[ Page 1473 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Ministerial Statement

One-day union labour walkout. Hon. Mr. Veitch –– 1473

Mr. Rose

Oral Questions

Graham Leslie letter to Premier on drafting of labour bill. Mr. Gabelmann –– 1474

Mr. Williams

Industrial Relations Reform Act, 1987 (Bill 19). Committee stage. (Hon. L. Hanson) –– 1476

Mr. Gabelmann

Mr. Lovick

Mr. Clark

Mr. Williams

Mr. R. Fraser

Mr. Hewitt

Mr. G. Hanson

Mr. Jansen

Mr. Guno

Mr. Jones

Mrs. Boone

Mr. Rose

Ms. Marzari

Appendix –– 1497

The House met at 2:09 p.m.

Prayers.

MRS. BOONE: Mr. Speaker, I'd like the House to give a warm welcome to two friends of mine, Chris and Suzanne Slater. They're a mixed riding: Suzanne is now a resident here in Victoria and Chris still resides in Prince George. This is a happy weekend for them, as they've been reunited after Suzanne's not having seen her husband or children for about six weeks now. Please welcome them to Victoria.

HON. L. HANSON: I have the pleasure to announce that my wife Nancy and my son Mike are in the audience today. Would the House please make them welcome.

MS. A. HAGEN: I'd ask the House to join me in welcoming today my husband John Hagen and our friends Aron and Eve Gilmartin, who are the ministers at Beacon Unitarian Church in Coquitlam.

Ministerial Statement

ONE-DAY UNION LABOUR WALKOUT

HON. MR. VEITCH: I rise to make a ministerial statement, acting for the Attorney-General:

I have taken the first step in seeking a court order to prevent any repetition of today's unlawful union action. I have just instructed my counsel to file a writ in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and that step will he completed momentarily. The details of the claim are attached and I will file this with the Clerk afterwards. The claims are based on allegations of conspiracy and intimidation.

This work stoppage is an offence against the state, not just the government. It is an offence against the Legislature and therefore against the people. It is an attempt by unlawful means to intimidate the legislative process. The union leaders are trying to move the making of our laws out of the Legislature and into the streets. There can be little doubt as to the purpose of these strikes. You need only look at the words last week of labour spokesman Jack Gerow, when he said: "The legislation approaches fascism. We are going to come out on strike." When asked again whether it was legal or illegal he responded, and I quote again: "Working people are the only people in this province who have any power, through their trade unions, to fight."

When the president of the British Columbia Federation of Labour himself was asked whether the public would respect an illegal strike, his response was that he thought: "The public will respect our members', our affiliates' and the working men and women in this province's protest against this very dangerous and damaging legislation." Mr. Georgetti also said: "It is time to demonstrate our opposition to this bill in a stronger way." Mr. Lee Cochrane also stated: "We will do just what we can to see that this bill doesn't become law."

This sample of remarks, Mr. Speaker, helps illustrate the object of the strike, which is to subvert the democratically elected will of the people by force. All members of our Legislature, including the cabinet, are democratically elected by the people through secret ballot. The statement made by spokesmen of the British Columbia Federation of Labour illustrates that the federation and its supporters are using their power in an attempt to coerce the constitutional authority of government and of the Legislature of this province. This goes far beyond political opposition to government policy. This conduct represents an attack on the constitutional rights of every British Columbian.

Every citizen, whether in favour of or opposed to Bill 19, has a democratic right to speak out, criticize and protest lawfully. Legitimate criticism of Bill 19 is jeopardized and tainted by lawbreaking. No citizen, however powerful, however well-backed, has the right to use unlawful methods to subvert the democratic process of our Legislature. Accordingly, the Supreme Court of British Columbia will be asked at the earliest opportunity to pronounce on these actions, and to issue an injunction restricting any repeat of these unlawful activities.

[2:15]

We have not proceeded confrontationally or in a punitive way. No penalties at this time are being sought from the court.

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER: Order!

HON. MR. VEITCH: Maybe I should repeat that for them. We have not proceeded confrontationally or in a punitive way, and no penalties at this time are being sought from the court. No criminal charges or search warrants have been resorted to, but instead I'm going to the courts on behalf of our citizens, seeking a civil remedy of injunction. If an injunction is obtained, I trust that the strikers and their leaders will obey the orders of the court.

MR. ROSE: I don't really blame the Attorney-General (Hon. B.R. Smith) for going to Ottawa after dropping this one. I understand the Attorney-General got married over the weekend and, like for this government, his honeymoon is over.

We would have had a lawyer respond to this particular statement except that we don't view this statement as a legal one at all. It's a political statement, pure and simple, It wasn't written in the A-G's office; it was probably written in the Premier's office. I think that the A-G probably took his marching orders from the Premier's office.

MR. SKELLY: Like the Minister of Labour.

MR. ROSE: Yes. Charlie McCarthy instructed the A-G, Edgar Bergen, to ride roughshod and treat the Minister of Labour like Mortimer Snerd. Now that's what we're dealing with here. you know. So embarrassing were the revelations over the weekend by the former Deputy Minister of Labour that we have to have this phony preemptive strike, when they've got all the powers they need in Bill 19 to prevent anything like this coming in the future.

This is show biz; this is not legislation. It's just show business, and it's really shameful. Look what it says here: "The claims are based on allegations of conspiracy and discrimination." Whose allegations? Who was the alligator, and when are you going to drain the swamp? Further on, it says something about intimidation, unlawful means to intimidate the legislative process. When was the government so

[ Page 1474 ]

weak, really, that it was going to be intimidated by a very, very moderate trade union movement on a one-day's peaceful protest?

You're trying to provoke action; that's what you're trying to do. So much for the new start. It says here: "democratically elected" people; "...the object of the strike...is to subvert the democratically elected will of the people by force." What force? Is anybody storming any barricades that you've seen? Not me, Mr. Speaker. I haven't seen any of that.

I want to say this before I close. It's a backward step. Since when was dissent not part of the democratic process?

I think labour has been extremely responsible in this issue. There is lots of time, if this was going to be concerned.... Why the concern today? Why not a week ago? It's all show business. It's puff and puffery and nonsense, and we don't intend to treat this kind of PR effort with any more than the disdain and contempt it deserves.

Oral Questions

GRAHAM LESLIE LETTER TO PREMIER
ON DRAFTING OF LABOUR BILL

MR. GABELMANN: In his letter to the Premier, Graham Leslie is quoted as follows. It's a brief quote, and then I'll ask the question following that. "Little did he know" — referring to the Minister of Labour — "until he had already completed the first draft of the report which you had requested, that you had already decided what changes to make and that those changes had already been drafted under your direction." Did the Minister of Labour at that point object to the Premier about being put in a position of conducting a public sham in the so-called public hearings?

HON. L. HANSON: Thank you, member of the opposition, for posing the question.

First of all, the statement made by my former deputy minister is certainly disappointing to me. There certainly is a difference in opinion about the process that went about. Now that Mr. Leslie is part of the public out there, he certainly has a right to express his opinions.

But I have to say to this House that the process that was started to generate Bill 19 was started a long time ago. I also have to say that the philosophies that were developed I was a part of. A number of suggestions were brought forward that were not included in the legislation. I'm disappointed, as I said, and a little surprised that Graham would take that position, because in fact he was part of those discussions.

When I was on my tour of the province seeking briefs and various things, there was no question that there was a process going on that was developing, if you will, some various options or alternatives, and that some of those were accepted and some of those were rejected. The end result was Bill 19 as you see it.

While I'm surprised and disappointed at the former deputy's letter, I certainly can't agree with a number of the things he has in the letter, particularly the question that was asked by my critic opposite.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, while the minister was traveling around British Columbia, did he know that some other bureaucrats and some private citizens were drafting legislation, which, for the most part, had already been completed prior to the completion of the public hearings? Did he know that that process was going on at the same time?

HON. L. HANSON: I have a little difficulty in understanding how the opposition can suggest that the process that we went through does not require an awful lot of time and an awful lot of drafting, and that there were suggestions being put forward as a matter of philosophy, but those....

MR. WILLIAMS: You didn't know.

HON. L. HANSON: Yes, I did know. And a number of those suggestions, regardless of what you may suggest, were rejected. And we go through that process. A lot of things were offered as suggestions. Yes, I did know that that process was going on, and yes, I did ensure before anything was put in place in its final form that I was there as part of those discussions.

MR. GABELMANN: The minister suggests that he did know that the process was going on. Did he know that the legislation, for all intents and purposes, had been finalized before his hearings were finalized?

HON. L. HANSON: First of all, the question that has been asked by my critic from North Island is just not true. The legislation was not drafted in its final form, nor was it drafted in a situation that wasn't open to discussion. They were simply ideas brought forward, and I was part of the process of finalizing what the final bill would be.

MR. GABELMANN: We have a serious matter of disagreement between the former deputy and the minister. I want to ask the Minister of Labour whether he suggests that Graham Leslie, by saying that the changes had already been drafted under the Premier's direction, is not telling the truth.

HON. L. HANSON: In Mr. Leslie's letter here, he is making a number of assumptions that are just not the case. He is suggesting that there was a Bill 19 drafted, and that when we had completed the tour, that draft was what was presented. That is just not true. There were a number of suggestions presented, there were a number of suggestions taken as a result of the tour of the province, and they were all put together into a collection. From that, through various discussions with the committee that I had working on it, we came up with the eventual Bill 19.

Then, to even go further, to ensure that we had all of the various alternatives in place, the amendments that were introduced are very substantial, which indicates that there isn't, nor was there, any hard and fast generation of this bill prior to my hearings.

MR. GABELMANN: The minister has agreed that there were two processes — that there was in fact a process going on under the Premier's direction. He is just arguing with me about how much of it was completed and what form the recommendations took. So he agrees there was a process.

When the minister went out and asked the public to talk to him about legislative changes, the public was under the understanding that those processes, that consultation, that advice, was what would lead to the legislation. Would the minister not agree that the public was misled by the government in that respect?

[ Page 1475 ]

HON. L. HANSON: No, I would not agree to that. I think that the opposition are suggesting that there were two processes going on in total isolation. That is just not true.

I've said this before: from the day that the Lieutenant-Governor swore me in as the Minister of Labour and the mandate was given me for a review of labour legislation, there was a process that started to analyze the various briefs that had come in, in fact prior to November 6. They had come in as a result of a very difficult labour disruption that was happening in the province, and a number of people were expressing concerns about that. As a result of that November 6 mandate, given by the Premier, to look at the Labour Code, a number of briefs came in immediately, and the analysis and the possible alternatives of drafting that came about as a result of those briefs — that process was started then. But for the opposition to suggest that that was a totally separate process, as opposed to the hearing process, is just not true, Mr. Speaker.

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Leslie said two entirely separate processes were underway since last year. Can the minister advise the House when he was aware of the other process that was underway?

HON. L. HANSON: The opposition member is suggesting that there were two completely isolated processes. That's just not true. I was aware of the drafting philosophy that was happening as a result of the various briefs that we got in, right from the day that I was sworn in as Minister of Labour.

[2:30]

MR. WILLIAMS: The minister, then, is confirming that he was aware right from day one that a Vancouver law office was drafting legislation in his name.

HON. L. HANSON: First of all, Mr. Speaker, a Vancouver law office was not drafting legislation. Second, the allegation that they were two completely separate processes is totally wrong. They were in fact processes that were joined together and part of the total review of the Labour Code.

MR. WILLIAMS: The former deputy, Mr. Leslie, made the statement about two entirely separate processes. I'd like to ask the minister if he conveyed the deputy's concerns about major elements of this legislation to the Premier.

HON. L. HANSON: I'm not sure what question the member is trying to get out, but the fact is that all during this process they were not dual processes. They were one process. Anyone who would suggest that there is not a requirement for a process . . When we're going through the hearing and having all those concerns raised, there are options that are being developed as a result of those. Some of them were rejected and some of them were taken into consideration. It surprises me that Mr. Leslie, as the member opposite is suggesting, is expressing such great concern, because there were concerns expressed by all of us about certain things that were being suggested. But by the same token, there was never the concern that's being addressed in the open letter to the Premier. I might suggest that the deputy minister at that time was part of this whole process that was going on.

MR. GABELMANN: I wonder if the minister would agree that any law without the support or at least the acquiescence of the majority of those whom it purports to affect will inevitably be opposed, and that this opposition will guarantee the failure of the larger objective.

HON. L. HANSON: I'm not sure that that's even an appropriate question. But by the same token, I know what the member is referring to. He s referring to a report, or a part of a report, that was tabled at the same time that the legislation was tabled. I think that if the member opposite would take into consideration what that statement says, it says that the whole of British Columbia is involved in all legislation, and that if it doesn't have the majority of British Columbia as a support basis for it, it won't work. That's true about any legislation.

MR. GABELMANN: Just as an aside then, Mr. Speaker, in a poll on Saturday the majority of British Columbians expressed their view that they don't agree with Bill 19. Would the minister not agree that it should therefore be withdrawn?

HON. L. HANSON: The first answer is no. The second answer is that I have some difficulty in giving credibility to the statement that the poll which was announced — I believe it was in the Vancouver Sun — is indicative of the province of British Columbia.

Hon. Mr. Michael tabled an answer to a question taken on notice.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, I rise under section 35 of the standing orders, with the purpose of discussing a matter of urgent public importance.

Yesterday Mr. Graham Leslie, Deputy Minister of Labour until April 1, 1987, revealed that Bill 19 was written by a "select group of draftsmen" with "little or no accountability to the political process," and that the first draft of this legislation had already been written before the Minister of Labour completed his review of labour legislation requested by the Premier. Again today Mr. Leslie confirmed that there were two entirely separate processes underway in this province. One process is the set of hearings by the Labour minister leading to his report, and the second, beginning sometime last year under the Premier's direction, which resulted in Bill 19.

Mr. Speaker, this unprecedented action on the part of a senior official in the previous and current Social Credit government undermines seriously the Premier's assertion that extensive consultation went into the writing of Bill 19 –– I move therefore that this House adjourn to debate this matter of urgent public importance.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I expect Your Honour will reserve on this, Mr. Speaker, but the government would have to be totally opposed to the innuendo contained in this motion, and as evidence advise you that as recently as last Monday, substantial amendments to the bill were placed before the House.

MR. SPEAKER: I thank the members for their comments. I received the notice just before question period, so I will reserve decision and get back to the House as soon as I can.

[ Page 1476 ]

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I call committee on Bill 19.

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS REFORM ACT, 1987

(continued)

The House in committee on Bill 19; Mr. Pelton in the chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, when we closed on Friday we had dealt with section 12. Now we are on section 13.

On section 13.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Chairman, section 13 is, on the surface, a simple amendment, changing the name of the Labour Relations Board, as defined in the Labour Code, to "Industrial Relations Council."

