[ Page 1679 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Dual Elected Office Prohibition Act (Bill M203). Mr. R. Fraser

Introduction and first reading –– 1679

Oral Questions

Writ filed by Attorney-General. Mr. Harcourt –– 1679

Aids funding. Mr. Clark –– 1679

Proposed offshore petroleum exploration. Mr. Guno –– 1680

Meech Lake accord. Mr. Guno –– 1680

Offshore drilling in South Moresby region. Ms. Smallwood –– 1681

Presenting Reports –– 1681

Industrial Relations Reform Act, 1987 (Bill 19). Committee stage. (Hon. L. Hanson) –– 1681

Mr. Gabelmann

Mr. Miller

Mr. Clark

Mr. Lovick

Mr. R. Fraser

Mr. Hewitt

Hon. Mr. Brummet

Ms. Smallwood

Appendix –– 1703

The House met at 2:08 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. CLARK: I'd like the House to acknowledge that the second member for Langley beat the second member for Vancouver East in the celebrity wheelchair race last night. As we were going around the left-hand turn, I was quite far in advance, but at the end of the race, there's a hard right that I had trouble in negotiating. The second member for Langley then snuck ahead.

MR. PETERSON: I'd like to acknowledge the good fellowship we enjoyed last night at the Harry Jerome international track meet. I think a few more things like that should go on; it makes us able to do our work in here a little better. I certainly did have fun last night; it was an enjoyable experience. I did have to learn to turn a little bit to the left on that track, too.

MR. CHALMERS: Mr. Speaker, somewhere in the gallery today we have a gentleman visiting who lives in your riding. He came from the Okanagan, where he lived and worked in the insurance industry, was very active in community affairs and served on the executive of the local constituency for the Social Credit Party. I'd like everybody in the House to give a warm welcome to Mr. Mark Cloutier, please.

MR. WILLIAMS: I ask the House to welcome Mary Rawson in the gallery, a former member of the Land Commission.

Introduction of Bills

DUAL ELECTED OFFICE PROHIBITION ACT

On a motion by Mr. R. Fraser, Bill M203, Dual Elected Office Prohibition Act, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral Questions

WRIT FILED BY ATTORNEY-GENERAL

MR. HARCOURT: I'd like to ask the Premier a question about the recent judgment on the injunction application. It's my understanding that Mr. Justice Meredith said that the application was a misuse of the courts, that amending the statement of claim exonerated all of the defendants. I'd like to know, Mr. Premier, if you are prepared to apologize to the people of British Columbia and to these innocent defendants who have had to go before the court on this very unnecessary and unfortunate political misuse of the courts.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: The use of the courts is never a misuse. The judge rules in a court. We accept the judge's ruling, and we do not begin to label it misuse, because I think the process is one we respect and continue to respect, regardless of the outcome.

MR. HARCOURT: A supplementary to the Premier. Mr. Justice Meredith said this was a misuse of the courts. That is what he said. I wonder, after the wholesale amending of the statement of claim, whether you can have any confidence at all in your Attorney-General and the advice he is giving you and your government.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: We're hearing from the Leader of the Opposition after the fact, certainly. I would like to ask if perhaps we may at some point hear from the Leader of the Opposition whether he condoned the illegal acts of a week ago.

MR. HARCOURT: A supplementary. The Premier had the opportunity to do that by taking action against his own employees and has chosen not to. I would assume that he thinks what they did was legal.

The supplementary is that this action that he refuses to address in terms of my question about the Attorney-General was hatched in his office. The conspiracy was in his office, the Premier's office.

I would like to know, Mr. Premier, because this was a vexatious action and a misuse of the courts, if you are going to make a commitment here to at least pay.... If you won't apologize — and we were disappointed that you wouldn't do that — at least make a commitment and give an undertaking here to reimburse the defendants for their costs in this misuse of the courts.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, taking an action on behalf of British Columbians, given the circumstances as we saw them a week ago, is hardly a conspiracy.

[2:15]

AIDS FUNDING

MR. CLARK: A question to the Minister of Health. British Columbia has the highest rate of AIDS in Canada. One out of 45 people in Vancouver test positive for the AIDS antibody. It appears to many people that the minister's personal philosophy is determining policy. If that is not the case, how can the minister possibly justify his rejection of an application from AIDS Vancouver for a grant of only $250,000?

HON. MR. DUECK: To begin with, I don't know how anyone in the opposition can say that I rule by a certain philosophy or a certain feeling that I may or may not have. I don't ask the opposition why they take a stand that they take. It is my responsibility to act in the best interest of the province,

I must say that when I am accused of not spending $250,000 for AIDS, that does not say that we don't spend millions of dollars in that particular area. I would also like to make it very, very clear that when we look at ill people, we don't look at what their illness is. We don't look at whether they are sick because they have cancer or AIDS, or whether it is an accident caused through alcohol abuse. We don't ask those questions. We deal with health issues because people are sick.

As for AIDS Vancouver in particular, they were never promised any money at all. We gave them a bridging fund of $30,000, and then extended that with another $15,000, which made it $45,000. At the time this money was granted,

[ Page 1680 ]

it was a one-time grant. It was clearly understood. We budgeted no extra money this year.

I must say that we spend roughly $150,000 to $200,000 per AIDS patient. We look after them in hospital; we give them access to everything there is in our power to give as far as any other patient is concerned when it comes to health. So for someone to accuse me or the province of not giving them $250,000 is a very poor accusation, and it should be withdrawn.

MR. CLARK: The minister said publicly last night that it was all right with him if "they want to help their own kind." What did he mean by that statement?

HON. MR. DUECK: That is very, very simple. Many people have formed societies. For example, Alcoholics Anonymous is a society formed to help alcoholics. Others have helped by forming a society to look after mentally handicapped. That was no slur; nothing was meant other than that any group at any time has sympathy towards a group of their kind. They are not only welcome, but we are very supportive of people helping each other on a voluntary basis. I must also say that as far as AIDS Vancouver is concerned, we are helping them with a homemaker service, which is available to any group.

When it comes to looking after their own, as far as counselling or what have you is concerned, that's not on our program in any other sector of society. When I say "their own kind" I mean someone who knows of someone who is ill; it doesn't have to be of the same kind as far as philosophy or their lifestyle is concerned. It may be a cousin, it may be an uncle, it may be a mother. That's what I meant, because we were talking in general terms — people forming societies to help the kind they wish to help.

MR. CLARK: A supplementary. St. Paul's Hospital estimates 1,000 AIDS cases by December 1989. The minister himself said $150,000 to $250,000. It's quite clear that community groups are more cost-effective, and that's been proven in New York and elsewhere. Will the minister order an independent review of the comparative costs of the kind of volunteer homemaker service provided by AIDS Vancouver versus stay in hospital?

HON. MR. DUECK: I said very clearly just a little while ago that we have a criterion for supplying a homemaker service which also applies to AIDS patients. We make no exception. Anyone in the society that needs that help and fits into the program, as far as our criterion is concerned, can ask for that and it will be provided.

As far as St. Paul's is concerned, there are at any one time roughly 12 — maybe 10 to 15 — dying of AIDS. These people — and I wish the member would listen; he's the one who asked the question — who are dying of AIDS, when they reach the hospital....

Interjections.

HON. MR. DUECK: What I was going to say — what I am saying — is that once they reach the hospital, they are in a condition where they cannot be looked after in their home. They are sick; they are there to die. Other than that, they are being looked after in friends' homes and what have you; and if AIDS Vancouver has a specific program such as homemaker, if they think they're not getting enough homemaker, let them get in touch with our society in Vancouver. There are criteria and we will gladly do it, the same as we do for anyone else who is sick; it doesn't matter what the sickness is.

PROPOSED OFFSHORE PETROLEUM EXPLORATION

MR. GUNO: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. The area that is being proposed for offshore petroleum exploration is on a major salmon migration route for the Nass and Skeena Rivers. The announcement by the provincial and federal governments on Monday makes no mention of this fact, or of the negative effects petroleum exploration might have on the migration. In light of this, will the minister reconsider the decision to begin the process of lifting the moratorium?

HON. MR. DAVIS: Mr. Speaker, preparatory to the announcement recently about a resumption of exploration and drilling, there was a three-year federal-provincial environmental review of all ecological matters, including salmon runs and so on, and input was received from the fishing industry, from others concerned about environmental impact. There were some 92 recommendations, virtually all of which have been taken seriously to heart. They are all requirements, conditions of any exploration or development in the future. So the fishing industry's interests and concerns have been addressed, and all of their concerns, to my knowledge, have been taken into account in the new rules and regulations which would obtain if there is exploration and development.

MR. GUNO: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary to the Premier. Hecate Strait, where petroleum exploration has been proposed, is part of the Haida sea claim. Despite being discussed in the west coast offshore panel's report, no attention is being paid to the fact in the recent government announcement. What has the Premier decided to do to ensure that the Haida claim is resolved before any offshore petroleum exploration begins?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: No decision has been made.

MEECH LAKE ACCORD

MR. GUNO: A new question to the Premier. On Tuesday, Premier Hatfield indicated he would be willing to reopen the Meech Lake accord to include a requirement for another first minister's conference on aboriginal self-government and to remove the clause requiring unanimous consent for the creation of new provinces. Will the Premier of this province agree to reopen the accord on these two points, so that the rights of native people and the northerners can be recognized in it?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, if we reopen the accord, chances are there won't be an accord. Frankly, I think we should go with the accord and proceed as the accord has been agreed upon.

[ Page 1681 ]

OFFSHORE DRILLING IN SOUTH MORESBY
REGION

MS. SMALLWOOD: My question is to the Minister of Environment. Even though the establishment of a national park reserve in South Moresby is imminent, negotiations have begun which will allow offshore exploration in that area. Does the minister not agree that offshore exploration will reduce the tourism potential in the South Moresby region and will increase the risk of damage to the environmental integrity of that area?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: There's a 20-kilometre extension from the Queen Charlotte chain and also from the mainland. With that limit in place, there would be no impact on tourism to the South Moresby archipelago or to any areas of the Queen Charlottes.

Secondly, as the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. Davis) has indicated in an earlier question, the environmental concerns have been addressed after some three very serious years of discussion.

MS. SMALLWOOD: Supplementary to the Minister of Environment. Is the Minister of Environment saying that the only studies that were done were reported in the 1986 report?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: There were many others done, but that is a massive study, Madam Member, and it contains, as the minister has indicated, 92 recommendations for safeguarding the environment. We're convinced, and so is the federal government, that those are adequate and most appropriate safeguards.

MS. SMALLWOOD: The report indicates a need for further study. My question is: has there been further study, and what is the involvement of the Environment minister in this process? Is he committed to putting the money into this project to do further studies?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: If further studies are required, I guess I could take that under advisement. That's about all I could say about the question at that point.

Hon. Mr. Richmond tabled an answer to a question on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Presenting Reports

MR. CRANDALL: I have the honour to present a report from the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders, Private Bills and Members' Services.

I move that the report be read and received.

Motion approved.

MS. SMALLWOOD: I'd like to ask leave to give an introduction.

Leave granted.

MS. SMALLWOOD: I'd like to make an introduction on behalf of the member for New Westminster (Ms. A. Hagen), who is unable to be here. Today in the galleries there is a class of grade 7 students from the Lord Kelvin Elementary School.

There are 25 students, and I'd like the House to make them welcome.

CLERK-ASSISTANT:

"Report No. 3, June 10, 1987.

"Mr. Speaker, your Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders, Private Bills and Members' Services begs leave to report as follows:

"That the preamble of Bill PR403. Intituled Columbia Bible College Act, has been proved and the bill ordered to be reported as amended.

"That the preamble of Bill PR404, intituled An Act to Incorporate Mission Foundation, has been proved and the bill ordered to be reported as amended.

"All of which is respectfully submitted."

MR. CRANDALL: Mr. Speaker, by leave, I move that the rules be suspended and the report adopted.

Leave granted.

Motion approved.

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.

On section 42.

MR. GABELMANN: As we drew towards 6 o'clock yesterday evening, Mr. Chairman, we were discussing a concern of members on this side of the House in respect to the last few words in this clause, which says: "'There shall be no strikes or lockouts so long as this agreement continues to operate.'" Our concern was that we feared this clause could potentially restrict the ability of a trade union to declare a partial strike or a rotating strike or an intermittent strike.

[2:30]

I had an opportunity this morning to consult further with legal opinion within the Ministry of Labour, and for that I want to say thank you to the Deputy Minister of Labour. I very much appreciate that that can take place. I feel relatively sure, given no change to the B.C. Court of Appeal decision in respect of the Paccar case at the Supreme Court, that our concern will not be founded. But should the Supreme Court make a decision that an employer indeed does have the right to change the terms and conditions of a collective agreement following its expiry date, then we will, I think, need further legislative amendment. The concern is that it appears that the law says — and will continue to say if the Supreme Court does not change it — that when a contract has expired, the collective agreement is not necessarily in force but its terms and conditions must be met, It sounds like a narrow distinction, and in many ways it is a narrow distinction; but it is a very important distinction.

What we want to avoid here — and I'm sure the minister is in agreement with this — is the opportunity for employers to change the terms and conditions of a collective agreement

[ Page 1682 ]

following its expiry but before completion of or ratification of a new agreement. So if some members of the bargaining unit — either the whole of the bargaining unit, some portion of it, all of them intermittently or any variation on that — continue to work, it may be clear that the collective agreement is not in force, but its terms and conditions are in force. If we have an assurance from the minister that that is his intention, his policy — that his intention is that the law of this province reflect that principle — then I feel satisfied we can move on. Should any court decision upset that principle, we then need virtually immediate legislative rectification of that in order to preserve the principle that I've tried to enunciate here.

If I have expressed it correctly and the minister agrees with my interpretation, and agrees that that is his policy as well, then I would feel satisfied in not pursuing this particular issue in this section. There is another section that flows from this section which I want to discuss briefly after that.

HON. L. HANSON: Certainly I agree with the interpretation of the clause by the member for North Island. There is no question of that. As I understand it, his reference to the issue before the Supreme Court of Canada deals with two lower court decisions, and it is difficult to discuss that case as such. It's difficult to say, you know, what that decision would be. It's difficult to comment on it until you see what the actual decision is. But I certainly would look at that situation very quickly, if that were the case.

MR. GABELMANN: That's fine, I think, Mr. Chairman. I hope the minister would do more than look at it but would act to make sure that the principles we're in apparent agreement about are in fact maintained, if a court decision were to upset that principle. I think I feel fairly comfortable that that is indeed the case.

