critic further stated that the commissioner is not accountable. That is simply a false statement. The commissioner is accountable to government, and the government is accountable to the public at the polls. I am confident the public will review the freedom and productivity that results from this bill, and then when the time comes, vote for this government. The greater public interest shall be served, not through a power struggle between powerful unions and powerful corporations but through fairness in law.

I would like to take a few minutes to talk about the teachers, because I have some management ideas for them. It is time they used their imagination, and they should be creative. They have never had a greater chance to be innovative. On the positive side, the teachers will have the freedom to be the masters of their own destiny. There is a great opportunity for the 90 percent of the teachers who are dedicated and effective to deal with the other 10 percent who drag down their overall performance.

The outcry from the BCTF president is incredible, and it is illogical. In the BCTF newsletter of March 31, 1987, it is clearly stated that their objectives for 1987 and 1988 were to do the following: their primary goal was to end wage controls; their next main goal was to achieve fair contract settlements. In their words, the teachers wanted normalization of their bargaining regime. Early in our term we have helped Elsie McMurphy become the most successful leader of the BCTF ever. Her stated main objectives have been achieved now, so she and her executive can concentrate on reorganizing their 300-member BCTF bargaining committee into bargaining units or associations with whom negotiations can commence. In other words, everything they asked for in this letter has been delivered right away.

Effectively, the BCTF already had two divisions in operation within their structure. First, they had the bargaining committee, which looked, walked and talked like a central bargaining unit. So let's call it that. Second, they had the professional functions in the other division, which will be managed through the College of Teachers.

Elsie McMurphy said the proposed legislation gutted the BCTF. I say that she should take a second look, expand her horizons and grasp this opportunity to reorganize and lead her teachers to make an even greater, more effective contribution to our society.

In closing, I would say that for the good of the vast majority of British Columbians Bill 19 should proceed at the earliest opportunity.

[4:45]

MR. MILLER: I rise in support of the motion. I think the motion makes eminent sense, and I will try to convey that to the members opposite in the hope that they will see the light of day.

I will start in that process by referring to an editorial in today's Sun, which I will read in its entirety in case some people haven't read it, because I think it is worthwhile, and in some sense it sums up the need to take a second look at this piece of legislation. The heading of the article is indicative of the kind of problems that we may be faced with. It is entitled: "War Warnings." "Premier Bill Vander Zalm has now had an opportunity to hear what both business and labour think of

[ Page 505 ]

Bill 19, his government's labour relations reform legislation, and he cannot be encouraged by what he heard."

Interjections.

MR. MILLER: Madam Speaker, I am not sure that the members want to hear what I have to say. However, I do believe I should have the right to say it. If they would be a little bit patient, I will try to get through this material and give them their opportunity to read their scripts. I'm really discouraged that this is eating into my time, Madam Speaker, because I do have some important things to say. But I intend to quote some other documents.

AN HON. MEMBER: They're so disruptive.

MR. MILLER: Very disruptive.

"The union movement is violently opposed to the whole package and business representatives are uneasy about the central thrust of the legislation, even though there is much more in it for business than for labour."

I'll get on to that a little later on as well.

"The Premier has rejected the demands of the province's top unionists that he withdraw the bill, but unless the government makes significant amendments it could blow up in his face and cause irreparable damage."

AN HON. MEMBER: Irreparable.

MR. MILLER: Well, irreparable. Somebody said irregardless. Some people say disirregardless. The message is clear in this editorial, and it's incumbent upon the members opposite to pay attention, because the consequences could be quite serious.

AN HON. MEMBER: Has the Sun never been wrong?

MR. MILLER: The Sun has been wrong, and they've been right. Their ratio is probably better than the members opposite.

"Seldom has a government proposal had such high potential for defeating its own purpose. The government's stated objectives, frequently expressed by Mr. Vander Zalm since he took office, are to end confrontation between labour, management and government, to promote industrial peace, and to encourage investment in British Columbia, by repairing the province's reputation for strikes and lockouts.

"Bill 19 as it is now constituted offers the prospect of even greater turmoil on the labour front because, even disregarding its anti-union tilt (and whether we agree with that or not, let's not pretend that it's not there), it represents a massive state intrusion into private affairs.

"Mr. VanderZalm says he doesn't want to get into a philosophical debate about the bill in which unions say one thing and employers say another. But he should listen when both are saying the same thing. And even Jim Matkin, the president of the Business Council of B.C., has told him that the expansion of government intervention in the collective bargaining process may well detract from labour peace rather than contribute to it.

"The government has tried to justify the authoritarian aspects of Bill 19 on the ground that they represent the public interest. But what is the public interest? It is certainly not more chaos in industrial relations."

As I said, that editorial quite clearly spells out the path or the problem that we could face down the road if the government persists in pursuing this legislation through the Legislature and does not respond in a positive way to the motion that we have made.

