[ Page 1823 ]
Routine Proceedings
Ministerial Statement
Canada Post strike. Hon. Mr. Veitch –– 1823
Mr. G. Hanson
Oral Questions
South Moresby national park reserve. Mr. Miller –– 1824
Mr. Williams
Premier's former association with electoral boundaries commissioner. Mr. Sihota –– 1825
Industrial Relations Reform Act, 1987 (Bill 19). Committee stage. (Hon. L. Hanson) 1825
Mr. Gabelmann
Mr. Lovick
Mrs. Boone
Mr. Harcourt
Hon. Mr. Couvelier
Mr. Miller
Ms. A. Hagen
Ms. Smallwood
Mr. Sihota
Appendix –– 1844
The House met at 2:04 p.m.
Prayers.
HON. MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, I'd like the House to offer a special welcome today to Mr. James Randall. He's the vice-president of Inland Natural Gas, one of the corporations strongly supporting the Summer and Winter Games. He's here to offer the government support again for the Summer Winter Games.
MR. HARCOURT: Mr. Speaker, I would like to have members of the Legislature join in a very warm welcome to not just a distinguished British Columbian but a distinguished Canadian and a member of the international community, Dr. Hugh Keenleyside, who is here today.
He is, as you know, the first ambassador to Japan, established in Tokyo — our first embassy. He is one of the world's experts on Canada-United States relations. On top of that, he was a distinguished public servant at the UN and was our ambassador to the United Nations. As well, we’re all aware of the fact that in 1959 he returned to British Columbia, where he was the chairman of the B.C. Power Commission. He is a recipient of the Vanier medal and the Pearson Peace Medal, and is a Freeman of the City of Vancouver. He is retired now but still writing books.
To assist is another very distinguished Canadian, Miss Janet Craig, who is his editor; she is also an editor for many other well-known Canadian authors, including Pierre Berton. I would like you to welcome Dr. Hugh Keenleyside and Miss Janet Craig.
MRS. BOONE: Mr. Speaker, it's not very often that I get a chance to welcome people, as they seem to have a rough time making it down from Prince George. But I'm happy to tell you that today I have here my husband Art and my two daughters, Sonia and Tanis, his brother George from New Brunswick, and a friend, Kim Gallant, also from New Brunswick. And up in the gallery I see that we have a good friend and a good constituent of ours, Bev Christiensen. Would the House please join me in greeting them. Thank you.
HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: In the gallery this afternoon is Ray Vital, who was born and raised in Victoria and is now visiting to celebrate his parents' fifty-fourth wedding anniversary. He is now residing in Wellington, New Zealand. I would ask the House to please give him a warm welcome.
MR. GABELMANN: In the gallery this afternoon from Kyuquot are two good friends of mine, Richard Leo and Gail Muir.
HON. B.R. SMITH: Not being here when Dr. Hugh Keenleyside was introduced, I’d just like to add from this side of the House the welcome and the acknowledgment of his tremendous career in the public service, not only of British Columbia but also of Canada. He is a distinguished diplomat and author, and he served so well in our utilities field.
I would like to make an introduction. I would like to introduce the parents of one of our research officers, Christine Rushforth. Her parents are here with guests from the United Kingdom on holidays. Her parents are Rob and Margaret Mackenzie-Grieve from Cadboro Bay, and their guests from the United Kingdom are Fred and Gwen Kendall. Would the House please make them welcome.
MR. SIHOTA: In the not-too-distant past I served as president of the B.C. Young New Democrats.
Interjection.
MR. SIHOTA: In 1979, actually, for those of you who are interested.
In any event, it was something that I enjoyed. I'm pleased to note that in the gallery today is a very active member of our B.C. Young New Democrats. I would like to have the House join me in welcoming Stuart O'Grady here in the gallery today.
MR. DE JONG: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery this afternoon, accompanying my wife, is Mrs. Anne Jaarsma. They came to the Abbotsford area about two years ago. Her husband is a teacher in the Abbottsford Christian High School and teaches the second language in Canada. And by the way, it's not Dutch.
MR. RABBITT: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery today, for the first time, the love of my life, the mother of my children, my dear wife Eileen. I would ask the House to give her a warm welcome.
MR. SERWA: Mr. Speaker, this is an announcement under the good news category. Unless the media can pull something off and influence the Premier to hold a special cabinet meeting, the big challenge match — the softball game between the Social Credit caucus and the media — is on for tonight.
Ministerial Statement
CANADA POST STRIKE
HON. MR. VEITCH: I rise to make a ministerial statement. I wish to advise the House today that during this most unfortunate Canada Post strike, the government, through the postal services branch of my ministry, will extend to the public of British Columbia greater facilities to receive mail addressed to provincial government offices. The government is prepared to provide to every constituency office of every MLA who requests it a mail bag or other mail receptacle to receive mail from the public destined for provincial government offices within the province.
The public of British Columbia should be entitled to communicate by mail with the provincial government without having to engage expensive courier service or to employ some equally expensive alternative means. The public, in its dealings with the government, is the innocent victim in this dispute between Canada Post and its union, and the procedure that I am now proposing would mitigate this inconvenience as far as mail directed to the government is concerned. I stress again that this service will be provided only to those constituency offices that wish to be included.
I would ask that through your respective caucus offices you please advise my office as soon as possible, preferably
[ Page 1824 ]
by 6 p.m. today, which of your constituency offices wish to be included in this very worthwhile service.
MR. G. HANSON: First, I would like to thank the Provincial Secretary for notice on this ministerial statement, even though the notice was just a matter of seconds.
This is a very serious dispute that is occurring in Canada, and I think all members of this House recognize that a speedy resolution depends on good faith bargaining on the part of both parties involved in this matter. Certainly no member, no elected person anywhere not involved, should be inflaming or aggravating this serious subject. I know that the government will take measures to ensure that social assistance cheques, GAIN cheques and other requirements and entitlements of the seniors, disabled and so on of the province will be picked up — as the member has indicated, that's already in place, with consultation with his own employees.
I thank the member for the statement, and we hope that this matter is resolved with the greatest dispatch. All members of this House can contribute to that by not making inflaming or gratuitous comments on this subject.
Oral Questions
SOUTH MORESBY NATIONAL PARK RESERVE
MR. MILLER: My question to the Premier concerns the failure of negotiations with regard to South Moresby. There was a request from the Speaker of the House that those decisions be delayed pending an opportunity for the Premier to talk to the Prime Minister about this subject. That has not taken place; the Premier has declined to phone the Prime Minister. Will the Premier assure this House that he will call the Prime Minister, request a personal meeting and get the negotiations back on the rails for a national park reserve in South Moresby, which will not only provide significant benefits to British Columbians and people of the Queen Charlotte Islands but bring some international status to British Columbia as well?
[2:15]
HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, I have the opportunity to speak with the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister fairly regularly. As a matter of fact, I call Ottawa on such issues as a more equitable share in highways moneys for British Columbia, as a part of those moneys allotted throughout the whole of the country. I call the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister or others with respect to DRIE moneys to ensure that industry here is considered equitably with industries in other areas. Recently I called the Prime Minister with respect to the Vancouver Island gas pipeline and the fact that a billion and a half has been spent in Quebec alone while no moneys have been committed or allotted.... Nothing has been received by British Columbia with respect to these requests.
In this particular instance, the establishment of a park on South Moresby is important to all Canadians. Certainly when I visited Toronto a few months back, the issue was raised again and again by many people in the Toronto business community, and similarly by the business community in New York. During the past number of weeks, I have had calls from people throughout eastern Canada, and I even received a very lengthy telex from Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands.
If the Prime Minister is going to call me, I'll be ready for his call.
MR. MILLER: Supplementary to the Premier on the same subject. It seems to me, Mr. Premier, that you should be proud of getting that national and international interest. That's what we want — that kind of interest in British Columbia.
My question is in regard to the difficulty I and others have in accepting the sincerity of the government in terms of their commitment to negotiate a national park reserve on South Moresby. We seem to have been given a number of statements: it's on, it's off, it's on, it's off. The Premier himself said on May 15 that there would be a cruise-ship dock built in Sandspit and that there would be economic benefit. Would the Premier assure this House that he was sincere right from the beginning in trying to negotiate, and that he is committed to having a national park reserve in South Moresby?
HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, British Columbians are more sincere as a people about parks — national and provincial — than people anywhere in Canada. The proof is in the fact that we have more park per capita in British Columbia than they have anywhere else in Canada. As a matter of fact, we have more park than the size of Nova Scotia, and the park we're proposing to establish provincially on the Queen Charlottes is bigger than Prince Edward Island.
So British Columbians are very sincere about parks in British Columbia, but British Columbians are also concerned about the economy, and we can't toss away jobs that presently exist in the forest industry. We've got to pay more than just lip-service. We've got to show that we're concerned about jobs, and not every time there's a call from eastern Canada for still more parks to be added, to simply say we'll do so without due consideration to those loggers who are dependent on paying their mortgages and on meeting their other commitments. Their jobs are at stake. I and every member on this side of this House are concerned for those jobs, and frankly I must think about those loggers before I concern myself too much about downtown Toronto.
MR. WILLIAMS: To the Premier. Mr. Speaker, if this government was sincere, it would not use rubber numbers in their negotiations with the federal government, like the Premier talks about today and during the negotiations. Will this government create 3,700 new jobs related to parks over ten years, which the feds have agreed they would do as a result of their work, and $75 million in new labour income as a result of the park over ten years? Will this government equal the feds in terms of those proposals and those dollars?
HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, I don't know the question, except some remark with respect to 3,700 jobs in parks. No wonder that particular member has been so confused on the other numbers I've heard him quote over the last while.
The fact is that annually the return to the province, aside from the jobs that I've mentioned and the importance of them, is worth $50 million per year forever. These facts and figures are available in the ministry. They've been raised time and time again by the member sitting independently on the other side of the House.
Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member asking the question about these 3,700 jobs should look at some of those eastern
[ Page 1825 ]
writers quoted in the paper this morning. They mentioned $12 million for the ten-year period that the federal government was prepared to commit to the development of the park. If that's $12 million over ten years — if the hon. member across the way translates this into 3,700 jobs — they're going to get a lot less than minimum wage.