The obvious reason for the introduction of this particular section — and I mentioned this almost in passing yesterday; I didn't deal with it in any length — is to allow employers to sue for damages if they don't have a comparable clause in the collective agreement, if there is a midterm strike or some activity that would qualify under the definition of "strike."

It seems to me that if employers are insistent upon the right to be able to sue for damages, then they should insist on a clause in the collective agreement that would enable them to have that right. Most employers in British Columbia, in fact, have negotiated agreements with their unions which have such a clause, which then enables suits for damages to ensue.

So the first point I want to make is that it's a free country out there. If they want the right to sue, they should go and have the clause inserted. If they don't want the right to sue, they should not bother with getting that clause. I don't see why the government should interfere in the marketplace in that way. It may well be the labour marketplace, but it's an interference that just doesn't seem warranted, in my view.

The government talks constantly and repeatedly, everywhere it goes, about not interfering in the marketplace. But it sure wants to interfere in the labour marketplace. It's a curious philosophical dichotomy that baffles me, frankly. It's not consistent philosophically. So I make that point. If they want the right to sue, let them negotiate a clause. If they can't or won't negotiate a clause, they don't have the right to sue. Simple as that. You don't have to give them a clause they may not want or be able to negotiate. Why give it to them? Leave it to the table. Let parties be free to make decisions about matters that govern their relationships. Don't have the Legislature interfering in the freedom of people to make contracts out there.

That's a fundamental point that puts us, I guess, on the right, politically, of the government. The government is in favour of massive government intervention in this matter. We're in favour of a more free market system. An irony in....

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: The Premier smiles, or chortles, or giggles, or laughs at this point. That's a philosophical fact of life. The government is writing a law that says: "The following sentences will be in collective agreements." You know you don't say that to the commercial contract-makers out there. You don't say that to the unwritten contract between a purchaser of a quart of milk and Canada Safeway. You don't say: "There will be a clause — unwritten or written — in how it's going to govern how you determine what the price of that quart of milk is going to be, or on what days you can buy that quart of milk, or if it's sour that you can sue." That's left to the common law. It's left to the relationship between the consumer and the seller.

But you abandon the principle when it comes to labour law. You're as interventionist as any government in North America — and that's putting it politely, mildly and understating it; in fact, more interventionist that any government on the continent. It's a curious irony, I think, in politics in this province. The public should know about it. Believe me, Mr. Chairman, they will, if they don't already.

I want to make another point. I want to make an industrial relations point about this same clause. That is that almost always, if not always, when suits for damages are filed....

AN HON. MEMBER: It's getting too hot in here.

MR. GABELMANN: No. I understand that the Premier has other work to do. He's got the whole afternoon to try to prepare an answer for the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Back to section 42.

MR. GABELMANN: I will continue with section 42, Mr. Chairman.

The industrial relations point is this: if suits for damages are filed, almost always, if not always, those suits for damages end up at the bargaining table, and they're bargained away. They're put on the table and no agreement is signed until the suit is withdrawn. Whenever there is a suit for damages, it's a spoiler in the attempt to create and develop a good bond and trust between the two parties.

The minister's response, no doubt, would be or should be that the employer's suit is a response to an illegal activity, or an alleged illegal activity. But usually that alleged illegal activity is in response to some other activity of the employer, so it's a chicken-and-egg thing, and it usually emanates from bad labour relations that often date back for years. Our task, as legislators, and the minister's task, as the person responsible for governing labour relations, should be to find a way of breaking those cycles, bringing the parties together in a more amicable setting than might now exist.

When you allow for an unlimited right to sue, when parties may have chosen in their negotiations not to put a

[ Page 1683 ]

clause in that will allow that, you inject yet another negative element into the efforts to build good relations between the parties, and you inject another element which will make the eventual resolution of the dispute more difficult, because it has to be bargained away. And it will be. They may have to give up a nickel an hour, they may have to give up a clause, they may have to give up something in order to bargain it away, or they may have to take a strike to get it off the table, but inevitably it will come off the table. So what do you do? You raise not necessarily the likelihood but the possibility at least — I'm probably looking for a word between "possible" and "likely" — that you will have strikes or lockouts where you might not otherwise have had them, because you're adding a more difficult item to be resolved at the table. It doesn't help good relations.

I guess this point is a good one. It's not a major issue in terms of the bad stuff in this bill, but it's a perfect illustration of the mindset of the government in drafting this law. The mindset was "punish people" rather than "find ways to bring people together."

I can understand if the Attorney-General wants to go off in his gunslinger mode, shooting everybody on sight, but the Labour minister has a different responsibility. The Labour minister has a responsibility to try to promote good industrial relations. Despite the watering down of section 27, that goal is still there. This doesn't do it. This just adds another sore point, a picking point, an area where if bad relations are going along they can only be made worse. This can't help things; it can only make it worse.

I'll go back to my original point: if employers and employees decide collectively that they don't want this kind of clause, then let them go along without that kind of clause. The government doesn't have an interest in whether or not, in that situation, the employer has a right to sue. Why would the government want to do this? No good industrial relations purpose is served.

I can't say much more than that. As far as I know anyway, that's the argument, and I'm not going to repeat it. I just make it, and I think the minister should recognize that this is counterproductive to good labour relations.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The first member for Vancouver East asks leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. WILLIAMS: I ask the House to welcome in the precincts Mr. Patrick Kinsella. It's an indication of how low the government is in the polls. We welcome this adviser to Mr. Mulroney, who is equally low in the polls, and we welcome the man the Premier wouldn't hire as recently as last year. I'm sure they'll make beautiful music together.

[2:45]

MR. HEWITT: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to make a comment that I feel the member opposite has abused the leave granted him to make a proper introduction. I would ask that he apologize to the House.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think we've had enough, hon. members. Leave was asked and leave was granted, all with the best of intentions. The member does make a point. Let's continue with our debate on section 42.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Chairman, I don't have any more to say about it. I'm disappointed that the minister wouldn't share with us his views on the subject, not with the intention of having a longer debate — unless he says something outrageous — but simply because this is, I think, an important issue and one on which the public deserves a view from the minister.

HON. L. HANSON: Mr. Chairman, as my critic mentioned earlier, I think we do have a difference in philosophy, with his earlier suggestions, and I accept that as being a difference in how our two parties see things. There certainly is no intention on the part of the government to create great difficulty in the labour relations field by this clause; but we do feel, as a philosophy, that there should be a recourse as a result of actions contrary to the agreement, and that's what we're providing, I guess. In this section, I recognize the concerns of the member for North Island, and his experience in industrial relations and as critic for a number of years in this House. But we don't think we are promoting legal wrangling. I understand the member's comments, and I appreciate the dialogue that goes back and forth, but we certainly don't intend to promote legal wrangling. We subscribe to the philosophy that if there is an illegal action, there should be a remedy.

Section 42 approved on division.

On section 43.

HON. L. HANSON: I move the amendment to section 43 standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

In the original draft the wording was that a strike or lockout vote would not be allowed until the parties had reached an impasse in bargaining. That provision was not to delay strike or lockout votes until after negotiations had completely broken down and the parties were at the dispute level: it was only our intention to ensure that a reasonable amount of meaningful bargaining had taken place before a strike or lockout vote was conducted, and that's the substance of the amendment.

Amendment approved.

On section 43 as amended.

MR. MILLER: A very brief question in terms of how that will be defined. Would permission have to be obtained, or would one party complain to the council that the process defined in the section had not taken place? In other words, at what point.... ? How is that to be determined?

HON. L. HANSON: Mr. Chairman. first of all, let me go a little bit into the background. A number of briefs and submissions that we received indicated that a strike or lockout vote had taken place even before an exchange of initial positions. We feel that as a philosophy this is wrong, that to deliver a strike notice, or at least have a strike or lockout vote before some exchange of positions by the two parties, is

[ Page 1684 ]

contrary to good collective bargaining. I realize the member's question is: how do you determine meaningful collective bargaining? I think as much as anything it is a message that bargaining should be taking place. But there is a case to be made that there is a possibility, where a strike vote has been taken or a lockout vote has been taken — whichever side is doing the vote — prior to any meaningful negotiations taking place, that they may want to take that to the board to prove that it has happened prior to a meaningful bargaining process taking place, and the board will make their determination.

I think it's very much in the form of a philosophy or a message that you should really sit down and do some bargaining before a strike or a lockout vote is taken. We view that happening prior to any bargaining as being contrary to the interests of both of the parties and of the general public. As for requiring meaningful bargaining, again, I know that we can get into a long discussion of meaningful bargaining, but I think it's a determination that the board would make if it does get presented with a case.

MR. MILLER: The minister is right. Each party knows whether they're bargaining in good faith, but sometimes it's hard to convince the other party whether or not you are, or it's hard to prove whether you are or not.

I would contend that the same holds true for a strike vote. In fact, I think there is a built-in bias actually when it comes to negotiating under certain circumstances. Let's face it, employers with any degree of skill in negotiating know that a pre-bargaining strike vote is pretty useless to the union. In fact, that will be tested; make no mistake about it. There is far more sophistication out there in bargaining than this clause gives the parties credit for.

I guess to show my point on the other side, with a single employer, of course, when we talk about votes, they don't apply. We can't read the minds of people, and it may be an employer's intention to lock out as a bargaining strategy. An employer, I guess, could sit down and say: "Well, look, I've been reading. I know what's going to happen this year; I can see some trends. I'm going to nail these guys pretty hard and I think I can win some concessions." So it wouldn't apply in that situation either. I just wanted to really point out that although I can agree that if the process is meaningful, if the bargaining is meaningful, it's preferable to take a strike vote at some point when the process breaks down, in reality it has no practical application in current bargaining today.

MR. CLARK: In the scheme of things, this isn't a large section in terms of the act, but I have a couple of things. One is that it seems to me to say that you can't take a strike vote before collective bargaining. I mean, so what? They take a strike vote. Again, it's this sort of interventionist, bureaucratic response to collective bargaining. You kind of mire the thing in process and maybe it'll go away. I just find it incomprehensible that the union now has to go and prove somehow that there has been collective bargaining, and how you prove that I don't know.

So maybe a couple of questions might clarify it. For example, if you read this in conjunction with part 8, which we'll get to hopefully fairly soon, the new commissioner can appoint a mediator, a fact-finder, a special mediator, a public interest inquiry board or all this range of things. Is it your intention, Mr. Minister, that one of those things would have to be exhausted or one of those remedies would have to be sought prior to a strike vote being allowed to take place?

MR. CHAIRMAN: That is another section I think you're dealing with, hon. member.

MR. CLARK: Okay. Well, we can do it then. All I am saying is: how do you prove that you've engaged in collective bargaining before you take a strike vote? You now have to justify before the council that you've engaged in collective bargaining. When you read this section in conjunction with all these other powers of the commissioner to intervene, is it the intent of this legislation to say that all of those other avenues have to be explored prior to a strike vote taking place?

HON. L. HANSON: No. Quite simply, the answer is no. I think I'd like to point out that this section is really a statement of principle as much as anything. There may be the odd case go before the Industrial Relations Council with the accusation that either side has not bargained at all, but I'm sure that the IRC will deal with great respect, looking at the situation that's happened, and I'm sure the IRC will treat frivolous requests under this section as just that, frivolous requests.

MR. CLARK: So it's your intention that if they have some meetings and then the union believes they want to take a strike vote, and they go to the IRC and say,"We've had these meetings and we'd like to take a strike vote," in a general sense it will be a pro forma thing. It's just to ensure that they have some meetings before they take a strike vote. If I could get that assurance.... I see the minister nodding his head.

One problem I do have, though, is not from the union's point of view. If I were a company and I wanted to delay a strike for whatever reason or to frustrate, then I would keep putting off meeting, and if the union wanted to take a strike vote, they'd have to go to the IRC and say,"We're trying to bargain in good faith, but these guys won't meet with us," which is a common thing in negotiations. Justice delayed is justice denied is another way of putting it. If you slow down the process — if you build up frustration — it's clearly not in the interests of solving labour disputes or promoting harmonious labour relations. So what's the remedy? If an employer fails to meet and then the union hasn't bargained in good faith because it has trouble meeting, can the union, under this section, take a strike vote? Do you understand what I'm getting at?

[3:00]

HON. L. HANSON: Yes, I would certainly say that they should be entitled to without any question. I'm sure that's the determination that the IRC would make in that situation when there was a deliberate attempt by one party or the other to avoid bargaining.

Section 43 as amended approved.

On section 44.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Gov.... Mr. Chairman. For a government.... What's today, Wednesday? This is two weeks and one day on this. It's a wonder we can put words

[ Page 1685 ]

together consecutively and have them make sense, actually, and occasionally we don't.

For a government that talks about reducing bureaucracy, this has got to be one of the most bureaucratic, convoluted processes. It's only part of a much bigger bureaucratic process, but this particular section really goes that extra step in developing a bureaucracy that we just don't need in labour relations. It's a process that can frustrate good, normal bargaining tensions. It adds an element into the discussions at the bargaining table that really deflects from the appropriate tensions that exist between labour and management. They are always going to be looking over their heads to figure out whether or not all of these requirements have been undertaken and whether or not all of the rules have been met. Rather than just letting the parties knock heads and get to it, they're always going to be affected dramatically and, I think, in a way that will reduce their ability to focus on the real issue, which is getting a collective agreement. They're always going to be frustrated by this outside process.

Rather than make a big speech about all of this, I just want to get some clarification from the minister, first of all, on why he thinks this kind of process is necessary and why he hasn't given any time-frame for the chairman of that part of the IRC to notify parties under (3)(b). You can frustrate the process and stop it in its tracks forever with no time limit under (3)(b). I guess the most effective thing we can do, in terms of trying to debate all of this, is to do it under section 62. Trying to debate the philosophy of this massive intervention under each of these sections just won't work in terms of a constructive debate in this House.

We want to make the point that this is part of a mechanism which will not assist industrial relations but will frustrate them, and will do nothing other than make a lot of work for a bureaucracy, which we don't need. If you want to bring Sam Bawlf back and have privatization and deregulation, a good place to start would be the IRC. Just get rid of it if you want to have deregulation in this province. Get rid of the kind of bureaucratic nonsense that is required in a section such as this. That would be the very best place to start. But instead of doing that, of course, we are building it up. Again, a philosophical point, I guess: that the government believes in no regulation when it suits their purpose, and in massive regulation when it suits their purpose. There's no consistent philosophy here at all. They're on both sides of the fence on this one.

We just want to express our view that even though no consequential issue is involved in this particular section, this whole bureaucratization of labour relations is a counterproductive and useless way of building a good relationship between people in this province. In the final analysis, the only way you are going to have good labour relations and few strikes and lockouts is by having a good relationship between parties who are not always looking over their shoulder. All you can do now is look over your shoulder and try to figure out if you've dotted every "i" and crossed every "t," and whether you're in the right time-frame to do this and the right time-frame to do that. This is a classic section in that respect.