I want to try to colour my remarks by first of all stating that I have been a union worker for most of my working life, and I think that I offer a point of view that perhaps some of the members are not familiar with. I want to take the time to try to pass on what I think is the point of view of unionized workers, particularly in the primary industries of this province. I worked as an IWA member setting chokers, or beads as we used to call them, on northern Vancouver Island; as a deckhand on a tugboat towing logs down the coast of this province; and really for most of my working life as a pulp mill worker in Prince Rupert. When I suffered an extensive layoff because of this government's unfortunate mishandling of the economy through the B.C. Resources Investment Corporation, I went out longshoring.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

As a working person in the primary wealth-producing industries of this province, I referred in the throne speech debate to a feeling that I had that's shared by many working people in this province — that an anti-union bias and an antiworking person bias exists on that side of the House. Madam Speaker, if I required any further proof of that, in addition to the comments that I've heard from my friends on the other side, the comments made by the Premier on April 1 offered a clear indication that that bias does exist.

Interjection.

MR. MILLER: I try to read a lot of things, Mr. Member, and you should do the same.

I'll quote from that article that talked about the Premier addressing a meeting of some 300 sales and marketing executives at the Four Seasons, where most union people don't spend their hard-earned dollars, because they can't afford it. Quoting from the Sun: "In another unusual move, Premier Bill Vander Zalm asked that people who support the substantial changes in the Labour Code support the government when the controversy begins." He anticipated controversy. He may welcome the controversy. "'But will we hear from the same people again when we introduce some piece of legislation that really goes some way toward freeing up business . . . ? "' Is that what this legislation is designed to do — not to bring some sense of cooperation and harmony to the labour relations front, but as the Premier's own words say, "free up business"? If it is, then this motion makes a lot of sense.

He goes on to say: "When we do things others don't like but may be of benefit to you or the province, but it means a bit of controversy, getting your shoes dirty, or getting out there to match that pink pickets, then you stand with us as well." What did the Premier mean by "pink pickets"? Was that red-

[ Page 506 ]

baiting by the Premier? Is that what the Premier's idea is in order to induce cooperation on the labour-management front — to insult the working people of this province and their organizations by referring to them as "pink pickets?" It clearly represents a bias that I detect on the other side. But I've heard nothing from anybody on the other side to tell me that that bias does not exist.

Going on, Madam Chairman, as I said, the Premier has set the tone. Some of the members opposite referred to it. I just want to take a moment to discuss that, before I get back onto some of the other points I want to make. I hear remarks from people who pass themselves off as almost labour relations experts on the other side. The first member for Boundary–Similkameen (Mr. Hewitt) made some remarks; and the member for Burnaby–Edmonds (Mr. Mercier). They talked about this catch-phrase "democracy in the workplace." I've got to say that when those kinds of statements are made, they're really a bit of an insult to the people who work for a living in this province, who may work in a pulp mill or wherever. You talk about bringing democracy to the workplace, and what you display is a complete ignorance of how the system works, in terms of those working people and how they elect their representatives, and the process and the difficulties that they have to go through in order to conduct their affairs in terms of their relations with their employers.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, if I may interrupt for just a moment, please, I'd just like to remind all members in the House that we are speaking to a hoist motion, which concerns itself as to the reasons this bill should or shouldn't be put forward for six months.

MR. MILLER: I was attempting to relate what I think is an attitude. And I think this bill is important, in terms of the attitude of the people of the province in relation to the bill and what it will do. It seems to me that it's important that the attitude or the feeling of the people that are going to be most affected by this legislation should be conveyed, in terms of a defence of the motion to stop proceeding with this bill. I was carried away somewhat, but I've seen union leaders, whom I know personally, work for years in this province trying to run meetings, trying to get quorums out to meetings so that they can conduct their business. These aren't paid people; these are people who volunteer for that job, and they receive all kinds of hassles from their own members as well as from the companies. So the portrayal of unionists as fat-cat porkchoppers — as people over there often like to refer to them — is completely erroneous and, in my opinion, offensive.

Interjection.

MR. MILLER: No, I'm not the only person in the union. But I haven't seen too many people over there talk about it as though they have any knowledge of it.

AN HON. MEMBER: I have.

MR. MILLER: Well, we all know your comments about education. They weren't too good.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, I'm sorry to interfere again, but there has been just about enough heckling across this floor this afternoon. I would suggest we bring a little decorum back to this House, and let the debate continue in an orderly manner.

MR. MILLER: I agree, Mr. Speaker. I perhaps was responding to the heckling, and I shouldn't have.

In any event, we talk about the effects of this legislation and the problems that this is going to create, and the need for the legislation not to proceed at this point. One of the arguments that has been made about the legislation is that it has a cooling-off period. Well, if there's a cooling-off period, I say now is a time for a cooling-off period. Let's cool the whole thing off by hoisting this bill at this particular time.

It's not just the opposition and the labour movement that are saying that we're heading in the wrong direction, and we should stop and re-think our position. I'd like to quote from the Sun editorial on Saturday, April 4. 1 don't want to keep quoting the Sun, but they write such good editorials. The final portion of that editorial says:

"During a discussion with Sun editors and reporters on Friday, Mr. Hanson and his officials could cite but one strike or lockout now going on in B.C. Their commitment to this massive overhaul plan appeared repeatedly to be a reaction to the unusual events of last year's forest industry dispute. The new labour commissioner is being given vast authority to make labour peace. We're not convinced of the need for the heavy artillery."

So once again another warning from the same source that we should not proceed along the lines that the government proposes.