One could argue that this is an unimportant change. But I would argue that if the Supreme Court of Canada were, every decade or two, to change its name, it would have a profound impact on confidence in the highest court of our land. Over many, many years the Supreme Court has developed a reputation and a significance and a place in our society, mostly because of what it does but partly because it is identified as a body that is of long-standing duration. When we in labour relations constantly change the name of the body, particularly when it is a body that is highly respected, we undermine its confidence in the public's mind.

At this point in the debate — this is not going to be a major section of Bill 19; there are obviously other sections of far more consequence and far more destruction to our society –– I think in terms of section 13 it is important to quote from the ombudsman's report of this year, filed earlier this session in this Legislature, in which the ombudsman talks about the Labour Relations Board.

He says: "In 1986 we received very few complaints against the Labour Relations Board. None were substantiated." In 1986 very few complaints against the Labour Relations Board; "none were substantiated." The report goes on: "It has been our experience that the board acts in a fair and reasonable manner. There were two inquiries...."

Rather than reading all the numbers, I will just read the totals. There were 20 inquiries or cases opened, and there were 20 closed during the course of that year. Two of these 20 inquiries to the ombudsman's office about the Labour Relations Board were simply that — inquiries. Six inquiries or six complaints, or whatever else they might have been, were withdrawn by the applicants; three were resolved or corrected during investigation; and nine were not substantiated — out of the total in all of 1986 of 20 complaints about the Labour Relations Board.

It goes on but I won't read the whole thing; it's a short section in the ombudsman's report –– I won't read it all, because I think it stands on its own and every member in this House should have read this report when it was tabled some weeks ago. But I think it is important to make the point that the Labour Relations Board, so named, has been well-respected in British Columbia, has operated fairly, has operated without complaint from the public and has an outstanding reputation.

A former member of this House in a letter to the Vancouver Sun made an excellent point. The former member of this House was Tony Gargrave, I think a member of this House from 1952 to 1966 from Mackenzie. He made the point in a letter to the Vancouver Sun that these symbolic changes are important and are significant. While I wouldn't agree with him in total, obviously, he makes the point that a very important change for the government to consider in dealing with this is to revert to the term "Labour Relations Board." Why? Because it is well-respected. People don't complain about it. The process under which it operates is fair, and why change it?

I conclude this point with the point I made initially, and that is that if the Supreme Court of Canada or the B.C. Supreme Court or some other court of comparable nature were to change its name every decade or every 15 years, just by the fact of doing that it would lose its credibility and lose its reputation.

I allege that the reason the government wants to change the name of the Labour Relations Board is because we have had a fair process and the government wants an unfair process. It is important to give the whole operation a new face and a new name, because we are leading now into a process that will be entirely unfair, will be employer-dominated both in terms of the composition of that council and also, of course, of the law it has to administer. For that reason, the government could not go along with maintaining the name of an organization which had developed a reputation for fairness and integrity.

MR. LOVICK: It must seem rather surprising that when one starts to speak about what must, on the face of it, be a rather trivial clause such as this one — or at least trivial in relation to some of the others we've been examining — the temptation I am feeling is to begin by quoting the Declaration of Independence. I say that because I want to draw the minister's attention —  and his staff's attention, also — to the essential claim of that declaration, which is that when changes are being introduced to something which has hitherto functioned well and has existed comfortably and effectively in the past, then the onus must be on those who advocate the changes to state the reasons for their departure.

I would like to start, then, by asking the minister if he would be so kind as to share with this House what the rationale for this proposed change is. I would dearly love to hear that.

HON. L. HANSON: First of all, I don't agree with the opposition's suggestion that changing the name of the Labour Relations Board to the Industrial Relations Council or the adjudication division of the Industrial Relations Council is, in itself, an indication that government is unhappy and disturbed by the performance of the Labour Relations Board. It is certainly interesting to note, though, that there were a number of concerns raised with the hearings that I held around the province, both by management and labour unions or labour leaders, that in fact the Labour Relations Board had some difficulties. They still had great respect for it, but they were having some difficulties as to timing and various things.

But I assure the opposition there is no great hidden agenda in the changing of the name from the Labour Relations Board. We are simply putting in place the continuation of the Labour Relations Board under a new name, under a new method of adjudication of differences in the industrial

[ Page 1477 ]

relations area. As a matter of fact, a number of recommendations came forward that mediation services should be more closely related with the Labour Relations Board. So I can't accept the fact that there is some great ominous message that is being sent forward, nor can I accept the philosophy that the change of name simply means that the Labour Relations Board was not a reasonably effective body.

[2:45]

MR. LOVICK: Well, I'm delighted to hear that the minister is willing to assuage and delay our fears about whether the change of name is, in effect, a vote of non-confidence in the existing LRB. I am sure that everybody is happy to hear that that is not the case.

But did I hear correctly from the minister when he said that there was some difficulty expressed or they were having some difficulty with timing and other things of the Labour Relations Board and that that was somehow adduced as a reason to change the name? Did I hear that correctly? I was listening closely, and I didn't hear a specific reason for the name change. Did the minister make reference to timing? Is that the case?

HON. L. HANSON: I don't think that I made reference to timing as a concern that was the only concern. I said that there was some concern with timing expressed. I am sure that the member on the opposite side has received a number of the briefs that were presented to me, and I am sure that if he would refer to those, he would understand the various things that were raised.

MR. LOVICK: Mr. Chairman, I want to look for just a moment, if I might, at the actual wording change and suggest to you that though many of us are inclined to use the old line about what's in a name, and after all the words don't matter that much because clearly our intentions are what's important, perhaps there is indeed a significant departure alluded to or suggested in this wording change. Let me touch on that.

First of all, I think it's safe to say that in British Columbia for a very long time, when we talk about that whole area of industrial relations, we call it labour relations. That may be incorrect, technically speaking, but certainly labour relations is the nomenclature we are more familiar with that has some kind of historical justification. The problem with changing from "labour relations" to "industrial relations" is that "industrial relations" is patently wrong. It does not describe what now goes on in the area that this bill is designed to deal with. Rather, it harks back to another time when the only sector of the economy that was "organized" was the industrial sector. In that sense, maybe this is indeed a retrograde step. I don't, as I say, see any good reason, nor have I heard any good reason adduced, as to why we make this change, and when I look at it, it seems to me there's a compelling argument to be offered to suggest that, if anything, this is a retrograde change rather than a progressive one. That, I think, is an important concern.

The other part of it that concerns me is the movement away from "board" to "council." I don't want to suggest any insidious plot or conspiracy on the part of government, but I would tell you that any student of language and propaganda knows full well that the difference between "board" and "council' is a suggestion of, on the one hand, some kind of tribunal on high that adjudicates irrespective of public opinion, whereas the other one, by definition, is consultative and open and conciliatory. The irony, of course, is that they are reversed, because what we are getting proposed here, I would suggest, is indeed the authority that sits on high and isn't much concerned with being conciliatory.

The reason I think it's an important point that I'm now referring to, Mr. Chairman, and one that I think we ought to dwell on for just a moment at least, is simply that given the reputation that the government now has with organized labour in this province, this kind of change — which, as I say, many people are going to argue is ironic in the extreme because it does not in fact do what it suggests or what the words suggest, or doesn't, I should say more correctly, represent what the words suggest — will have the effect of antagonizing and further inflaming those people who are currently walking away from their workplaces. I'm suggesting that for those simple reasons this language ought to be changed and we ought to revert to "Labour Relations Board."

What I would suggest again, though, is the point I began with: if something is working well, if it has functioned well, if it has a history of satisfying our needs, then the onus must be on those who would advocate change to demonstrate the grounds for that change. So far, with all due deference to the minister, I don't think we've heard any grounds for the change. I sincerely hope that we could hear some, and would invite that response.

HON. L. HANSON: We've altered the structure and overall responsibilities. We still have the old Labour Relations Board, but we've married them to the mediation services, and we've combined them under one umbrella: the Industrial Relations Council.

I think that reflects a new beginning. It reflects the theme of the legislation and, I believe, is very appropriately named as the Industrial Relations Council. I'm sorry that the member opposite and I have a difference of opinion as to what that name means and how it most appropriately reflects the new system, but certainly I can't agree with the concerns being raised. I believe it is a very well-thought-out name and very clearly describes the responsibility of the council.

Section 13 approved.

On section 14.

MR. CLARK: As I understand it, this continues the Labour Relations Board as the Industrial Relations Council, and deals with the question of two things: retroactivity and the continuation of cases now before the board.

Does the minister agree that this section ensures that business started under the old Code will be concluded under the new act? The minister's nodding, so that's the intention.

I have some concern about this, because, as of course is always the case, there are all kinds of cases before the board, particularly with respect to section 37 or section 53 proceedings — in other words, double-breasting under 37 or successorship under 53 — and this new bill materially affects how they would be adjudicated. If, for example, we were in the middle of a hearing on a section 37 application — in other words, a double-breasting application — and the hearing was adjourned and set down for, say, August, and this bill passed, could the minister enlighten me as to which law would prevail?

[ Page 1478 ]

HON. L. HANSON: I think the member is dealing with section 70, which would be more appropriately discussed at that time. But section 14 provides for the operation of the Industrial Relations Council, and continues the tripartite composition of the Labour Relations Board. I don't believe it's appropriate at this point to talk about a case being handled when the new board takes effect, because there is a later section that will deal with that.

MR. GABELMANN: On the tripartite nature of the council, is it the minister's intention to take nominees from business on the one hand and labour on the other for those two parts of this tripartite structure, and to appoint those nominees?

HON. L. HANSON: I would imagine the member for North Island is suggesting that the tripartite composition will not be possible, because there will be people who refuse to take part in it. Is that not what you're suggesting?

MR. GABELMANN: Have you got cotton batting in your ears?

HON. L. HANSON: Yes, I do, as a matter of fact. I have . . . .

In any case, we believe that the tripartite composition of the Labour Relations Board and the council is the appropriate makeup. We believe that there will be people prepared to serve who are representative of all interests in labour relations.

MR. GABELMANN: Let me try to ask the question again. One of the ways you keep a good tone in the Legislature, Mr. Chairman, is by keeping your voice down. If I'm not speaking loudly enough for the minister, I wish he would tell me. If he's not hearing what I'm saying and is answering questions that I haven't asked, then it may be that I'm not speaking loudly enough, and I will speak more loudly.

Under this tripartite system, is it the minister's intention to appoint nominees from business on the one hand and labour on the other to fill the positions in those two parts of the three-part system?

HON. L. HANSON: Certainly that is our hope. There will be neutrals, of course, who are accepted as neutrals by all parties. We'd be pleased to have nominations from both labour and management for consideration for appointment.

MR. GABELMANN: I did not ask whether the minister would consider nominations for appointment. I asked whether he would appoint nominees from business and from labour to those positions, as proposed by both business and labour.

HON. L. HANSON: The member, opposite is accusing me of being hard of hearing. I guess in some cases I am. But if the question is whether we are appointing only those people acceptable to both sides, I don't think that that is always possible. Certainly we want to ensure that there is reasonable representation of all the views out there relative to labour relations.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Chairman, I'll try again. I did not ask if he would appoint persons acceptable to both sides. I asked whether or not those persons being nominated for positions on the Industrial Relations Council by, on the one hand, business and, on the other hand, labour — not the neutrals; I haven't even talked about the neutrals yet — appointments suggested by those two parties who are affected by this process, will be appointed by the minister?

HON. L. HANSON: I don't think that you can say that any suggested person will be appointed, but I have to say to the member opposite that any suggestion as it comes forward from labour or any suggestion as it comes forward from management will be very seriously considered as to their skills and abilities and not their position — which side of industrial relations they support. I think that in the past, generally speaking, most nominations, if you will, from the labour side and most nominations, if you will, from the management side have been considered, and in most cases they have been appointed as needed.

[3:00]

MR. GABELMANN: Would the minister consider that the Industrial Relations Council is a tripartite agency of government?

HON. L. HANSON: Well, yes, certainly, Mr. Chairman. But the member opposite is trying to suggest that any suggestion that has come from anyone, if they're representative of a certain part of the community.... Do I guarantee that they're going to be appointed? I'm suggesting that we're looking for a tripartite organization within this council and that those suggestions will be given the utmost and most serious consideration to ensure that there is a tripartite essence to the council.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Chairman, in ordinary circumstances I would assume this was a rhetorical question, but it may not be, so I'll ask it: does the minister not agree that tripartite means three parties? He does. But the minister, in answer to my questions, is suggesting that only one of these three parties will make a decision about who's on the tripartite agency. Is that correct?

HON. L. HANSON: Well, again, Mr. Chairman, I think the member opposite is not facing reality. I think that there's a responsibility of government, as it says in the legislation, to make these appointments, and I think that there is a responsibility of government to ensure that all opinions are represented fairly on the Industrial Relations Council.

MR. CLARK: Well, I don't want to belabour it if it's in a different section, but reading this section 14: "All business pending before the Labour Relations Board before the coming into force of this subsection shall be continued before the Industrial Relations Council . . . ." I'm wondering what the minister's intention is with respect to all business — which is a significant amount — that is currently before the Labour Board. When this act comes into force, how are those decisions going to be made in terms of the decisions made by the Industrial Relations Council when they've been three-quarters finished by the Labour Relations Board?

HON. L. HANSON: You know, I really think that the member is trying to bring up section 70 at this point, and that

[ Page 1479 ]

certainly deals adequately with the question that he's been posing to me.

The eventual result of the formation of this board hope fully will represent all sectors. We're not suggesting that there are advocates being appointed. We're simply suggest ing that there are people who are very knowledgeable about the perspective of the various interests — the difficulties, at least, the adjudicators are expected to rule on — to ensure that not only is management, but labour . . . . And in the case of some neutrals, that there is some consideration of other points of view . . . .

Sections 14 and 15 approved.

HON. L. HANSON: I move the amendment, numbered section 15.1, standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

On section 15.1.

MR. GABELMANN: As I understand it now, the council t can be . . . . I'll start again; I still have my mind on question period, Mr. Chairman. There will be additional vice-chairpersons of the board. Is it — the potential (4); the minister S may appoint additional vice-chairpersons — the minister's intention that those additional vice-chairpersons will be reflective of the "tripartite" nature of the council or in fact additional so-called neutrals?

HON. L. HANSON: Mr. Chairman, I think both. The a amendment is simply giving more flexibility than was previously the case, and I'm sure that in the fairness of the c commissioner's appointments there will be adequate representation from all interests as these panels are formed.

Section 15.1 approved.

On section 16.

HON. L. HANSON: Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment to section 16 standing in my name on the order paper.

[See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

Section 16 as amended approved.

On section 17.