MR. CLARK: I of course concur with the member for North Island. It is bureaucratic in the extreme.

One little point I would like to pick up on is that under part (3)(b) there doesn't appear to be any restriction on time. There is a potential problem in that the chairman is not required to notify the parties of having received a fact-finder's report. You might want to comment on that. In other words, this indicates that there's a time limit after the chairman notifies the parties of the results of the fact-finder's report, but no time limit is set on the chairman. It appears that if a fact finder reports to the chairman, and the chairman sits on it for two or three days before notifying the parties, that is allowed. It may be another way of delaying the resolution of a dispute. I'm not saying this will happen, but I think it should be codified in the act. Maybe the minister could make his intentions clear in that respect.

HON. L. HANSON: In the case of mediation, we don't have any time limits now either. It's not that greatly different from that. But I would like to point out to the member that the mandate of the disputes resolution division which he's talking about — we get into that in more detail in other sections — is to help collective bargaining, not to hinder it. The suggestion that a chairman would sit on it for an undue time simply to delay the process I think has.... In the past, the practice in the appointment of mediators has been that there is a time notice after the report is tabled before anything can happen. So in that sense it really hasn't changed much.

MR. CLARK: I won't belabour the point, except to say that a mediator was only an option before. Now, presumably, there is a mediator, a fact-finder, a public interest inquiry board, That means it would be advisable, it seems to me, to put some pressure on the chairman to report back to the parties, because they could go from a mediator's report to a public interest report and then to a fact-finder's report, or those kinds of things. So I would just flag that.

If you're going to have these things, which I completely disagree with, there should be some tight reporting restrictions on the chairman so that when a fact-finder's report is filed with the chairman, the parties are notified immediately of the results of the report so that it doesn't frustrate further the attempt of a trade union, or an employer to lock out employees.

MR. LOVICK: I have just a very few comments about this that I offer almost in a spirit of whimsy, because it seems to me pretty clear that one of the effects of section 44 will be to discourage people from taking strike votes by two avenues: namely, exhaustion and confusion. What will happen by trying to go through this elaborate process sketched out in subsection (3) is that people will say: "Well, what is involved in this process is, frankly, very difficult to comprehend and analyze. We will therefore have to go through this. We'll probably have to hire some legal help, or we'll have to get our staff people working on this problem." All of which, of course, as I say in a whimsical mood, will simply exhaust those people.

But I'm wondering, on a more serious note, if it might not have the opposite effect of that intended; if this particular clause, taken in concert with all those other clauses in the bill, might have the impact. rather, of making people all the more convinced that the government is putting obstacles in the way of its own resolution of conflict; whether this is simply another example of the deck, as the parties in the game perceive it, being stacked. That scares me a little bit, because I don't think that's the intention here. But again, I would suggest that that may well be perceived to be the case.

The other point I want to draw on very briefly — and I would invite the minister to respond, should he wish to — is

[ Page 1686 ]

the one suggested by my colleague the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann): namely, the irony or the inconsistency demonstrated here on the part of this government, which on the one hand wants to talk about deregulation and privatization and getting government and the state out of the way of people doing business, and so forth, with the exception of industrial relations. In the area of industrial relations, rather, we have this incredible labyrinth of structures and constructs that confuses and perplexes everybody.

I'm reminded of my days as a graduate student. I used to say that to be a good student in graduate school, what one had to do was become functionally schizophrenic. What that meant, of course, is that you had to be able to be literally two different people, because there were times when you clearly had to look upon what you were doing as absolutely the most important thing imaginable. But at other times you had to be able to say: "This really, in terms of measuring the world, is frankly quite trivial."

I suggest that maybe that's what this government does: it somehow convinces itself that it can indeed be two completely different personalities — contradictory personalities — and apparently it doesn't have any identity crisis over that. As I say, one side of the personality in this case is to say that we want smaller government because we are philosophically and ideologically predisposed to regard with suspicion big government and a too-interventionist state. But on the other hand, when it comes to the realm of industrial relations, in almost every single clause in this bill what we see is this prescription for building something bigger, a more elaborate industrial relations department.

I'm suggesting that there is a contradiction there that I don't think will escape the notice and attention of most of the players in the game, and that I think will simply take another cut at the credibility of this government and this legislation. And that, as I say, causes me some sadness, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps the minister would care to respond.

MR. R. FRASER: When I listen to some of the presentations from the members opposite, who are doing a diligent job, I wonder sometimes if they take things in isolation a bit too much and tend to look at sections individually instead of as part of a total package, which indeed they are.

MR. GABELMANN: The Chairman wouldn't let us do that.

MR. R. FRASER: I understand. But you do have to reflect on one being related to the other. Certainly the sections follow very well here in that we do not want, any of us, frivolous lockouts or frivolous strikes. Nor do we want to put people in the position of making some statement in a rush of anxiety, anger, or whatever, and saying: "We're locking out, we're striking, we're doing this, we're doing that." Indeed, we want to, from my perspective, put a few obstacles in the way.... This may be one way to do it. Maybe that was the intention, the minister himself will say.

I certainly want the bargaining to go on in good faith — and I've done some. Certainly there are frustrations in bargaining, as anybody who's been involved can attest. But, in fact, if we remove the possible ambitions of the union or the management and think more in terms of the people, and we can keep people working while the bargaining is ongoing, then indeed we are providing them with some income, the economy with some effort, and, with luck, resolution without any disruption whatever. So if that's what this is going to do — and that would be my hope — then I have no difficulty supporting it.

[3:15]

AN HON. MEMBER: Here we go.

MR. GABELMANN: No, I'm going to resist the temptation to do a rhetorical response. I have to comment a little bit, though.

Frivolous strikes — or lockouts, for that matter? I don't ever remember there being such a creature in the history of this province. I know strikes and lockouts have happened, unfortunately because inexperienced bargainers have closed all the doors too quickly. Talking about closing all the doors, that's precisely what we're trying to tell the Premier these days: don't close all the doors. Experienced bargainers never do. That's when you sometimes get unnecessary strikes.

Just to make one other reference to the member's comments, and that is that these processes.... In effect, I think you might have been saying that, given the extra time delays and whatever, you're going to cool things off; people will keep working and maybe it will be able to be resolved after that. That might happen on occasion, I wouldn't deny that. But what's more likely to happen is that the level of anger and frustration will increase. Particularly for employees, you get to a point where the boiling level has been reached. Once you've reached the boiling level, the best thing you can do with it is to let steam develop. It's a natural phenomenon in physics, and it's also a natural phenomenon in human relations. If you get to the boiling point, the very best thing that can happen is that the steam can be released. If you don't release the steam, it's contained and you'll have an explosion before long. That's a significant element of carefully devised labour relations and labour law.

We've made the point now for ten weeks tomorrow that this law doesn't recognize that point; that in fact the steam is going to be contained, which will lead to explosions and destruction of what could be a pretty decent system.

This section — and we are on this section — creates extra delays. There's the 48-hour delay from the time of booking out until the strike can take place. I presume that's so the IRC can find yet another mechanism in its huge arsenal of mechanisms to inject into the process.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: After the next election, the first member for Vancouver South (Mr. R. Fraser) will have the opportunity to find out what it's like on these benches. Our job is to be negative. The member should be delighted that I think he's going to win Vancouver South next time.

Interjections.

MR. GABELMANN: If I had control of the redistribution system, I'd probably win my seat too. But that's another issue, Mr. Chairman.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: You don't believe that.

MR. GABELMANN: Not yet I don't, that's right. Wait and see.

[ Page 1687 ]

However, to the amendment. It is in the Labour Code now that when you want to go on strike, you have to issue a 72-hour strike notice to your employer; and vice versa — and that's the next section. Sections 44 and 45 are sections that we have to read in conjunction: one is strike, one is lockout. We're making the same arguments in respect to both sections, and we may as well make them all on one section because they're mirror images of each other.

You have to give a 72-hour strike or lockout notice to the other party. Now you have to give 72-hour notice to the IRC, but you only have to give notice to the other party, as I read it. So there's no requirement that the other party is.... That is as I read it; maybe I've missed it. I'm quite happy to have the minister tell me I've missed it. But it seems to me there's no time requirement for notice to the other party.

In a way, if I'm right, it's quite symbolic of this whole legislation. The relationship is between the parties. They should be talking to each other, but the law is being rewritten so the parties are talking not to each other but to the IRC. Now there is a requirement that notice be given to the other party. I'm in 45; it's the same point.

Let me go back to 44 then, because it's exactly the same issue. It's a curious way of numbering, incidentally. In (b)(i) it says: "...the employer has been given written notice by the trade union that the employees are going on strike." In (iii) it says that 72 hours are required for notification to the IRC. Now theoretically — unless I've missed this somewhere — the notice to the employer could be given and the strike could take place a minute later. Obviously the employer is going to know; there aren't many secrets when you get to that stage.

If I'm right about this, it clearly symbolizes the direction that the government is going in respect of all of this legislation, which is to make the IRC the central player, rather than the parties. The responsibility should be on the parties, and if there is notice required, if there are minimum hours required, it should be to the parties. So I'm curious to know why that appears to have been.... Unless it's still in the Code and I have missed it, but I don't think so, because I notice sections are struck, and we've got these new sections in place. I'm just curious to know the reasons for that particular change.

HON. L. HANSON: Mr. Chairman, 44 and 45 — you're quite right — are mirrors of one another. The employer has been given written notice by the trade union that the employees are going out, and then it goes on to say: "...the written notice has been filed with the chairman of the Disputes Resolution Division." That's the same notice. It says: "...72 hours, or a longer period directed under this section, has elapsed from the time the written notice was filed with the chairman of the Disputes Resolution Division." To me that reads that 72 hours after both notices are filed there is a requirement to.... At least, there is that time lapse, as a delay before the actual strike can be put in place.

MR. GABELMANN: I think I see that point. I'm assuming that in (b)(ii) "the written notice" is the written notice that was given to the employer. In other words, it has to go to the employer, and a copy of that same notice goes to the IRC, and then 72 hours is required. Okay, that's a misreading of mine then. I would agree that I have misread it.

Other than that, Mr. Chairman, we've made the points I think we want to make on this section.

Sections 44 and 45 approved.

On section 46.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Chairman, this is what you might call the non-affiliation clause. I'm curious to know whether this section is in place as a result of Whistler and Duke Point, and to a certain extent Expo, and if so, why it's necessary, since common sites were not declared in those particular instances in any event. If it's not in response to those kinds of situations, what is it in response to? What was the motivation of the minister here?

HON. L. HANSON: Mr. Chairman, I guess I'm not as familiar with the Duke Point and the Whistler Land Co. decision as my critic is, but as a matter of philosophy, we believe that the treatment of a development — and I guess this gets to those two decisions — permits the building-trades members to withdraw from the entire project. We believe that when you have that sort of site that is made up of a number of projects, and the project is easily discernible, I guess, if I can use a.... What can I think of? I don't know what the Whistler decision was, but let's take Whistler as an example. There are three hotels going up and a convention centre and so on. If all of those are being developed by one owner and one project under one contract, then I think it should be one project. But if they are being developed independently on a common site, just the fact that they are on a common site shouldn't make them one project.

MR. GABELMANN: The problem here is the definition of a construction project. To take it to its ridiculous extent, if I'm having an addition built on my house and at the same time I'm building a garage at the other comer of my property, you could argue that those are two construction projects.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: You could argue that. Whether the IRC will agree that it's one project or two, who knows? But you certainly could argue that those are two projects. You get into a situation, I think — not just me, but others have suggested this is the case — where every construction project will be able to be designed to be more than one project by definition, which will mean that the non-affiliation clause will not be enforceable because you can't enforce a nonaffiliation clause in two different projects if it's not a common site.

You're going to get into a situation where the lawyers will be involved in determining how the construction project is going to be established, so that there will be separate construction projects going on in what, to date at least, has been considered one site. I understand the government's perspective on the Whistler issue and on the Duke Point issue.

I don't agree with it, but I understand in situations of that kind when you're talking about large projects. You have different kinds of buildings being constructed and you have different kinds of construction activity taking place for what will end up being different purposes, even though in my view they're part of an overall common site. I understand but don't agree with the government's perspective that there should be an ability to split it up.

With Expo the government chose the option of this special economic zone ruse that was developed. That kind of

[ Page 1688 ]

thing won't be necessary any more. It will all be available under here. If the government is attempting to prevent the possibility of common site declarations in issues comparable to Duke Point and Whistler, I don't agree with it, but it is one thing. What you do, I think, by establishing this language is to open it up to virtually every construction project — the possibility of separate projects being identified and defined within what would ordinarily have been one project.

[3:30]

Therefore a construction union has the right to go on strike to protect its affiliation clause on the one project, but it doesn't on the separate projects. With this language, you're going to have a situation where that definition is so loose that that right that construction unions have had will be gone. It may well, however, be entirely academic, because in 25 months we may not have any construction unions left in this province anyway.

MR. R. FRASER: This bill saves them.

MR. GABELMANN: That's not what they think. However, I've made that point. I think I'll leave it at that, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Minister of Transportation and Highways rises to make an introduction. Shall leave be granted?

Leave granted.

HON. MR. MICHAEL: Mr. Chairman and colleagues, I would like you to make welcome a constituent of mine from the beautiful city of Armstrong, Frank Mahfouz. He has with him today some relatives of his from Lebanon. There is Mohammad Mahfouz, Marian Mahfouz and Maurice Abboud. I would like you to make them welcome. They wish me to relay the message to the Legislative Assembly and to all of my colleagues that they are very happy to be in a beautiful province such as British Columbia; they're really enjoying themselves.

MR. LOVICK: First, may I say that we in the opposition would also like to extend our greetings to the guests of the Minister of Transportation and Highways. We hope they have an enjoyable time here.

I'm certainly not going to go into some long and elaborate dissertation on this small section of the bill, but what I want to begin with is a question. It's a question that must appear on the face of it to be rather trivial, but the more I look at the problem, the more perplexed I am. We know clearly that sections 44 and 45 are in fact just two sides of a particular coin, to all intents and purposes. What strikes me is, however, a significant difference between sections 44 and 45 in the first clause, a kind of enabling clause. Let's see if I can find it precisely.

Sections 44(a) and 45(a) both, in effect, begin with similar words: "A person shall not declare or authorize" — on the one hand — "a strike"; or, on the other hand,"a lockout." Then they use essentially the same words. I believe they're almost identical, are they not? The question is: in section 45 we have a whole series of commas between the parts of that sentence, but in section 44, though the words, as I say, are the same despite the fact we have just replaced "strike" with "lockout," there aren't any commas.