MR. WILLIAMS: That's 3,700 person-years over the decade — backed up with sound economic analysis. I ask the Premier, will this government spend $50 million on a Queen Charlotte Islands development fund that will include money for tourism, airports, roads, navigation, culture, small business development, facilities at Queen Charlotte City, Sandspit, South Moresby? Will this government have a $50 million fund for development and diversification in the Queen Charlotte Islands, as the federal government will?
HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, again the figures that are being used by the member are.... I don't know where they come from, but certainly there has been talk in these negotiations about a sum of money to be set aside for development on the Queen Charlottes to help the tourism industry — or the potential of it — over the years. The total figure that has been quoted is $106 million, and this is taken from a letter sent to me by the Deputy Prime Minister. That figure is to take care of the third-party interest. That figure is to take care of replacing at least some portion of the resource lost. That figure is also to take care of providing for the loggers who are going to be displaced, unemployed. And that figure is to take care of tourism infrastructure and park development.
When you split it all up, I can assure the hon. member that we, in our request from the federal government, are more than fair. Contrary to all of what I've read in the papers by some of the armchair journalists in their offices in Ottawa, I can assure you that in making that offer we as a people are presenting Canada and the world with a gift.
MR. WILLIAMS: To the Minister of Forests, Mr. Speaker. Is it not true that the province took the position that the third party should be compensated by some incredible $61 million for their forest interests?
HON. MR. PARKER: The negotiations have been with the Minister of Environment, and I defer to him, Mr. Speaker.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: No number, in terms of third-party compensation, was ever stated by the government of British Columbia. We told the government of Canada that in the case of absolving the issue of the transitional logging — which they couldn't go for on Lyell Island — in terms of the Western Forest Products TFL, in terms of the economy of Frank Beban and a smaller timber licence held by Mac-Blo, we would go to an independent accounting firm and have them determine what the economic loss would be. No number was ever mentioned; just an offer that it be independently and fairly determined.
PREMIER'S FORMER ASSOCIATION WITH
ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES COMMISSIONER
MR. SIHOTA: As everybody knows, His Honour Judge Fisher has been appointed to make recommendations with respect to electoral boundaries. My question to the Premier is this: has the Premier had any business associations with His Honour Judge Fisher in the past"
HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: I believe that it was about 1968 or 1969 when the hon. Judge was a lawyer and did some legal work for me. If the hon. member across the way is inferring from that that there is something wrong, I would suggest he immediately make an apology to me and to the judge.
MR. SIHOTA: Mr. Speaker, we will see as this story unfolds who will be making the apologies.
Will the Premier answer this question then? Is it true that the duration of the Premier's association with Mr. Fisher is in excess of 20 years? Is it not true that the Premier was involved in business and legal arrangements with Judge Fisher for 20 years before his appointment in 1977 to the bench?
HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, I have had no business arrangements other than that Judge Fisher back in 1968-69, and before then, did legal work for me. I don't know the exact date, but it certainly goes back to about then — maybe further. If the member is inferring from that that there is something wrong or fishy about the work the hon. Judge is doing. I would suggest that he apologize not just to me, but to the hon. Judge.
MR. SIHOTA: Mr. Speaker, it is not me who's on the defensive.
Another question to the Premier is this: will the Premier confirm that his association with Judge Fisher goes as far back as 1955?
HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Yes, Mr. Speaker.
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 62 as amended.
MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Chairman, the members should know that the Minister of Labour indicated to me privately that he would be absent from the House for the next 15 or 20 minutes. Let me just say that I understand that; and further to that, let me say that the Minister of Labour's participation in this debate to date has been exemplary. He has been here throughout, with the occasional smoke break, but we've had the first member for Vancouver South (Mr. R. Fraser) to help us out on those occasions. It's been a long debate and a difficult one, and I think that we want to take no political marks from the fact that the minister needs to be away for a few minutes now; we recognize that. Unfortunately, however, it's going to delay a little bit the proceedings this afternoon, so I hope his time away will not be particularly long.
[ Page 1826 ]
When we finished yesterday afternoon, Mr. Chairman, we were discussing, as you mentioned, section 137.96 of the Code, which is about halfway through section 62. It's the section entitled "Factors to be considered," and these are factors to be considered by arbitration boards when making final and binding settlements in labour disputes in the public sector. I started yesterday afternoon by talking about some of the issues and matters that the arbitration board would have to consider when making their award. I got as far as the end of subsection (1) and had not yet reached subsection (2).
[2:30]
Subsection (2) is a section which brings back the whole concept of ability to pay. This is a concept that was established in February 1982, in fact in the television address by Premier Bill Bennett of that day. It was enshrined in legislation in the Compensation Stabilization Act which followed and which was in place for the last five years or thereabouts. Ironically, of course, that same act was administered by Mr. Peck, who is now going to be in charge of this legislation.
When the minister introduced for first reading Bill 19 way back on April 2, one of the things he said was that there would be, as a result of this legislation, no more compensation stabilization program. The implication of that and the message that was taken to the public as a result of that statement was that wage controls in the public sector were gone. What we see in this section of the bill is that wage controls in the public sector are not gone whatsoever but in fact are here in place and in stronger measure than they were before. The only difference is that the employer has to go through a tortuous process to get an unresolved negotiation into arbitration.
That's a simple enough objective, and I think — and others agree — that any public sector employer who is determined that the dispute be resolved by arbitration will have no difficulty whatsoever in getting the dispute into arbitration. Once it's into arbitration, the board or whatever other process might be selected for resolution will have no option but to follow the law as defined here in this section, and this law will put all kinds of constraints on the arbitrator as to what kind of collective agreement can be reached as a result of arbitration.
These constraints will deny totally any opportunity on the part of an arbitrator to reach a settlement that that arbitrator feels might be appropriate and might be reasonable between the two parties, because all reason is gone. I say that because, as we see in the wording of this section, "the ability of the public sector employer to pay shall be the paramount factor." So all of the factors that I talked about yesterday, which were onerous enough in their own right, are subservient to this overwhelming factor, which is the ability to pay.
Every public sector employer in this province can very easily demonstrate that their ability to pay is constrained by their revenue, or by other factors. Most of those public employers will have their argument made for them by the Minister of Finance, because he will say, as has been said over the last few years, that there is no money this year for wages. He'll say: "You might get an increase for equipment; you might get some capital spending; you might get some other revenue or budget for matters relating to increased staff or other issues. But there will be no money to the hospital or to the school for wages, or to whatever other public institution controlled by the Ministry of Finance."
Once that is said, then the arbitrator, under this law, will have no choice but to say: "The ability to pay is not there, and therefore there can be no increase." Even though the cost of living might have gone up 3 percent, 4 percent, 5 percent or more during the previous year or two, even though comparable employees in private sector employment might have had pay raises, even though the prevailing level of increase is at a certain percentage, it doesn't matter. If the Minister of Finance — and the Minister of Finance alone — makes a decision that there shall be no money that can go to wages, then there can be no arbitrated settlement that includes an increase.
The Minister of Labour and government members have said that the compensation stabilization program is dead. If I were outside of this House, I would say it was a lie, but since I'm inside the House I can't say that. I have said it outside, but inside the House it's unparliamentary. If I've left an impression that I did, I withdraw.
MR. LOVICK: That's about as convoluted as the writing of the bill.
MR. GABELMANN: One has to do those crazy things to get away with being in order in this place.
Wage controls in the public sector are in place, and there is no process other than the Minister of Finance making a decision on what the wage increase could be if it goes to arbitration. If the Minister of Finance says he'll allow 1 percent this year for a wage increase, it will be 1 percent. If the Minister of Finance says it's going to be 10 percent, it'll be 10 percent. The arbitrator will be required to read this legislation and he will be told that the ability of the public sector employer to pay shall be the paramount factor.
Let there be no mistake about the fact that wage controls in the public sector in British Columbia are not only alive and well but are more in place than they have been during the years of Bill Bennett's restraint program. That is unfortunate for this province. We are already losing trained and skilled people in the professions who have worked for various agencies of government. We know that there is an outflow to Ontario of a variety of skilled persons. Why? Because their remuneration has not followed the market. There has been no marketplace economics in respect of wage and salary negotiations in British Columbia for these past five years. The marketplace has been eliminated by Social Credit. Ironically, Social Credit is the party that claims to believe in the marketplace but obviously does not when it comes to the economics of wages and salaries.
Unfortunately, as a result of this particular bill and this section, that wage control program will continue. Only the Minister of Finance will have the ability to make judgments about how much should be put on the table. With that in place, permanently by this legislation, we will have a situation where more of our skilled people will leave. Our public services will continue to deteriorate, as they have under the restraint program to date. That cannot be good for the citizens of British Columbia.
MR. LOVICK: I'm sorry the minister isn't in the House at the moment. I notice that two of his advisers are here, and I hope they shall pass on the concerns that we have about this particular section of the bill.
In another incarnation in another life, when I was a college instructor, I used to teach something about informal logic, as we called it, which also meant straight thinking or good reasoning. The terminology that we used to use in talking about logic and straight thinking was this: we coined
[ Page 1827 ]
the phrase "the non-controvertible hypothesis." A non-controvertible hypothesis is one that you can neither prove nor disprove and therefore there is no point in debating or discussing. The predicament I want to suggest in 137.96 is that we are presented here with the terminology that is precisely a non-controvertible hypothesis. The problem with that particular section, Mr. Chairman, is that the point made in this section of the bill is nevertheless treated by the government as if it is significant and important and has some capacity or intrinsic ability to solve a problem in negotiation. The tragedy is that it does not. I'm referring specifically to the phrase quoted by my colleague from North Island (Mr. Gabelmann), namely "ability to pay."
I want to refer the members of the House to the specific sections — two of them in 137.96 — subsection (2) and subsection (4), so that we all understand what we're talking about. Subsection (2) of 137.96 says: "Where the ability to pay of the public sector employer is in issue, then, notwithstanding subsection (1)" — in other words, all those other measures we use to adjudicate terms of settlement — "the ability of the public sector employer to pay shall be the paramount factor." Look closely, Mr. Chairman, at what triggers the paramountcy of ability to pay. What triggers it is the simple assertion: "where the ability to pay...is in issue." Let's ask ourselves in all honesty if anybody can for one moment suggest to us that ever in the history of the public sector the ability to pay has not been in issue. The answer to that is clearly, demonstrably and resoundingly no. Always, indeed, the ability to pay has been primary.