[5:00]

I'll quote another source, Mr. Speaker, in defence of our motion to put this bill off for some time. I received on my desk the other day the 1986 annual report of the Business Council of British Columbia. I'm sure most members are aware of the activities of the council. I want to quote from the opening letter in that report, a letter written by R.G. Saunders, chairman of the board of governors of the Business Council of British Columbia, a person who has some substantive knowledge in terms of the labour relations problems and climate in this province. I think his words are worth repeating, and they're worth heeding. Quoting from the letter, he says, in terms of meetings with the B.C. Federation of Labour:

"It was simply a need to communicate a business perspective on labour-management issues that crystallized in the minds of those founding members the concept for a council. To this day, labour relations issues have been the mainstay of our work."

It is an august body that has donated a considerable amount of time and endeavour to dealing with those very problems that we're talking about now in this Legislature.

"At no other time has this issue, and the need to improve the labour-management relationship, been more important to the welfare of business, labour, government and the public alike."

And yet the evidence is clear that the course the government has embarked on will not do that.

"Two years ago the provincial government commissioned a study carried out by Public Affairs International, Washington, D.C. The study was to determine why certain companies based in the United States, who had considered investing in B.C., ultimately did not do so. Ninety-five percent of the

[ Page 507 ]

survey respondents stated that it was for reasons of poor labour relations. Missed opportunities like these mean missed economic development opportunities for B.C."

"The perception that we are failing to compete in the area of service due to poor labour-management relations requires our immediate attention."

It is obviously an issue of considerable importance to this province, and the government, despite repeated statements by people in the know in this area, refuses to listen.

"We are a province of extremes. These extremes are surely manifested in our politics, and seem to have permeated every facet of life in B.C. This reputation for extremism and negative behaviour is well known nationally and internationally. It's hurting us and will continue to do so. We must act."

I say we can act by agreeing to this motion to hoist this bill. Take away the extremism.

"It is our responsibility to exhibit cooperative leadership in labour relations issues. We must stop looking to government to address and solve these problems . . . we cannot realistically think and hope that legislative, regulatory or any imposed reform will improve the climate" — that sentence is very important. "Personal attitudes among the active participants in the business and labour community must change."

"As the council embarks on its third decade, let us as an institution take this initiative in an unselfish and constructive way. Let us promote a better labour-management relationship at home and begin to educate and inspire our customers abroad that B.C. is a good place to invest and do business."

Wise words. I don't think there are people in the labour movement who would disagree with what Mr. Saunders has said. It's significant that members of the Business Council and the labour movement have moved significantly in terms of dealing with those questions. That fragile balance could be upset if the government persists in going on with this legislation.

There seems to be, I think, a fundamental misunderstanding of why labour unions exist, where the impetus comes from for working people to join together. My experience tells me that it grows out of the job. Again, I'll refer particularly to the primary industries. In terms of the kinds of conditions that exist out there, working people have over the years banded together to fight some pretty tough battles over those working conditions and wages. I just want to enter some of those experiences, Mr. Speaker, in terms of trying to point out the feelings that those people have and what this legislation could do to them.

I've been in the pulp industry for some 13 years or more, and during that time I've seen about 13 people killed on the job. I never witnessed every accident, but more than half of those fellows I knew fairly well. That's a significant number of people who are killed on the job. They were crushed, electrocuted, mangled. I've seen people, friends of mine.... I come from Prince Rupert. A lot of friends of mine are fishermen. There's still a boat missing without a trace up on the north coast.

In response to those kinds of conditions on the job, people fought, and they fought very strongly. All the legislation in the world will not change what happens under those conditions. I've participated in strikes, including wildcat strikes. I recall particularly one time we went out; we had three people killed on the same job — in one mill, I believe in the course of about four years. We shut it down. We wildcatted. We didn't care about labour legislation or anything else; we shut that damned thing down until it was fixed, and that's got nothing to do with labour legislation. Maybe we inconvenienced the public, but the inconvenience to the public was worth it in terms of protecting our own membership.

The B.C. Council of Carpenters submitted a brief to the minister. The headline, I think, is a good one, because they talk about restoring the balance. Surely that is what our job should be in this Legislature: not to try and nip or take away from the strength that one side or the other has, but to restore the balance. In any event, the brief by the carpenters goes on in a very good way. I commend it to the members opposite in terms of the kind of hurdles that the labour movement has over the years had to clear in terms of legislation — legislation that quite frankly was aimed directly at taking away from what labour had won on the bargaining front. I think labour is going to see this legislation in exactly the same manner.

I want to contrast the manner in which this process was begun with the point where we've arrived in this House dealing with this particular piece of legislation. I think it's important in terms of the motion that we've proposed. The contrast I want to make is with the manner and way in which a former Minister of Labour dealt with the same subject, and what he and this House ultimately produced as a result of that process. The person I'm speaking of, obviously, is Bill King, who I think is widely regarded as one of the most intelligent, thorough and even-handed Labour ministers this province has ever developed, and that praise comes from all quarters. When you have a person of that stature, I think it's worth while paying attention to the manner in which he handled this type of legislation, as opposed to what's being handled now.