MR. GABELMANN: First of all, this is a compensation section. There have been contradictory reports in the media about the salary that the commissioner of the new council would earn. Earn may not be the right word, but would receive. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if the minister could clarify just what the salary of the commissioner will be pegged to and how much it is at the present time. 

HON. L. HANSON: Mr. Chairman, it's obvious in the amendment that it's tied to the Supreme Court judges' stipend, and my understanding at this point, although I believe it's under review, is $107,000 or $108,000.

MR. GABELMANN: Would the Minister of Labour agree with me that by paying Mr. Peck, at least for the first five years, twice as much as he, the minister, earns — in real terms Mr. Peck will be earning close to twice as much money as the minister — that is a fair reflection on the relative importance of the two positions?

HON. L. HANSON: Well, Mr. Chairman, certainly here are a number of people who are earning more money ban the ministers of the Crown. I might suggest to my critic that the members of the opposition are earning considerably less than the ministers, and I guess that reflects the way the system is and the responsibilities that are there. I don't think that any of us are elected or at least run for the positions that we do in political life in British Columbia for the salaries that are attached to it.

Interjection.

HON. L. HANSON: I think that we — and I acknowledge that the members in opposition have the same motivation — are all interested in British Columbia, and are in these positions because of our interest.

It's interesting to note that a number of the briefs — and I'm sure my critic opposite is very aware of that — were suggesting that in order to attract the people most suitable and recognized as most suitable to the various positions, there had to be recognition of that in their remuneration.

MR. GABELMANN: The member for Vancouver East anticipated my next question, Mr. Chairman. Is it appropriate that an employee of government, as Mr. Peck will be, receives more money than his boss, the deputy minister of the department?

HON. L. HANSON: In fact, in real terms, my deputy minister is . . . . I am his boss. I think in fact he probably makes more money than I do. For those people who dedicate heir life as a career to the civil service, if you will, there is a justification. I would like to reiterate that we who run for politics in British Columbia don't run for politics for the stipend that it provides us with. We run because we have an interest in the affairs of British Columbia. I think it is reasonable that people who make a career of it sometimes are paid more than their bosses are.

MR. GABELMANN: I agree with the minister in one art of what he is saying, and that is that there will often be occasions when public servants earn and make — both more than their political masters. That is appropriate.

But my second question was not about their political masters. My second question was about their boss — another public servant. There are occasions when public servants an, and properly should, earn more than any of the deputy ministers: that is, when those public servants are appointed by this Legislature — for example, the auditor-general and he ombudsman.

I don't know what the salaries are in those cases; I assume hey are higher than deputy ministers in both cases. I believe they are; I understand now that they are. There is no inapropriateness in having a servant of this Legislature earn more than the deputy ministers. I find it highly unusual that a public servant who works for and under a deputy minister, who reports directly to the minister, would earn more than the person above him in the list of employees in the bureaucracy.

[ Page 1480 ]

If I am wrong, if in fact Mr. Peck is not junior to the deputy minister, then I would like to hear that from the minister.

HON. L. HANSON: Mr. Chairman, I am not sure what the member opposite is suggesting — that all deputy ministers should be the highest-paid people in government? I think there is a misunderstanding on the part of the member opposite that the commissioner's position is answerable to the deputy minister alone. I think that the deputy minister and the commissioner will have a lot of communication back and forth. I would suggest that if the member opposite would look at . . . . I think it is the salary of the auditor-general that is tied to the Supreme Court, and the position of commissioner, we feel, warrants that sort of salary to attract the best people to it.

I think there is ample evidence out there that there are administrators in hospitals and that sort of thing who are earning more than deputy ministers, more than the Deputy Minister of Health. I am not sure if the member is suggesting that those administrators are answerable to the Deputy Minister of Health.

MR. WILLIAMS: It does raise the obvious problem that we have in this administration in terms of underfunding in the senior levels of the civil service. There is no question about that. That is a broader . . . .

Interjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: I am suggesting that occasionally you may not get the talent you need with the fees you pay; but I am not suggesting that at the moment. I am interested, though, in what Mr. Peck receives now in his present position. Could the minister advise us? Is it more on a par with the deputy minister level in terms of salary, in terms of the CSP?

HON. L. HANSON: First of all, that information is certainly available in public accounts, and the former position that the individual held was adjudicator of the compensation stabilization program. I will certainly get what compensation that involved and bring it back to the member opposite if that is the information he requires. Just from memory, believe it is tied to a deputy minister's salary.

[3:15]

MR. WILLIAMS: So you're going to move up from those levels into the over-$100,000 level. That's already being investigated in terms of committees looking at increasing judges' pay, so we might really be thinking of doubling this commissioner's pay, or something like that, with the establishment of this legislation. Would that be the case?

HON. L. HANSON: No, that's not the case, but I think the members opposite would acknowledge that the responsibilities that the new commissioner is assuming certainly have some variance with his responsibilities in the compensation stabilization program. The very nature of the Industrial Relations Council is so important to the province of British Columbia that we feel that that is a reasonable salary level to establish for the individual charged with those responsibilities.

MR. WILLIAMS: I wonder if the minister read the former deputy's statements in yesterday's newspaper to the effect that the close monitoring of collective bargaining which the industrial relations commissioner is expected to carry out will end up an impediment. Your recently departed deputy, Mr. Leslie, said that this man will end up as an impediment rather than an aid in the industrial relations process in British Columbia. That being the case, wouldn't it be reasonable to reduce the salary?

HON. L. HANSON: First of all, I thought we had dealt with that quite extensively in question period. I have the greatest respect for Mr. Leslie, but I don't always agree with his opinions. And I don't believe that what the member opposite is suggesting has any validity. I believe a recognition is required for a very responsible position such as we're establishing, and part of that recognition has to do with the salary attached to it. I think the CSP commissioner's salary is something in the area of $90,000, but I certainly will bring that back to the member.

MR. WILLIAMS: I have some trouble with the minister's assurance. His experience as a minister is since October or November of last year. Mr. Leslie has been in labour relations work most of his active career, with a significant background in the lower mainland as well as over here, and he's the one who says it's going to be an impediment. Isn't it reasonable to be concerned, then, about this kind of bonusing for what is clearly seen as an impediment by a learned person who understands the implications of this statute probably better than most people in this House?

HON. L. HANSON: I think the member opposite is suggesting that Mr. Leslie is a very experienced and knowledgeable person in industrial relations, and I am certainly not disputing that. But I'm also saying to the member opposite that a number of very experienced and, if you will, credible people in the labour relations field don't happen to agree with that opinion that has been put forward. There isn't any individual that I know of who is considered the world's authority, or there wouldn't be a difference of opinions.

MR. CLARK: I just want to follow up some of the things that the member for North Island was saying, because I'm not sure the minister grasped the significance of them. He was saying that deputy ministers are paid at a certain level. The only other people in government who are paid judges' salaries are the auditor-general and the ombudsman, and they are accountable to the Legislature; not to the cabinet, not to the Lieutenant-Governor, not to the government, but to the Legislature. Can the minister name any other position in government where one bureaucrat is above another bureaucrat, in terms of who reports to whom, where the junior member is paid more than the person he's accountable to, which seems to be the case in this respect? This person is reporting to a deputy minister who is paid considerably less than him. He is not reporting to the Legislature; he's reporting to the deputy minister. Can you name any other case where that is the case?

HON. L. HANSON: I'm still having a little difficulty in grasping the concern that the members opposite are expressing. We have a deputy minister and we have an assistant deputy minister system in place. There's no question that the

[ Page 1481 ]

assistant deputy minister is answerable to the deputy minister, and there's no question that the deputy minister is answerable to the minister. We have in the case of the Workers' Compensation Board a commissioner appointed by cabinet who the deputy minister keeps very close liaison with, but he doesn't answer to the deputy minister. We have the chairman of the Human Rights Council put in place. He could be considered as associated with a deputy minister in terms of reporting, and yet there's no relativity in salary. I think that salaries are relative to the responsibilities that we apply to the individual. The suggestion that the commissioner is responsible to the deputy minister in the same form that an assistant deputy minister is just not correct.

MR. GABELMANN: The legislation says that the commissioner of the Industrial Relations Council will be paid at the salary level of the Supreme Court justices. That implies somehow that this person is as independent of government, is as separate from government, and has no reporting mechanism to government, in the same way as Supreme Court justices. Does Mr. Peck have the same independence as a Supreme Court judge? The answer is obvious, I think, when you read the legislation. He does not.

AN HON. MEMBER: Come on!

MR. GABELMANN: What do you mean, "Come on!" Mr. Chairman, the member who just interjects went around the province with the Premier on this sham commission. He's yet to participate in this debate, mainly because the legislation doesn't reflect what he heard on that commission. That's the reason he and his other colleague haven't even participated, except by interjections.

The point we're talking about here is that there is an attempt to equate that position with a Supreme Court judge. There is no act setting up Supreme Court justices that makes them answerable to the minister in the way this act does. The whole principle is wrong. I'm not arguing or advocating that Mr. Peck's office should have an independence that Supreme Court justices have. He shouldn't. But if he doesn't — if he shouldn't and in fact he doesn't have that independence why is he paid at the same level?

HON. L. HANSON: I guess we have a basic difference in philosophy. The suggestion by the member opposite is that the commissioner is answering to the Minister of Labour in that in the decision-making process the Minister of Labour has the ability to interfere, and so on, and I don't think that would be reasonable and understandable. The commissioner has a very responsible job to adjudicate the legislation, to interpret the legislation as is presented to him. He will do that in his capacity as commissioner. We think that that is relative to a responsibility that justifies that kind of salary.

MR. GABELMANN: This debate could probably be over in half the time if the minister either could or would listen — I'm not sure which it is. If the minister believes that this position should pay $107,000 or $108,000, then pay that amount, in the same way as the minister and cabinet assume that the chair of the Workers' Compensation Board and the chair of the Human Rights Council, and assorted other persons in this province, are paid an amount established by cabinet. If you want to pay him that or more, fine; I don't have a heck of a lot of objection. I've some but it's not a serious objection.

But that's not what the government is doing. The government is by statute setting up a relationship of equals between Mr. Peck and all members of the Supreme Court of British Columbia — by statute — by saying: "The commissioner shall be paid compensation in an amount equal to the compensation paid to a Supreme Court judge..." The Supreme Court judge is independent. The Supreme Court judge does not have half the powers that Mr. Peck has. You might argue that Mr. Peck should get paid more, given the awesome kinds of powers he's been given, even with the amended legislation. But we're not arguing about how much money he should make. We're arguing about the principle of tying that position, those powers and that authority to the position of a Supreme Court judge.

MR. R. FRASER: To the salary.

MR. GABELMANN: To the salary of the position of a Supreme Court judge. Correct. Now why is it that we don't peg other jobs to other positions?

AN HON. MEMBER: Because the rationale isn't the same.

MR. GABELMANN: Is the rationale that the Industrial Relations Council is an equivalent to the Supreme Court, that it has the same moral and legal authority as the Supreme Court? If so, how is it then that judgments of Mr. Peck and his agency can be referred or filed to the Supreme Court, presumably because it is a superior body? If it is a superior body, presumably the people administering that superior body would earn more money; or if they didn't, at least it wouldn't be tied legislatively to a position of equality between the two. They are not equal.

This isn't a sticking point. We're not going to debate this section all afternoon, but it's incomprehensible to me why in this instance and in no others the government chooses to equate a public servant with a Supreme Court judge, who is independent of the public service.

Section 17 approved.

On section 18.

MR. GABELMANN: This is a section that is going to take some time. This section probably in its philosophy accounts more for today's protest than any other section in this bill. You may say that it's section 62 or the double breasting section or all the other concerns that exist that led to the activity today, and to a certain extent that's true. But the philosophy of the government is fully explicit in this particular section. I want to take some time — and other members of my caucus will also participate in this debate — to talk about how these changes change the fundamental philosophy of the management of labour relations in this province.

The first is that an amendment suggests that the develop merit of effective industrial relations through good working conditions and the well-being of the public can be achieved previously by the relations between employers and their unions. It now becomes between employers and their employees. That is a fundamental philosophical change. The

[ Page 1482 ]

government is saying: "Our intent is that in the future industrial relations will take place between employers on one hand and employees on the other hand — not their union."

[3:30]

If the minister has ever been surprised about why people in the industrial relations community, people out there who are neutral, people out there who have no personal stake — not to mention all those people who do have a personal stake — are convinced that the government is out to deunionize British Columbia, he need only look at that one small change, which by itself has no impact because this section is the purposes and objectives of the new IRA. In fact, by making that seemingly small change from "employers and their unions" to "employers and their employees," the government is signaling its true intent, which is to destroy collective bargaining, to destroy collective activity, to get to a situation so we will have a competitive market economy like they have in Taiwan and South Korea and all those places with whom we compete.

That's what this section is all about, and that's what this legislation is all about. The government went as far as it could in this first bite at deunionizing. It bit a little bit further than it could and had to withdraw a little bit, but the intent, philosophy and objectives are all here. They are spelled out in black and white terms.

Mr. Chairman, the original legislation in section 27(1)(a) talked about employers and employees — and I concede that before the minister develops his line of argument to say I'm wrong and that the old legislation talked about employers and employees. It did, but in section 27(1)(b) it also talked about improving the practices and procedures of collective bargaining between employers and trade unions as the freely chosen representatives of their employees. That section is in there again. So what you've done — and you need to go through this slowly to see what the real goal of the government is — is maintain some of the language while inserting other language that totally distorts the objectives and goals originally envisioned by the drafters of this legislation.

"The council, having regard to the public interest as well as the rights of individuals and the rights and obligations of the parties before it and recognizing the desirability for employers and employees to achieve and maintain good working conditions as participants in and beneficiaries of a competitive market economy . . . ."

The principle of good collective bargaining is to resolve disputes, to ensure that people get along together so that productivity is high, relationships are good, grievances are reduced, and when contract time comes around they can reach an agreement easily and quickly. Those should be the purposes of labour legislation, and to make sure that a fair balance obtains. We have none of that in this legislation. Drafting legislation to serve the competitive market economy has become the goal of the government.

Mr. Chairman, isn't there an obvious conflict in the minds of members of the Social Credit Party between the philosophy of a competitive market economy, presumably without government interference, and this massive government interference? It's almost laughable to listen to the advertisements of the National Citizens' Coalition, or whatever they're called, on the radio, supporting the government in its efforts to get this philosophy enshrined by saying its main motive is to get governments off the backs of individuals and out of the marketplace. This is the most intrusive venture into the marketplace of any government in the history of this country. Doesn't the government see the contradiction? You don't believe in interfering in this way with private commercial contracts. Why then do you interfere in this way with private contracts relating to wages? I'm sure the government would like to in fact reduce the amount of legislation governing private commercial contracts. They would like to get government off the backs of those parties who wish to freely reach an agreement. Yet the philosophy of this bill, as outlined in the new section 27 of the Code, amendment 18, is to do the opposite of that, to intrude in a massive way into private contracts between employers and the people who work for them. Isn't the government aware of that obvious contradiction?