Further, if that by itself isn't sufficient to demonstrate the strength of that particular clause, the point is reinforced by sub (4). Let me quote sub (4), where we have an effort at definition — ostensibly definition: "For the purposes of this Part 'ability to pay' means the current ability of a public sector employer to pay based on" — and let's look at these again carefully — "existing revenues, requirements of any fiscal policies to which the public sector employer is subject and the impact of increased costs on the maintenance of existing levels of public service."
Well, if there were ever an absolutely classic case of carte blanche, surely that's it. This is the wide open field writ large. Clearly almost anything we can think of falls into the classification of "ability to pay." Certainly existing revenues are never enough. We know that every civic administration — every government administration — always looks beyond the horizons to other things and other jobs that ought to be done, but always comes up directly against the problem of insufficient revenue. Thus we have tax revolts. Thus we have people always complaining about too much in the way of taxes. In short, the current ability to pay based on existing revenues is a bogus argument, if we want to suggest that it's an argument that will only be invoked on certain occasions. My suggestion is that it will always be invoked. Necessarily, indeed, it will be invoked. That's just a fact, it seems to me.
[2:45]
The other point, of course, is the requirements of any fiscal policies to which the public sector employee is subject. Pretty clearly, that means every program that one is contracted to provide; everything, in short, one does, not to mention of course accommodating those programs and ensuring their continuation despite growing population, despite decay of public service infrastructure and despite inflation — which means we need more dollars to provide the services we provided earlier. In short, just as in the earlier clause, Mr. Chairman, the second one about fiscal policies to which the employer is subject also provides us, I suggest, with an absolutely incontrovertible case that says that every public employee can. as a matter of course — and with every justification, I might add — say that ability to pay is an issue in this dispute. Therefore ability to pay, by the wording, by the logic of this section of the bill, will become paramount.
Before I draw a conclusion from all that, which conclusion, by the by, is really merely a restatement of the points I've been making, let's look at the third one, just to emphasize and perhaps reaffirm the point: "...the impact of increased costs on the maintenance of existing levels of public service...." Again, what we're talking about once more, I suggest, is simply a means whereby any government can say that ability to pay is an issue and therefore necessarily paramount. The question, then, is whether ability to pay ought to be the only thing at issue in a dispute between the two parties.
I think the case I have presented, accurately and fairly, Mr. Chairman, is that given the language, and given the case I've sketched out, albeit briefly, the only conclusion we can draw is that there is one criterion for judgment evident here, only one means of adjudicating the dispute, only one factor to be considered, notwithstanding the list of others that are presented to us. The question is simply whether that one factor is sufficient for any kind of meaningful collective bargaining to take place.
I want to suggest that it is not sufficient. The reasons it is not sufficient are substantially the same as those I have delineated in my comments about the flaw of the language itself: namely, that you cannot ever demonstrate clearly that the public sector employer has the ability to pay. How can one do that? I would suggest that, using the criteria listed in (4), any public sector employer could quite legitimately say: "Sorry, friends, we can't afford to pay." They could invoke the ghosts of each of those three items I referred to, as it were.
The conclusion to all of that, then, it seems to me.... Again, I want to put the matter as charitably as I can. The conclusion to derive from all of this is that what 137.96 misleadingly referred to as factors to be considered means, in fact, that there is one factor to he considered, and that is ability to pay. I'm sorry, friends who are looking for higher wages and improved working conditions, you don't have a hope in Hades of getting improved working conditions or better wages, because never in the history of conflict between labour and management has it been the case that the management side of the equation will say: "Sure, we can afford to pay more."
The point, I would suggest, is fairly solid, fairly substantial. I hope that the minister's advisers will indeed pass that on, if for no other reason than that I would hate to repeat all that stuff.
MRS. BOONE: Mr. Chairman, I feel that this section really did affect me. It affected me considerably, as I was in a dual role in my previous life, I guess one could say, as a trustee. I was on the school board, faced with trying to deal with, from the administration point of view, from the employer's point of view, public service restraint — the compensation stabilization program. Then, as an employee of the government, I was having to deal with the compensation stabilization program controlling my wages. I found it very frustrating at both levels. I found it frustrating, as an employee of the government, to have my expenses increasing —
[ Page 1828 ]
my hydro, telephone and all of these things — yet to know that there was absolutely no hope of ever receiving a wage increase that would compensate for any of those increases that I was suffering.
On the other hand, as a trustee I felt very frustrated because the government was saying to us: "This is the number of dollars that you have. You may not give your employees a raise, but go and negotiate with them anyways." That was probably one of the most frustrating periods of my life, as we went through a period of going into negotiations with teachers saying,"We need more money; our expenses have increased," and we saying,"We have no money," the teachers saying,"We need more money," and we saying: "We have no money."
This went on for several years and it was a ridiculous situation. The bottom line was that the government did control the purse-strings and the government did control what was available to pay people. The silly part of it is that at the same time as we were saying the government has no money, that there was no money there, the employees of ours, and I as an employee, looked around and saw expenses going up. We saw the Coquihalla being built and we saw Expo being built and we saw northeast coal being built. We saw all kinds of things happening.
What it comes down to is a matter of the government then making decisions as to where their priorities are; and if the government makes a decision that their employees do not take precedence, that their employees do not warrant a wage, then all they have to do is not budget for it. It is a very simple process. You don't budget for it; therefore your ministry, your education department, whatever it is, has no money. Then they have no ability to pay, and it is right here. At that point you have no ability to pay; therefore there are no wages given to you.
So it is a frustrating situation. Given the fact that here the ability to pay of the public sector employer is at issue, then the requirements of the regulations and guidelines under the Compensation Stabilization Act to pay shall be the paramount factor in determining whether a contract will be approved.
That means that every public sector wage will be controlled by Treasury Board; that negotiations that will be taking place between the BCGEU and the governing bargaining agent will be a sham; that school boards will no longer be able to negotiate, that they will be in the same situation that they have been in the past of spending government money, public money in a process that is a total sham. I said that when I was a trustee; I say it now. It is a sham when you go into a bargaining process knowing that you have no ability to bargain, you have no ability to negotiate. And there is no ability to negotiate as long as the government controls the purse strings and can either say,"We are going to put some money into this budget for salaries" or "We are not going to put money into this budget for salaries." Therefore there is no ability to pay.
One of the frustrating parts about that whole thing was that they said that under the restraint program public sector wages had to be controlled because they were being increased at monumental rates and therefore were adding to inflation, high inflation. So wages were controlled and they were kept down. It ended up that inflation eventually overcame the wage increases but inflation did not go down. Inflation never went beneath what the wage increases were, which shows that inflation was not tagged to the increases in the wages of the employees.
We are seeing some of the results of that capping of the wages, of the holding down of wages that this province is suffering right now. You can see that when you look at your social worker wages, when you look at the problems that we are having in maintaining our social workers and keeping them in their professions and in recruiting social workers. We are not able to do that because their wages were controlled, because their wages have not been kept up to inflation.
We are seeing that with our nurses right now, and for the first time our nurses have a slight increase. But we have a tremendous nurse-shortage problem in this province.
HON. MR. PARKER: It's easy for you to say.
MRS. BOONE: Yes, it is easy for me to say. We have a tremendous problem. It used to be that it was just a local problem in the northern half of the province, but it now occurs throughout all of the province, and that is happening because nurses' wages have not kept up. They are not comparable to other parts of the country, and they certainly are not comparable to other parts of the U.S.
We see that with our teachers; we see that with physiotherapists. You can go through just about any professional group that has been involved in bargaining with the government and all of them are in the same situation. They have wages that are below what they have in other parts of the country. They have wages that are below what they have in the United States. We are losing our professional people at a tremendous rate and we are not recruiting any new ones. That is a shame for this province. It's a shame we are not recognizing one of the most powerful assets we have, the asset of our people. The money that we put into training those people....
[Mrs. Gran in the chair.]
Out of the physiotherapists whom we trained at UBC last year — and that is a program that cost this province money — one of them stayed in British Columbia. The rest went to other parts of the country, regardless of the shortage we have here, because their wages are better, their conditions are better and they are not overworked. The same thing goes for social workers. Twelve social workers came up north into the Prince George area and were interviewed. One stayed and 11 went to Alberta, where they had a wage that was far better than what we could even hope to offer them. So our social workers continue to be pressed, continue to be overworked.
This is just an incredible thing, and it's something I spoke about yesterday. I spoke in terms of honesty and I was called to order. So I'll do what my colleague says: I'll retract that at this point. But there is a problem here because the government is saying that the compensation stabilization program has been removed. It was in great announcements to the public when they announced that this bill was coming in. They said: "The compensation stabilization program has been removed. Government employees be happy, teachers be happy, because this thing that has been around your neck has been removed." Yet here you have put in a section 1n this act that is the very epitome of what the compensation stabilization program was about.
It is important that people understand what this will do. This is not something that is going to add to the province; it is
[ Page 1829 ]
going to add to our problems. You in the government will be making all decisions regarding wages in the public service. You can pretend and you can say that school boards will have the ability to negotiate. You can pretend and you can say that government agents will be able to negotiate with the BCGEU. But the fact is that it's already written. It's right here in black and white that you have the ability to set the budget. Therefore you have the ability to determine how much anybody is going to get in a wage increase, and that no wage increase will be given to anybody unless the ability to pay is proven.
[3:00]
The other section I just want to go back a little bit on here is 137.96(l)(b) — it's not back too far: "...the need to maintain an appropriate relationship between occupations or classifications within the employer's employment...." That part says to me — and I think some of my colleagues have already mentioned this — that this virtually eliminates any opportunity to implement a wage equity program. Wage equity is something that our party is committed to. There is definitely a disparity in wages, and I don't think anybody out there would deny that. The average traditional female job is paid much, much less than the traditional male job. This section of the act would make it impossible for anybody to implement any program that would try to take care of that disparity, to lessen the gap, so that women would be able to earn wages equal to their ability, so that women would be able to earn wages that put them above the poverty line. This section says that you need to maintain that appropriate relationship. I say that we need to change that. We need to reduce that. We need to have programs that will make sure that wage disparities are reduced, so that people are paid according to what they are worth. But this section does not allow that to happen.