I'm sorry. Am I losing you in the shuffle? Let me try again by numbering....

Interjection.

MR. LOVICK: No, we're on sections 44 and 45, are we not?

AN HON. MEMBER: Section 46, the affiliation clause.

MR. LOVICK: I'm sorry. My apologies, then. I got mixed up in the shuffle.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It's quite all right, hon. member. We're on section 46.

MR. CLARK: Section 46 deals really with limiting the affiliation clause in construction agreements and eliminating affiliation clauses from other collective agreements. Once again, we have serious reservations about this clause, and concern. It again expropriates existing language freely negotiated between the parties, without any compensation. It retroactively alters the terms of collective agreements, and I guess importantly for the construction unions, it overturns the Whistler and Duke Point decisions of the labour board, which ruled that they were integrated sites.

I don't know if members of the House understand why this is so significant. In normal industrial units, all of the bargaining unit employees in an industrial setting become members of the union, and they are protected by union security language, meaning that all members have to be members of the union, there is a seniority list and all the other things that go about industrial units. But on construction sites there is no seniority. The protection, in terms of dealing with enforcing the fact that everybody is in the union, comes from the non-affiliation clauses, which is equivalent to what normal union security clauses are in the industrial sector.

That's another problem I have with this section, It sets apart the construction sector from all other sectors. It picks on essentially one sector — the construction industry — and sets up a separate rule for it. Because the rules on affiliation were designed to deal with the fact that we didn't have a normal industrial unit; we have a construction sector. So it says, really: "One law for one people, and another law for another."

Do you think maybe the minister could answer a few questions, if he's familiar with the Whistler case? By way of preamble, what will happen now? The fear is that construction companies will artificially carve out units, and they'll have non-union sections working here and union sections working there. What they'll do is say: "This hotel...... They'll put a steel fence around it. Then they'll have another hotel under construction next door, and they'll have another fence around it, and they'll say: "This one is union, and this one is non-union" — even if there's perhaps an intermingling, or even if there isn't an intermingling of employees. So it allows union to work alongside non-union — certainly as I would read it — artificially. I think that's what the Labour Relations Board said in the Duke Point and Whistler decisions. They said those were common sites, and therefore had to be either all non-union or all union. In those cases they said "all union" because of the non-affiliation clause. So this retroactively, in my view, voids those decisions of the labour board.

[ Page 1689 ]

Maybe I could ask the minister those two questions. First, is it your belief that the Whistler and Duke Point decisions would now be overturned by this language? Secondly, how do you propose to deal with what I think will be the real fear, that different employers in adjacent sites can carve out non-union sections of a union site? In other words, by putting barriers around adjacent sites they will be able to differentiate between the two.

HON. L. HANSON: Mr. Chairman, first of all, I am not as familiar with the Whistler and Duke Point cases as the member opposite probably is. But yes, we do disagree with those decisions. The construction project is defined as a separate and distinct undertaking. It should be determined that it can be carried on without integration with other construction work. That will make it difficult to carve up projects. I understand your hypothetical problem, but I don't think that in reality the IRC is going to allow that to happen, because I think projects are fairly easily determinable. If on the Whistler site — and quite frankly that is a difference in philosophy.... If two different companies decide to build two different hotels, they should be two different projects. But that doesn't mean they couldn't both be union or both be non-union. I don't think that there is any indication there.

I have some familiarity with the Tumbler Ridge decision, although again I don't want to.... I see the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew (Mr. Sihota) is not there, so I won't get into a legal argument with him. But the Tumbler Ridge decision, as I have had it explained to me, was the opposite, and we feel that is the way the situation should be. I guess there is nothing too wrong in admitting that that is the intent of this section.

MR. CLARK: Two brief points. First, you say that it's easily determinable. Well, I don't think it is. That is the problem we have, and that is why we are trying to get at your intent. You've been reasonably clear. Fair enough if there are two different hotels. The problems come if it is a hotel and the hotel's golf course, or a hotel and the garage behind it. In other words, it is the same hotel but different compartments. Most of the fights have taken place with those kinds of projects where it is essentially the same owner and two different phases of the same project. Maybe the minister could tell me if it is his intent that the golf course or the garage of the hotel could be non-union-constructed and the hotel, union, with the same owner and essentially the same site.

HON. L. HANSON: I really do wish that I was an experienced trial lawyer or judge of a superior court, in order to be able to give legal interpretations of the various questions that have been asked.

I think that a project is defined as a single and distinct undertaking. Again, determination of the various facts that relate to that.... The IRC will make a decision as to whether it is a project or not a project. To talk about specific cases is very difficult. We mentioned the Whistler project. I think it went a lot further than the garage behind a hotel. That is really the philosophy we are talking about. I suppose that human beings, being what they are, have over the years attempted to evade the thrust of everything done by legislation. But I think it's clear enough. With a well-constituted IRC, which we will have, those decisions will be as fair and reasonable as the facts presented to them in a specific case.

MR. CLARK: With all due respect, this is a response you have given a number of times — that it's a legal interpretation. It's your bill. This is a clause that you're authoring. What we're trying to find out is not how the IRC might interpret it or how the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew (Mr. Sihota) would; how do you think it should be interpreted? That's what we're really trying to get at here. Not to be aggressive or anything, we really want to know what your intent is.

[3:45]

Now you've said that you agree that this strikes down Whistler and Duke Point, and you think that those decisions were bad ones from your point of view, philosophical or otherwise. I'm trying to get the other end then. You say that's too broad. How narrow is narrow is all I'm trying to get at. In your opinion, not knowing all the facts, do you think it's reasonable that the garage of the hotel or the golf course of the same hotel, the same site essentially, should be the same — that the affiliation clause should apply? Would you like to see the IRC interpret this clause to say that in that kind of situation it makes sense to allow the affiliation clauses to stand?

HON. L. HANSON: Well, you give me that hypothetical situation; let me give you another one, and I can make it maybe clearer that way. Let's say that somebody is going to build a hotel and somebody else is going to build a parkade facility behind the hotel — it may be the municipality wherever it is. Those are two separate and distinct projects. But I don't know what the relationship of the garage is to the hotel. I would suspect that if it's part of the hotel or it's underneath the hotel, it should be one project. But those facts that are given are going to determine whether it is declared as a project by the IRC. It's very difficult to deal with those sorts of hypothetical situations that you're talking about, but I believe that, as we're dwelling on a hotel at the moment, there's no question in my mind that if a garage is underneath the hotel or it's part of the structure, and so on, it would be determined as one project. But I'm not going to say that it would be. The IRC are going to make that determination when they see who owns it and who designed it and all of the other things that go along with determining that decision.

MR. CLARK: I'm still having a bit of trouble, because.... We're not trying to trap you, Mr. Minister, into saying something that you don't want to say; we're just trying to get how....

MR. R. FRASER: We're not trying to trap you, but....

MR. CLARK: No, we're trying to get how.... The member for Vancouver South, why don't you speak in this debate?

Anyway, the question is: how narrow is it? In other words, you said that the current one is too broad; this narrows it. I'm just trying to get at your own intentions. And I understand a little bit more about it; we're getting close. But you keep saying: "I'm sure the IRC would determine this in a fair and reasonable manner." Well, they may well do, but we're trying to give them some guidance into what you see as an integrated site. So could you please just elaborate one more time on this if you could. If it were a hotel and a separate parkade — in other words your hypothetical case — would

[ Page 1690 ]

you say that those were separate projects, under that circumstance that you put to me, and therefore could be separate companies and non-union and union? But if it were a parkade built by the hotel to serve the patrons of the hotel, in your opinion under those circumstances you would like to see the IRC decide that the affiliation clause would apply.

HON. L. HANSON: Again, you make it a very simplistic case. I can come back and make it a little more complicated and get a different decision. If a hotel is being built and there's parking required and it's part of the hotel, I think it should be one project.

[Mrs. Gran in the chair.]

But by the same token, let's say a hotel builds on this location here — and I hate to get into these hypothetical things — and they build that, and three-quarters of the way through that construction project, when it's all let and it's a union contractor and it's going like heck, they suddenly decide that they don't have enough parking. But the only land they can find is three blocks away, so they hire another architect. He designs a parkade and he builds it three blocks away. That's not part of the same project. Do you follow what I'm saying? All of these circumstances require all of the facts to be delivered, and it's very difficult to deal with it. But I certainly don't want to see, through manipulation, the avoidance of a project being a project. There is a definition in the Code for project, but I don't think that that blanket common site application is the correct philosophy.

MR. CLARK: The only other point I want to make is that cabinet, it seems to me, already has the power to designate integrated sites as separate economic development projects; in other words, the Expo situation. The cabinet has determined in Expo circumstances that that would not be treated as a common site for the purposes of the affiliation clause. So given that the government already has the statutory power to override affiliation clauses in common site situations like Expo and Whistler.... In other words, the Whistler case, the Duke Point case, the Tumbler Ridge case could not happen now because of the recent changes brought in by the previous administration to allow the cabinet to designate those sites as common. I'm wondering what the intent is of this legislation. In other words, would the minister say, given this change — the cabinet power to designate economic development projects as common sites — that the affiliation clause wouldn't apply and that that's redundant?

The two things are really redundant. The cabinet can now designate any site in the province as an economic development site, and in that area affiliation clauses do not apply. It has been done at Expo and therefore could be done at any other site. So already the Whistler and Duke Point and Tumbler Ridge examples are overridden by this ability of cabinet to do that.

Therefore it seems to me there is a redundancy here between this clause and the previous powers. Do you agree that there is a redundancy? Is there something different about this, or do you think that that economic development designation could now be lifted or that this clause...?

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Shall section 46 pass?

Interjections.

HON. L. HANSON: That wasn't a deliberate delay to get the vote through; I was just trying to marshal my thoughts.

I don't agree that this one makes the other one redundant. I think what we're saying here is that there is in the legislation a very clear ability to determine that a project is a project and that single-site rulings should not happen in the case of Duke Point and Whistler and so on, and that the decision of Tumbler Ridge is the way we, as government, see that things should be handled.

The economic development project section prohibits the use of non-affiliation clauses, and we don't want to do that on project sites, if you will, unless it's determined.

MR. CLARK: Just on a different tack, I wonder if the minister could explain whether this section limits the nonaffiliation clauses only to the construction industry. In other words, if there is a clause in my industrial collective agreement that says I don't have to work alongside non-union employees, is that struck down by this clause?

Interjections.

MR. CLARK: Sorry, I was asking the minister to respond.

HON. L. HANSON: Say it again.

MR. CLARK: Does this clause strike down clauses in collective agreements that say you don't have to work alongside non-union employees everywhere except for construction projects?

HON. L. HANSON: I guess it deals with work stoppages, and the only place that you can have a work stoppage as a result of a non-affiliation clause is in the construction industry.

MR. GABELMANN: On a construction project.

HON. L. HANSON: Or a construction project.

MR. CLARK: So the answer is yes. So that means that if an industrial unit, say a pulp mill, has a collective agreement that says they don't have to work alongside non-union employees, and the company decides to hire a non-union painting contractor to come in and paint the mill, then the employees have to work alongside those non-union painters. Is that how you interpret this section?

HON. L. HANSON: Well, I think the member is referring to section 10, but essentially that is right.

MR. CLARK: I understand the point; section 10 deals with that but this enforces it. This prohibits any job action as a result of non-affiliation, as I understand it. That is what I think the minister has said.

I think we are going to see another case where this section is going to cause serious industrial problems. In many cases in industrial settings, there is a clause that says that all members working at the industrial site must be members of the trade union, and that employees at that site who are members of the trade union do not have to work alongside other people there who are not members of the trade union unless they are in a supervisory capacity.

[ Page 1691 ]

Contracting out of services at that site to non-union contractors is going to cause serious problems. I can tell you that from experience. This again is a situation where the government is intervening to strike down freely negotiated clauses in collective agreements. One of the reasons that employers decide only to contract to unionized employees, and one of the reasons why employers agree to union demands to put language like that in the collective agreement, is that they know it would be disruptive.

If a painter in a steel-fabricating plant is making $14 an hour in the union, but he is a painter that only paints maintenance and they want to paint the whole building, and they bring people in to work alongside him at $4 an hour or $6 an hour, then there is going to be disruption and unrest. There may be violence. There may be all kinds of action. In the normal stream of things, that kind of language in the collective agreement that forbids that is agreed to by the employer to circumvent any kind of problem.

I agree that there is a previous section, I can't remember which section, which prohibits contracting out to non-union, or deals with that — allows contracting out to the non-union sector and therefore invites this kind of disruption. But this section enforces it because it says that you can't take any industrial action to solve that problem. Again, it retroactively removes from a collective agreement protection of the integrity of the bargaining unit that is agreed to by the employer in negotiations. Again, the union has had to give something up, usually a monetary demand or some other demand, in order to get that language in the collective agreement, and again the government has retroactively removed that section without compensation.

So I think that in the industrial side.... I mentioned earlier a number of problems I have with the construction side of things and the serious limitation on the ability of the union to protect the integrity of the bargaining unit. We now have the situation I have been talking about now where it impacts on the industrial sector.

[4:00]

It is very clear in my mind that prohibiting employees collectively from deciding and negotiating with their employer limits on the employer's ability to contract out to the non-union sector is going to cause serious problems, industrial problems, in that workplace. I cannot for the life of me understand why the government has decided to intervene on all other areas.

In other words, I can understand why the government has decided to intervene to say: "We didn't like Duke Point, we didn't like the Whistler decision" — the minister said that — "therefore we are going to bring in language that deals with that." I can understand that rationale. I don't agree with it but I understand it.

But why, then, would the government intervene in the industrial sector, in other unionized sectors, to prohibit the kind of language which does not allow non-union workers to work alongside union workers? Can the minister cite to me any case at the labour board, any personal experience, any experience told to him, to indicate why there would be a limit on employees exercising their rights under the current collective agreement to not work alongside unionized employees?

HON. L. HANSON: Well, I think we are really on another section that we had dealt with earlier. Our concern as we go back to that argument is that we don't feel that a contract negotiated between two parties should affect the ability of a third Party to compete and work in the marketplace. If the employees of that third party wish to be organized, they certainly have the right to. But that was another section, really.

MR. CLARK: If that was another section, then maybe the minister could explain the purpose of this section in dealing with the industrial side and not the construction side.

HON. L. HANSON: I still don't understand. All this section says is that any clause known as a non-affiliation clause is a permissible part of a collective agreement so long as it is only used for construction work on a construction project.