Isn't the government also aware that by adopting this philosophy, more trouble is in fact created than solved? Isn't the minister aware of his own letter to the Premier, in which he says you can't solve industrial disputes legislatively? Isn't the minister aware of the good relationships that were beginning to develop between employers and employees in this province in respect of, for example, the Pacific Institute of Industrial Policy? Is the minister not aware that by injecting this philosophy of labour relations being subject to the competitive market economy, he subverts the whole practice of labour relations and creates a mess? Isn't today evidence enough for the government that they've gone too far with this bizarre policy, this bizarre philosophy which argues that the primary objective of labour relations is not good relations between employer and employee but relations which understand and reflect the competitive market economy?

What's so obnoxious about the philosophy and what's so tragic about what's happening to this society is that people all around the world — every multinational corporation — will have on the telex tonight a report from their people in British Columbia about what happened here today. They're not going to be concerned about blame. The telexes won't say it was the government's fault, the opposition's fault, labour's fault or management's fault. They will just simply report on the fact that workers in this province felt incensed enough about a legislative initiative of government that they were prepared to sacrifice tens of millions of dollars worth of wages to demonstrate how angry they were about legislation that has as its primary focus language that says: " . . . good working conditions as participants in and beneficiaries of a competitive market economy

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: Does commercial contract law have a philosophy section in it which says that commercial contracts will reflect the competitive market economy? Of course not. Why would the government want that kind of massive interference in a freely arranged bargain between two commercial partners? Why would you want that?

MR. R. FRASER: It's unnecessary.

MR. GABELMANN: Of course it's unnecessary. It's unnecessary in labour relations too. The first shutdown in eight years in B.C. Ferries — why does it happen? Because of legislation that interferes so massively . . . .

MR. R. FRASER: Not true.

[ Page 1483 ]

MR. GABELMANN: What's not true? The shutdown came about because the guys wanted the day off. Is that what happened?

MR. LOVICK: They want to lose some wages, right? Give up some wages; take the day off. The good life, yes.

MR. GABELMANN: A long weekend.

Interjections.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Chairman, the debate this afternoon will go much more smoothly, and much quicker, and the public will be served much more effectively, if the member for Boundary-Similkameen closes his mouth a little bit more often. He should remember that he has twice as many ears as mouths, and he should listen twice as much as he talks.

MR. HEWITT: Are you threatening me? Are you telling me that I can't ... ?

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Chairman, I'm threatening the member for Boundary-Similkameen as much as workers are threatening the government today.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I think we should just continue with section 18. This is a particularly difficult bill we're dealing with, and I would ask all Hon. members to please save their interjections. We should listen to whoever is on the floor; he has the right to speak.

The member for North Island continues. We only have a couple of minutes left, lion member.

MR. GABELMANN: That's fine then. I've got much more to say, but I'll wrap up on this particular point.

One of the other impacts of changing the philosophy of the Code, as is being done by this, is to abandon the view that we've held in British Columbia that organizing trade unions is an activity which should be encouraged.

AN HON. MEMBER: Or at least is legitimate.

MR. GABELMANN: Or at least, as my colleague suggests, is legitimate.

Those of us on this side of the House believe that encouraging — not forcing, but encouraging — trade union activity, encouraging people to act collectively, will do more to improve our standard of living and our economic prospects than any activity of government or any other activity that can be imagined or that could be undertaken. That is the single most useful endeavour. Why is it that the most highly paid woodworkers in the world work in a province where woodworkers are almost entirely 100 percent organized? As a result of that, woodworking communities have, and have had, a standard of living that is among the highest anywhere in this country.

There is very real value in organizing, in bargaining collectively. It improves all of our standards of living. Once woodworkers have that kind of income, shopkeepers have the money spent in their stores; the natural and traditional supporters of Social Credit benefit from the money spent in their stores by people earning a decent wage. As a result, our whole economy improves. It becomes more competitive, too, as is evidenced clearly in the competitive position of the B.C. lumber industry, which is the most competitive in the province.

MR. R. FRASER: Mr. Chairman, I really didn't intend to get up and debate this section today, but I will, because . . . . I would like to repeat some of the remarks of the member opposite, who speaks with great feeling. I appreciate that, because I like to talk with people who believe . . . .

MR. CLARK: Is this your role in life — to give the minister a break?

MR. R. FRASER: You stop heckling; you'll get a turn. Mr. Chairman, defend me from that unmerciful heckling.

MR. LOVICK: Certainly you require help.

MR. R. FRASER: That's right: all the help I can get, including the second member for Nanaimo.

As I say, I'd like to participate today because I like to work with people who believe in what they say even though I may not happen to agree. As my friend from Nanaimo would probably say.... He would probably quote Voltaire, who said: "I disagree with what you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it." It's the same with the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann).

[Mrs. Gran in the chair.]

MR. R. FRASER: It seems to me, Mr. Chairman — Chairwoman, in fact — and to many whom I know that the desirability of employers and employees achieving and maintaining a good working relationship is paramount to the interests of the province of British Columbia. For us to think otherwise would be folly. Certainly it would be in our best interests to recognize that we are participants in and beneficiaries of a competitive market economy, for it certainly is time that we recognize that we are not an island unto ourselves; we are part of a gigantic world economy upon which we are dependent to a large extent.

[3:45]

It is not just a matter of raising salaries in one industry and then spending all the money in the store. We certainly have to sell the product, which pays the wages which then go to the store. The sales come first.

Interjection.

MR. R. FRASER: Entering into my field — that's dangerous for you. As I say ....

MR. WILLIAMS: Did they give you this in remedial English?

MR. R. FRASER: Maybe I should have taken remedial English. I would have enjoyed doing that had I had the chance. My education is limited simply to engineering, and that's not enough, as you can see.

It's important to me to get into this discussion because of the fact that I believe that the primary relationship is between employer and employees, not between employer and trade union or employer and customers particularly, because they can change. It's the unit that we're talking about.

[ Page 1484 ]

Interjection.

MR. R. FRASER: The first member for Vancouver East says master-servant; sort of old-fashioned language, according to me, but if that's what you think it is, that's fine. You're an employer; I suppose that makes you the master and all those who work for you the servants, so maybe you know more about that than I do. It didn't work that way in my business, I can assure you.

It's important to make sure that the economically viable unit is the company or the co-op or whatever it is, so that that unit will function and will be able to compete effectively with other similar units or different-sized units or units that operate in a different market, so they can work. So this makes sense. Certainly to involve the interests of the public, which I know will inflame the members opposite, seems to me to be significant; for we cannot have a group of people arguing against the general interest of the public.

I recognize there's a possibility that will be upsetting to the member for North Island, but the fact is that this recognition in print is the recognition that all who succeed already have, and to put it there will get my support.

MR. CLARK: Madam Chairman, there are many offensive elements in this act, in my view, many that are interventionist, but this section is probably the most offensive of all because it changes fundamentally the philosophy by which we do business in terms of labour relations in this province, and it alters fundamentally the way we've operated in Canada.

Nowhere in North America, I think, is there legislation similar in terms of the kind of intent that the legislation is based on. It's very important, because all of the other sections of the act will ultimately challenge that the labour board, for whatever reason . . . . They all are read through the veil of section 18, or section 27 of the act. This is the section that the lawyers and the chairman and the vice-chairman of the board turn to when they want to see what the intent of the legislation is.

It really isn't labour legislation at all; it's an economic and political agenda, highly interventionist. It talks about competitive market economy, and it's one of the benchmarks for labour legislation. It doesn't encourage collective bargaining, as the old bill did; it doesn't say that the purpose of this labour legislation is to encourage collective bargaining. It supports, I think, a kind of heavy state intervention to try to ensure a competitive market economy.

The minister has been clear — and I think Graham Leslie in his article confirms — that this bill means the deunionization of the construction industry, if not more. The minister knows that's what this bill will do; the government knows that; the deputy minister has confirmed that. So that's what they mean by the competitive market economy that they want to see. And the minister nodded when we talked earlier about trying to compete with the Pacific Rim. We have to deunionize, we have to reduce our wages, we have to reduce our living standards if we want to compete. That's what this legislation does.

MR. R. FRASER: He didn't say it.

MR. CLARK: He said it before in this House, Mr. Member. He said that in fact we have to be more competitive.

That's the goal of the legislation: to make us more competitive.

MR. R. FRASER: There's nothing wrong with that.

MR. CLARK: There's nothing wrong with that? We want to reduce our wages consistently, deunionize, to become more competitive. That's the goal of the legislation; and this section, which talks about the purpose and intent of the legislation, makes it very, very clear. They try to use labour legislation as an economic tool, and they consistently . . . . Contracts are negotiated freely now between two parties. So they're saying that we need the state to intervene between the parties who have freely negotiated agreements to retroactively void sections on the basis that it doesn't make us competitive.

That's essentially the goal of the legislation: to use it as an economic tool. It's to intervene retroactively and side with the employer, and we've seen that in section after section after section. We have to be more competitive, so we can't allow contracts that say that pipe has to be manufactured by union companies, even though that means tremendous economic benefits to the province. We see that in pulp mills. We can't have that, even though the two parties agree, even though the companies agree that they're going to buy their pipe from British Columbia, even though since 1927 that's been the case in that collective agreement. In this section of the act is the purpose: a competitive market economy. This section is the veil through which all the other sections are read. That's clearly the direction of the government; it has decided the question of a competitive market economy.

I would say, Madam Chairman, that you can't legislate a competitive market economy. It's ironic, you know, because to say that we're going to legislate a competitive market economy simply won't work. That's not how the economy works. Trying to legislate a consensus doesn't work either. We're going to legislate in the public interest — that's what the bill says; that's what this section says.

MR. WILLIAMS: And if you don't agree, we'll charge you with conspiracy and go to court.

MR. CLARK: That's right. We'll throw you in jail if you don't agree with that.

The fact is, if we ever needed any proof that this bill is not going to act in the public interest, it's in the actions today. The kind of response that we're seeing from this legislation . . . . And this is only the initial response, surely. So even if you accept that the goal of the legislation is that the public interest is served, already we're seeing the reactions. Is this in the public interest? Clearly not. The goal is a competitive market economy. Will what's going on today, in terms of people going to work, make us more competitive? Everybody around the world is going to know that we had a general strike in British Columbia. They're going to turn on their TVs and see that there's a general strike going on in Chile, in South Africa, in Argentina — and there's a general strike going on in British Columbia. That's the company we're keeping around the world.

MR. WILLIAMS: Like a tinpot South American country.

[ Page 1485 ]

MR. CLARK: Exactly — as my colleague from Vancouver East says. That's the company we're keeping in British Columbia.

Clearly, even if you agree with the intent of the legislation, it simply isn't working. It hasn't worked to date and it's not going to work, because you can't legislate people's cooperation and you can't legislate a competitive market economy. You have to do it by working together with people. You have to do it in terms of other economic levers that the government has which should be dealing with the severe problems in the economy. You simply can't legislate it. We've seen enough today to indicate it's the precursor of things to come in British Columbia. It has already done more damage than all of the individual sectoral strikes that we've seen in British Columbia. The action of the government in bringing in this legislation, and the reaction of the public today, has done more damage to the economy of British Columbia, more damage to our reputation, than anything that has gone before.

Clearly, the intent, the purpose, of this section is not going to come to fruition. So even if you agree that this is what we want, this act doesn't do it, and it doesn't do it because it doesn't have the cooperation of the major players involved in doing business. It's a fundamental and radical departure from the way we've conducted collective bargaining in this province, in Canada, and in North America. It's a radical experiment on the backs of the people of British Columbia, and it simply won't work.

MR. HEWITT: I, like many others in the back bench on the government side, didn't feel it was appropriate or necessary to speak, but I think from time to time we all feel that we should say something. We shouldn't leave it to the minister to take the attack, because the attack, in most cases, is unfounded. I think section 18 is a prime example. First of all, the members of the opposition have such a narrow vision; they haven't read the section; they don't understand the section; the don't want to understand the section. But they are correct in one thing, Madam Chairman. They are correct that it is a very important section of the act — very important. And just to help them out in understanding so they may change their view, it does say in this section: "The council, having regard for the public interest as well as the rights of individuals and the rights and obligations of the parties" — etc., etc. — "shall exercise the powers and perform the duties conferred or imposed on it under this Act so as to achieve the expeditious resolution of labour disputes, and for these purposes" — and I quote this very emphatically for the member for Vancouver East — "the council shall have regard for the following purposes and objects: (a) securing and maintaining industrial peace and furthering harmonious relations between employers and employees . . . ."

Now gentlemen — and lady — of the opposition, if you find that objectionable, please stand and say so. What you're really saying is that you're going against harmonious relations which this council, under this act, under this section, is required . . . . They shall have consideration for securing and maintaining industrial peace.

Or would you like to look at the next section? It indicates: " (b) improving of practices and procedures of collective bargaining between employers and trade unions as the freely chosen representatives of the employees...."  Madam Chairman, what's offensive about that?

You see, the problem we're getting in all this debate and this furor and this "general strike" — or ungeneral strike, I'll call it, because you don't have total support of all the labour movement; you know it and I know it; there are many people out there with the labour movement who are totally fed up with their leaders and what they're trying to do to this province . . . . So I would suggest to you that these subsections of this section of the bill give very strict direction to a council who have to have regard first of all for the public, and also for the rights of individuals and rights and obligations of the parties involved.

If you took at subsections (c) and (d) — all these sections — they are very important to collective bargaining and to harmony and democracy in the workplace: "encouraging the voluntary resolution of collective bargaining disputes . . . ." The "voluntary resolution" — does that smack of heavy-handed action by the council? The council itself must take into consideration the matter of collective bargaining and the right of both employer and employee to settle their disputes.

AN HON. MEMBER: By consultation.

MR. HEWITT: The member across . . . . You know, it's funny, we have some pretty wide limited debate under these sections. I can tell you that in other years we haven't had it, and I think I have to compliment the government side for allowing the opposition the wide-ranging debate. "Consultation, " the man says. Have you ever seen the amount of . . . ? I've never seen in 11 years the amount of consultation that this government has gone through to attempt . . ..

[4:00]

Interjections.

MR. HEWITT: I've touched a nerve, Madam Chairman. To get on-side, full discussion, first of all the minister . . . . Oh, point of order.