At that time — 1973 — the government took one year of consultation and discussion before bringing in what is widely viewed as the sanest and most progressive legislation in North America in terms of labour-management relations. It's significant because when that legislation was introduced in the House after one year, some people thought, well, there's a New Democratic Party government; they're clearly going to bring in something that's heavily weighted in favour of labour unions and against the corporate world or business. Some people thought that would happen. It didn't happen at all, and that's a model too in terms of . . . . It's a major criticism of this legislation that it doesn't do that. It tilts the balance. All kinds of speakers have alluded to the fact that it tilts the balance, including some on the other side, who think that's a good thing.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's why it should be hoisted. You should have put that in.

MR. MILLER: I said it should be hoisted. I'm going to repeat many times that it should be hoisted.

I want to quote Hansard — not a newspaper, Hansard. These are real words spoken in this chamber on February 5, 1973. I quote Mr. King, the then Minister of Labour:

"Undoubtedly, one of the most important functions of the Department of Labour relates to labour relations as such. The successful operation of our entire economy depends upon a smooth and harmonious relationship between the parties. It is all very well to subscribe to a philosophy of a better living

[ Page 508 ]

standard for all our people," — and this message was aimed at labour — "but if we don't export our goods and have a viable commercial base, we cannot support the great social reforms which are everyone's desire. Foreign buyers will not forever put up with erratic deliveries and unjustified price increases just because we demand them. Domestic business suffers, the workers suffer and employers become discouraged and go out of business if we do not achieve a responsible relationship that assures continuity of work, certainly insofar as possible and under reasonable conditions.

"In recognition of this, the Government has already undertaken steps by amending mediation legislation to remove compulsory features."

At the time Mr. King recognized that statistics bore him out, that the legislation that had been introduced before his becoming the minister was inflammatory. It was clearly rejected by the labour movement, and we have lots of indications that exactly the same thing is going to happen with this piece of legislation. It is going to create some turmoil and some trouble in this province, and we don't need it. Mr. King went on to say that we will undoubtedly always have conflicts, but that that is the price we must pay in a free and democratic society.

I will just briefly continue that reference to the manner in which that legislation was brought in, as opposed to the way that this was brought in, and hopefully try to convince the government that they should take a second look and pay attention to what we are saying in this House. The designated speaker on the opposition side at that time was Mr. Chabot, who served many years in this House. He said that as a result of the labour legislation already in force at that time, almost 10 percent of our labour force was out on strike in 1972. "I must say," he said, "that the success or failure of this legislation depends upon its acceptance or rejection by labour and management." That was a former member of this House for the Social Credit Party, in effect saying what we are saying, Mr. Speaker: labour legislation really must reflect a balance of power between the two groups, labour and management.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. MILLER: Madam Member, I expect to see you voting in favour of our motion.

Mr. Chabot went on to say: "I firmly believe that industrial tension must be reduced in British Columbia. I must say that industrial tension cannot only be reduced by legislation;" — he was a wise member; in some ways it is unfortunate that he is not here today to take part in this debate — "there must be consideration and a genuine attempt on the part of labour and management to make legislation work. Also, legislation must preserve and reflect the dignity of the two parties for it to function properly."

Just one other reference before I continue. Mr. Chabot went on to say: "I've started some comments about this legislation. I want to say that I think it's only fair that the public have an opportunity to express their views towards this legislation" — what we are trying to achieve by this motion. "I think that there has been a tremendous amount of input on the part of labour and management...." — unlike the legislation we are dealing with now.

So you can see that the words of even a former member on the opposite side caution the government not to proceed, dealing with the Labour Code and the kind of balance that it tried to strike, and the kind of people that Mr. King had working for him at that time to draft this legislation, in addition to the extensive consultation throughout British Columbia — and other jurisdictions were consulted. I won't read the Hansard references, but other speakers of other parties commended that process. One of the people involved in drafting that legislation, one of the people who today is sounding cautionary notes, was Mr. Jim Matkin.

It is important that the legislation brought in at that time, in addition to being even-handed, was so carefully considered in terms of the eventual appeals to the courts that inevitably follow this kind of legislation. I don't think that this legislation will stand those tests in the courts. Some member referred to democracy and rights. We now have a Charter of Rights in this country, and I fully expect that if the government foolishly persists in pursuing this bill through this House and passing it into legislation, the first place it is going to wind up is in front of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Mr. Matkin now, in the fullness of time, given extensive experience both in government and in working for industry, has said the following things in the Sun of April 4. The headline is: "Matkin Warns Vander Zalm of Labour Relations Concerns."

[5:15]

Three minutes? That's too bad, but I will read this anyway. "Business Council of B.C. president Jim Matkin told Premier Bill Vander Zalm on Friday his new labour legislation could worsen labour relations in B.C. instead of making them better." What more evidence do you need not to proceed? "Matkin said he is concerned about a key element in the legislation that establishes a new agency with wide powers to intervene in labour disputes."

What I am amazed at is that this government has talked about getting government off the back of business, and they have talked about deregulation. Well, I wish they would do the same with labour relations, and maybe we could get some sanity in this province. I was going to use a big word, but maybe it would have passed over their heads, Mr. Speaker.

MR. WILLIAMS: It would take too much time.

MR. MILLER: That's right.

It is worthy of note, Mr. Speaker, that a very significant set of negotiations took place last year and the contract was settled very, very early, with no labour disruptions. That was in the pulp industry. And if you don't understand that labour disputes have a lot to do with what's going on in the economy, you don't understand much.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, I want to close with a quote, and I'm sure that nobody will want to oppose my reference here; it's from the Bible, Ecclesiastes, chapter 3:

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
        "A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
        "A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
        "A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
        "A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

[ Page 509 ]

"A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
        "A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak . . ."