It's unfortunate the minister is not here, but I'll.... Here he comes, just at this time. He must have known I was wrapping up. Thank you for coming, Mr. Minister. I will end at this point by saying that I hope that you read the Blues, and that you understand what this section means to public service employees, and how much control you are giving the government. If you really felt that this was important, why not just do away with your bargaining committees and allow your government employees and teachers to bargain directly with Treasury Board? Because henceforth it will be Treasury Board that will be making all decisions regarding wage increases for any of the public service employees.
MR. HARCOURT: Madam Chairman, I am here to give three problems that we face with the ability-to-pay matter in section 137.96, and two areas in particular. One is that "the ability of the public sector employer to pay shall be the paramount factor," and the impact that has on municipal governments. The second is 137.96(l)(b): "the need to maintain an appropriate relationship between occupations or classifications within the employer's employment."
We would hope that this section would be reconsidered, because it has the following negative impacts: (1) the ability-to-pay provision severely harms the public sector; (2) this section breaches a United Nations treaty obligation of Canada; and (3) it severely impinges upon any potential pay equity legislation and is anti-women: it is going to make it very difficult for women to break out of the economic and job classification ghettos that they have been in for far too long.
The first problem that this section raises is that it continues CSP. It's really CSP II. Jaws II is what it is: it munches up the public sector once again. Now we've gone through three years of compensation stabilization, and we're extending it.
Basically what we're looking at is a repeat down the line of what happened in this country from 1976 to 1981. I can tell you, as somebody who was on the firing-line in 1981, it is a disaster. It is a disaster for morale and for the effectiveness of the public service. In 1976-81 we had the three years of wage and price controls extended for two years into the provincial sector, a huge increase in inflation and living costs, with a lid being kept on the public sector. It dramatically distorted the relationship of the public sector employees to the private sector. So when they were taken off in 1981, there was this pent-up demand from employees in the public sector to get back some of the lost standard of living that they had suffered through over the five years when their living standards were cut dramatically.
All public sector employers faced a very dramatic time. For example, we in the lower mainland, Vancouver, had a three-and-a-half-month strike. It was a bitter, nasty strike that severely harmed the relationships between the employers, the elected councils, and the employees and the public.
This is where we're headed again. All this does is forestall that imbalance that is created between the public sector and the private sector. It's Jaws II: it's going to come along like a great big white shark and munch away at the public sector in big bites when it comes off. All it's doing is forestalling the inevitable conflicts that will come. I don't like to see that happen, because that negative impact in a public sector is something that we as British Columbians should not want to encourage.
I think most British Columbians realize that public sector employees and employers, mostly elected people who are on councils, who are on school boards, who are involved in hospital boards or are here as Members of the Legislative Assembly and the government, like to have a good working relationship. This doesn't make that possible. It basically allows us to cop out, to be not accountable to our electors. It says we throw up our hands, we don't have any money to pay for the necessary increases in the cost-of-living increments to our employees. It says we can't introduce any new programs. If we do that, it pits teachers against parents and the needs of the children. It pits the citizens against their engineering staff, or maintenance installers. And it sets up a whole bunch of very negative conflicts in British Columbia.
On top of that, it ignores well-established traditions we've built up in this province. A number of us here are from municipal councils, and we know that the public sector does not lead in terms of compensation. We all work on a very complex averaging of wages and salaries — a composite of the public and private sector. If we need to have any more information, I'm sure Graham Leslie, the former Deputy Minister of Labour under both this government and the previous government, could give full information on that. He was the chief negotiator for the regional district when I was the mayor of Vancouver.
We went through this during the very difficult three-and a-half-month strike, which was basically a catch-up after five years of the compensation stabilization program and the wage and price controls that the Prime Minister at the time, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, said he would never introduce. This government said it wasn't going to introduce this continuation of
[ Page 1830 ]
wage and price controls. It was going to be a "fresh start." Well, the fresh start isn't happening. We're continuing with that injustice, and those inequities are going to explode back at the public sector and public sector employees somewhere down the line.
We urge the minister to reconsider this copping out and pushing off the burden of dealing with the imbalance between the public and private sector to a future Legislature. Let's deal with it now. Let's prevent that problem from happening right now. Let's deal with those injustices.
It's also a practical problem, Madam Chairman, because what happens when you create an artificial lid on the public sector is that it makes it more difficult to keep good people working for the public sector because they get behind their counterparts in the private sector. We all know that the public sector now is not composed of a bunch of clerks with quill pens. People in the public sector now are very highly skilled technicians, trades people and professionals.
I'll just run through a municipality like the city of Vancouver, where the police now have to go through an extensive training program through the Justice Institute of B.C. They have a six-month training program and another year after that. They take upgrading programs all the way along the line. They have a very difficult, complex technological job, as well as moments of extreme risk.
Fire officials have to deal with new forms of construction and new materials and safety standards. They have to deal in a big city like Vancouver with the congestion. They have to deal with highrises. They have to deal with industries on a strategic waterfront. They have to deal with a risk factor that is the highest of just about any other occupation, including falling and logging.
Look at the kind of talent it takes in a planning department now — the range of people it takes to deal with earthquake standards, zoning problems at an interface of commercial, industrial and residential neighbourhoods. Look at the kinds of skilled people you need to deal with multibilliomiollar developers, who come with all their high-priced help, to make sure that it's quality development.
We're not just talking about clerks with quill pens; we're talking about very talented, skilled professionals. Finance departments have accountants and computer programmers for some of the most complicated record-keeping around. The internal-external auditing, which we could use a lot more of here at the provincial level to deal with some of the problems that one of the members here has faced in the past about allowing travel allowances to build up.... That would never happen at the municipal level because of the very sophisticated controls with the internal/external auditing that takes place. Those people could go into the private sector if there are not commensurate wages and salaries in the public sector.
This artificially depresses the salaries, wages and benefits of very talented and absolutely essential employees. It will make it harder for public sector employers to maintain the quality of their staffs and the ability to run municipal councils. I could say the same thing for school boards, hospital boards and this provincial government — when you look at the change in the nature of the public sector workforce over the last ten to 20 years. This provision will distort salaries and benefits, and make it difficult to attract and keep good people. I don't think we want to see that diminution of the public sector. Combined with other provisions in Bills 19 and 20, where there has been a loss of the security and protection that has been built up over the last 40 or 50 years, it's also going to make it increasingly difficult to maintain the morale and continue the employment of our very skilled public sector employees.
[3:15]
As well, it's going to turn elected people at the local level into financial eunuchs. It's going to take away their ability to be accountable to their electors. More and more, at the school and hospital level, budgets are entirely determined by Victoria, and the ability-to-pay argument is entirely dependent on what the treasury in Victoria gives people. And that is basically going to mean that they throw up their hands: "We're just here to pass messages back and forward between the provincial government and our employees." So people are going to lose, not the enjoyable thrill — sometimes — of balancing accountability to electors and the needs of employees.... but the ability to make decisions in a field where their reason for being involved in public life is a substantial one rather than that of just sitting there as a financial eunuch, with no ability, to set budgets or negotiate. They're just severely restricted by this provision in Bill 19, section 137.96(2): "Where the ability to pay of the public sector employer is in issue, then, notwithstanding subsection (1), the ability of the public sector employer to pay shall be the paramount factor." This section 1s going to harm the public sector and the citizens of this province for all of those reasons.
It also, as I said, Madam Chairman, is a breach of Canada's United Nations treaty obligations and responsibilities under article 3 of the 1948 International Labour Organization convention. I think we should, instead of breaching those treaty obligations, be trying to meet them and trying to find ways for employers and employees to improve conditions for people who work in this province. Rather than taking away, we should be trying to improve. I think it's unfortunate that we are a backwater of reaction in this area, that we are breaching this UN treaty obligation. I don't think that's what we should be doing in this province.
But just as important.... I would hope that the minister would remember, when this bill is reconsidered by himself tonight and by the caucus this weekend, the impact it's going to have on over half the population of this province — the women of this province. It is going to freeze women into the ghettos they are in in terms of low-paying jobs. It is going to make it very difficult, if not impossible, to introduce pay equity programs. I would hope that this section would be removed. "The need to maintain an appropriate relationship between occupations or classifications within the employer's employment" makes it next to impossible to look at equal pay for work of equal value, to make those very complex assessments that employers are making all over this country now. I don't think you're going to be doing the women of this province any favour if that provision stays. So I would urge that it be given full consideration by the minister, as another area to amend or withdraw, so that we don't have women being kept in the unequal position that they have been in for far too long.
HON. MR. COUVELIER: Madam Chairman, I'm delighted to have this opportunity to make a few comments in response to some of the points being made by the opposition during discussion of these sections. One of the difficulties I've had in learning the practices and customs of this House is the almost total abuse of facts and truth that are exhibited by
[ Page 1831 ]
most of the debaters, primarily on issues that are so easily verified and determined upon a little bit of investigation. I soon stopped trying to keep track of the outrageous statements of alleged fact that were being made by the members of the opposition, because I didn't have enough paper and I didn't have enough ink in my pen. It doesn't seem to have any relevance; fact doesn't seem to have any bearing whatsoever. All you've got to do is keep the lips moving and consume the time available, and sooner or later you can sit down. But to make sure that I don't fall into the same temptation, easy as it is, I just want to talk about some specific points I heard mentioned here.
It was said that the Minister of Finance will be determining the settlements henceforth in the public sector because of this ability-to-pay question, and it was said that the ability-to-pay question will always be an issue. Ipso facto, given the fact that municipal governments and most local elected bodies have a budget to work with, and they're not allowed to print money or exceed budgets, ability to pay will always be an issue. But the speakers have totally ignored the fact that these sections deal only with issues when they get to this point of arbitration.
Surely, if the concern of the opposition members is so great, it seems to me ipso facto that the participants in a dispute would be eager to settle it through the normal collective bargaining process, which is what this government stands for, which is what we said the bill was intended to do and which is what the bill will do — get some sanity back into the collective bargaining process. Surely the issue suggested here — that all of these points will be considered in a collective bargaining issue — is not the case.
We're only talking about these being applicable points at matters of arbitration. Anybody walking in and listening to this thing would assume automatically, listening to the speakers from the opposition, that it applied to all labour negotiations. It certainly does not. It applies only to those cases where they can't reach a settlement.