MR. LOVICK: It's an important point of order, Madam Chairman. What the member opposite said, and I hope unwittingly, was that the government of the day is the only power of law within the society. He said that you allow us to speak. That is not the case. That went out with dictatorships some 300 years ago.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Would the first member for Boundary-Similkameen like to rephrase the statement?

MR. HEWITT: Madam Chairman, I consider where it came from, and it's a bunch of nonsense. However, he also recognizes that in this House we've had to hear a number of statements that they have made — very eloquently, I might add, to the member for Nanaimo — but also well off the mark of reasoned debate, dealing with a section or sections of this bill.

Madam Chairman, the point I'm making in this section and its applicable subsections, if the members opposite read it, is that this council under this legislation shall have regard to the following purposes and objects, and I've named a few of them — (a) to (e), for example. They must have regard for: "minimizing the harmful effects of labour disputes on persons who are not involved in the disputes." I think that is very fundamental to this legislation, because for too long

[ Page 1486 ]

organized labour has held the innocent third party to ransom in many a community across this province. I can name one in my town. Slade and Stewart no longer exists — not because of the employees in Penticton who belong to that union, but because of the control out of Vancouver who in the end saw the demise of Slade and Stewart. As a result, a number of friends and neighbours were put out of work because of the shortsightedness of organized labour.

Section 18 brings democracy to the workplace. It is the fundamental section, in my opinion, of this bill, and it certainly puts in place many safeguards for both employee and employer. I support section 18. I think it's a great move in the right direction for harmony in the workplace in this province. I'm sure that the people opposite should read it before they debate it.

MR. LOVICK: I'm delighted to note that two members from the other side of the House have now spoken to this bill, beyond the minister. That, I think, is a step in the right direction. I was especially impressed by the member for Vancouver South who, I think, performed yeoman service. Clearly he took on that heroic task of speaking for a period of some five minutes without ever actually making reference to what the bill stated, and I think that's admirable, that clearly one who wasn't prepared to deal with the measure nonetheless had the courage to stand up and speak. I think that's marvelous.

I'm intrigued also by the member for Boundary-Similkameen, who wants us to note all the clauses in section 18.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I wonder if you could deal with the actual section and not deal with the personalities in the Legislature.

MR. LOVICK: Thank you. I accept your caution, Madam Chairman. Certainly I would apologize profusely if indeed I'm guilty of that. I would suggest, however, that the difference between my remarks and the remarks from the two previous speakers is simply that my remarks were direct, as opposed to the veiled ones from the other side. However, I will take the caution and abide by it.

I want to touch on just a couple of the points made in debate by members opposite that are germane to and relevant to section 18. The business of suggesting that somehow the purpose of this legislation is to protect the public interest, and that the public interest will be protected because of doing something to curtail the activities of labour and trade unions, is sadly and patently ludicrous given that the same government is prepared to do nothing whatsoever to protect the public interest against other kinds of actions; let's call them strikes.

For example, what happens when we have significant fluctuations in interest policy? What happens when we have capital strikes, when we get particular entrepreneurs and other agencies saying that they will go elsewhere unless they get a better deal? Do we hear the government suddenly saying that in the public interest we're going to protect people and we're going to roll back those price increases? We're going to remove somehow the rights of those other free actors within the economy, within the society? The answer, of course, is that nothing happens. I'm afraid this government tends to have a very single-minded — indeed, tunnel-vision — kind of view of the universe. That's the predicament, and that certainly is what we are referring to when we talk about section 18 of the bill.

The member for Boundary-Similkameen began the process of reading the particular subsections of this section. I think we were all interested to note that there is in fact, when we look at subsections (a) to (g), probably very little we can disagree with — if we could accept thes verity of the words awritten. The problem, however, is that the actions of this government speak so loud that we cannot hear the words.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: That's "loudly."

MR. LOVICK: Somebody presumes to suggest that I ought to use an adverbial form of the word, Madam Chairman. I would remind that individual that that is a nineteenth century grammatical convention with that particular word that is no longer in use. However, I am delighted that the member opposite was indeed paying attention.

The point I have been making is that we have protestations and pronouncements from the government side of the House about what they are trying to accomplish in this legislation. Unfortunately, we have other announcements, other pronouncements and actions by the government that are clearly in direct contrast and contradiction to the first set of statements.

Let me just give you an example of that, Madam Chairman. Look at the first clause in terms of the purposes and objects of this bill: " . . . securing and maintaining industrial peace" — and we all say, yes, that sounds good — "and furthering harmonious relations between employers and employees . . . ." Most of us would say: isn't that marvelous? If you can come up with the kind of bill that can do that, we will all be cheering. Indeed, we will be thrilled and delighted if that is the case. Unfortunately, we were told that Bill 19 as presented to us before amendments had these purposes. I would simply put this question to the minister: how can anybody be expected to take seriously the claim that the purpose and object of this legislation is to secure and maintain industrial peace and foster harmonious relations between employers and employees when you have had to bring in some 50-odd amendments because the legislation was so patently and totally unworkable and when we have had nothing but notice from day one, from the time the bill first saw the light of day, that it was indeed going to cause discord and strife and chaos throughout the province? How can one make that claim in the face of all that evidence?

That is my point, and that is why I am a little incensed when I listen to the member for Boundary-Similkameen waxing self-righteous and sanctimonious about the good and noble and decent purposes of this legislation, at the same time as we have probably 200,000 people not at work today. The two do not go together, Madam Chairman, and that is why I suggest the member for Boundary-Similkameen was misleading us, to put the matter charitably.

I want to turn now to what I am concerned about with this bill. As I have already suggested, I am not much concerned, at least at first blush, with subsections (a) through (g). I don't think any of us — or certainly not any I have spoken to yet — have much disagreement with any of those clauses as stated. Our concern, rather, is the ideological manifesto in the preamble, that reference to the "competitive market economy." A couple of my colleagues have already picked up on that. I want to flesh out that argument and demonstrate why it is that we are concerned about that, why we would contend it has no

[ Page 1487 ]

place in a bill such as this. I am suggesting to you that the claim is ideological. I note, by the way, that when my colleague from across the way, the member for Boundary-Similkameen, was reading us this particular part of the bill, he chose to leave out that preamble. I suspect he knew as well as I what the problem with it was.

The business, then, of the competitive market economy. Let's start by defining our terms. I think it is important we do that, simply because it seems to me that the term is bandied around somewhat. Rather than giving you my own idiosyncratic definition, I decided I would bring in a trusty, handy-dandy reference text. The reference text I am using is David Crane's A Dictionary of Canadian Economics. "Market economy" is defined as follows — I think most of us know this, but let's find out again precisely what the words are; and I promise you, Madam Chairman, that I am not about to quote a lengthy passage:

"The market economy is an economy in which the setting of prices and allocating of resources are determined largely by the forces of supply and demand. The greater part of economic activity results from the actions of private corporations and individuals, while the role of government is held to a minimum.

"The market economy has been largely replaced by the 'mixed economy,' which combines the use of the market system in some sectors and government intervention in others, with government setting the overall rules and regulations under which businesses and individuals operate."

Of course, the point to note is that market economy sounds suspiciously like, let's say, fair capitalism, as defined there. Rather, so the dictionary definition tells us at any rate, what we live in, or have assumed we lived in, was a mixed economy rather than a market economy. The question that instantly comes to mind then is whether in fact this thing called competitive market economy is indeed an effort to step back from the mixed economy. Is it, as we are suggesting, an effort to turn back the clock somewhat? I think that's a legitimate concern. Because we have seen everything in the throne speech and budget speech, as well as this particular document before us, I think we are indeed dealing with a kind of ideological crusade.

We're talking about reducing the size of government. We're talking about getting government out of the way of business and so forth. Therefore we come to the conclusion that that is indeed precisely what this bill is about.

I'm emphasizing this now, Mr. Minister — and I'm delighted that you are paying attention and I thank you for that — because I want to suggest to you this hypothesis. I want to suggest, namely, that the bill you present here, given the primacy of competitive market economy, will effectively have the impact of removing organized labour as a major player in the economy of B. C.

I'm suggesting in fact that what the purpose of this bill is, and it is given away to us by this language, is to say that we want the competitive market economy to triumph, and in that situation we do not have room for trade unions. I'm not suggesting a sinister conspiracy or anything; rather I think that's ideological purity on the government's part. If we pause to reflect on the matter for a moment, we can all recognize pretty clearly that maybe trade unions don't have a role to play in a "competitive market economy."

[4:15]

If we say that the forces of supply and demand are going to interact and that will be the system which governs the allocation and distribution of goods and services in a society, then what do we do with an entity like a trade union, because a trade union is an organized entity which is designed to restrict supply? It says, in fact, that we will not provide as many workers as the market would otherwise bear; rather we will artificially interfere with the marketplace to hold wages at a given level.

It is, therefore-you can argue in a pure textbook market model — the case that perhaps trade unions don't fit. They don't belong in a competitive market economy. I fear that perhaps that is what is in the minds of the draftspersons of this legislation. What we're looking at is a means whereby we can move trade unions out of the calculus, out of the business of allocating goods and services within a society. Take away the irritant that interferes with the supply side of the equation in our economy.

I hope that's not the intention, but to judge from the preamble to this bill, it is indeed. The obvious question, if I'm not correct in that, is: why would we try to enshrine the competitive market economy in talking about labour? If we're talking about trade unions, what other purpose can we have than to talk about the competitive market economy? I would put that to the minister and his advisers. I can't see any other explanation and I'd love to hear one.

Let me just dwell for a few moments more on predicaments with that competitive market model that we've already alluded to on a couple of occasions. I think everybody who has bothered to study the history of modem industrial societies recognizes that what we have arrived at was an accord between capital and labour — much simplified, but loosely called capital and labour. The accord effectively produced a whole set of rules governing the fair play of the two sides in the game. The accord began to break down in the early seventies, at least in North America, when we had oil shock and we had South-East Asia and other such things. That's when we first heard those sounds about restraint and monetarism and neo-conservatism and so forth.

The thing that got lost in the calculation, however, the thing that got lost in that set of historical developments, was why we developed the accord in the first place. We developed the accord in the first place, we developed an interventionist government and a role for trade unions simply because it was clearly demonstrated to us that the market economy, left to its own devices, didn't work terribly well.

We found lots of things wrong with that, and I hasten to point out here that the market economy and the market mechanism have tremendous capacities. They can accomplish great things. I would never minimize that; nobody on this side would do that. But recognize you pay a price for it. There are things the market can't do.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, your time has expired. Thank you.

MR. G. HANSON: Madam Chairperson, I would like to hear the continuing remarks of the second member for Nanaimo; I think he's certainly educating the House in the matter.

MR. LOVICK: Thank you, Madam Chairman, and I thank my colleague, the first member for Victoria, for his

[ Page 1488 ]

kind remarks. I assure you they were not prearranged or rehearsed.

I was developing that fairly straightforward case: namely, that the market mechanism, marvelous thing that it is, will not solve all our problems. We developed a welfare state preeminently and precisely because the market economy let us down. It wasn't a satisfactory means for redistributing income. It wasn't, also, a mechanism that could enable us to do anything about, let's say, slum housing; or not slum housing — pardon me — low-cost housing. That's a very major slip. It's a mechanism that doesn't give us any means to deal with things like the environmental constraints under which we now labour. This is why.... It's interesting to note that there are still signs of life in the House at this point, Mr. Minister.

It's interesting to note that as we move into a newer economy and a so-called more modern and what some call post-industrial society, the pressures on the market economy become all the greater and the limitations of the competitive market economy become all that much more obvious. For example, the two great constraints that we are facing now in any kind of economic and social policy construction are, first, environmental, and secondly, employment. Clearly we cannot carry on producing goods the way we have for most of our modern history, because the environment won't bear the shock. Clearly, then, left to its own devices the market, which can't adjudicate environmental constraints, won't be able to do the job. There's a job for government, obviously.

The other area, probably more important, is in terms of employment generation. Part of the accord, part of that contract I alluded to earlier, was the concept that governments have an obligation to provide employment — to set policies, at least, that provide employment — for sufficient numbers of their citizens. What we have seen for a very long time, of course, is the predicament that societies are not, without considerable difficulty, able to generate sufficient jobs. Certainly it is the case that the marketplace doesn't generate sufficient jobs, and certainly it's the case that most recently we are confronted with a major new problem, namely, the fact that we can now produce greater and greater amounts but we require fewer and fewer people to do so. Again the marketplace isn't going to solve that problem.

This — again I emphasize, Mr. Minister — is why we on this side of the House are concerned about this preamble. What is this business about the competitive market economy and somehow fitting trade unions into that, seeing them as somehow compatible with and part of that? We are suggesting that that is an ideological statement. That's a belief statement rather than an accurate description of the society in which we live and the economy which performs within our society.

We're suggesting that if for no other reason, we on this side of the House would vote against this bill because of that preamble. We're arguing that it is misplaced, it is irrelevant. Indeed, it is perhaps a retrograde step.

MR. JANSEN: It's a pleasure to address section 18. Various references have been made by certain members opposite with regard to our lack of debate on this bill, and I would be pleased to offer my comments in regard to section 18.

My understanding of this debate is that we debate the changes that have been brought about. Why were these changes brought in in the form of Bill 19? The hearings throughout the province spoke to the committee, to the minister and to individual members that we have to expand the employment opportunities in this province. British Columbia, like Canada, like every other country in the world, is also in a competitive position; we are not an island. Together we have to provide the framework for job opportunities. Time and time again people requested that we introduce legislation to provide and expand the opportunities for employment in our province. These were submissions received not by organizations so much as by individual members. People came to us: union members, non-union members, employers, employees. They requested this time and time again: expand the ability for us to attract jobs in the province of British Columbia. They wanted fairness in the legislation that would provide a positive framework for members and organizations to enter into agreements or not to enter into agreements. They wanted the ability to resolve differences quickly. They wanted the ability, to enable agreements to be entered into expeditiously.

Those are the things they requested of us. But what are the changes being debated today in this House? Let's look at those.

The changes in Bill 19 to section 27 in the 1973 Code are very simple. I'll read the clauses that are being added: "and recognizing the desirability for employers and employees to achieve and maintain good working conditions as participants in and beneficiaries of a competitive market economy . . . ." What is wrong with that statement? What is wrong with a statement that says we are participants in and beneficiaries of a competitive market economy? Are we not living in such an environment in British Columbia? Are we different than the rest of the world? Are we an island that does not recognize that there indeed are economic pressures out there and that we are in a competitive working environment? What is wrong with the statement: "participants and beneficiaries of a competitive market economy?" I ask members on the other side of the House to explain to me what is different, what is wrong with that particular statement.