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry, hon. member, time is up. [Laughter.]

MR. MILLER: A time to love . . . and a time of war, and a time of peace." And this is the wrong time.

MR. JANSEN: I speak against the amendment, and I'm pleased indeed to speak in support of Bill 19.

Bill 19 is a bill which will set the stage and indeed is the foundation for a stronger economic future for our province; a bill, Mr. Speaker, which addresses an issue vital to our economic stability through the promotion of equity in British Columbia's employment relations.

In keeping with the open and responsive style of our government, I have had the opportunity and the privilege, together with the Minister of Labour (Hon. L. Hanson) and my colleague the member for Nelson–Creston (Mr. Dirks), to tour the province to solicit public input on required amendments to the current labour legislation of British Columbia. Whether our committee sat in Terrace, Prince George, Vernon, Vancouver or any of the nine communities that we visited throughout the province, the message was the same. The oral submissions, the discussions and the extensive and very thorough written submissions voiced the same concerns and suggested the same remedies. Whether they were from labour or from management, whether they were from construction or education, union or non-union — indeed, all the people of British Columbia — these people were tired of confrontation. They were weary of labour disputes and anxious to seek a solution to prevent the senseless waste of our most precious resource: the working people of British Columbia. They demanded that this government seek a solution to remedy the employment relations inequities, the imbalances, the lack of investor confidence, the outdated provision of our Code. In short, they wanted simply to work without interference. They wanted government to provide a positive legislative framework to secure their employment opportunities.

Our government, Mr. Speaker, has risen to this challenge, because we are a government willing to seek change and a government indeed committed to the provision of economic initiatives to enable the bottom line — jobs for British Columbians. A government, as indicated by some of the members across the floor, cannot legislate labour peace; it cannot legislate labour stability. But we can establish, and indeed we have established, a legislative framework which will protect the rights of people who count, the rank and file of the province of British Columbia, and we have done it in language that is understandable. Indeed, we have made this bill a working document.

I believe that the new industrial relations act will prompt and secure investor confidence in our province and our communities. The act will set the stage for a positive climate in industrial relations. In the long term, our industries, our employers and our employees will be more productive and less prone to protracted labour disputes. British Columbia will therefore be a more attractive place for investments, for investors to invest their money, to begin their business operations and to call this province home.

Another important underlying principle of the Industrial Relations Reform Act is the strengthening of the democratic rights and freedoms of individuals in the workplace and other citizens of British Columbia. The right of freedom of association is protected. We respect the decision of persons to become or not to become members of a trade union in a democratic society. This bill affirms the right of an individual to free speech, an essential ingredient in a collective bargaining relationship, and supports the principle of open communication between employers and employees, and with the Industrial Relations Council.

As well, fairness, equity and growth are ensured through changes to the hiring-hall practices and the strengthening of the apprenticeship program. The value of the secret ballot in industrial votes is emphasized, a provision that is supported by all sectors of the workplace. The right of employees to vote on ratification and to know the results of the vote is ensured. The rights, too, of religious objectors are secured. In summary, the amendments stress the recognition of and enhance individual rights, but do not undermine the collective rights of employees. This government is a strong supporter of democracy in the workplace, and this legislation encourages and reflects that philosophy.

Our hearings throughout the province heard time and time again that the rights of innocent third parties must be protected. It is a fundamental principle that disputes between employers and trade unions ought to be confined so that there are no harmful effects on third parties who have no ability to bring about a resolution. It is simply unfair to permit any situation where a union brings pressure to bear against a primary employer by actual or threatened sanctions mounted against a third party.

Our hearings, too, Mr. Speaker, heard from teachers throughout the province. They wanted the ability to bargain their terms and conditions of employment. This legislation not only gives them this sought-after right, it gives this profession the option to organize a trade union if they wish, again emphasizing our philosophy of the freedom of association. Our legislation also ensures that collective bargaining activities are kept distinct from professional development standards and certification activities, an action that will strengthen both processes.

Mr. Speaker, let me close by saying that Bill 19 brings forward the most comprehensive amendment to our Labour Code seen in decades. Its strength is based on the positive reaction of our government to a consultative process. We have the prospect for a stronger economic future for the people of British Columbia. Its passage will provide an investment in our future that will reap benefits and dividends in years to come.

I ask, Mr. Speaker: why would we give up all these benefits by delaying passage of this bill? I speak against any delay.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

MR. LOVICK: I'm surprised that the speakers from the other side have indeed discovered the truth of the old adage about brevity being the soul of wit. I fear, however, that it is simply because none of them feels confident to go on at great length in speaking against our amendment because perhaps after some sober reflection they recognize they are indeed on the wrong side intellectually, morally and economically.

[ Page 510 ]

My purpose in standing here, however, is to carry on with the tradition I established some time ago, of being always conciliatory, and therefore I shall try to do that. The amendment is simply a motion to delay. That's all we are asking.

Interjections.

MR. LOVICK: Isn't it marvelous that at 5:30 — almost — you can actually see life on the other side? Quel change!