Someone has to bring some sanity back into these discussions, and we're laying out the criteria by which sanity will be restored. You're saying that it will be abused and misapplied. Surely you have to at least let it try.... Let's see if that evolves. You're always taking the position that it will never work.
Madam Chairman, I heard some comments here by one of the speakers that he was on the firing line in earlier days, so he speaks with great knowledge. He was not on a firing line; he was sitting on the Maginot Line. If you want to look at settlements in the public area, we've had more problems in trying to get some relativity into that whole process by some of the awards that have been made in the Greater Vancouver Regional District settlements.... Firing line, baloney! Maginot Line is a more accurate description.
This same speaker talked about public sector living standards being cut "dramatically." My goodness, what does he think has been going on out there in the real world? The private sector has been unemployed, let alone wondering how much money they're going to get as a wage increase. Where have you been? You've been in this little cocoon that seems to have no relevance whatsoever to what's going on out there. People are having — were having, in those times — a difficult time holding onto their jobs. They were not prepared to waste a lot of public time and effort talking about how much more they were going to get. They just said: "For goodness' sake, keep us employed." My goodness! Cut dramatically — of all the absurdities!
You also said this will make "financial eunuchs" out of public employers. Madam Chairman, if the compensation stabilization program did not make financial eunuchs out of public employers, how is it in the wildest stretch of imagination that this change could do so? This only applies in cases of arbitration. It isn't universal, and the free collective bargaining process will work, providing it's given a chance.
There was some comment about women's issues. Madam Chairman, clause (c) here, as I read it, enshrines in legislation the fact that "the skill, effort and responsibility required of the employees and the nature of the work performed" have to be recognized. So surely this is a step forward. This is a move to ensure that there is some balance, some relativity maintained, some recognition of the fact that the public does not have a bottomless purse. Furthermore — I'll say it again — it only applies in cases of arbitration, where the collective bargaining process has failed.
Madam Chairman, I think these sections are well written, well researched, and well thought out. The objections I've heard by sitting in for the last hour don't impress me in the least.
MR. HARCOURT: Madam Chairman, I hope that the hon. member will turn up his speaker, as he retires to do some deep breathing and to meditate upon the exaggerations which he has just uttered in such an utterly inane way. I was hoping to remind him that when he was the mayor of Saanich, the settlements that we got out of that municipality used to drive the rest of us in British Columbia wild trying to keep up — part of the problem we faced in this province with him just shovelling the money off the back of the truck to his employees. For him to stand up here now and make these holier than thou pronouncements is a little much, to say the least.
Talking about the real world in regard to this bill, I hope that these section 137's and the ability to pay, and the way it has restricted the emancipation of women, is something this government caucus will consider as they retreat to fantasyland this weekend, as they retreat into the castle and draw up the drawbridge to escape from the alligators in the moat.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I really don't feel that those comments are relevant or called for in this debate.
MR. HARCOURT: Madam Chairman, I'm commenting on the section before us. Your colleague from Saanich and the Islands is the one who thought we should be dealing with the real world, and I'm saying that the Social Credit caucus should do just that. We're going to be meeting in the Biltmore, which is a good hotel in Vancouver in my riding. That is not getting me any publicity whatsoever.
The point I'm making is, in that fantasyland please cogitate about some of the fine arguments you have heard here today and during the days that we have debated section 137.96 and all the other sections in this act about how this particular section and the bill are going to harm British Columbia. They are untenable; they are unworkable. They are going to do a great deal of harm. So have a little moment of reality as you retreat into fantasy this weekend.
MR. MILLER: I will be brief, Madam Chairman, because some of my colleagues want to express their opinion
[ Page 1832 ]
further on this section. In view of the remarks by the Minister of Finance — rather hyperbolic remarks, in my opinion — I wonder if the Minister of Labour could respond to the Minister of Finance talking about sanity and whether we could refer to section 137.96 as the sanity clause in this bill. We will be looking forward to further comments from the Minister of Finance on the theory of relativity when we get into dealing with the health estimates.
[3:30]
HON. L. HANSON: I appreciate the courtesy given me by the opposition. Certainly I was listening to the speaker and the kind remarks of my critic. I would also like to acknowledge that the debate, although sometimes maybe a little repetitious in my opinion, has certainly been a good one and well thought out. I recognize all the members on the opposite side for that.
I would have to agree that the debate has piqued the interest of the Minister of Finance. I think it's excellent that this House carries on in that manner. I would also have to acknowledge, in listening to my critic, that he did acknowledge that the ability to pay only comes about as a result of arbitration. But I would like to point out that arbitration also comes about if the two parties agree to go to arbitration, or if the commissioner is told to stop a dispute, a work disruption. Certainly parties can reach an agreement on their own, and there is no doubt that a lot of agreements will be reached; and the question of ability to pay, of course, doesn't come into consideration when the parties have reached such agreement.
There is no question that arguments may be made on ability to pay during the negotiations, but if the parties do agree, that doesn't become an issue. In requiring an arbitrator to pay attention to the ability to pay if it is an issue in the bargaining, all we're really doing is ensuring that the third party, the arbitrator, produces a decision that is as close as possible to one that the two parties might have negotiated on their own. But that is a requirement.
It is interesting to note that the province of Manitoba has just introduced a bill — I think it's titled in their legislature Bill 61 — which is an act to amend their labour relations act. I just might point out that in it, if I can quote from it, it says: "Factors to be considered in making a decision in the case of...." I should just preface that with saying that the statute introduces a new section dealing with a final offer selection, In the final offer selection, the factors to be considered in making a decision is where, in the opinion of the selector, the employer has provided sufficient information in respect of the employer's ability to pay. So it's interesting to note that the concept of ability to pay in British Columbia is being considered by the Manitoba legislation.
I'm not sure which members mentioned these various things, but there was some concern about the need to maintain an appropriate relationship. I think the suggestion was made that that will kill pay equity. Pay equity certainly will be considered under section 137.96(l)(a), but considered in light of, as an example, rates in similar industries. If I can use the example of the health care community, pay equity can be considered in that as an example.
It's also considered under section 137.96(l)(c), in which the words "the skill, effort and responsibility required of the employees" appear. Speculation that that will, in fact, remove any ability for pay equity in terms of.... I think the reference was to the ladies in the working community. I really can't get that interpretation, nor can I agree with that conclusion that will result from that. Certainly in the negotiation that goes on between the management and organized labour they will continue to consider those things, I am sure, in their negotiations across the table; but we're simply making it clear that it's a requirement in the case of those arbitrated settlements, as I mentioned earlier.
I just want to add that the suggestion that Victoria is controlling — and I think the Leader of the Opposition made that suggestion — municipal budgets.... I think the provincial government does have a responsibility to peruse municipal budgets, but I am sure that most municipal councils would be quite upset to know that they couldn't set their own budget within their means.
MR. GABELMANN: Just a few comments. First of all, I must say I was delighted to have the Minister of Finance enter the debate; we had a more spirited response. That's not to criticize the Minister of Labour; it's a different style, and we all have different styles. It's nice to have a little bit of energy injected into the debate once in a while, too, even if everything he says is wrong. It's also interesting, Madam Chairman, that the Minister of Finance was here, and was listening. The Minister of Labour was not here. The Minister of Labour heard what was said, and the Minister of Finance did not. So the logical conclusion of that is: it's better not to be here, if you want to hear what was being said.
Certainly the Minister of Finance ignored totally the fact that we started this afternoon by saying that ability to pay only comes into play when there's an arbitration or an imposed settlement. We acknowledge that. If it's a freely reached settlement, then it doesn't come into play. We accept that. He didn't listen, though.
MR. MILLER: The ability to listen.
MR. GABELMANN: Yes. That's something you can't legislate either, I guess: the ability to listen. However, I don't want to make too much light of that. I just want to deal with some of the issues.
First of all, in response to Manitoba's legislation. It should be known — and I'm sure the minister knows, because he's got the bill in front of him; I don't have it in front of me — that the final-offer selection mechanism, which can come into play in two certain stages of a dispute, only comes into play when both parties accept and agree to it, when both parties say: "Yes, that is the mechanism that we choose in these certain days of the dispute. We choose to use that final offer selection as a dispute resolution mechanism." And that's very different, because here, of course, the decision to go to final-offer selection or any other kind of final solution is one that is made by the commissioner or by the IRC. That kind of power is not being given to the government, the Ministry of Labour, or any other agency — the Manitoba labour relations board, or anybody else — in their legislative amendments. Further to that, the legislative changes that are being proposed in Manitoba are as a result of direct requests from both management and employee groups. Both trade unions and employers have asked for these particular changes, and they flow from that. Again, that's a very different situation from that which exists in British Columbia.
Both the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Labour make a lot of the point that ability to pay only comes into play
[ Page 1833 ]
if there's an arbitrated settlement. It's a little more complicated than that. It's true that if there is a freely reached or freely negotiated settlement that does not attract the attention of the IRC, then ability to pay is not in place. Of course, if there is a directive from the Ministry of Finance that says there's no money this year in the budget for wages, then it's going to be very difficult for the public employer to provide that kind of settlement. We're not talking so much here about municipalities as about school boards, hospitals and other services that are more directly funded by the province. In fact, it's not just in pure arbitration that factors to be considered come up. They come up in various sections of this. Fact finders are required, in their fact-finding, to follow the criteria established by 137.96. Fact-finders can be appointed in respect of a collective bargaining dispute. There may not be a strike; bargaining may still be continuing. It may be that the parties have decided that a strike or lockout is not in their best interests, so they continue to try to reach some resolution even though there's obviously a dispute. A fact-finder can be appointed at that point, and any recommendations that the fact-finder comes up with must take into account ability to pay. Similarly, the duties and procedure of a public interest inquiry board are also...the inquiry board is also required under that section to have due regard to the interest arbitration criteria established by section 137.96.
Throughout this whole series of available mechanisms, if a public sector dispute ends up being dealt with by the IRC, then ability to pay comes into place. That is, I think, an unassailable argument which the Minister of Finance chose either to ignore or not to understand. The fact is that any public sector employer who either doesn't want to give a wage increase or feels they can't, given the budget that they've been allocated by the government, will end up having to go to some form of resolution through the IRC and will therefore have the ability to pay imposed upon them. Clearly, ability to pay is the major factor, and it's going to happen more often than not in public sector disputes, given a continued policy of the government to say to those public bodies: "These are the number of dollars you're going to receive. These are ones you can use for wages, and these are ones you cannot use for wages."