What are the other changes being introduced? The first three clauses — (a), (b) and (c) — are already in the legislation and I think don't require any further comment, but what are the others? Let's look at them. Clause (d): "encouraging the voluntary resolution of collective bargaining disputes." What is wrong with that statement? What's wrong with a statement suggesting that we as a government encourage the voluntary resolution of collective bargaining? What is the problem? We keep referring back to situations that don't happen. We're suggesting in this legislation that we can encourage a spirit of the voluntary resolution of collective bargaining.

What is the other statement? Clause (e): "minimizing the harmful effects of labour disputes on persons who are not involved in the disputes." Can anyone here tell me why they would disagree with that statement? Clause (f): "providing such assistance to employers and bargaining agents as may facilitate the making or renewing of collective agreements." We are here to assist and to enable the making and renewing of collective agreements. Is that a harmful statement? Is that a retrograde step in regard to the labour legislation framework in this province?

What is the other section being added? Clause (g): "gathering and publishing information and statistics respecting collective bargaining in the Province." I asked the other members on this side of the House what the problems are;

[ Page 1489 ]

what do you see as wrong in introducing those changes to our Labour Code? We are participants in and beneficiaries of a competitive market economy. We encourage voluntary resolution of collective bargaining. We are also in agreement on minimizing the harmful effects of labour disputes. We provide assistance to employers and employees in resolving their differences. We also gather statistics. What is wrong with this legislation, with section 18, Madam Chairman? We have brought this forward to in fact provide a positive framework, and the province overwhelmingly supports that.

[4:30]

MR. GUNO: Madam Chairman, first of all, may I say that I appreciate the opportunity to rise here today to participate in the debate on this section. It was interesting to hear the last speaker talk about why, in his own words, the changes were wrought in this particular bill. He referred to the great consultation that was undertaken. One of the phrases I keep hearing is that we are not an island, that somehow we must join the rest of the world. I'm not sure if they mean by that that at least in British Columbia we're going to have to create some kind of free economic zone where we're going to deprive our workers of their rights, so that we can bring about this competitive market economy that is continually referred to.

Madam Chairman, I just want to talk about the goal of the legislation, which has been referred to by my colleagues, and to really zero in on the reason for this drastic alteration in the whole of labour relations by the introduction of a labour bill. In introducing Bill 19, this government has missed the opportunity to introduce a labour bill that would be fair and based on cooperation. I think that this government missed an opportunity earlier this year, when representatives from business and the B.C. Federation of Labour got together and began a process of examining ways to work more peaceably and effectively, to start recognizing the fact that there is an opportunity in this province for the two sectors to work together. I think that was a great opportunity that was missed by this government.

I keep hearing, as a rationale for refusing to make any changes in light of the growing public opposition in all sectors, that they have a philosophy, that they can't alter this bill if it's going to jeopardize this philosophy. Well, what is the philosophy? What is the underpinning of the philosophy they speak of? I think my colleagues have been very effective in identifying the true agenda of this government in terms of radically altering the economic and social fabric of this province and downgrading the role of unionism, in order for us to send a message to the world that we are open for business. In other words, B.C. is for sale. That's the message that we're sending in terms of trying to alter the kind of labour relations that we have had up to this point.

Examining section 18, Madam Chairman, clearly gives the message that this government is at least going to minimize the role of trade unions in this province. It gives greater stress to the rights of individuals; it focuses on the desirability for employers and employees to achieve and maintain good working relationships. In other words, it fundamentally shifts the relationship by emphasizing, as my colleague from North Island said earlier, employer-employee, in other words, stressing the rights of individuals. It also talks about protecting the third party. But what is missing is any reference to free collective bargaining or the rights of workers to organize so they can protect themselves by entering into free collective bargaining.

I think that my colleagues have zeroed in on some of the reasons, but I think the point must be made that by downplaying the role of trade unions, we must say that this government equates a competitive market economy with one that is nonunion; or the absence of a very strong trade union must be in place. All this is done, Madam Chairman, under the guise of public interest. But it is clear that when this government talks about public interest, it is not talking about the ordinary citizens. They are not talking about business; they are not talking about British Columbia. When they say "public interest, " they are really talking about maintaining this competitive market economy, and the expeditious settlement of labour disputes would be done at the expense of trade union rights.

So, Madam Chairman, I agree with my colleagues that there is an economic and political agenda. This bill is highly interventionist, and it is ironic that it is introduced by a group who pride themselves on being free enterprisers. It is free only as far as their interests are concerned or not concerned. As I said earlier, this particular bill is one that is parading as some kind of industrial relations policy, when in fact it drastically alters the economic structure of this province.

The tragedy, as I mentioned earlier, was the fact that we had an opportunity to seize and foster that unprecedented initiative which was launched by the Business Council of B.C. and the B.C. Federation of about working out a new kind of relationship, one based on cooperation, on fairness. One of the speakers said, referring to Bill 19, that one of its main objectives was to establish harmony in the labour scene. I think we have made the point often enough that there is simply no bloody way you can legislate harmony. I mean, that is the sort of stuff that is worked out. It takes years and years of experience. of failure; inch by inch you work it out. By introducing this kind of highly interventionist initiative, we have effectively destroyed years and years of those kinds of experience. I think that's one of the biggest mistakes, or one of the biggest miscalculations — if I'm going to be charitable — in this bill. I agree with my colleagues: it's ill-advised, unproductive and ill-timed.

MR. G. HANSON: Madam Chair, this is a very important day in the province of British Columbia. I guess other members would probably recollect more accurately, but I think in 1974 this section 27 that we're looking at came in in Bill 11, under the Labour Code, introduced by another minister at the time as the spokesperson for the New Democratic Party from the interior of the province, as this minister is from the interior — very close proximity, Vernon and Revelstoke. Yet the philosophy imparted in this legislation brought forward by this minister, and this section we're discussing today, takes us in two entirely different directions.

As I was reading Hansard on this particular section as it was debated 13 years ago and the way that the philosophy of the bill was being articulated in this chamber, the purposes, goals and objects, as stated at that time . . . . The primary function was to make the collective bargaining process work successfully. The process is accompanied by allowing the board to become involved in the total process. But you know, both the business community and the labour movement, at the time Bill 11 was introduced, had gone through a long consultative process, and the legislation brought before this House was at the urging of both business and labour. They

[ Page 1490 ]

were asking for an overhaul, for a new code of industrial relations to make bargaining work in British Columbia.

Rather than to meet the demands of the competitive market economy, the goals and the objects were spelled out much differently. They were to take into account the role that working people play in the equation of the economy. And they weren't to be servants; they were to be involved in a partnership, a collective bargaining process that was fundamental to the system. The section that we were dealing with under 27 was to promote the collective bargaining process as the key to industrial relations.

It is pointed out in that debate that one of the reasons they got into bringing in the Code was to deal with matters that arose during the life of a collective agreement: the things that would occur to inflame industrial relations — to move into a non-legalistic way, a way that was more flexible, more sophisticated and more progressive. The heart of the matter was to deal with problems that would emerge sometimes when a contract was in force and effect, but because of a slowness in arbitration matters or other related matters, something would occur to cause disputes that would arise, whether a wildcat, a work stoppage . . . . Something would occur, and there was a contract in place. We needed something to get away from the courts, something that could interpret in a more just manner the specific needs within the dispute and try to come to a resolution. Because, as was pointed out in that debate, no two disputes out there between employer and employee are identical. We do have arbitral precedents, etc., but each dispute that this minister is trying to address — and wrongly, in our view — is unique unto itself and has to have a special way of looking at it.

The objects outlined in section 27(l) of the Code form the underpinning of the entire Code: to develop effective industrial relations in the interest of achieving or maintaining good working conditions; not some banana-republic, bucket-shop operation, either in our province or elsewhere in the world, but good working conditions and good industrial relations. That's in the interests of big employers.

[4:45]

The people who have traveled since 1974 through the province of British Columbia, looking at the way industrial relations were being administered under Bill 11, wanted to see how they could learn from some of the provisions of the legislation here within the province, to streamline their own economic arrangements. Because it's in an employer's interests to have predictable working conditions. That's part of the equation; it's part of the input in production. They want to know that a one- or two-year contract is in place. They want to administer the contract fairly after the collective bargaining process.

The collective bargaining process is not without conflict. It's an inherently conflicting process, but it addresses very much the market economy, the way things are proceeding. During a recession, what goes on the table is different than when it's a boom economy. We don't have to look very far in Canada or elsewhere to see that that's correct. The bargaining table reflects what is economic performance. It just does; it's as simple as that.

So what we have in this section is a move back to a more legalistic approach, back to a more punitive approach, back to a more interventionist approach, rather than taking the parties' views and trying to come to terms to develop a statute that would be flexible, responsive, fair and non-punitive, not coercive.

That is what you're dealing with here, and here we have this minister from the interior in this House on the Social Credit side. The critic in 1974 was Mr. Chabot. He carried the debate for Social Credit, and the Labour Code — as pointed out by our debate leader, I believe earlier on, and other speakers — Bill 11, passed unanimously in this House.

MR. RABBITT: Cooperation by the opposition?

MR. G. HANSON: By the opposition, yes. Social Credit voted for that, because that bill, to that new member for Yale-Lillooet, was the result of comprehensive consultation and urging by business and labour. It was the result of that process. There wasn't a parallel campaign, a parallel process where other people were sitting in a smoky room with big, fat cigars pulling the old LRB decisions and making alterations to fit every lost case they had. They didn't have that at the time, and that's why Bill 11 passed unanimously in this House — because it was addressing real concerns.

Let me just read you a couple of brief quotes from that debate: "This was one of the areas where there was indeed complete unanimity — at least a good degree of consensus in all sectors" — and this is the result of the hearings — "on the need for a changed Labour Relations Board. So, in response to those appeals by labour and management, the main practitioners of industrial relations . . . ." Unless labour and management, as the main practitioners in industrial relations, are on board and believe in the fundamental intent and objectives of the legislation, the minister knows, as is stated in his own report, it's doomed to failure. So we on this side of the House don't understand why you're not adopting something that is so fundamental to economic performance; and that's what your government is doing at the moment — damaging economic performance.

Under section 27(1) of the old Code, to modify it, to make it ideological — not consensual but ideological — you've moved away from the ability to respond and have fundamental agreement from the outset on what the rules of the game are, and have provisions such as the special officer or bodies that could address things in a flexible and fair-minded way. So the members on this side of the House have been trying, through force of logic and argument and history . . . . Why are we going back, throwing ourselves back to the Mediation Commission days? There is no reason for it whatsoever.

I pointed this out earlier, but I'd like to continue a little longer on the fact that a lot of people who don't know a lot about industrial relations feel that when you legislate or when you have something in a contract, that's the end of any kind of dispute. You have to find ways of resolving disputes to make the ongoing process work. It's not something you sign and put on the shelf, because there are interpretations. Both parties have to work to make that contract work.

Here's a quote from October 3, 1973, when this was being debated:

"Now in the past, anyone who is knowledgeable" and this is the former minister, Bill King — "and has had any experience in labour problems in this province will recognize that one of the greatest and most sensitive problem areas has been disputes aris ing during the course of collective agreements. It's manifested through job actions, work-to-rule programs, work stoppages, wildcat strikes, and so on.

[ Page 1491 ]

There have been inequities and there have been reasons why the working people of this province have been moved to employ those tactics to solve their problems."

So rather than pretending you can legislate all that away, you find ways to address those root problems.

"One of the reasons I've just outlined was an ineffective arbitration procedure contained in collective agreements. Another device was the deliberate attempt by one party or the other to delay arbitration proceedings so that the problem festered on and created animosity and hostility until eventually it erupted into a work stoppage. At that point the government was called upon to come in and try to pick up the pieces.

"This allows the board to become involved" — and to try and get away from what he called "guerrilla action and inflaming the whole industrial climate of the province."

Your philosophy in your bill is fundamentally flawed, fundamentally wrong. The modern, progressive . . . . The reason people came from other jurisdictions was because of the principle of the bill. All the way through this opposition to Bill 19, you have steadfastly refused to understand that the underpinning principles of the bill were flawed and wrong. All the other language hanging on these principles were on sand, on nothingness.

So the controlling force, the organizing principle in the Labour Code, was collective bargaining. That was the unifying principle that both labour and management agreed upon, that the best process . . . . Rather than the government coming in and intervening and making one party or the other upset, the government saw its role as putting in place the apparatus to make collective bargaining work, being a support mechanism — not an interventionist, not a punisher or a cop, but something that would support the process.

MR. SERWA: It wasn't working.

MR. G. HANSON: It wasn't working? You didn't ask anybody. The backroom lawyers with the fat cigars wrote this legislation.

There is also the tendency now in this legislation to take us back into a more court-related process. Even today we have had the Ministry of Attorney-General making pronouncements. As pointed out in that debate, there was a very comprehensive debate around Bill 11, and it said:

"The courts of law can only really catch a glimpse of the overall labour picture. Their interference in the past has been sporadic and fortuitous. The judges lack the intimate knowledge of the very dynamic process of industrial relations and collective bargaining. For these reasons, part 11 of the new Labour Code has removed the courts' jurisdiction over labour disputes. This does not substitute the board, but rather proposes a new approach. The new law seeks an administrative rather than a judicial solution to labour disputes.

"In summary then, the primary function of the Labour Relations Board is to make collective bargaining process work more successfully."

That is what the debate on this side of the House has been all about: not to try to make political points, but to try to urge you, through you, Madam Chair . . . . My time is up, I see, but I will conclude. The principle of the bill, upon which all the other language is based, is flawed. It is fundamentally false and wrong, and the province will be ill-served, as we are today.

MR. JONES: I notice that the Minister of Labour and Consumer Services has been listening to the debate, and I am sure he wants a chance to respond this afternoon. So I rise primarily to ask that minister a question about philosophy. The minister and the Premier, during the debate around Bill 19, have mentioned a number of times the philosophy of the bill. I heard it on the radio this morning, and I suppose this is the section, if anywhere in the bill, that really embodies the philosophy of this bill. I suppose some key words in relation to philosophy in this section are words like "having regard to the public interest," "maintain good working conditions as participants in and beneficiaries of a competitive market economy," "industrial peace," "orderly and constructive settlement," "minimizing the harmful effects." I suppose those are the kinds of statements that epitomize what the minister talks about when he speaks publicly about the philosophy of the bill, and says the philosophy of the bill is not going to be changed through any discussion.

I would like to read a statement on labour relations and get a comment from the minister, and see if there's a similarity between the statement and the kind of philosophy that the minister refers to when he speaks publicly about the philosophy of this bill: "This state, to be sure, must, in place of the mass struggle of the two great groups . . . ."

MR. SERWA: On a point of order, with all due respect to the hon. member, we have attended to the philosophy and principles of the bill in second reading.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I understand your point, but this section does allow debate on the philosophy of the bill. I'm sorry. Would the member continue, please.