As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, it is always difficult to defend delay. It is always difficult to convince people that the course of action they are pursuing is perhaps not the right one, is perhaps misguided. The reason for that is simple: if the people on the other side of the House accept our motion to delay, they are implicitly admitting an error on their part. So I can recognize and appreciate their reluctance. Given that reluctance, however, I think that they might be persuaded to recognize that the most difficult thing in the world to do, of course, is to admit that one has indeed been wrong. All we are asking you to do is recognize that perhaps after we've been through the crucible of debate and discussion, your ideas may remain intact. They may be valid. But let's find out. Let's not rush this through.

AN HON. MEMBER: Speak to the hoist.

MR. LOVICK: Let me remind you — speaking to the hoist — that as one of the great twentieth-century poets said: "We have always been more facile at courage than kindness, and always adroiter with objects than with lives." I want to suggest to the members on the other side, Mr. Speaker, that what we need to do is use an oft-quoted "sober second look." This is not the time for single-minded determination. This is not the time to pursue relentlessly and vigilantly and vigorously a course of action you've already decided, because — and I'm surprised and offended that I have to remind members on the other side of this — they should know that being tough guys isn't smart. It didn't work. Unfortunately your commitment to carrying on regardless of opposition is sadly going to provoke precisely the same kind of reaction we had before, which everybody on that side has collectively and individually renounced. Everybody has said: "We're the new incarnation. We believe in consultation. We believe in discussion. We believe in cooperation." And yet, at the first gesture, the first suggestion that perhaps you are trying once again to ram something through the Legislature peremptorily, what is your response but to say: "No quarter given, by heaven. We've got to get this through."

It strikes me we are dealing with a kind of hypocrisy, if I may put it in that way. I will have occasion to refer to October 22 and the lessons to be derived from that date.

The essential problem with this bill, and the reason we are moving the hoist motion, is that it is so clearly perceived by so many as being discriminatory in favour of one side as opposed to the other. It is a problem, in short, of perceived bias. The story of our civilization, of how government developed to take on its role, is precisely in response to the problem with perceived bias. We have come up with the role of government as a kind of honest broker, a kind of mediator between sides, because when it was perceived that government was otherwise, we had a prescription for discord and disaster.

[5:30]

What does everybody on the other side think is the reason for the great cycles of Greek tragedy? The great cycles of Greek tragedy were all about one side feeling victimized by the other, and therefore the endless cycle of revenge began. One side would get the advantage; then the other side would get the advantage. One side would then return the favour, and so the struggles would go on. Nobody was contented until we came up with the marvelous mechanism called government and law. We said we would create an entity beyond, above, the disputing parties, so that all of us would agree that yes indeed, whatever decision might be arrived at, it is the result of an impartial mediator. That's the role of government. That's what government's job is to be. Any student of government will surely know and appreciate that.

The question, then, is why this government has so demonstrably put itself in the position of playing the game differently and being thereby perceived as taking sides in the dispute. That's the predicament that we have. The history of trade unions, as I hope everybody would know, is in fact the story of workers combining and sometimes fighting rather vigorously because they felt the deck was stacked against them. If one has any understanding of Canadian labour history, or, for that matter, any trade union history in the western world, one recognizes pretty clearly that that was indeed the case: the deck was stacked against the workers.

For example, as late as the mid-nineteenth century, believe it or not, trade unions were called criminal conspiracies in restraint of trade, and governments took it upon themselves to make darn sure that trade unions were not allowed to form. That was perceived to be government's role. The idea of government becoming an honest broker, of being what John Stuart Mill called "the policeman on the corner," simply mediating between the different parties, is a relatively new one.

We in Canada should not lose sight of the fact that our history of trade unionism has been bloody, violent and unhappy. It's a precarious balance we have worked out. We ought not to tamper with it, without careful and reverent concern.

Most people, I'm afraid, have forgotten the fact that the federal government established a major task force on labour-management relations in Canada in the 1960s, because that was the difficult time. Those were the days when the crisis was at hand, and everybody was scared, everybody was worried. All the studies — and there were some 60-odd studies produced by the federal government in that particular set of hearings — recognized quite clearly that both parties had the unchallenged right to exist, and this became the basis for the subsequent union-management accord. What unfortunately seems to be the case today is that the door that has been opened by this particular bill, and the obdurate response of government to any suggestions that they ought to reconsider and rethink this bill, is the perception that perhaps that accord, that compact, is over. That's our predicament.

We have a difficulty here. Government members seem absolutely convinced that this bill must be passed immediately.

Interjection.

MR. LOVICK: The case I am building — and I'm sorry it's too subtle for the second member for Richmond (Mr. Loenen) — is simply the contention that the moment you allow the parties to perceive that you are not acting as some

[ Page 511 ]

kind of neutral, impartial mediator between their interests, but rather are taking sides, then you can kiss goodbye to any kind of labour peace. That's the case I'm building, the case for hoisting. We thought in Canada that we had arrived at an accord; we thought that we had indeed arrived at the place where both sides knew their respective roles. We certainly thought that in B.C. we had arrived at that particular point.

Sadly, this bill would seem to threaten that accommodation. Certainly it is perceived to be doing so. The predicament, as I've suggested earlier, is that the government is now perceived to be taking sides rather than standing as the mediator between the sides. The problem, of course, is that there is no permanent or lasting solution possible, given this climate that you start with. All we will get by proceeding with the course the government seems resolved to follow is an uneasy truce. That's all we're going to get. We might buy a little time, but effectively what we have done is simply to suppress and repress the kind of hostility, suspicion and unhappiness that is out there.