If that kind of a policy continues — and it's in place now — then we're going to have more, not fewer, public sector disputes. Those disputes will end up in front of the IRC, and when they do, ability to pay will be the principle. When that happens, you have wage controls. That's essentially our argument, and despite what the Minister of Finance says — or others — I think that argument is actually unassailable.
MS. A. HAGEN: The context in which we are dealing with this particular clause is some kind of a transition from the Compensation Stabilization Act and its guidelines. One of the things the minister advised the public about in the first press releases that he made in respect to this act was that this act is disappearing. I want to note that, because as my colleague for North Island has just stated, we really have a fairly pervasive element of ability to pay in this act. I think it is going to have an effect on labour relations in a significant number of ways. I want to try to develop that for a few moments, and then ask the minister some questions about how he sees the Compensation Stabilization Act aspect of this bill being implemented.
[3:45]
When you look at this clause that we're debating, and also at clause 66, there is within the province a very large number of bodies associated with government through its own government employees' organization; associated with government because this Legislature passes the laws which govern the activities of municipalities, regional districts, school boards, hospital boards, universities, etc. The schedule in section 66 involves a whole range of other bodies: Crown corporations and governing bodies such as regional districts, and some strange inclusions like the Glendale Lodge Society, which must in some way be different from a community care facility, which is listed among the definitions in the first part of this particular clause. We're talking about a very large number of people who will be affected by this public sector clause. I have no idea of the number of employees who might be involved. I'd be interested to know if the minister has any idea from his advisers of the total number of employees who come under this particular clause and public sector dispute resolution.
We're coming out of the Compensation Stabilization Act and its implications, and there is no question that that phrase "ability to pay" and the way in which it has been manifest is going to have an effect on our industrial relations and our bargaining for a good deal of time. I support the position that the second member for Nanaimo (Mr. Lovick) took earlier in our discussion this afternoon, that the ability to pay has always been a major factor. But it has been altered. Those words mean a different thing in people's minds now. They do not mean that the employer, freely negotiating with his employees, establishes his ability to pay, and then that is discussed across the bargaining table. In fact, ability to pay has come to mean to people what the government says: it will provide for wages in the various ranges of public sector employment listed in this act. It has very much come to mean in the public's mind something that is established on the basis of a unilateral decision that may or may not relate to cost of living, that may or may not be something that can be examined on the basis of information provided to the parties. It is a unilateral statement of ability to pay, and that has given to that phrase a whole range of perspectives that make it, in the coin of the realm, a very abused phrase and one in which there is no trust as to the real ability to pay.
I see that from the perspective of having worked on a school board from the time of the six-and-five regulations that applied in the federal wage guidelines through to the period of the Compensation Stabilization Act, which will, if I recall correctly, be phased out in the education sector in October 1988. I came to know that that particular phrase, as it was used in the context of the Compensation Stabilization Act, had very little meaning related to ability to pay. It was something that was convoluted around finance formulas and changing regulations, and I think there is a very real fear that that whole realm and range of dealing with negotiated fair wage settlements is going to continue. I don't think the minister has been able to persuade us, either through the legislation itself or through his pronouncements, that ability to pay will not be simply something that stems from a Treasury Board decision that these are the amounts of moneys that it will make available. In many instances those will be direct grants, whether it's to the Metro Transit Operating Company, health care facilities, hospitals or school boards.
Then we get into the whole issue of comparability of wages and how we can rectify about ten years of ability-to pay and wage restraint arguments. How will we arrive at
[ Page 1834 ]
settlements that will be fair and equitable when we look at the disparities that exist between various professions within the province at this time? If we were to take an objective look at wages paid to teachers, nurses, social workers, physio- and occupational therapists — just to name a few of the people who are highly qualified, who have extensive training, usually four or five years' minimum at the university level — we would find, as a result of some of the factors that have been in play with ability-to-pay arguments, that there are absolutely amazing discrepancies in the wages that are paid in these areas. This clause, I fear, will entrench those kinds of discrepancies even further.
The result of that is going to be the result that we see very often these days, and that is that people in those particular professions, trained in this province at very considerable cost to us and very necessary to us in the provision of services, are going to be leaving for climes where the industrial relations legislation that governs collective bargaining is more open and more prepared to deal with some of these issues.
When we look at this legislation and the convoluted way in which the IRC can intrude on any phase of bargaining — that it can use that ability-to-pay issue in any phase of bargaining, through fact-finding, mediation and so on — knowing the very many actors who are a part of those collective agreements, even if it's not the intent to have the results that we predict, I'm sure that that is in fact what those results are going to be.
I'd like to ask the minister to look specifically at a couple of the subsections of this clause and give us some further indication of how he interprets the compensation stabilization continuation at this time. Under subsection (3) it is noted that: "An arbitration board shall not, to the extent that the employee compensation and benefits under the collective agreement are subject to the regulations and guidelines under the Compensation Stabilization Act, make an award inconsistent with the requirements of those regulations or guidelines."
Could the minister advise us whether this particular sub applies only to the coming into effect of section 71, which we haven't as yet debated and is the phase-out and repeal of the Compensation Stabilization Act, or are there regulations that will be continuing following that time?
[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]
I ask that too because, as I read 71, there seems to be some considerable latitude here about the course of that repeal, whether it in fact may be repealed. Can the minister talk about (3)(a) and talk about it in the light of 71 and the phasing out of the Compensation Stabilization Act, and advise us what will live on after this full act comes into place in respect to the Compensation Stabilization Act?
MR. CHAIRMAN: The member for New Westminster continues.
MS. A. HAGEN: The minister is indicating that he'd like me to continue with one or two other questions, so I shall do so, knowing he finds it more comfortable to answer a number at one time.
Will the act, then, Mr. Minister, be phased out by regulation, and can you give us some indication of what reliance we can place on this, given the lack of consultation up until this time? Is this really a tactic that is designed to confuse us about the status of the Compensation Stabilization Act and its regulations and the ability to pay that is enshrined in that act?
I'd like the minister to give us some indication, because if he has some answers around this, I may want to pursue this line of questioning. If not, I want to move on to another area, but I would appreciate having some feedback from the minister on the status of the Compensation Stabilization Act so I can be advised from that whether to pursue this line of questioning. I'll sit down and hope that the minister may be prepared to reply now.
HON. L. HANSON: Mr. Chairman, first of all I think the member asked how many employees are affected, and certainly I will have some research done and advise you how many we estimate will be affected in the public sector. But I'd like to point out that as it relates to ability to pay, hopefully very few and maybe none, because we believe a lot of agreements are going to be reached voluntarily.
The reference to (3) is strictly a phase-out reference, and certainly the discussion probably will get more in-depth when we do reach section 71 for discussion.
MS. A. HAGEN: Then I'd like to move on to the issue of pay equity, in relation to the ability-to-pay argument, and ask the minister, in connection with subsection (1), where there are two and possibly three clauses that may have some implication regarding pay equity, whether all of these will be considered equally or whether there is potentially, in the arbitrator's use of those clauses, the ability to choose one rather than others to make a determination about the kinds of balances that exist in occupations.
The first clause here speaks about "terms and conditions of employment with similar occupations in the relevant community in the Province outside the employer's employment." I think arbitrators have always looked at this particular kind of comparability when they are deciding what fair settlements might be.
Certainly if you're at a bargaining table, you'll get information about other teachers' districts, about what's happening to the IWA in your community, about what's happening in other public sector areas. However, when you look at clause (b), "the need to maintain an appropriate relationship between occupations or classifications within the employer's employment," then one is left with the question: what will, in fact, determine what those appropriate relationships are?
Will there be in the ability of the arbitrators a potential to deal with pay equity arguments where there are discrepancies between work of equal value within that sector? If we have a traditional disparity within the industry and we get to arbitration, are we going to be looking at historic patterns or are we going to be able to have the arbitrator look at some of the newer methods that are being considered as we consider the comparability of jobs?
In respect to the issue that I just raised, in the public sector we have nurses, social workers, therapists and teachers, for whom there are very major discrepancies in pay levels, and they have been historic. Will there be any means for employees to address those issues through arbitration if they are not able to conclude those kinds of agreements through their collective agreement?
How will that ability-to-pay argument act as a leveller that will prevent some of the kind of restitution that needs to come to workers, most of them women, who have been, in traditional fields of employment for women, underpaid in
[ Page 1835 ]
relation to their skills and training? Will we see the skill, effort and responsibility of people genuinely looked at, or will the ability-to-pay argument of the government prevail because, as we have heard so many ministers say when we've asked questions about services and programs, there is no money?
Is there to be no kind of attention paid within this bill to justice and fairness and equity when we come to looking at some of these issues that are a part of the industrial relations scene that we need to see addressed? Is the minister prepared to make some commitments at this time that if we are not able to work through the IRC, he will be open to other means — public sector legislation — of dealing with some of these issues that obviously, because we have raised them so often on this side of the House, we consider to be of such great importance in the field of collective agreements and also in the field of arriving at a fairer and more equitable distribution of resources, through pay to people who deserve it on the basis of their skill, on the basis of their training, on the basis of their responsibility?
[4:00]
HON. L. HANSON: I think I've answered these questions before, but I'd like to point out to the member that "the arbitration board...shall have regard to the respective merits of the positions of the parties and to...." That is very clear to me: if the parties negotiating at the table have a pay equity issue within their negotiating program, certainly it would be part of the consideration.
As it relates to ability to pay, it doesn't have any relationship to the differential between the various employees; it is simply a reference to the ability of the employer to pay the result of a settlement. To suggest that it has some relationship to an inequity or to a position that.... I just don't understand it. I have answered that question several times.
MS. A. HAGEN: I'd like to move to another section of this clause if I may: clause (10). This is a section that enables the commissioner to review the arbitration award. It notes that within seven days of receiving an arbitration award, the commissioner may review it on the grounds that the decision "is inconsistent with the principles expressed or implied in subsections (1), (2) and (3)" — these are the ones that we have been discussing around the parameters of the arbitration board — or that "a party to the arbitration has been or is likely to be denied a fair hearing."