It reinforces the philosophy that we had suggested earlier. There is nothing hidden in it; it mainly is motivated by the Duke Point, Whistler Village and Tumbler Ridge decisions. I am not sure that it has changed anything that we haven't talked about before. This doesn't specifically do what the member is saying. It does in I guess a roundabout manner, but it is to deal with the construction work on a construction project and recognition of the uniqueness of the construction industry.

I guess in some senses we have recognized the lack of good security provisions in the construction industry and the lack of seniority abilities really. But other industries do have good seniority clauses, so I am just a little confused. I know that the philosophy of that change is negative to your philosophy; we talked about that at great length prior and reached an agreement to disagree, I guess. But this does deal really with the collective agreement or the permissibility of a non-affiliation clause in the construction industry on a construction project. We again recognize that non-affiliation clauses are a legitimate form of job security in the construction industry.

MR. CLARK: If I could just get that clarified then, the minister is saying that this only deals with construction work on construction projects. Affiliation clauses only apply there.

Is it the minister's intent, then, or is it his understanding, that a clause that says we only work with non-union is not covered by this clause but it is prohibited by a previous section? In other words, I would like to understand the minister's definition of affiliation clause. In other words, to refine it a bit, affiliation clauses in the construction sector say that they only have to work alongside members affiliated with the B.C. and Yukon Building Trades Council. That has been used, for example, for building trades unions to attempt, not to work alongside other union members, but union members who are not affiliated with the building trades council.

If that is the interpretation of affiliation clauses, is it therefore the case that the minister is arguing that this clause only deals with construction work on construction sites, and affiliation clauses only deal with affiliation to the B.C. and Yukon Building Trades Council, and it does not, therefore, deal with clauses in industrial settings that deal with not having to work alongside non-union employees? Therefore that is struck down by another section but not by this section.

HON. L. HANSON: Non-affiliation rights will not permit construction union employees to withdraw their labour beyond the specific construction project on which they are working. In other words. this amendment will not condone a large-scale withdrawal of labour, pursuant to affiliation clauses, beyond the particular construction job site involved.

[ Page 1692 ]

I know of no jurisdiction in Canada other than British Columbia that has ever allowed an illegal strike for non-affiliation purposes. We are putting industries other than construction in the same position as they are in other jurisdictions.

I'm not sure if that answers your question. I'm reading it from my notes here, because I'm not sure I totally understand what you were asking me.

MR. CLARK: It wasn't a response to the question, but it was an interesting answer.

Maybe I'll go through it one more time. I'm not trying to belabour it. I think the minister made a good point earlier; I'm trying to clarify it.

In the construction sector currently, affiliation clauses say that a union member does not have to work alongside a non-affiliated union member; in other words, affiliated to the B.C. and Yukon Building Trades Council. That's the construction sector affiliation clause. Is it your intent that this section of this bill only applies to affiliation clauses, as I described them, or does it also apply in a backhanded way to clauses in collective agreements in industrial settings that deal with not working alongside non-union employees? Is it only limited to the affiliation clauses in the construction sector, the B.C. and Yukon Building Trades Council affiliation clauses?

HON. L. HANSON: This clause prohibits work stoppages as a result of affiliation clauses on a project site. Except on a construction site; I'm sorry. And related to the construction industry, except on a construction site. Yes, that's right. It prohibits the work stoppage as a result of.... It allows a work stoppage as a result of a non-affiliation clause on a construction site project, but that doesn't have any industrial implications.

Section 46 approved on division.

On section 47.

HON. L. HANSON: This provides that everyone is free to communicate information to another person regarding his employment, and everyone is free to show their support for another person regarding an employment matter, so long as that behaviour does not constitute either of the following two activities: participating in a secondary boycott agreement — section 4.1 — or while not lawfully on strike or locked out or picketing to persuade people not to enter a place of business. Purely informational picketing is legal, so a person could....

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Mr. Minister, would you please move the amendment?

HON. L. HANSON: There is no amendment to this section, is there? Yes? Oh, I'm sorry. My notebook is not up to date, I guess.

I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

On section 47 as amended.

MR. GABELMANN: I'm in such a good mood this afternoon that I won't pursue it, but it would be useful if the minister would conclude the reading of his notes — if there's any more — which were interrupted by the need to move the amendment. Can you just do that, and maybe that will help things. Or if you don't want to do that, just give us a summary of what you think you're trying to accomplish here.

HON. L. HANSON: My apologies for that. As the member requested, finishing my notes: "...so long as the person had no intention of trying to stop people from entering the premises or doing business there." That deals with the allowing of informational picketing.

MR. GABELMANN: We're dealing with section 84 of the Code, which is information picketing, but broader than picketing; it's information communicated by people about issues that have a relation to terms and conditions of employment. It's not just information about some subject unrelated to bargaining, but to a collective agreement and bargaining and those kinds of issues. The clause was originally inserted in the Code to ensure that information lines — not just lines, but information in a variety of ways — could be communicated.

[4:15]

I just want to try to sort out what these words are going to do, because these words as amended are going to limit, to a certain extent, the right granted by 84. They limit it in a way that I don't quite understand. The curious thing that's happened on this one is that labour lawyers have told me that it's designed to prevent the "enforcement" of hot declarations. They say that hot declarations per se will still be legal and can still be communicated, but they can't be enforced as a result of this.

There's an interesting comment from Gavin Hume, a management lawyer, and I just want to read his summary of what he thinks this means because it's a different interpretation. He says:

"Section 84 of the Code is amended so as to restrict the manner in which trade unions can communicate information. While the effect of the amendment is not clear" — and I've underlined this — "it may mean that hot declarations are prohibited. The amendment appears to be directed at reinforcing the effect of section 4.1 of the Industrial Relations Act, which voids agreements that permit employees to do such things as refuse to handle products which are declared hot or are non-union."

We all agree that this is a provision to limit the ability to enforce hot declarations on handling non-union goods or whatever else, and we say this is counterproductive to a reasonable balance between the parties. But leave that issue aside just for the moment, before we get to the main debate here. I'm bothered by the fact that a lawyer who represents management clients, in a summary for Butterworths, which becomes a bit of a guiding document in this issue, would say:"...it may mean that hot declarations are prohibited." If that's true — and I have no way of knowing if it is — that's a very different impact than what is apparently the impact. In fact, I doubt whether it would survive a Charter test, but that would take five years to go through the courts, and I don't think we want to do that, if that's the case. If it means that hot declarations are prohibited, then it would suggest that nobody can ever make a hot declaration in

[ Page 1693 ]

respect of issues related to collective bargaining. I don't want to have a debate about this if I'm wrong, but I'm concerned about the fact that Gavin Hume would suggest that this is possibly the case.

HON. L. HANSON: I have been privy to that interpretation, but in discussions I've had.... I just don't think that's right. I don't think that there is a preclusion of hot goods declarations. It does reinforce section 4.1, as you mentioned, but it doesn't prohibit the simple making of a hot declaration as long as there isn't an attempt to enforce it by strikes or that sort of illegal action.

MR. GABELMANN: I don't think we need to take much time on this, because I don't have any supporting evidence for the suggestion that he makes. He makes it as a "may" — I want to emphasize that. He doesn't say it will; he says it may. In attempting to sort it out — and as a non-lawyer it's difficult.... What the section essentially said before was that you can say.... Let me try it in real layman's language. You can say anything you want as long as it isn't picketing as defined in the Code. That's one way. I wish the laws were written like that, actually, but that's essentially what it said. You can say whatever you like in respect of the issues at dispute, but you can't say it if it's caught under the definition of picketing.

Now you can also not say it if it affects — I don't know what the right verb is here, and a lawyer could tell me, but there is a verb I need, and I'm not sure which one applies, but let's use "affects" for the moment — the performance of a provision of an agreement that's prohibited by section 4.1. Well, an example of an agreement that's prohibited by section 4.1 is the enforcement of a hot declaration. I think I'm right so far. So if you issue a hot declaration — and that not a question of enforcing it — aren't you affecting — and that's the verb I'm not comfortable with because I don't think it's the right one — the "performance of a provision of an agreement prohibited by section 4.1 "? I think, without having talked to Gavin Hume or anybody else on this point, from a legal point of view that's probably where this interpretation derives, or from where — I'm getting tired; the grammar is all shot to hell.

In any event, I think that's where they got the idea that this is a possibility — the performance of a provision of an agreement prohibited by section 4. 1. What governs this? The trade union or other person — anybody, in other words — may at any time communicate a whole bunch of things unless they're picketing or unless they've affected — or directed at or some other verb — a performance of a provision of an agreement. I'm not quite sure what the word "performance" means in that case, but it seems to me that you could make a case — somebody, not me — that just declaring something hot, without enforcing it, without asking somebody to, in effect, not handle something, could be read into the word "performance." Before we proceed, I'd really feel much more comfortable if we could spend a few minutes just probing this a little bit.

HON. L. HANSON: I don't know whether it will be a reassuring statement or not, but I have had a lot of discussion with this, and if, as a result of this section, someone says a declaration as such is prohibited by this, I may even join you in your concern. But that isn't my assurance, and I've gone over it and seen what you're talking about. Not being a lawyer. I have to seek advice in these sorts of cases, and I am assured that that is not a possibility under this interpretation.

MR. GABELMANN: And I don't know, and I can't argue. I mean, I've made the point, and that's really as far as I can go on that issue. I suspect that in any event it would be declared a violation of the free speech provisions of the Charter, if not some other common law or whatever in this country. You should be able to have the right to say: "Don't buy Pirelli tires." What the law tries to do and what I know the minister wants to do is to prevent somebody from actually not handling him on a job site if he has a collective agreement in force, which is the issue we may get to in a minute.

Having made the point, I guess we'll leave it. It's something we should keep an eye on. I'll leave it for the moment — the second member for Nanaimo wants to pick up on it — and then after that maybe we'll have a few minutes on the general issue involved.

MR. LOVICK: There are all kinds of forces evident that would move one to say,"Yes, let's leave it," but there is another force, a still, small voice that I hear when I read this stuff and that frankly scares me to death. What scares me to death is the statement by the minister, offered with all ingenuousness. I'm sure — to once again "trust us, because the advice I'm getting is that this stuff does indeed make sense." The voice I'm hearing is that that language that cluttered, that convoluted, that obfuscatory, is dangerous language. I am frightened to death when I think that we're going to decide the fate of working men and women in this province, and their right to have information pickets, on the basis of a statement that most of us can't even comprehend, despite studying for 15 minutes, as I have been doing here.

I am really, I guess, asking you to please consider telling your architects who are drafting this stuff to give us a break, if I can put it in very blunt and colloquial terms. Let's talk plain English, for heaven's sake. This is outrageous. It seems to be saying that a trade union or a person may have an information picket if the picket isn't really picketing or if there is the "performance of a provision of," which in turn takes us all the way back — and I have to go all the way back — to 4.1 to then get into that other incredible list of participles, or whatever they happen to be. That caused us difficulty before, you will recall, Mr. Minister, because we had to say that we would add buying and selling simply to balance things — that whole business of "cease or refrain from handling, using, selling, transporting or otherwise dealing in the products of or using the services of any other employee or to cease doing business with any other person...." That whole section, I'm suggesting, is so totally convoluted and so totally confusing that I would like — indeed, I would almost, if I could, demand — some assurances more than the minister telling us that he has good reason to believe this isn't as bad as we perceive it to be.

What really is the justification for this kind of terminology? I can't understand how, with all the expertise that we have, we would construct a sentence that has something in it along the lines of — and let me just quote the first chunk of it; I don't need to quote it all — "A trade union or other person may, at any time and in a manner that does not constitute picketing as defined in this Act, or the performance of a provision of an agreement...." My God, surely we can put it in more direct and simple and understandable terms than

[ Page 1694 ]

that. That's my contention. I'm not about to impute or otherwise suggest sinister motives on the part of the minister, but in the name of common sense and in the name of plain English, surely to God we can improve on that. If the architects would like some help, I'd be more than willing to try to draft some alternative language.

MR. HEWITT: I wasn't going to rise in this debate, primarily because it's basically a consequential amendment as far as I can read it, Mr. Member. If you look at section 4(l) of the act as it now reads, it seems to me pretty clear in its meaning. What this basically does is ensure that any expression made pursuant to the section of the act that we're talking about is not an action prohibited under section 4.1(1). I fail to see where we get into the concern — like it's a draconian measure — that we're going to take liberties away from an information picket. That isn't what it says.

[4:30]

MR. LOVICK: They're your words.

MR. HEWITT: No, it's not our words. It is in section 4 (l) of the current act, limitation on activities of trade union: "Except with the employer's consent, a trade union or person acting on its behalf shall not attempt, at the employer's place of employment during working hours, to persuade an employee of the employer to join or not join a trade union." Those are limitations that are set out. The amendment basically still allows for the information picket, and that's only right and proper; but what it doesn't do is that you cannot go contrary to section 4 of the current legislation.

I think that's fairly straightforward, Mr. Member. Maybe you can try to convince me a little further in regard to your position on this bill. However, if you do not wish to do so — if my argument has convinced you that the amendment is valid — I'll sit down and take my place. Maybe the minister would like to respond to you.

MR. LOVICK: I appreciate that effort at critical exegesis provided by the first member for Boundary-Similkameen. The difficulty is, of course, that the longer I listened to him, the more convinced I became of the rightness of my first argument and perception: namely, that this language is indeed confusing.

I see, however, the minister has now returned, and perhaps he would like to respond to at least some of those concerns we have suggested about this particular section.

HON. L. HANSON: Not being a student of the English language, as is my friend from Nanaimo, I have to be guided by the urgings of the legislative counsel as they are presented to me. That's how the wording evolves. Quite frankly, I suppose that there are a number of acts that quite often could be stated in layman's terms, but never seem to be. Law does not often reflect plain English. I guess that's unfortunate, but....

[Mr. Hewitt in the chair.]

MR. LOVICK: It's very tempting, of course, to make all kinds of gratuitous comments. I would love to cross-examine your advisers at this point, but clearly that's not fair, so I shan't say that.

Instead, what I would like to do is ask the minister to explain to me please — and I'm sorry if I am in error here and wasn't paying close enough attention earlier — the distinction in this act between "ordinary picketing" and "information picketing." Perhaps that is what's separating us.

HON. L. HANSON: The amendment provides that everyone is free to communicate. They're free to communicate information to another person regarding their employment, and everyone is free to show support for another person regarding an employment matter, as long as that behaviour does not constitute either of the following two activities: participating in a secondary boycott, which we handled in section 4.1; and, while not lawfully on strike or locked out, picketing to persuade people not to enter a place of business or not to deal in or handle a person's products, or not to do business with someone. Purely informational picketing is legal. The member for Nanaimo certainly understands what "information" is. So a person can carry a picket sign in front of a business as long as the person has no intention of trying to stop people from entering the premises or doing business there.