MR. JONES: Thank you, Madam Chair.

"This state, to be sure, must, in place of the mass struggle of the two great groups, employers and workers, which in its consequences always injures the national community as a whole by diminishing production, assume the legal care and the legal protection of all . . . . Then employers and workers will not rage against one another in struggles over pay and wage scales, damaging the economic existence of both, but solve these problems jointly in a higher instance, which must, above all, constantly envision the welfare of the people as a whole and of the state."

I wonder if the minister would respond to that and see if that is similar to the kind of philosophy he speaks of in this bill.

[5:00]

HON. L. HANSON: Madam Chairman, it's interesting to hear this debate go on, and it's interesting to hear the question from the member. I think that I can better deal with that in suggesting that, first of all, I think that the members in opposition are suspecting, or at least referring to, some hidden agenda. I think the agenda is very clearly stated. I think that the reference to a competitive market economy certainly is a reference of importance, but it is not the only reference. I'd like to point out to the members on the opposite

[ Page 1492 ]

side that the council is the body which will be guided by this section, not the government. I think that the members opposite are making an assumption that the concept of a competitive market is dependent on a weak unionized sector. I'd like to point out to the members opposite that indeed it may well be that a competitive market economy is achieved with a very strong unionized sector

Again, members of the opposition have suggested that their major concern is — and they've dealt with it pretty well totally — "a competitive market economy" only. I'd like to suggest to the members and the public at large that there's nothing wrong with those words. The fact is that we do operate in a competitive market economy. I don't think anyone can argue that. The facts are there. If we don't sell our products, we won't have money for wages or anything else in either the private or the public sector. But that's not to say that there's any annihilation of unionism as a result of those two words. It's a reality, and we believe that it's correct that the Industrial Relations Council, the unions and the employers should be in no doubt that that is a fact in our life today. We don't live in some kind of vacuum or in isolation from the rest of the world. We don't live in isolation or in a vacuum from reality. That's why we believe it should be clearly stated in this section.

I'd like to point out, as my colleague from Okanagan Similkameen stated: ". . . for these purposes the council shall have regard to the following purposes and objects . . . ." And it goes on to spell them out: encouraging the voluntary resolution of collective bargaining; minimizing the harmful effects of labour disputes on persons who are not involved; providing assistance to employers and bargaining agents to facilitate the making or renewing of collective agreements. I think that opposition members are taking a very narrow interpretation of this section. I think that if they look at the total section and the content of it, they'll very clearly see that there is a requirement to recognize not only that we are in a competitive market economy but that there are a number of the other purposes there.

MR. JONES: Madam Chairman, I presume the minister did not wish to comment on the paragraph that I read, and that's fine. But I think that in a sense it illustrates the seriousness and the gravity of this legislation. I quoted words from section 18 and words from another piece of labour legislation, and I used such words as "concern that there are injuries to the national community as a whole" and "the effect of collective bargaining diminishes production" and "we must be concerned about the legal protection of all, and the welfare of the people as a whole and of the state." Those words I quoted were from Mein Kampf. I think the government must realize the seriousness of this kind of interventionist legislation. Unfortunately, it's the kind of thing we have seen before in history.

Shortly after the words I quoted were written, there was a law really bringing an end to collective bargaining — by the same mechanism, by bringing in labour trustees appointed by the author of Mein Kampf; their job was to regulate labour contracts, and that's the kind of thing we're seeing here. Their goal — just like the goal here — was to maintain labour peace. So I think that when members on this side express strong concerns about this legislation, it's not whistling in the wind. It's not opposing for opposing's sake. These are very serious concerns about the kind of direction we're taking, and it is taking us along the path to the kind of thing we've seen before in history, which has been very unsuccessful in bringing peace.

AN HON. MEMBER: You should be ashamed of yourself.

MR. JONES: You should be ashamed of the legislation.

MRS. BOONE: Madam Chairman, contrary to what the minister says, I don't think there's any hidden agenda. I think he's shown his agenda to us quite clearly in the last few days, and that agenda, contrary to what the minister and the Premier are saying — that it's to create stability — is strictly to deunionize this province, and to do exactly the opposite of what you planned. I really don't think you planned the type of upset that has happened, but it certainly has happened.

I'd like to address myself right now to that part of the section where it talks about the public interest. I find that really interesting. Who determines what the public interest is? How is this going to come about? We have a very clear picture of some things that I think would be a little upsetting. Last fall, as you know, there was a strike which was commonly called the IWA strike. In my area it was also a PPWC strike. In Mackenzie the PPWC were striking because of contracting out. Contracting out in that community meant that contracts frequently went not to Mackenzie people and Mackenzie firms, but to Prince George firms, Fort St. John firms and many others. There were some people who were upset by it, who were hurting. The community as a whole supported this strike, even though those individuals — each and every one of them — were hurting. They supported this strike because they knew that if contracting out was allowed and if it was perpetuated in their community, they would suffer even more; Mackenzie would go down the tube economically and would probably die.

What is interesting here is whether the government would in that case take the individual's perspective. Would they say: "This company has said that they are suffering; therefore we're going to make an end to this strike"? Or would they take the community's perspective and say: "This is a community problem. The community as a whole supports this; therefore the strike should be maintained"? Can the minister please tell me what he sees as being the perspective in determining what the public interest is in a situation such as the one I described?

HON. L. HANSON: Madam Chairman, it's interesting to hear the previous speaker refer to Mein Kampf. It's difficult for me to accept the inference that we live in a fascist state. I would suggest that it might even be humorous if it were not such a serious allegation.

The member for Prince George North is again asking me to interpret the public interest, but again I suggest to you that we are debating section 18 — which is 27 in the act — and that these are the guidelines for the operation of the Industrial Relations Council. When there is a perception, as she is suggesting, that the public interest is harmed, that responsibility lies with the cabinet or the Legislature at this point, and is not being dealt with in here.

There is no question that in its operation we say that there must be the public interest as well as the rights of individuals as they are ruling in various situations where there is a dispute. We believe that the IRC adjudication division will make the determination of what is in the public interest at it is

[ Page 1493 ]

related to the circumstances at the time a particular issue is presented.

MRS. BOONE: It appears that the minister's answer is as vague as what I read into this bill here. I can see that we're going to be in a real problem when it comes to determining what the public interest is and what the rights of individuals are. I don't see how this sort of thing is going to help any kind of labour relations out there.

The member for Chilliwack (Mr. Jansen) talked about expanding employment opportunities. These are the things that he says came about as a result of the tour around the province when people were talking to you — that people wanted expanded ability to attract employment, and they wanted fairness. I agree that these are all things that people wanted, and these are things that people have been crying for a long time: expanded employment opportunities and fairness. But that is not what we have here. What we have here is a bill that puts fairness on the back shelf and comes down consistently on the side of the employer. What we have here is a bill that says that regardless of whether you are an employee or an employer, your considerations are not going to be taken into account when it comes to something, because the public interest or some individual may override you. What we have here is not a bill that is going to increase employment.

We are looking for stability in our economy and in our labour relations field, and instead we have a one-day strike, a strike that has halted this province. Is this stability? If this is stability, God help us for future stability.

Interjection.

MRS. BOONE: Pretty quickly. The member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose) is anxious here.

MR. ROSE: No, I'm not.

MRS. BOONE: Yes. He's antsy.

I find this very typical of this government, though: the legislation that they've got, with massive powers of intervention, powers that are anticipating problems. Not surprisingly, I anticipate that you will find those problems out there. What you could have done, and what you should have done, is develop something that allows the two parties to get together to develop a climate that would enable people to negotiate properly and bargain in a clear climate without any thought of intervention by the government.

We need to have prevention out there. This is typical of this government. You don't do it in the health care field or in the social services field, You deal with the problems rather than preventing them.

We should be developing a climate with confidence and trust. That confidence and trust has to come from both sides, from labour and management. I don't see how you can possibly have a climate with that trust when you are in a situation such as this. It is not possible to grow from this stage on without having the trust and confidence of the people you are dealing with. You do not have that, Mr. Minister, from either of the parties.

Government's responsibility is to set fair rules, to maintain fair rules, but to remain out of that collective bargaining. That collective bargaining process is one that should be maintained by the two parties, and government has no place in the collective bargaining field whatsoever. What we are seeing here, as I stated, is an act that is not a hidden agenda. You have not hidden it whatsoever; it is clearly an act to limit the powers of the unions and eventually to deunionize the province here.

[5:15]

This section here will remove the right of teachers to strike, which you have said very ably that teachers now have the power to strike. But you have stated right here "having regard to the public interest, " as well as the rights and what have you. Anybody will tell you that it is probably not in the best interest of the public to have your teachers out on strike. You removed the rights from the government employees to strike, just by this very section of the act, again for the same reason. You can use the public interest there, and you can say it is not in the public's best interest to have their employees out on strike. You give with one hand, and you've taken it away with the other.

This section of this act is an assault on the workers of British Columbia, and you take away the very right to withhold one's labour, which is the only tool that workers have to put pressures on employees. This section here removes that right from employees, who in many cases have no hammer that they can hold over their employers other than removing or withholding their services. That, Mr. Minister, is a real shame, because B.C. will really suffer as a result of this.

MR. ROSE: I see that my fan club over there in the rabbit pack are still active, nibbling away at my musings.

Madam Chair, I think that one of the difficulties with the legislation has to do with the government believing its own myths about such things as a market-driven economy, as if the sum of the total of millions of individual decisions sort of add up to something that is the truth, or something that is always right.

But the market is god, and we have got all kinds of things in our society to prevent the market behaving like the devil. Those are called safety nets. Many of the things that we have and we enjoy and we cherish as part of our traditions are really against the market economy. You have heard the criticisms of the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf), the first member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Harcourt) and from others who maintain that there is no competition — competitive market advantage, competitive market economy — in the forest industry in this province.

Does the minister intend to give away all those tree licences, put them up for bid and have a real free market economy in forestry? Why don't we do that? Otherwise, if we don't do things like that, it seems to me that there is a lot of propaganda, hype and hypocrisy in statements such as this thing about the free market economy. I wonder if the minister would care to contemplate about whether the world has a free market economy in oil? We've got to compete internationally. Do we have a free market economy in oil? I think the minister will probably agree that we have a cartel in oil, and that while it isn't airtight and perfect, it exists. It exists precisely to maintain prices and to frustrate the so-called free market economy.

Do we have a free market economy in the stock market? Well, we do sometimes, when we don't have some sort of developments or insider trading to frustrate that. It is so free that we have to have it regulated so that it doesn't become too free or too holy. I wonder if the minister has decided to get rid

[ Page 1494 ]

of marketing boards, because certainly they are an offence to the pure, free market economy. Has the minister decided?

That's what bothers me about some of the members opposite. Some of the members opposite actually champion and beat their breasts about the right to fail and all this other claptrap that comes out of businessmen's associations frequently. And yet they belong to the Fraser Valley Milk Producers' Cooperative Association. I can name at least one, and there perhaps are two. It is just claptrap, just nonsense.

We're being whipsawed in coal, not because we have a free market economy in coal but because Japan has contracts with Australia and with Canada — our northeast coal thing. And when they need to, they'll cut the orders, because while the price is contracted, the amount isn't.

So you see, we can hear all kinds of examples that seem to contradict our society. The point was made earlier — very eloquently, as it usually is, by the second member for Nanaimo (Mr. Lovick) — that what we really have here in our society . . . . What we like to call the free world economy is really a mixed economy. We have at our disposal all kinds of forces and laws designed not to allow the free market economy to operate in its total brutality. They are to protect us.

About a year or two ago I happened to be in Singapore. Now there's a place for the free market economy. We've got to be competitive with Singapore, Taiwan, Korea — all these places where they have a kind of dictatorial system with little democracy; so little that you've got people marching in the streets, and every once in a while one or two of them get shot or clubbed. Anyway, I saw them making these beautiful pictures out of semi-precious stones. You see them sometimes in Chinese restaurants. For about the equivalent of a buck and a half a day in the free market economy, people were working at their little desks and lathes and these other things. I don't think we want that in our country. If you want to go to the extreme of what you're really talking about, unless you’re just fooling, and I suspect you are.... I think you're caught up in your own rhetoric. When I say this, I'm not naming the member who is the Minister of Labour and Consumer Services, but I think we all get caught up in our own rhetoric. We do on this side as well, and I don't deny that at all.

I'd like to know if the government has decided to get rid of marketing boards. If we want a competitive free market economy, we'll let these people who do not belong to the Fraser Valley Milk Producers, or to the Island Farms Dairies or whatever in their various co-ops, get into the act, get into the market. Don't freeze it. Why should we have, say, only a thousand people producing eggs in this province? Admittedly, they're saving the family farm. Why don't we get rid of the ALR and let people retire on what they get for their farms, especially if they live close to the city? Let's get rid of that impediment to the great holiness, the great gospel of the free market economy. And why don't we get rid of all this stuff that we're doing and let people gamble as much as they like and open the stores anytime, and to hell with the Lord's Day Alliance? That's the real free market economy; that's the reality of it. So the rest of it then really becomes a matter of rhetoric.

What concerns me is that it seems we're setting ourselves up into a kind of Deep South economy, a Deep South right-to work economy, where there are very few protections of people and very few safety nets. That's the way the United States is going, because the northern states next to our border, with which we will trade if we have — and I hope we don't — some sort of a negotiated free-trade arrangement, are in fast decline. And guess where those industries are going? Why, man, they're going to the Deep South, the deep, deep, right to-work South. This was the inspiration, I think, of much of this legislation. It's not for stability at all. It's to harmonize our practices with those of the United States. That's what it's all about. This is to prepare us, legislatively, for the impact of free trade.

If we integrate our economy with that of the United States, we will have to harmonize a lot of our practices. What are those practices that we'll have to harmonize? Well, farm labour, workers' compensation, Canada Pension Plan, environment standards, pesticide standards, hours of work — all that sort of thing. Do you think the United States is going to harmonize its practices with our own? Don't believe it. The northern industrial states are in decline, and the work has gone to the Deep South, where there are no rules. That's not what Canadians want.

Maybe somebody could be accepting of that if it were for the next part of this: "good working conditions as participants in and beneficiaries of a competitive market economy." The real competitive market economy and the real participants and the real beneficiaries of that competitive market economy live in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, or the Deep South. That's where they are; that's where they're living.

If it worked, we might accept it. Guess what the annual trade deficit is of that efficient, competitive, market economy state that leads the world — in armaments, if nothing else? It's $150 billion a year. It once had 50 percent of the world's industrial output — in 1945. Forty years later it's got 25 percent. Is that what you want us to be like? Is that our model? This is really scary stuff you've got here. Is that what we want? Did we work all these years for decent labour laws and safety nets in our society so we could be like the Deep South of the United States?