One of the aspects of the compensation stabilization commissioner and of that act was that we were on a perpetual treadmill in order to arrive at a settlement. Again I use the process that we were involved with in school boards, where we negotiated; if we were not able to reach an agreement, we went to an arbitration board; once we got to an arbitration board, we went to the compensation board. First of all, it appears to me that one of the things occurring in this particular clause — and it's been referred to before — is that we have this constant — I think the word has been used — merry-go-round that never gets us off the treadmill. I'd like the minister to comment on what marvelous powers we anticipate the commissioner is going to have to bring to bear on this, after an arbitration board in its good sense and with its skills has come to some conclusion within the act, and what will be the result of his review of that particular arbitration.
I'd also like to ask how we can have the commissioner reviewing an arbitration on the grounds that a party to the arbitration is likely to be denied a fair hearing, when we have presumably had the hearing and the arbitration board has brought down its particular ruling. Is he going to rule in retrospect that he anticipated that it might not be a fair hearing? Is there some drafting error with this clause, or is there some interpretation of that language which I am not able to comprehend, as I pursue the various sections of this very lengthy clause?
Finally, in subsection (13), what does the minister anticipate the role of any arbitration board is going to be if we have not only the right of the commissioner to review the arbitration award but the fact that the commissioner, again in subsection (13), may give "directions to the arbitration board and the parties, which in his opinion are necessary or appropriate to achieve compliance with subsections (1), (2) and (3) or to afford a fair hearing"? Is there implicit in this, again, some lack of trust or faith in the role of arbitrators who have already had their independence and ability to arbitrate so seriously compromised under the Compensation Stabilization Act? Is it not implicit in this that everything comes back to the commissioner, that the commissioner is to be all things to all people: to the parties to the dispute, the arbitrators, and presumably the fact-finders, the mediators, the public interest inquiry board, and everyone else involved? Can the minister give us any suggestion about how this can work, as he so often appealed to us to let it do, when we are leaving so much in the hands of the commissioner to be both the instigator, the guide, the interpreter, the director and the final arbiter of every dispute that comes to his doorstep?
I'll listen with very acute ears to some reassurances from the minister that we can in fact rely in any way on this legislation working in the interests of good industrial relations.
HON. L. HANSON: I think I can deal with that very simply. The answer is no, and it's simply a review process.
MR. MILLER: First of all, I want to start out with a question regarding the increments. The minister may be aware that a problem developed because of CSP and their inability to deal with special circumstances, and perhaps the inability of the Minister of Education to have some influence. The traditional relationship that had existed in the northern and rural school districts for years and years had conceded a higher rate to the northern teachers; and in addition to that, because some of the smaller districts had a fairly high turnover, they were stuck, really, with these teachers. In terms of the increments, a large number of teachers were entitled to the incremental increases that had previously been negotiated and, of course, in the course of negotiations, given that the CSP at that time was fairly inflexible and said,"Here is the ceiling," what happened is that the incremental costs were deducted from the overall settlement. As a result of that, I believe in one year the school teachers in my district got a settlement of something in the order of point-something-one percent — very, very minuscule.
Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, I was distracted by the discussion by the members in the back benches. I am once again reminded of the debate: when we talk about ability to pay, as somebody said, we should all have the ability to listen as well.
[ Page 1836 ]
In any event, as I read it, this section under (1)(d) would allow the recognition of that relationship, and hopefully a return to the traditional situation that has existed for many years in regard to the more remote school districts and the school teachers in those districts in the province. Perhaps the minister could respond to that.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The member for Prince Rupert continues.
AN HON. MEMBER: He's taking notes.
MR. MILLER: He's taking notes? He'll respond all at once? Good.
My second question has to do with subsection (9) of this section: "Where it is shown to the satisfaction of the arbitration board that the arbitration board has failed to deal with any matter," etc. Although later sections deal with this — and perhaps that might be the minister's response — it seems to me that you're asking the arbitration board that made the original decision to overrule themselves; and just in terms of a fundamental system of appealing, is it not better to have that appeal heard by different parties? For example, when you appeal a court decision, you don't go back to the same judge. That's kind of a fundamental basis for appeal.
Dealing with section 137.96(4), the wording that exists with respect to ability to pay, the minister earlier read the wording or the proposed wording from a statute that is going to be introduced or has been introduced in the province of Manitoba with respect to this ability to pay. As I listened to the wording as he read it, it seemed to me that in fact that was allowed to be a consideration, but it's not nearly as restrictive as this section. This section, taken literally, which I assume is the way it's going to be interpreted....
Interjection.
MR. MILLER: One would hope so, as my colleague from Nanaimo suggests, although we all know that there's always a dispute when it comes to interpretation. But when you read the wording, it's almost incredible; it's so confining. It means "the current ability of a public sector employer to pay based on existing revenues, requirements of any fiscal policies to which the public sector employer is subject and the impact of increased costs on the maintenance of existing levels of public service."
Now when you're dealing with ability to pay, I'm not going to stand here and suggest that that's not a consideration. Certainly it's a consideration in any set of negotiations, no matter where they take place. The person who is paying obviously has to consider their ability to do that. That argument is put forward quite often and, I would suggest, is a mainstay argument used in negotiations. Certainly you can't ignore ability to pay. It would be foolish to suggest that that's not a factor in negotiations.
I guess that negotiations to some extent break down or reach agreement over the parties' interpretation of ability to pay. I've seen very detailed explanations put forward by unions, worked on by economists in terms of the situation of a particular company or group of companies — their profitability, the kind of profits they're making, the health of the companies, if you like. On the other side, I've seen employers make some fairly detailed arguments in terms of their financial position: "No, we can't afford to pay this much. The market doesn't look good over the next little while. Our debt load is so much. We can't afford to do this." After all that process you come down, hopefully, with an agreement. Most of the time we come down with an agreement. Sometimes it breaks down, and sometimes there's a strike, but generally those matters are resolved.
[4:15]
But here you've boxed public sector employers and employees into a very narrow, confining definition of ability to pay. It becomes, I think, a more difficult subject to deal with in the public sector. I've been on city council. I know the difficulties that a council has in setting its budget, trying to determine its priorities in capital projects and the various requests for funds that come into any municipal council. It's the responsibility of the council to juggle those demands, to give more weight to some than others, and at the same time it's the responsibility of that council — that school board or whatever — to negotiate with its employees for a new contract.
I've seen the argument used by public sector employers: "No, we can't afford to pay." What then comes into the equation is the taxation policy of that particular public sector body. Certainly municipal councils and provincial governments, or any taxing authority, have the ability, and hopefully the common sense, to make a number of decisions about budgetary items, including any increases that they may be prepared to offer their employees. It's not a simple matter whereby the union, for example, would come forth and say: "You've got the ability to pay. Go raise taxes." The thing is worked out.
When you confine it to the ability to pay based on existing revenues, it seems to me, you've tied the body's hands in terms of raising additional revenue. Certainly this government is familiar with additional methods of raising revenue, because we've seen a budget introduced at the beginning of this year that raised a considerable amount of revenue from some sources that caused a considerable amount of concern. Senior citizens certainly weren't happy about additional levies that they had to pay. The real estate people were not happy about increased taxes on property transfer. Nobody's very happy with those things, but as a government you've made some decisions; and as a level of government, municipal councils and school boards can make some decisions. When you confine them to existing revenues, it seems to me that they have the opportunity to say no, existing revenues are such that that's it; there's no money. When you further add on the qualifiers in terms of that public sector employer and its ability to maintain existing levels of public service, you further tie its hands.
So, taken literally and interpreted literally, and used in that fashion, you can virtually tie the hands of a public sector employer, in terms of sitting down realistically and negotiating in good faith with its employees. I think that's worth hearing some response on, because it could lead to a great deal of frustration at the local level when it comes to bargaining. It could needlessly hamstring an employer. Certainly an employer could be capable of saying.... Let's assume we're talking about a municipal council: "We think it's reasonable that we give our employees an increase. The overall cost of the contract that we've negotiated is 5 percent. We also have some public works projects we're proceeding with this year, and we've got some additional operational costs in Prince Rupert. They've built a brand-new theatre, and that's going to be additional operating costs which they
[ Page 1837 ]
haven't faced in the past. In light of all these factors, here's our total budget. It's more than it was last year, therefore there's going to be a tax increase."
Presumably a reasonable public sector employer could make that determination, and their hands would not be tied by this clause. Conversely, a public sector employer could say: "There it is in black and white. We don't have to raise taxes. We're going to maintain the existing level of service. I'm sorry, there's no more money." In fact, depending upon the vagaries of the economic situation in this country with respect to inflation and a number of other factors, you could use this to ask for a cut.
If it's tied in with the rest of the section in terms of an arbitration board using those kinds of guidelines, you've created a situation where those employees could be so confined that the bargaining process becomes quite meaningless, which leads me into the next part of the argument. It's an old one. It's been made in many instances, that is, that as much as possible, the negotiating process should be free from encumbrances. The best negotiations take place between employees and employers who realize they're not there to fool around. They've got to sit down; they've got to come to an agreement, and hopefully with a minimum of fuss. Any time that you introduce impediments to that process — impediments that could be used to needlessly frustrate the process — you create a situation that at some time or other will boil over. It has been said many times that you can deny people the right to strike, but at some point that may happen; it may happen in violation of that restriction. And I think it happens. Again, my experience is that most labour relations disputes happen as a result of some frustration that's built up over a particular amount of time. I don't think simply writing a rule that says,"You can't do this any more," really solves the problem.
Briefly restating it, certainly ability to pay is a factor, but in a narrow, confined, restrictive description such as the minister has included in this bill, it will be used — or potentially could be used — simply to frustrate the bargaining process.
I think I've asked three questions in that dissertation. Should I call it a dissertation, Mr. Chairman? However, I'd be pleased to listen to the response of the minister.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'm really finding it quite difficult to talk to the minister about this section, as I have found it, quite frankly, on some of the other sections. I find it difficult to understand some of the minister's responses, or lack of responses.