My deputy has referred me to the interpretation of "picketing" as defined in the Code. I'm sure that the member, without my repeating it, can look at that determination: "' Picket' or 'picketing' means watching and besetting, or attending at or near a person's place of business, operations or employment for the purpose of persuading or attempting to persuade anyone not to enter that place of business," etc.

MR. LOVICK: I want to thank the minister in all sincerity for that answer. I appreciate that.

Now, however, we have opened the door to a larger problem. The problem is simply whether it is possible to have an information picket at all, or whether an information picket — strictly defined and strictly understood — is always, by definition, an effort to persuade people not to cross the line, not to do business, not to avail themselves of the service provided by that operation,

In communications theory, it's worth noting, information is defined as a stimulus that changes behaviour. The only purpose of having an information picket is obviously to convince people to reconsider what they are doing, or at least reconsider meaning.... "Yes, I hadn't thought of it in those terms. Rather than not crossing the line...." I'm willing to grant that. But the point is still that the information picket's purpose is to somehow change the behaviour of people who come across that particular picket.

What seems to be embedded in this particular clause — in 84, the new amendments in 47 — is that picketing is okay as long as it isn't picketing. In other words, people can stand there if somehow they are miraculously only conveying information. I could not give information to people who were about to enter a particular place of operation that said, "We dislike this employer. We think we, the employees, are getting a bad deal," because surely that would be construed to be attempting to persuade those individuals that they ought not to do business. The way a picket line is supposed to work, in theory, of course, is just that when people drive by, they see the line and they say: "Right, that ends the judgment for me. The decision is made for me, because if I believe in the solidarity of workers, and if I'm a trade unionist myself, I honour picket lines. Therefore I don't have to know what's on

[ Page 1695 ]

the other side. I don't have to know anything. I see the line, and that is sufficient."

Interjection.

MR. LOVICK: The Chairman has difficulty restraining himself How intriguing!

The predicament, of course, is that what we're trying to do in this particular section of the bill — and here's where I have my difficulty with it — is to suggest there is an easy separation between information pickets and pickets in general. Frankly, Mr. Minister, I think it's a bogus argument. I think it's a false dichotomy. There simply isn't that simple division between the two.

The conclusion we derive as a result of saying that there isn't in fact that clear division between the two kinds of picketing, so-called, is that all picketing, in effect, then will not be allowed; or at least all kinds of secondary picketing. Okay? That's the predicament with this particular bill. So again, the language once more opens the door to the deeper problem, and the deeper problem is what I've just attempted to elucidate, not nearly as clearly as I would wish, but I hope, nevertheless, in a manner that enables the minister to see our legitimate concerns about that section.

MR. CLARK: Mr. Chairman, I wasn't going to get into this debate, but I just want to clarify it in my own mind. The minister agreed with the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) that this does not prohibit, as I understand it, hot declarations. Other sections of the bill prohibit the prosecution of hot declarations to some extent, in terms of enforcement, in terms of not handling hot products, etc. But there is nothing in this bill now, if the minister could just confirm this for me, or in this section that prohibits a union from declaring something hot.

Assuming he agrees with that, would he also agree, then, that actions other than at the work site are not prohibited by this bill? I'll just give you an example: Canadian Tire in Prince George went on strike. There was a campaign to boycott Canadian Tire. There was picketing at other stores of Canadian Tire. That was ruled not to be allowed by the former Labour Relations Board, so what the union did instead was an extensive boycott campaign that involved things like large 4-by-8 signs, almost like election signs, that said "Boycott Canadian Tire." In my riding of Vancouver East alone there were something like 100 4-by-8s up on all the major highways, saying "Boycott Canadian Tire." Can the minister confirm, then — I think it's his intention — that those kinds of acts are still legal under this bill, and not prohibited in any way?

HON. L. HANSON: Yes, that's also my interpretation, the same as it is allowable to provide information in many other areas of our society to suggest that you should do this or you shouldn't do that — such as you shouldn't smoke.

Section 47 as amended approved on division.

On section 48.

MR. GABELMANN: I wonder if, before I make a speech, the minister wants to.... This is an important section. I think, before we get to 62, this is the most important section remaining, at least. I wonder if the minister would care to just make some opening comments first?

HON. L. HANSON: Section 48 of the bill, of course, deals with section 85, and that is generally headed "Picketing." In 1984 the picketing section of the current act was amended to limit the scope of permissible picketing in order to restrict such action, as much as was reasonably possible, to the principal site of the dispute and to those parties directly involved in the dispute.

The changes in this section are intended to clarify the government's intention when it enacted the 1984 picketing amendments. We feel that the Labour Relations Board has given those amendments such a broad interpretation that picketing activities have been much more extensive than intended by the 1984 amendments, and the resulting decisions have become unnecessarily complex.

The current amendments to section 85 of the act have been introduced to clarify the government's intention in the area of picketing rights, so as to ensure that third parties who are not involved in a labour dispute between an employer and its employees are not unduly affected by picketing activities arising from the dispute. These amendments recognize the public interest by serving the objectives of improving the practices and procedures of collective bargaining between employers and trade unions, and by minimizing the harmful effects of labour disputes on persons who are not involved in that particular dispute.

I guess with that I'll listen to the concerns of the members opposite.

[4:45]

MR. GABELMANN: We want to take some time — not a lot of time — in going through some of the detailed questions involved here, and make some references to the Canadian Pacific Express decision and a number of other concerns. I think it's important on a section like the picketing section to set the scene; to have an overall discussion, first of all, and then go from the general into the more specific later on.

The way in which picketing was handled prior to now was that the picketing was focused on, or directed at, the employer and his business. The language was constructed and the policy was formulated with the employer and his business being the focus. It has now totally reversed that. Under this new legislation the focus is directed at the employee and his work. I don't know whether the government was conscious of making that kind of fundamental change when it drew up these changes, or when, more accurately, these changes evolved — because 1984 was a watermark in respect of picketing legislation. Whether or not it was being done consciously, that has happened, and I think it's important to know that in terms of the way in which the legislation is constructed.

The original legislation — I'm now thinking back a dozen years or so — was fairly straightforward. It allowed for primary picketing — that's the simple question of picketing your own workplace; it allowed for secondary picketing, where you could picket other operations owned by that employer; and there could be ally picketing wherever there was an ally in that particular business or in that kind of service or production work. It was fairly straightforward and, I think, effective.

[ Page 1696 ]

What happened was that that legislation was designed in that way, which is a marked change from the old labour relations act, to attempt to bring some economic balance between the parties. If employees are on strike, they're not getting any income at all; therefore, to have some economic balance, the employer should also have no income. In order to achieve that, you needed to be able to picket additional sites that that employer owned, where he might be making money to help subsidize the primary site which was not making any money. The employee didn't have the right to go off and make money somewhere. Technically, I guess, he had the right to go off and make money somewhere else, but in a high unemployment economy he doesn't practically have that right — it's hard to go and get a job somewhere else. Maybe that's the case in a full employment economy, and there have been times in our history when some members of a struck workforce would in fact go off and make money on their own. We could have a reasonable debate about whether or not they should have the right to do that. But how do you stop it? It's very difficult to stop that.

The direction of the government recently has been to approach this whole issue from the other side. They have repeatedly reduced the amount of picketing that can take place, and 1984 was the key year for amendments in that respect. At the same time, the employee's ability to go and get another job and make money was also being reduced because of unemployment. That's been the case since the depression started in August 1981, or whenever it started .

What you had back in 1973 was an attempt to achieve some balance between the parties. You could have a reasonable debate about whether or not that was a fair balance, whether there was equal economic pressure on both parties. It was clearly the intent of the Legislature then to enact a law that would lead in that direction. Whether the law achieved that precisely or not is a debatable point, but it was the intention of the Legislature to do that.

What have we had since then? We have had a diminution of the right to picket, a reduction in the amount of picketing, which has led to employers being able to continue to make money while the strike is going on. While they can continue to make money, there is no economic pressure on them to settle the dispute. That's been happening on one side. On the other side, employees, or some portion of the workforce who might previously have been able to go out and get a job, supplement their income and help everybody else who is on strike, again reducing economic pressure on them.... That ability to go out and get another job is now not only significantly reduced but virtually eliminated because of high unemployment levels. You just can't go out and get another job. I'll bet you that last fall in the IWA dispute the number of IWA members doing another job for income could have been measured in the hundreds, not in the thousands. There is no question in my mind about that. What we've done is gradually change the balance so much that employers can stand a long strike. Rather than having a lot of economic pressure on people so they're forced to do something in a hurry — i.e., reach a collective agreement — they don't have to.

Last year in the IWA dispute.... I keep referring to it as the IWA dispute for shorthand. PPWC members who work in the woods were also affected, and others.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: Commonly referred to as the IWA-FIR dispute, yes. We always do that. If unions get blamed for everything, they may as well have the name of the dispute attached to them, too.

In that dispute last fall, the employers were able to continue their operations in a variety of ways as a result of the 1984 limitations, even with the interpretations by the LRB. I guess Kinzie's decisions on this issue are the ones the government is reacting to. Even with the loose interpretation, you might say, of the 1984 amendments by the LRB, the employers were able to escape any economic pressure in a variety of ways. They did it, number one, by continuing to operate their pulp mills using wood — obviously, because that's what you use in pulp mills — normally produced for the most part by IWA members, on the coast at least. So the pulp mills continued to operate. It turned out that last year was a good year for pulp prices. The best levels of profits made in this province in five or six years in the forest industry were made last year. There was no real urgency to settle the strike. The companies' pocketbooks were not being affected. Similarly, wood previously supplied by IWA members was being transported and supplied to these mills by other mechanisms — on the coast in particular; that's the area I'm most familiar with. What do you do? You go to a contractor who is not on strike.

Part of that comes from the kind of strike strategy adopted by the IWA, and I recognize that. If that's going to be the whole answer to what I'm saying, I understand that. The big demonstration at the sawmill in Ladysmith was a good example. That led to a lot of television coverage at the time. That was a good example of a case where wood was being supplied to these companies who were on strike, wood that ordinarily had been provided by people who were on strike. What does that mean as well? It means that the companies can continue to make money, in this case in their pulp mills. What's the result of that? A long strike.

If there was an economic balance and the employees were on strike, and the employers were not making money, it wouldn't have lasted five months. It would have been over within a month or two. If the employers — MacMillan Bloedel, Canfor, Crown Forests, Western, particularly the big ones.... And they were the ones who kept the strike going; in many cases the smaller companies did settle, and others wanted to settle. It was the big ones that kept it going. If their pulp mills were shut down.... I'm not going to be very popular in Port Alice, Gold River or Campbell River for saying this, because the guys there kept on working. But if the pulp mills had been shut down as a result of the IWA dispute, it would have lasted a month or two at the most. Whether or not FIR would have got in its contract what it wanted, or as it has now, a neutral — for the moment — resolution on the contracting-out issue, who knows? I don't know. But at least it would have been some equitability.

The only way the IWA members had of prosecuting the strike was to go hungry, to lose homes, to sell their boat, their second car. There were guys selling their personal, for home use, chainsaws even, in one case that I know of. That's the only way they could survive. But the issue was so important for them that they were willing to do that kind of thing. They were willing to deprive their families and go through all kinds of economic hardship, while at the same time these companies are making record-level — for this decade — profits.

Now the government brings in changes to the picketing section which even tighten already too tight picketing laws. Surely what picketing should do is to allow for an equitable

[ Page 1697 ]

amount of economic power. There is no equitability now between the employer who can continue to make money and the employee who starves. So what happens? The employee eventually folds his tent and goes home, unless the issue is so important — as the one was last fall — that he doesn't fold his tent, and his family is deprived.

If you don't have that kind of equitability, you don't have an ability to prosecute a strike. If you don't have an ability to prosecute a strike, you don't have free collective bargaining, because it's no longer free. Free collective bargaining implies there's a balance, that there is no pressure or no influence or no mechanism that distorts the balance and gives more power to one side than the other. So what you're saying, when you don't have the right to prosecute a strike, is that you don't have the right to strike. And if you don't have the right to strike, you don't have the right to free collective bargaining. And if you don't have the right to free collective bargaining — with the emphasis on "free" — you violate the International Labour Organization's conventions, to which Canada is a signatory.

That's a difficult issue for trade unionists to convey. It's a difficult issue for New Democrats to convey to the public. The public doesn't like extensive picketing, and the government is on the right side of this issue politically. There's a question in my mind about that. I understand that. You're on the right side of this issue politically; it's a winner for you politically. If we were smart politically, I'd probably insist that we have no debate on this section. People don't like strikes and disruption, and all that kind of thing. They don't like picketing per se; just picketing itself they don't like, never mind the consequences of that picketing. But if you believe in some things, if you believe in free collective bargaining, then there are some prices you pay as a society. Either we believe in free collective bargaining in this society or we do not. Increasingly governments are moving in the direction of maintaining the fiction of free collective bargaining but destroying the actual reality of free collective bargaining.

That's the theoretical and philosophical side. The second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Clark) reminds me that there is the practical effect of having a balance. I had talked about that earlier, and I think now that my time is virtually up, I'll close with that as well. If you have a balance, you have an equitability; if you have an equitability, you have shorter disputes, by and large. My time is up.

[5:00]

MR. LOVICK: It seems to me that my colleague from North Island has presented a thoughtful and obviously much considered perspective on the issue of picketing. Rather than simply stand up and carry on in what I hope will be the same vein, I would like to offer an opportunity to the minister, if he would care to respond to that at all.

Okay. Let me then try and add a little bit to this. One of the themes that we have been developing in this entire exercise of clause-by-clause analysis of Bill 19 is that the concept of collective bargaining relies, perhaps above all else, on some kind of loosely called "honest broker" in the middle: government or the state as an arbiter between the two sides. The assumption is that in a democratic society we are all better served by letting the two sides negotiate and sort out their differences.

We have been arguing the case again and again that the balance has been irrevocably, it sometimes seems, tipped in favour of the management side. We have argued that that is the case for economic reasons as much as anything else, simply because in a modem economy such as the one we occupy, it has indeed been proven that systemically there is an oversupply of workers for the demand to accommodate. It is the interest of the employer to have an oversupply of workers, simply to drive wages down. As we have said, that has been the case for at least 40 years now. In economic terms, we have argued that the deck is automatically stacked against workers; thus the need for unions. We would argue also that in terms of technological change and the whole advent and development of technology, the deck is stacked against workers. We are suggesting that clearly government has an obligation to intervene, if not demonstrably on the side of workers, at least to somehow offset those forces that conspire against workers.