That's dangerous; that's bad practice. If one party feels aggrieved, if one party feels that it cannot get a fair deal because government has ceased to be an honest broker, then whatever settlement we get will be very temporary, very precarious and very unsettling. In short, it won't be a settlement; it will be a temporary accommodation, and no more.

You know, the timing of this bill, given its contents, especially what it is perceived to represent, is exquisitely ironic. It's ironic to me especially, because shortly before this bill saw the light of day, I attended a meeting in Nanaimo sponsored by the local chamber of commerce and — I emphasize the "and" — the Nanaimo-Duncan Labour Council. The two speakers at the meeting were Jim Matkin, president and chief executive officer of the Business Council of British Columbia, and Ken Georgetti, the newly elected president of the B.C. Federation of Labour. What everybody who attended the conference concluded was that perhaps we have arrived at a point in labour relations where we can get over some of our rather foolish adversarial notions. When I say that, believe me that I am not suggesting that an adversarial relationship is in itself foolish; far from it. That rather is systemic. Rather, what I'm talking about is the posturing and the playing of parts that two sides sometimes get involved in.

What happened at that meeting, as I say, is that the two sides spoke, both the speakers were well received by the other side, and everybody stated: "Isn't that marvelous — perhaps we can look forward to a new climate in labour relations in the province. This is wonderful." Everybody felt good. Even the most jaded and the most cynical were prepared to argue that perhaps we can do something about our hard times and the hard positions we have taken.

Jim Matkin quoted a speech at that event that appeared in a journal called Vital Speeches of the Day, which some of you are perhaps familiar with. The latest issue, dated March 1, 1987, features a speech from a Mr. Frank Doyle. Frank Doyle is the senior vice-president of General Electric. We're not talking small-time corporation. The title for his speech is "Labour and Management: Working Together." Matkin read that speech. I went up to him after the meeting and said: "I appreciated hearing the comments you made, and also the citations you incorporated in your speech. Please be good enough to send me a copy." He did. I'd like to quote you just a little bit of that speech.

Doyle says that yes indeed, the competitive environment we function in has changed — not quite in the way that members opposite might like us to conclude, but it has changed. He talks about some of the difficulties confronting us, but he also says we have some strengths. He points particularly to two strengths. One is simply the quality of our workforce in North America, which as he says is the "most highly adaptive and flexible workforce in the world." Some of you may want to challenge that argument, but that's his perception. The second strength that he points to — and I think it is worth noting — is our system of industrial relations. Let me tell you what he says; it is worth repeating here.

"Our labour-management relations, while adversarial, are largely constructive within the adversarial framework. We have the capacity to communicate openly, find common ground, act and adapt. At our best, we are not all give or take — we are give and take. At its best, collective bargaining is a truly interactive process. It means modifying and rearranging existing packages. It means developing new approaches and programs that reflect the flexibility and innovation in the institutions and people on either side of our bargaining tables, while respecting the legitimate rights and needs of both."

Note that last passage: "the legitimate rights and needs of both." I think that all of us had perceived that the last statement and the assumption underlying that statement was a given. That was a premise on which any system would function: the legitimate rights and obligations of both parties. Unfortunately, however, this bill would seem to gainsay that, to deny that claim.

Look, for example, at the front page of the Vancouver Sun. I am not going to quote you great lengths; rather, just look at the headline. It says: "B.C. Fed Pullout Launches Protest Against Labour Law."

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: This article was in the Sun.

MR. LOVICK: Listen, so is "Dear Abby," I will tell the Minister of Municipal Affairs. There are many things there. However, I am pointing at the moment to the front-page headlines.

The point to be made by my alluding to this particular headline is that the B.C. Federation of Labour has collectively decided we can't live with this stuff. Now let's think about that for just a minute. We are not talking about the old version of the B.C. Federation of Labour. We are talking, remember, about a new president and a new executive and a bunch of people who are not oblivious of the political realities of this province. Those people know what happened on October 22. They know that the election did not go the way that I suspect the majority of them wished. They also know, because they have a little better knowledge and sense of history than members opposite do, that what happens in a time of protracted recession, indeed depression, is that the trade union as entity is under fire, is a threatened species.

They also know, because of the economic downturn, that they have lost many of their members and their bank account has been significantly diminished. They know all that. They are not dumb, nor are they naive. The point, however . . . . Please listen. I know that 20 minutes is all that you can manage normally, but please listen. The point is that they have said, despite the political realities of the situation, despite the fact that we don't have much money, that our membership has been reduced, that we lost the election, that public opinion is against us — despite all of that, we have got

[ Page 512 ]

to make our stand here, because this legislation is draconian and threatening enough. We don't think we can live with it.

[5:45]

We are not talking about some political amateurs who are trying to make points. Rather they recognize that they are, indeed, in a dangerous and precarious position, but as that other gentleman some of you on the other side will be familiar with — some 400 years ago or however long — Martin Luther once said: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise." That's the conclusion that the B.C. Federation of Labour has come to and, I dare say, has come to reluctantly. There are no points to be made, there are no gains to be made, no games to be played out in this particular issue. The B.C. Federation of Labour is taking a position that it recognizes is precarious and dangerous, but it feels it has no choice.