You know, we could pay decent wages. We could bring the world's standards — the developing world — up to our own if we would stop spending $500 million or $1 billion dollars a year just on guns to wipe ourselves out. Now I know the minister can't control that, but he should be able to control the indoctrinating claptrap about free market economies, the right to fail and all that nonsense that really doesn't exist; or if it does, it's probably on the main street of little towns — that is, where Safeway hasn't come in with its oligopolies, or some other group like Dalmy's, who exploit their people and pay them rotten wages, or McDonald's hamburgers. That's competitive. We can compete with anybody in McDonald's hamburgers.

This is not good stuff. This is a bubble-gum bill by a bubble-gum government. The only thing that holds it together is the gum between the bubbles of gas — fetid gas. It's very, very dangerous.

By the end of the 1900s and the first decade of the 2000s, guess who will have a larger income than that of the United States? The Japanese, the losers of World War II, And the Germans and the Swedes. Why? Because they have learned, through practice of government and labour and management, to organize and plan for equity among the people — not a society like we're going to in the United States where you really have the two solitudes: those people with everything and the other group with very little. The bulge that used to show the diamond kind of mixed economy of the United States and Canada is being pushed at the centre; the high-paid

[ Page 1495 ]

union jobs, those jobs in the smokestack industries, are disappearing. And what are we getting? We're getting the service jobs — the McDonald's jobs and others.

We have to protect our society and its wages. This doesn't do it; it does just the reverse. It doesn't give people rights.

I understand why this is happening: it's happening in the name of labour stability. But it is a simplistic, ignorant solution. It's lacking in knowledge or background of the traditions and the practices. I think it's economic stupidity to pursue the course we're taking. It isn't a matter of just competing in the world, because we're not going to compete in the world by ourselves; we're going to compete as part of huge multinationals that shift stuff all over the place. That happens to be my analysis of what's happening.

[5:30]

Sure, there have to be individual rights, and the great problem in the world, in our society, is to determine the proper balance between the rights of the individual to do certain things, and the rights of a group to protect themselves from intrusions of powerful forces far beyond their ability to finance, in terms of their opposition, or cope.

Mr. Minister, I think you personally are a very decent man and I don't want to personalize this, but I think that you run the very strong risk, if you pursue headlong into this and you don't disassociate yourself with this, of going down in history as a union-buster, someone who is contributing not to the strength of our society but, unwittingly, to its decline. I just hope you won't do this, and I hope you'll stop believing in a lot of this mythology that doesn't stand up under the microscope in terms of fact.

MS. MARZARI: Madam Chair, I rise to speak to section 18 because embodied in section 18 is the basic philosophy, the basic construct and the values which permeate and occasioned the bill in the first place. It's therefore appropriate that section 18 be looked at closely and that we as the opposition spend some time discussing the philosophy inherent here.

Section 18 is also interesting because, unlike other sections of the bill where we are basically looking at Labour Relations Board decisions over the year, or where we are looking at American case law on which much of this bill was based, section 18 brings out the rhetoric of the philosophy. It's that which I would like to address.

Section 18, replacing section 27 of the old act, basically denies people a place in this bill. There is a suggestion in section 18 that it's protecting the rights of individuals. It suggests once again that individuals can freely choose their trade unions. It suggests, too, that the harmful effects of labour disputes on persons not involved in the disputes are being protected or are being mitigated.

However, the basic thrust of this section and its (a) to (g) corollaries conceptualize people in terms of concepts that aren't often heard in this House. People are basically relegated to being a part of participants in, and beneficiaries of, a competitive market economy. The other term that comes to mind in this section is the public interest; not defined, not spelled out, but public interest becomes the over-abiding and consummate interest of this bill.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair]

We know from our reading of this bill that the public interest, insofar as it's not defined by this bill, will be defined, in effect, by the commissioner himself It's to the commissioner that we in British Columbia and Canada in 1987 will look for our definition of public interest.

As my colleague said, this is scary stuff. In the proposed legislation, people are not people; they are not even the principal factors. They are only actors, cogs in a wheel, as defined by the commissioner. Labour, capital and consumers become the only concepts that we are, in effect, looking at — not a definable group of people, but just a group of terms related to the factors of production.

Other countries have used language similar to this as they have defined their labour codes. I should read from one: "In the collective contract of work, the solidarity of the various factors of production finds its concrete expression in the reconciliation of the conflicting interests of employers and employees, and in their subordination to the superior interests of production." We might replace, in our context, the word "production" with "free market economy." It's much the same concept. That quote is from Mussolini's 1927 Labour Charter.

I dare say that I cannot help but agree with my colleagues when we look at this ill-defined public interest, at this particularly poorly written, poorly thought-through section of this bill. As I said, I am thankful that we have this opportunity to look at section 18, because it is the philosophy of the bill. It's a bankrupt philosophy, and I don't think it's a philosophy that you yourselves believe in.

If we were really after a plan for our economy and a plan to help our economy grow and a way to help our businesses prosper . . . . Because in the last analysis, if our business prospers then the people of the province will prosper, and surely that's what we're all after. If that's what we're after, we should be developing a consultative plan with the people — the workers and the businesses. They've expressed a willingness. They elected this government on the precept that that would happen. The promises were made.

Section 18, perhaps more than any other group of words put together by this government, spells out why this government is going to fail and why it's going to take us down a very slippery slope into real chaos, mass confusion and failure in the economy for the next number of years.

So as the opposition approaches the following sections of this bill and deals with them clause by clause, I simply say that we can do it within the context of section 18, and our anger and our frustration will come from the words you have used in section 18. The public interest, insofar as any civilized community can define it, is not being served here.

MR. GABELMANN: Having heard a number of my colleagues talk about the purposes and philosophy of this section. I want to take a few minutes now to change the tack a little bit, and ask some specific questions and make some specific points about precise wording changes. In the second line, there's the addition of the phrase "the rights of individuals." During the debate three years ago in this House on the Human Rights Act, the point was made repeatedly by government members — and agreed to by us on this side — that in our society citizens had rights but they also had obligations; that with rights went responsibilities and obligations.

Given the fact that this new act will now grant rights to individuals, I'd like to ask the minister: what obligations do individuals have under this act?

HON. L. HANSON: First of all, the obligations that individuals have under this act are the same obligations that

[ Page 1496 ]

every individual has always had in the province of British Columbia. They have the rights that are enshrined in our democratic society, and they have the responsibilities that go along with them. If the member opposite doesn't understand that, I am sure I am not going to be here to explain it to him.

I have some difficulty with some of the other statements that were made by earlier speakers. There has been much concentration on the council having regard to the public interest; it is of great concern. To the two members who spoke on it, I would suggest that that wording is what it has been in the preamble on the purposes and objectives of the act right from the start. It says: "The board, having regard to the public interest . . . ." And it says: "The council, having regard to the public interest . . . ." To me, that says exactly the same thing. Mr. Chairman, I would again like to point out that the purposes and objectives are there to guide the Industrial Relations Council. I think that is something that keeps getting lost in our debate.

I am concerned that there has been so much reference to, I guess, fascism. It seems that that is almost an obsession. I certainly don't see any relationship to fascism in this legislation.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Chairman, no one on this side of the House has used the word "fascism." What two members on this side of the House have done is quote from the philosophy of two world leaders during the twenties and thirties, taking extracts from their writings and demonstrating to all members of the House that it is the same philosophy as that being articulated by this bill. If the minister wants to say that that means the bill is a fascist bill, then that is on the minister's shoulders; we haven't said that.

Mr. Chairman, I want to make a couple of other comments about what we've just heard from the minister, because it demonstrates beyond any doubt — if we had any doubt before — that this hon. member of the House, a well-meaning individual, is incapable of being the Minister of Labour because he does not understand the concepts and the conceptual underpinnings of labour law. He does not understand it.

I shouldn't be surprised that he doesn't understand the bill. It wasn't his bill, clearly. He's had to do a quick study since February 28, and he's had to do it without the continuity of a deputy minister for the whole period, because the deputy minister admitted that he wouldn't and couldn't serve under this legislation — it was so bad. And that's a guy who comes from the management side in this province, the management representative for the lower mainland municipalities and an employer representative on the Labour Relations Board. He couldn't even keep that individual with him for the duration of this legislation, because he couldn't abide it.

Mr. Chairman, it's no wonder that the minister cannot comprehend the issues that are being raised. In response to the issue about public interest he says: "Oh, the public interest is unchanged. Read the old bill. The board in the old legislation . . . having regard to the public interest." Then he looks at the new words and says: "Well, the council has regard for the public interest. The only change is that now it's a council where it used to be a board. What's the big issue?" There are a few more words in that sentence, and a few more words in that paragraph. The public interest has changed. The public interest has changed from the public interest of promoting harmonious labour relations to a public interest that is defined by serving the competitive market economy.

That's the point that members on this side of the House have attempted to make this afternoon. The public interest has changed. We no longer have an interest in harmonious labour relations. We no longer have an interest in making sure that disputes don't last for a long time. As we've pointed out in previous sections, in the small service sectors of our economy strikes and lockouts will last for years. That part of the public interest no longer applies. I'm going to come back to public interest later on.

In response to my comments about if rights are granted then one has obligations, the minister says in unbelievable naivety: "Yes, of course, all citizens have rights, and they have obligations under the law — and all the various laws." I paraphrase what he said.

[5:45]

I was talking about the Industrial Relations Reform Act of British Columbia, which grants by statute under this section that individuals have rights. Nowhere in this entire act do individuals have any obligations or responsibilities. Individuals are not parties, as defined in this statute; individuals have no standing in respect of the issues under this legislation.

When you talk in this section about the rights and obligations of the parties, you don't put in "the rights and obligations of individuals." Why? Because you don't think individuals have any obligations to the greater good of industrial relations harmony. You think that the primacy of the individual is so paramount that it overrides good industrial relations. That's why the wording was put in in the way it was. If it wasn't, why were the words inserted? Why were the words inserted if it wasn't for that purpose — so that individual rights would have paramountcy over the greater good of collective bargaining in our society?

Individual rights in our society are protected in the human rights code, and if you want to give additional human rights protections, amend the Human Rights Act. That's where it belongs. A labour relations act or an industrial relations act or a labour code — whatever its title — is not legislation dealing with individuals. It is legislation dealing with the parties who have collective agreements, or legislation which allows people to get to a stage where they can enter into a collective agreement. These are collective rights that are guaranteed under this legislation. If you want to protect individual rights, then amend the Human Rights Act. That's where this belongs.

Now there is another specific wording change in this section that I want to pick up on. The precise words are "minimizing the harmful effect of labour disputes on persons who are not involved in the disputes." We all can agree with the words involved, with the apparent intent. We want to minimize the harmful effects on third parties who are not involved. A laudable goal, it seems, but at what cost to the rights and status of the primary parties? You can protect the rights of third parties by taking away the rights of the first and second parties. We'll do that any time. Is that what the government intends? Where is the balancing line? Under this particular purposes and objectives section, the clear instructions to the Industrial Relations Council are not to promote harmony but to look after the rights of individuals, and the individuals presumably will be defined as these third parties — persons who are not involved in the dispute.

Now, Mr. Chairman, let me ask a question about that. What is the time-frame on this negative impact on third parties? Is it in the time that a dispute is actually happening,

[ Page 1497 ]

or is it say a ten- or 20-year period, or even a five-year period?

Let me give you the example. In 1975, this Legislature ordered workers back to work, including workers in the pulp sector. It took from 1975 until 14 months ago for industrial relations to come back to earth in the pulp and paper sector in our society. It took that long before they were able to reach an agreement on their own, ahead of time, without intervention. Almost every contract between '75 and '86 was negotiated with either a strike, a lockout or government intervention — or threats of it. Why? In my judgment, because of government interference. The government interference at that time was based on the public interest. So there was a narrow public interest served in the fall of 1975; it put an end to the strike. But we went through countless other strikes and lockouts for the next 11 years.

So how is the Industrial Relations Council going to define the public interest? Is it going to say: "The public interest today is well served by taking the following action: we don't want to hurt third parties, so we're going to put an end to this particular dispute"? It may serve the public interest that day, but if it inflames the relationship between the parties and creates walkouts during the life of an agreement — wildcats or wobbles — or if it creates a difficult bargaining climate so it's impossible to reach another contract in two years and four years and six years, and, as I cite in this case, for 11 years, before they can resolve it amicably, is that in the public interest?

Nowhere in here does it say that harmonious industrial relations is in fact the primary public interest. That's what should be defined as the primary interest of the public, not this suggestion that we must minimize the effect on third parties. I make the point again: minimize the effect on the third party, when? At the time of the dispute, or for the next decade or two? I think that is what people fail to understand in these simplistic solutions that they come up with in terms of trying to solve problems.

I'm part-way through my comments, Mr. Chairman, but I think there's some business that the Speaker wants to accomplish, so it might be an appropriate time for the committee to rise.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, earlier today the hon. member for North Island sought to move an adjournment motion under standing order 35 to discuss a matter of urgent public importance arising from allegations made by a former deputy minister in relation to Bill 19. The substance of the allegation appears to be that two entirely separate processes were undertaken in relation to the preparation of Bill 19, and that in fact there was no extensive consultation undertaken with respect to Bill 19.

Hon. members will recall that the time allotted for question period today was almost entirely devoted to questions to the Minister of Labour in relation to the allegations at issue. It was clear to the Chair — as well as, I'm sure, to the hon. member — that the minister did not concur in or accept the substantive elements of that allegation.

In setting forth the various general restrictions and motions under standing order 35, the sixteenth edition of Sir Erskine May, at page 370, states that the motion must not be offered when the facts are in dispute. In the present instance, having regard to the questions and answers occurring in question period, there is clearly a dispute as to the facts. Accordingly, the hon. member's application does not qualify under the provisions of standing order 35.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, before moving adjournment, I will advise the House that we will be sitting Wednesday afternoon.

Hon. Mr. Strachan moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:55 p.m.

Appendix

AMENDMENTS TO BILLS

19 The Hon. L. Hanson to move, in Committee of the Whole on Bill (No. 19) intituled Industrial Relations Reform Act, 1987 to amend as follows:

SECTION 15.1, by adding the following section:

15.1 Section 13 (4) is amended by adding the following paragraphs:

(b.1) 3 or more vice chairmen;

(b.2) 3 or more vice chairmen and members, equal in number, representative of employers and employees respectively; .

SECTION 16, by deleting section 16 and substituting the following:

16. Section 24 and the form of oath or affirmation contained in it is amended

(a) by striking out "board" wherever it appears and substituting "council",

(b) by striking out "Labour Relations Board, " and substituting "Industrial Relations Council,", and

(c) by striking out "office of chairman" and substituting "office of commissioner".