The traditional weapons of trade unions are very few in number. Ultimately, there is only one: the withdrawal of the labour you provide, which in turn provides the products and the profits for the other side of the equation. The picket line was not really a weapon in the trade union arsenal until relatively recently in modem industrial societies. In the past, in old union battles with management, the pickets' only role was effectively to stop any more work being done. In other words, it was simply the concrete manifestation of a strike and nothing else. That's all the picket did. But it has changed.

I hope I don't sound as if I am falling into my lecture pattern. I assure you, Mr. Minister, I don't mean to. But it is an important point, when we forget that the picket has quantitatively and qualitatively changed in its nature. The reason for that is simply that as we have harnessed technology and as we have been able to produce things on a much grander and more efficient scale, we suddenly have the prospect of workers being able to withdraw their labour and it not making one whit of difference to the operation.

[Mrs. Gran in the chair.]

That phenomenon is what produced the picket line as another strategy. Because if you go on strike. Mr. Minister, and you are standing out there, and you are of course limited in how long you can stand there because there is no food coming in and no money coming in to pay the bills.... If, while you are standing there suffering, the business goes on as usual despite the fact of your withdrawing your labour, pretty clearly your activity is not having much effect or much success. That is precisely what happened with advances in technology. We see evidences of it every day. If the telephone workers' union, for example, goes on strike, it does not mean the end of telephone service.

Pretty clearly, the technology and the developments have effectively made the weapon by itself an outmoded one. It doesn't work. Therefore, the picket line as a new weapon, somewhat modified, has been devised.

The new weapon is not any longer simply to use a picket line to announce to the world that you are not working, but to ask others to respect and support the fact that you are not working. That is the new dimension of power, so-called. That is apparently this power that we hear trade unions have, because they can  "shut 'er down," can in fact put up a picket line and stop people from entering. That's the mythology, at least, Mr. Minister, about the power of picket lines, but let's look at the reality, because there is a tremendous discrepancy between the two. The picket line, so-called, is not really much of a weapon. It's not powerful, because there are so

[ Page 1698 ]

many ways already available to circumvent, and because probably within any given economy and society — certainly in Canada or in B.C. — there are so many people to whom the picket line means nothing. The weapon by itself isn't very powerful.

Let me see if I can give you an illustration of that, because I want to put it in the form of cases so that we can somehow make our feelings known. I think the only way to do that is to personalize and particularize, rather than be talking in some kind of abstractions. Let's call it a paradigm case, for the heck of it, all right? Let's take the case of what we all love to hate, the Post Office. Now would anybody for a moment argue that any citizen in Canada whom you approach on the street and ask about the Post Office, especially if a strike is in progress, is going to say: "Yep, by gar! The problem we've got is with the management of the Post Office or the government or the nature of the Crown corporation"? Is anybody going to argue that? No. What they're going to say, obviously, predictably, is that the trouble is those individuals, those workers, because it is perceived obviously and understandably, I think, that the people who are depriving you of the service that you and I as taxpayers believe we are entitled to are the workers. We forget, of course — conveniently perhaps — that workers don't act unilaterally. They are obviously one side of an equation. It takes two to strike, as well as to tango, Mr. Minister. Unfortunately we don't think that, and we don't want to think that.

Okay, now translate that instance, which I think will serve as a pretty good example of something we can all understand and appreciate, and ask them what the picket line is going to do to improve on that situation. What does it do? The postal workers, to be sure, can put up a picket line — maybe — around another affiliated employer or another place of business, at least for a day until an injunction or some such thing happens and they have to take it down, and what they might succeed in doing thereby, Mr. Minister, is stopping that particular operation from functioning for a short period of time. However, the predicament is: what do their fellow workers, who have to honour that picket line, say? Do they come in and say,"I am really proud to take a day off work without pay, because I believe in my union"? Let's not be naive. Let's not be credulous. Let's not be silly. Rather, let's admit the fact that workers, like all of us, resent bitterly losing a day's wages — unless, of course, they happen to be on holiday, in which case they obviously would get wages in any event, so that's a bad example.

The picket line, then — even a picket line to a so-called affiliated employer — is not a very powerful weapon. The predicament, though, is that it's the only weapon they've got. The strike weapon by itself, as we've already demonstrated — as my colleague from North Island pointed out in terms of a specific case, namely the FIR-IWA dispute of last year — is frankly outmoded in the great majority of cases. Workers don't win strikes. I think members on the other side have acknowledged that simple fact, and they wonder why unions continue to go on strike, because you never gain. Think about it for a minute. If you go out for six months, and you get a $1-an-hour increase, how many years more do you think you have to work before you're going to make up the six months you lost? The strike weapon by itself is not any longer a very effective weapon. It's merely another demonstration of how the deck is systemically stacked against workers. It's just that simple. The picket line then, as I say, becomes in some cases almost a weapon of last resort.

Our contention in looking at this section of the bill — section 48, namely 85 in the old Code — is that what we're doing is delimiting and further circumscribing a right that is not very powerful or very effective to begin with. Our contention, Mr. Minister, is as follows. The way we read this section of the bill is to say this: the amendment effectively cuts down substantially where a union may lawfully picket at the primary site, common sites, and the sites of allies. That's the first contention we would make, in terms of our reading of 85 as amended.

Second, the definition of "ally" is narrowed. Picketing is legal only at the place of work, and it must be a place where the employee performs work which is further restrictively defined as "an integral and substantial part of the employer's operation." Secondary-site picketing is limited to places where the work is for the employer's own benefit. One wonders why that new language. What does that mean? I'm hoping that the minister will indeed respond to some of those concerns.

Those questions are complicated and complex, so rather than pose others, for the moment I would defer to the minister and ask him if he might be willing to respond to some of those basic concerns and contentions.

HON. L. HANSON: Madam Chairman, I'm so impressed by the member's ability to debate that I hate to.... I do not mean that facetiously.

The subject of picketing. I just have a small quote from Paul Weiler's book.

Interjection.

AN HON. MEMBER: Be generous.

HON. L. HANSON: I think I'm being generous.

"The legitimacy of union picketing has always been one of the most controversial topics in labour law." 

I think that's the general thing we're talking about.

"The common law appeared to treat the picket line as inherently coercive, even violent, and almost always wrongful. Even contemporary Canadian courts have departed from that conception only fitfully. At one time the pendulum swung far in the other direction in the United States — to the judgment that picketing was intrinsically the exercise of freedom of speech by workers, so that legal restraints were almost never proper. Neither of these appraisals does justice to the realities of the picket line in an industrial relations setting."

[5:15]

He's really just saying that it's a very difficult situation. It swung this way; it swung that way. Again, it depends on your point of view where the pendulum sits. The members opposite have one view where it sits, and certainly the members on this side have another view where it should sit.

The member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) was suggesting.... I think he was using the IWA strike as an example. It was a unique situation. The pulp mills, which didn't happen to have the same certification or even the same union, and had a legal contract, were enjoying a tremendously good market at that point, and were able to sustain the strike longer than should have been the case, by the fact that world market conditions for pulp were exceptionally good. I

[ Page 1699 ]

acknowledge that that probably is a fact. I don't agree that it should be a change because that condition occurred.

The member suggested that in different economic times the members who were on strike, when there is a large job market out there.... What is the expression they use? Somebody has told it to me: they put their card in their shoe and go to work somewhere else. That's a fact of life; it does happen,

But as a matter of philosophy, we as government feel that the ability for a labour organization to picket the operation that they are in dispute with should be limited to that site. It depends on where you come from philosophically. There's no question that if a corporation, or whatever, owns a gold-mine, a pulp mill and a department store, the ability to picket all of those, if one of those has a dispute, exerts economic pressure. We just don't happen to think that that ability is correct in today's society. We feel that the public, who are so often affected by the expansion of the ability to strike, are very adversely affected in those cases. I wouldn't disagree with the member opposite that the unfettered ability to strike anything would certainly settle labour disruptions in our province, and probably settle them very quickly. I don't agree with that, and that's the reason we've brought these amendments forward, because we feel, as a government, that our responsibility, as a philosophy, is to limit the picketing to the primary site where the dispute goes on.

Someone mentioned the fact — I think this was the phraseology — that they can't, say, use the old expression "shut 'er down." Well, I think that they still can use that expression, but I feel strongly that "shutting 'er down" means shutting down that organization that has the dispute with its labour organization. There are so many scenarios in our modem-day world, when you suggest that there isn't economic pressure exerted when the picketing is limited to the primary site.... We cite the IWA strike. If they had been able to picket the pulp mills, it would have been over sooner. That may be; that may not be. I couldn't argue with that.

But I think that the members opposite will also admit that there are circumstances where great economic pressure has been exerted just by simply picketing the primary site, as a matter of fact, to the degree that if it wasn't a very healthy business to start with, it may eventually end up in bankruptcy. That's not being precluded, but certainly, to me, is indicating an ability to provide economic pressure. I guess it depends on the circumstances.

Again, to answer as many of the questions as I wrote down, we are philosophically.... We have a disagreement. We believe that if there is a dispute between an employer and its union, which represents its membership, their dispute should be limited to those two parties. That's a philosophical difference that I guess we'll never resolve. I would be less than honest not to admit that if unlimited picketing were allowed, there's no question it would settle strikes more quickly. But I'm not sure that we believe, in our society, that that is what should happen.

AN HON. MEMBER: You're not sure.

HON. L. HANSON: Well, I think we are sure — to the member who made that remark. That's why we put it in Bill 19.

MR. LOVICK: I accept the minister's comment when he says that he "would be less than honest if" — and I want to state that. I would never accuse the minister of being anything less than honest, I think, throughout this debate. Whatever our disagreements have been, he has certainly been honest, and I admire and appreciate that.

Would I could be so complimentary about the arguments adduced by the other side. I'm sorry, but I simply cannot. There is contradiction, Mr. Minister, with the greatest respect and deference I can muster, that is so immense I can't believe that you and your colleagues didn't all choke as you stated it.

You talk about the fact that the intention of this section is to limit picketing to the primary site only, because it's only the primary site, after all, that's directly involved. For heaven's sake, this is the same bill, the same government, the same minister, that have effectively made it possible to have double-breasting. In other words, you're prepared to say that one side of the equation will be simple, and it must be direct and absolute evidence that you are the only game in town. Yet on the other side you're making it possible for any employer worth his salt and worth the price of his legal help to go and set up his organization in such a way that he can have another workplace that can't be picketed. That is such an obvious contradiction, in my mind certainly, that I can't understand how the minister in all conscience can present that to us with a straight face.

The legitimacy of picketing. The minister had occasion to refer to Paul Weiler's book. I know that we have all come to regard him as St. Paul lately, and that's probably okay. The point, though, is that what Weiler is describing is very simply that picketing.... The question whether it is a legitimate form of industrial action has always been moot, but it's been moot primarily on the basis of the starting premise: namely, whether unions have any right to exist. The reason that picketing was treated by the common law with contempt, as Weiler correctly points out, is that trade unions themselves were called criminal conspiracies in restraint of trade. Obviously, then, any action on the part of a trade union will be regarded with contempt.

Also I would take issue with St. Paul for just a moment, because I don't believe that he can document there has ever been a time in the United States experience, which is the one I think you quoted, when the picket line was somehow sacrosanct and sacred and therefore too powerful. I think the only occasion in history when we can demonstrate that that might have been the case is when we had people who were sufficiently concerned that they could not get justice from governments and others that they took the law into their own hands. I am referring to people like the Industrial Workers of the World, the Wobblies, and so on. When they put up a picket line, that meant you crossed it on pain of death or some such thing. But never was that operative in more than two or three states in any given time, and never did it become a nationwide phenomenon. Certainly we have never had anything comparable to that in Canada.

In short, the picket line has always been a weapon, frankly, that is not very powerful. What we are suggesting here is that the newly drafted section 85 will further diminish the limited power that might still reside in picket lines. That is our concern, Mr. Minister, and I think it is a valid concern. Certainly I don't state it here again for the sake of doing so, but rather because I think it is a fundamental issue.

It is merely one further evidence, if evidence were required, that the government is coming down on one side of

[ Page 1700 ]

the equation, rather than serving as an arbiter between interests. I admire the minister's repeated iterations that we have philosophical differences. One of the reasons I continue to speak is that I want the record to show the number of occasions on which those philosophical differences have been referred to. I think the people of the province ought to understand precisely what those differences are. So I hope the minister will continue to say that when he disagrees with me. Certainly I shall try to provoke precisely that response.

MR. CLARK: I will be brief, as always. This section, of course, as the minister has acknowledged, severely limits the right of trade unions to picket. I think it's simplistic. We don't get any points on our side for supporting the right of trade unions to picket. I think the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) made the point that you are in fact on the right side of public opinion on this one. It is clear that no one likes to have to honour picket lines, and no one likes picket lines anywhere that you have to give up a day's pay to do. Believe me, workers don't like to go on strike, even though some members might think otherwise. No one likes strikes or picketing.

One of the reasons the minister and the government have indicated for limiting picketing is the harm it does to the economy and to third parties. But I would argue very strongly, and I think history would show, that what happens when you limit the right of trade unions to picket is that you extend the length of the strike. The Minister of Energy (Hon. Mr. Davis) might appreciate an economic analogy. It's a bit like a zero sum game to some extent. If you try and push down one right here, then the union has a response over there.

What the government has done with this legislation is say that the government is going to intervene in all these different ways and try to push down all over the place the rights of workers to do this. "Oh, we're not going to allow this; we're going to push it down here. We're not going to allow that, we'll push it over here." What happens is that in human relations, in labour relations, you're not going to solve the problem, because frustration builds up and you end up with more violence or you make lawbreakers out of law-abiding citizens because the remedy is limited.

By limiting the right to picket, you're limiting the economic pressure on the employer, The pressure on the employees is clear; they don't have any income coming in. The only way you can put pressure on the employer is to picket the operations and picket any other operations of that employer that are doing work that was done by the struck employer — in other words, other branches of the operation. You have to apply economic pressure on the employer that is at least close to being equivalent to the pressure on the employees.

[5:30]

This section makes in British Columbia the toughest and tightest and narrowest picketing language in North America and, I am quite sure, in the western world. I understand the minister's concern, and I understand the concern of everybody regarding picketing. But the fact is that by trying to limit picketing you're going to extend the length of strikes in isolated instances. It's a bit like the accreditation of employers in the other sections of this act. What has happened in labour relations is that you try and have larger units. The theory is that it's better to have very few large strikes than constantly having hundreds and hundreds of small isolated strikes everywhere. What this clause does is similar. It says that we're going to have isolated strikes where the employees can put very little pressure on the employer, and they're going to go on for great lengths of time all over the place, instead of allowing reasonable secondary picketing, reasonable allied provisions, which allow the trade union to shut down more operations for briefer periods of time so as to put more pressure on the employers.