That leads me to say that the primary reason why I think we should support the hoist amendment is just that one of the most significant players in the game says the current bill is unacceptable. That by itself should be sufficient evidence and sufficient grounds to make us support this motion. The B.C. Fed is not spoiling for a fight; it does not want to be scapegoated; it does not want to be held up as the reason why we don't have great prosperity in the province, etc. Rather, as I suggested earlier, it is doing so because it sees itself as having no alternative.

There are some other very good reasons as well for delaying the passage of this bill. In the time remaining to me, I would like to touch on a few of those. The first reason is simply that there is considerable confusion regarding what the bill means. Badly drafted legislation, confusing legislation, I would remind you, is both dangerous and damaging. Lord knows, we have sufficient evidence of that throughout our history.

One of the problems with badly drafted legislation is that it calls into question the integrity of both legislature and legislators. If, in fact, it is the case that people aren't sure what it means, and yet a whole bunch of people on the other side of the House who apparently and ostensibly don't know what it means are all nevertheless gaily and gleefully and gladly leaping on the bandwagon and saying, "Let's go, this is good stuff," then what kind of credibility do you think people like that have in the eyes of the public? I suggest not very much.

Let me give you some illustration of why I'm suggesting to you that this legislation is indeed confusing, why it is not clear what it means. Indeed, I would almost be prepared to make a small wager with members opposite. I'm not sure that's parliamentary, Mr. Speaker, but it might be appropriate. I don't think that that gang of people sitting over there really understand what the change to the technological change clause in the bill means. Do people over there . . . . I see you're all pointing your fingers at others, saying: "Please don't pick me." Well, you should know. There is a change in the technological change clause of the new bill that I suspect.... I'd be more than happy to get you all to come outside and we could all have a kind of quick quiz and maybe give a prize to the person who can correctly answer. I don't mean to be disrespectful, Mr. Speaker, but I suspect there aren't many folks over there who understand what that means, if any. I have a nice blue pad here, and that way we can guarantee that all of the answers will have been completed without two hours to prepare. If you want to fill out that answer, well and good. It is a trick question, certainly for people on that side, because it assumes understanding; that, of course, is a dirty trick.

I want to suggest also that probably there aren't many people over there who could explain to me why the Rand formula, that marvelously peculiar Canadian phenomenon which has become famous throughout the world as a hallmark piece of legislation in labour relations, has been found wanting in this bill. Why do we have to have something new about religious freedom? Why do we have to say to people that not only do we respect your right not to join the trade union, we also respect your right to be a freeloader. Because that's what the bill says. Guess what that is going to do to trade unions.

Interjection.

MR. LOVICK: It certainly does say that. It says that you don't have to pay for the services that the union provides. I don't propose to sit down and debate all the clauses in the bill now — I will later — but I'm suggesting to you that if the member can read he will soon discover that that is indeed the case.

The point is, why is this Legislature, this jurisdiction, changing what has been regarded as the solution to the problem of conscience in every other jurisdiction that I am familiar with? Why have we in B.C. had to come up with a special clause? Again, I have my little blue pad if anybody wants to try and complete the quiz.

Another reason for people on our side of the House suggesting that this motion should indeed be hoisted for six months is simply that no evidence whatsoever has been given, either in the minister's opening submission or in any of the comments that have been made thus far in the debate, explaining this haste. Why do we need to do this now? I am reminded rather of Chicken Little. Frankly, I was tempted to say something else after chicken, but I recognize what parliamentary language is. You recall that Chicken Little was the one who was able to take small signs and signals and use them to draft a cosmology.

MR. WILLIAMS: I thought it was that the sky was falling.

MR. LOVICK: In other terms, he thought the sky was falling.

I am deliberately attempting to inject a certain note of levity here, because I certainly don't want you all to believe that I see a horrible conspiracy.

The Chicken Little syndrome, the Chicken Little paradigm, works, because we are being told that we have this horrendous major problem in the province of B.C. The public interest isn't being served, and by heaven, we're losing the investors and all of that stuff; therefore, we've got to take these extreme steps right now. Well, the question, of course, is: what are the evidences for those conclusions? For a number of years I have been asking people who want to argue about investment drying up in this province: what do you base that on? Show us your studies. Tell us who indeed has said: "We're not coming to B.C., boy, because you've got bad labour relations." I'd like to see that, because I've been searching for a couple of years now. I've heard of a couple of things, but I know that they happen to have been written by parties who had a particular interest in a given debate or dispute, and I suggest to you that, by all the laws of logic and

[ Page 513 ]

rational and fair comment, those people are disqualified from being considered as witnesses. The question I'm suggesting, and the question I would challenge members on the other side to answer, is: where is the evidence that impels you to come up with this bill and suggest it must be done now?

We have been told . . . . Indeed, members on this side of the House have quoted your leader, the Premier of the province, and others saying: "We are going to renounce the sins of the past. We're going to be good guys. We're going to be consultative. We're going to talk. We're going to do all that good stuff." But as I say, the moment we come up with a test case, all that resolve sadly flies out the window. That's too bad. It ought not to be.

Mr. Lovick moved adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Richmond moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:56 p.m.