It seems to me, again, that the language of the government is inconsistent. It really does bother me. To say we have free collective bargaining, but not to allow free collective bargaining in all kinds of sections or to limit it so severely that it becomes no longer free, and then to say that you have the right to strike but you can't prosecute the strike in virtually any way except for so narrowly confined ways, really means that you no longer have free collective bargaining in British Columbia. You no longer have the right to prosecute a strike or the right to strike. All through this bill we see that time and time again. But this particular section really does violence to those rights, and really so severely restricts the union or the workers' ability to exert pressure on their employer that it means that you're faced with an option of not going on strike and accepting lower wages or whatever, or going on strike and staying out for very long periods of time. That's what's going to happen. We're going to see more disruption in terms of the lengths of strikes. We're going to see more.... If you make it illegal, it's going to happen anyway. We're going to see illegal actions on the part of employees to attempt to exert pressure on the employer.

It is so narrowly confined in this clause. We're talking sort of generally now about the clause, and I think as the hour goes on and tomorrow we'll get into specific sections, because they're so specific that we're going to want some assurance from the minister as to how they're going to be interpreted.

So I think that's the broad concern we have. There's certainly no political mileage for us to defend picketing, but if you're going to allow trade unions to exist, if you're going to allow people to go on strike, you have to allow some reasonable ability on the part of trade unions to prosecute the strike.

This is not reasonable. These kinds of limitations don't exist anywhere else in North America. And I might say that the 1984 amendments to the Code, which severely restricted secondary picketing and allied picketing, were already the strictest in Canada. This takes a quantum leap forward in terms of trying to disallow trade unions to prosecute a strike.

We're going to spend some time on this clause. We're going to argue very strongly that it's not in the best interests of British Columbia to have very lengthy strikes at isolated areas. It's not in the best interests, if you're going to allow free collective bargaining, to restrict it in this way. It really takes away, at least limits so severely, the right to strike that we might as well say that's what we're doing.

MR. MILLER: This is a very important section of the legislation. It comes down to an issue that so often, I suppose, during the course of clause-by-clause debate on this bill.... We've come to that point where the minister or our side, I suppose, says that there is a difference of philosophy, a difference of opinion or a disagreement, and this is surely one of them and an important one.

My experience is as a working person, and most often as a unionized working person, in the bush or in the woods of British Columbia, and in pulp mills and on tugboats.

[ Page 1701 ]

Throughout that, and throughout the whole process of learning about the union and fighting grievances at the shop steward level and higher, you come to realize that the only weapon, if you like, or the only strength that you have in the final analysis is the right to withdraw your labour.

That's an important right, and it was won over many, many years. It's recognized that unions or working people collectively have the right to withdraw their labour, and that's an economic tool that they can use in terms of their negotiations with their employers. Certainly when you talk about restricting that, you talk about taking away from the unions one part of their strength, so you have to agree that that shifts the balance.

Since we're talking about Bill 19 and, I think, unavoidably have made a number of references to the major labour dispute last year — the IWA-FIR dispute — it's maybe important to bring that into this picture. Because when we look at the major forest companies in British Columbia, we see that for the most part they are integrated forest companies. They make their money, their profits.... Their operations are made up of operations that mill wood for lumber, and also make pulp. There are other products or byproducts, but I won't talk about them; those are the two main ones. You just have to pick up any company report, and you'll see that you're dealing with an integrated forest company. Yet the amendments that you're proposing would tend to allow companies to say: "We're not integrated; in fact, every operation is a separate operation."

It's really a simple argument. I don't intend to talk a long time about it, because I'd just be repeating myself. But again, in terms of the perception among the labour community, among the working men and women of this province, they see this as simply another part of the legislation that takes away from what they have. To chalk it up to a difference of philosophy, I suppose, is a little too simple, because it strikes at the heart of working men's and women's ability to negotiate with some strength with their employers.

We tend to view strikes.... When we talk about labour's power, we tend to view that constantly in a negative way, and that's not necessarily the case. On the other side, companies have a great deal of power. We came to realize, in a number of places I worked, that they have a great deal of power, for example, when they decide to shut down an operation. Employees in that position are really left with very little alternative, or no alternative. Yet when it comes to the other side of the coin, labour trying to use its right....

I stress again that the only strength that labour has is the ability to withdraw their labour. After all, all the talking in the world will do no good — as we will see in some time when it comes to this bill, because the government intends to pass the bill. We on this side, with the number of members we have, can't stop that process. We can do a lot of talking about it. But when you come to negotiating contracts, I don't think that kind of imbalance is necessarily a good thing.

A person I've known for many years talked about an ideal labour situation. He said that maybe no contracts are the best. That may be a peculiar notion to accept, but what it would mean is that every issue would be resolved at the moment. Instead, we've built up a fairly large bureaucracy to deal with these issues, and we've seen in some instances where that bureaucracy has really not served the interests of the original drafters. For example, the B.C. Fed did an excellent report that has been forgotten in all of this: their critique of the way that matters referred to the board were really bogged down; it became the purview of lawyers and bureaucrats as opposed to solving the problem. With no contract and the employer cognizant of the fact that if the issue was strong enough people would take a walk, there would be a little more honest interplay in trying to solve that.

I'd be foolish if I stood and suggested that everything labour ever did was above board. Certainly there have been instances where labour has tried to over exercise its power. We have generally recognized that the parties should be left to work those out. Occasionally that does create some hardship in society. Earlier I was talking privately with one of the members who talked about that very issue: that other people can get hurt in these disputes. I don't want to be trite in saying that it is the price we pay. But it is the price we pay in a free society, much the same as those workers I talked about earlier who were the victims of a plant closure — they paid a price. So we all strive to make things better.

I think that through this kind of amendment we are simply making things worse for one party. You are removing — and I think it is worth repeating — part of the strength that labour has to negotiate freely and equally with employers, particularly in this province, where we have seen the forest industry in particular being given over in large measure — and this is quite a separate issue — to the big companies. The philosophy that dominated this province for so many years, and I think was actually the wrong one, was that the large integrated companies were really the best way to go, rather than the small, more flexible companies. I think we are now starting to recognize some of those mistakes. The province is in the hands and the forest industry is in the hands of the large integrated companies. To prevent employees from being able to go after the company in its entirety is a weakening of the opportunity that labour has to negotiate a collective agreement. I base all my remarks on the premise that there is absolutely nothing wrong with labour being able to exercise that right and get the best deal it possibly can for its members.

Really, when we go back in the scheme of things, there have only been a few instances of protracted and prolonged labour disputes in that industry. My memory only goes back, and I wasn't working in the industry at that time, to 1957, the year when there was a major strike, I understand, in the pulp industry. There have been a few others since then. Last year was one of those times, and it was created as a result of the effects of the recession on both the companies and the unions, and their coming to terms with that issue. I think they actually did, and I think they started to move away from the rancour of last year and to make some progress. Certainly over that issue, that strike and the previous one, the issue of secondary picketing was a hot one and was used extensively, as it will be in this industry.

Although it is removed under these clauses and we have yet to debate the details of each of the particular amendments, and we'll be getting into that — at this point we're dealing with the overall impact that we see — you can rest assured that there will be some hot and heavy and detailed debate on why the wording in some of these clauses has been chosen by the minister, what their impact will be and what possible interpretation can be drawn, as inevitably will happen when these sections are referred to the council or the board — I'm actually starting to learn to say "council" more than "board" now — after we've dealt with them in this House.

With that I'll conclude my remarks, and I will participate further.

[5:45]

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HON. MR. BRUMMET: I'd just like to raise a few comments. I know there has been a constant reference by members on the opposite side to the working men and women in this province. Now, there are a lot of working men and women in this province, some of whom would like to keep working at times when others don't want to. Are they not included, or is it a very specific group that you limit to the working men and women of this province? I think the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Miller) indicated that they are the labour organizations; the rest, apparently, in his opinion, are not working men and women.

MR. MILLER: Madam Chairman, on a point of order, at no time did I ever say that people who were not members of unions were not working men and women in this province, and I feel quite strongly that the member should withdraw that.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you, hon. member. Your point is well taken. Would the Minister of Education please continue.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: I'm sorry, Madam Chairman. I was drawing that inference from when the member associated it with: this is the labour organization's only recourse, and therefore the working men and women in this province were deprived of their rights. I guess in my perception I include a lot of others, including, say, perhaps ourselves, as working men and women.

The other thing is.... I'm a bit confused on this, because they say that somehow this is taking away the right to withdraw, or the point is made that people should have the right to withdraw their labour. Certainly I don't know how this section 1s taking away that right; they have the right to withdraw their labour. I guess interpolating somewhat that this section simply says that, does that mean that those who choose to withdraw their labour can then go over to another group where employer and employees have a good relationship, have no involvement in the dispute, have no connection really with the dispute? Can this one group that chooses to withdraw its labour then impose its views on the other people and take away from them their rights to carry on in their operation if they so choose? Surely that is not what the members are suggesting, but that is what they seem to be defending: that if one group is in dispute, they should have the right to go over and force others to stop working when they have no argument with their employer, when they're getting along very nicely.

No one is questioning the right of people to withdraw their labour. I think this section 1s trying to protect those people who have not made that choice, who want to go on working and who are not related. Certainly you can make a connection with anything. For instance, British Columbia Hydro serves electricity to almost every employer in this province. Does that make them eligible to shut down an operation? I also know of examples where.... There has been an argument in Prince George about the price of gasoline or something, and some pickets showed up at the Taylor plant, where there was no argument, where everything was working fine, and the people wouldn't go in and run the plant that day. Now why would those people have that right?

Interjection.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Then someone can impose an injunction and stop that. But if one or two people from outside an area....

MR. MILLER: Were they trade unions?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Yes. Both union plants. Because this picket showed up from Prince George, because there was a dispute going on, the union workers there, because of the sanctity of the picket line.... Only one or two people showed up with a picket sign, and the plant shut down. Those are the things, surely to goodness, that those members are not defending.

Interjection.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Certainly an injunction — it can be shown that it can't go on. But in the meantime, for a day the operation suffers. Those are the things that I would hope we can prevent in future.

It was interesting that the second member for Nanaimo (Mr. Lovick) raised the analogy of the Post Office. I think he said something to the effect that when the Post Office is on strike, you can't walk on any street in this country and get any sympathy for the workers. When the public feels that way, I would like to suggest that the member give some thought as to why. If the cause was that good for the workers.... And there has been sympathy for strikes; there has been sympathy for closures. But when a member can say, in defending all of this picketing and the labour organization's right to strike and that sort of thing, that you couldn't find any sympathy anywhere in the public, then perhaps some people should start asking themselves why.

MS. SMALLWOOD: I was giving some space to the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Miller), thinking that he might want to reply to the Minister of Education, but I think that what I'd like to do.... I am cognizant of the time, so I won't be able to complete everything now, and will again pursue the debate tomorrow morning.

But I'd like to make some comments in response to some of the things that the Premier has been saying about this bill, about — I think it pertains to the issue of strikes and this clause — this bill being directed at the trade union leaders. I'm paraphrasing some of the things the Premier has said, but I think that it reflects his intention, certainly: what this is about is those trade union leaders who are just too dam wealthy.

Again, the issue of taking tools away from the trade union movement, minimizing their strength. Who this really affects are the people covered under contracts who are hurting — the people who have not had raises or have had minimal wage increases, increases that haven't kept up to the inflation rate or to the increase in the standard of living over the last four or five years. It hurts them most, because they have the most to fight for. They have the most to gain by the increase in their ability to withdraw their labour and their ability to negotiate, having withdrawn their labour, by adding pressure on the companies by picketing other outlets that companies have.

I suppose this is somewhat predictable, but because the issue of industrial unions has been canvassed so well by members of the opposition, I want to raise the issue of the service sector and in particular the issue of women in organized labour. The majority of women working in this

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province are not covered by the collective agreement. I believe really strongly that that has a lot to do with the fact that women's wages in this province are lowest, and that has very much to do with the fact that they haven't had the protection men have had from organized labour.

I want to point out a couple of examples to the minister of where the restriction in the rights of picketing affects the service sector and women's jobs. Picking up from the issue of technological change that we canvassed yesterday, the new technologies that are in the workplace now empower employers to take information in the service sector and farm it out; to put it at another site. If one site goes down where there's a clerical function being performed, with the new technologies the corporation can take all of that workload and shift it over to another site. Given this legislation here, those workers will be unable to move on to that other site and affect the work that is theirs.

Because the minister seems so intrigued by the points that I'm making, I'd like to hear some of his comments, and I'll sit down and give him that opportunity. If he doesn't respond, I'll look forward to further comment tomorrow.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

HON. L. HANSON: It's a very interesting subject and I'm sure we will want to continue the debate tomorrow. With that, I would move that the committee rise and report progress and ask leave to sit again.

The House resumed; Mrs. Gran in the chair.

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

Hon. Mr. Strachan moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:57 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 43, in the proposed section 80 by deleting "and have failed to conclude a collective agreement".

SECTION 47, by adding "a provision of" after "the performance of".

WRITTEN ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

13 Mr. Blencoe asked the Hon. the Minister of Social Services and Housing the following questions:

1. The number of individuals in the Province who are currently receiving Handicapped Pension Income Assistance under Schedule C of the GAIN Act.

2. The number of individuals who had their Provincial Handicapped Pension Income Assistance reduced when the Federal Canada Pension Plan was increased in January 1987.

3. How many other Handicapped Pension Income Assistance recipients not under Schedule C had their income assistance reduced when the Federal CPP Disability Pension was increased in January 1987.

The Hon. C. H. Richmond replied as follows:

"1. Schedule C of the GAIN Regulations authorizes income assistance for persons living in long term care facilities, where those persons have insufficient income or assets to pay the daily user fee and/or the costs of clothing or other items of personal need. The Ministry does not classify income assistance provided pursuant to Schedule C as a GAIN for Handicapped benefit. Thus the answer to the question is that there are no recipients receiving GAIN for Handicapped benefits pursuant to Schedule C of the GAIN Regulations.

"2. The Ministry does not collect the type of information requested and therefore it is not possible to answer this question.

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"3. The Ministry does not collect the type of information requested and therefore it is not possible to answer this question. It is known that in May 1987 there were 3,597 recipients of income assistance who received some form of Canada Pension Plan benefits. These benefits could be disability pensions, survivors' pensions, orphans' pensions or retirement pensions but the Ministry records do not distinguish the type of pension received."