This particular section, "Factors to be considered" — many other speakers have talked about it — very clearly inhibits the ability of women in the public sector to increase their wages or their benefits to a status equal with their male counterparts. Unfortunately, it is even more insidious than other sections in this legislation in restricting the ability of working people in this province, because it goes the next step. It not only restricts them, it not only takes away from them their ability to bargain, but it then goes the next step: instead of the traditional comparison of wages within an industry, in this section it talks about "a comparison of overall terms and conditions of employment with similar occupations in the relevant community." This is taking it outside of the industry and putting it into the community.
Within the trade union movement in this province, negotiations have traditionally been limited in wage comparisons to industry comparisons. That has enabled the union movement, when negotiating....
I think I'll wait until the minister finishes his conversation so that he can more appropriately respond to some of my questions.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I suggest that the member continue, because she might lose the floor otherwise.
MS. SMALLWOOD: The point I was trying to make — and I hope the minister will choose to respond to it — is that there will be a pressure, a downgrading, in this comparison that allows community comparison, where a negotiated wage level of a clerical staff person in the public sector compared to a clerk in a retail store, perhaps, rather than have the effect of possibly increasing that person's wages, would argue against it, because the person in a similar occupation in the retail sector would not have had the opportunity of previous negotiations and work done within organized labour.
I have a difficulty, and I have tried to point it out to the minister before. Who is this legislation targeting? Who is it restricting? I've been trying to understand some of the things government members have said about the need to restrict the public sector. I look over at the advisers to the minister, and I wonder if that was what we were talking about. Are we talking about restricting these gentlemen's wages?
Surely the intent of any legislation, as we've heard from other speakers, is to control this situation that is out of hand, these wages that are skyrocketing. Is that what we're talking about?
Interjection.
MS. SMALLWOOD: Well, no we're not. We're talking about the people working within the public sector who are not excluded staff. We're talking about the ordinary rank and file member — not management, certainly not senior management, certainly not the big wage-earners. We're talking about the ordinary rank and file members who are not making enough money to support a family.
If the minister — and I see him smiling — had done his homework to see who he is targeting by this, he would understand, for instance, that he is talking about a warehouse worker or a clerk 3 who makes $707 every two weeks. If that clerk 3, be it male or female, has to support a family — pay a mortgage and all of the things that a typical B.C. family does — they're in pretty tight straits.
Yet the minister has seen fit to bring in this legislation, and again I refer to section 137.96. The minister talks about not only the ability to pay but also "the need to maintain an appropriate relationship between occupations or classifications within the employer's employment." This is the only government in Canada that has not recognized and is not working towards breaking down some of those barriers.
[4:30]
Instead this government is institutionalizing and bringing in legislation that supports those barriers. It says that there must be an "appropriate relationship" maintained. What is "appropriate"? Is it appropriate for a woman that is running the minister's office, a secretary in that office, to be making less money than a senior management person? Is it appropriate that somebody out in the. municipal works yard on a road construction or repair job should be making more than somebody responding to correspondence in a mayor's office?
[ Page 1838 ]
The minister either refuses to respond or doesn't understand what is going on in the real world out there — or else is cognizant of how vicious and damaging this legislation is. I would like to hear from the minister exactly why he feels it's necessary to put a clause in this legislation that identifies the need to maintain "appropriate relationships." What is "appropriate"? Can the minister tell us that? Is it appropriate the way the world is divided right now?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Before the minister responds, if he chooses to do so, hon. members, I would like to talk to everyone for just a moment in a nice, quiet way about relevancy in debate. We have a standing order, 61(2), which deals with this subject, and which deals specifically with it as it applies within the Committee of the Whole. The requirement is not just for relevancy in the normal sense of the word; it says that we will require strict relevancy in dealing with items in Committee of the Whole.
I had some difficulty, during the discourse by the last member, of really associating some of her remarks directly with the section that we are dealing with. I don't say this as a reprimand in any way, sense or form, but just to remind members how very critical it is that we have relevancy in debate, especially in Committee of the Whole. It has been recognized by people such as Beauchesne that we must always be prepared to ensure that everything is canvassed thoroughly in this kind of situation, but in respect to serving this House well and canvassing all of the various aspects of a bill such as this, I think relevancy is very important.
Having said that, does the member for North Island wish to comment?
MR. GABELMANN: Very briefly, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the comments and the tone in which they are offered; it is quite appropriate. However, in this case the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley was, I think, entirely in order in respect to 137.96(l)(b). The whole question of the need to maintain an appropriate relationship between occupations or classifications is one that has been talked about in general terms but has never been thoroughly canvassed in the debate so far. Not that we are going to take a lot more time on that particular clause, but there needs to be some further clarification of those words. That is what that is about.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Does the member for Surrey Guildford-Whalley have something else to say?
MS. SMALLWOOD: Yes. I will try to respond in equally subdued tones, although I have to admit that when we are talking about issues such as this, I find it very difficult not to get angry about them.
I also want to thank the Chairman for his comments and add my own. I am sorry that the Chairman was unable to understand the relevancy, because what I was trying to do is put in human terms exactly what this legislation means and who the people are that it is affecting. I think that's extremely relevant, and I think that all too often we tend to deal with legislation in technical terms and overlook the actual lives the legislation is affecting. So, with all due respect, I will continue to try to put before the House those people's lives and those issues which I feel are of crucial and fundamental importance to this legislation.
HON. L. HANSON: I am certainly not trying to subdue the debate of the member opposite and subdue her ability to put her position before the House. I just at times have seen that these questions are quite repetitious in the sense that I have answered them several times from various members. I am not concerned that the member wants me to answer; I think that is fair and fine. But I think that at some point these questions have been raised a number of times, and they keep being raised. You may express them with some different words, but certainly they keep being raised.
I think your major issue is a couple of points. You read into this section a discriminatory thing that is going to maintain a situation that you have great concern over. I would like to read to you again that the arbitration board shall, in settling the terms and conditions of a collective agreement, have regard to the respective merits of the positions of the parties. Certainly that says to me that if an issue that is placed on the bargaining table is a parity situation, or whatever, there is a requirement that the arbitration board consider it. There is nothing here that says that that is not part of the consideration. If it is an issue placed on the table, then certainly it will be part of the consideration.
"A comparison of overall terms and conditions of employment with similar occupations in the relevant community in the Province outside the employer's employment...." That refers to a relevant community, and it's intended to allow arbitrators to consider pay equity arguments within similar industries. Again, I point out the example of the health care community that I used earlier.
I'm not refusing to answer. I've just answered the question many times.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'd like to pursue the issue that the minister just raised, that in this situation we can deal with pay equity and with comparisons of like skills and look at a relevant community.
Does the minister recognize that in Manitoba, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, the federal government.... All of these governments have undertaken programs of pay equity. It has been a program that the government has initiated. There is a whole field of expertise in evaluating skills and abilities, a whole field of expertise dealing with comparative studies. It takes time, money and a commitment from a government. Can you tell me how, with this legislation in place, that kind of work will be done to ensure those comparisons? Without that kind of work, commitment and investment by the government, and that direction to the industries, it has not happened. All you have to do is look at history to see that. It has not happened in this province. It has not happened anywhere unless the government has taken some initiative to involve itself in that process. Without that kind of commitment, there is no way that these two clauses of 137.96 will do anything but inhibit and restrict, because there will be no comparison and no support data in place that will allow those women or those low-paid workers to break out of those ghettos.
The minister insists that with this legislation he is encouraging pay equity. Can the minister explain exactly how that's going to work?
MR. CHAIRMAN: The member continues.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'd like it on the record that the minister has chosen not to respond. Once again, either he
[ Page 1839 ]
does not have the answer or the answer he is prepared to give this House is not one that he feels the House is prepared to hear. I think that the answer is that the minister understands that under this legislation women will never improve their...or encourage pay equity in their lives. I think that by not answering, that is exactly what the minister is saying. It makes a total mockery of the government's position on supporting families in this province.
HON. L. HANSON: I don't understand the relevancy of this. We're discussing section 62. We're not discussing pay equity legislation. We may have it at some in point in time. You may introduce it; somebody may introduce it. That's not in this section.
The member said that I said that this would ensure pay equity. I didn't say that. I said that there's nothing in here that would stop pay equity if it was an issue on the bargaining table.
MR. SIHOTA: Mr. Chairman, I was going to use far stronger language, believe you me, and I chose not to because I've been cautioned in the past about particular language. But let me put it this way: I totally, fundamentally disagree with what the minister has to say.
I guess the starting point, before I start to talk, is to ask the minister one very simple question: is the minister in principle committed to pay equity? Yes or no. After I hear an answer to that, I'll talk about the section. But is the minister, as a representative of the government in labour matters, committed in principle to pay equity?
MR. CHAIRMAN: The member continues.
MR. SIHOTA: They have a saying in law that if someone is silent, you draw an adverse inference from that. The adverse inference from....
MR. CHAIRMAN: This line of questioning is totally unacceptable, hon. member. I have mentioned previously....
MR. SIHOTA: Mr. Chairman, with all respect....
MR. CHAIRMAN: Would the member mind taking his seat.
MR. SIHOTA: Sorry.
MR. CHAIRMAN: It's quite all right.
I said just the other day that any questions you desire to ask can be posed, but there's no requirement that they be answered. When we reflect, perhaps in an obtuse way, on the character of someone on the basis that they haven't responded, I don't think that's really acceptable. Continue, please.
[4:45]
MR. SIHOTA: The minister is suggesting that he doesn't quite see the relevancy of pay equity. We're talking about section 137.96, subsections (1)(a) and (1)(b), which talk about the "comparison of overall terms and conditions of employment" with other employers and the "need to maintain an appropriate relationship between occupations or classifications within the employer's employment." Surely the minister must see, to bring it into relevancy, that those two clauses touch very directly upon the heart of the pay equity dispute.
If you want to maintain the existing classifications, which are going to be the same across the board whether you want to look at CUPE or the BCGEU or private sector payments, let's say, for clerical staff, then you're going to keep those wages depressed. Because you're asking in your own legislation that you look at all of those other classifications, which in our view are depressed. If they're depressed, and if you want to maintain those differences in wage scales in various occupations, and if you recognize that pay equity tries to do away with the depression of those wages and tends to make validations in the complex terms that the member for Surrey Guildford-Whalley (Ms. Smallwood) just talked about, you inhibit that, totally frustrate it, and in fact end up denying it in the language that's contained in section 137.96 (l)(a) and (b).
In my mind that raises a fundamental question as to whether or not this government is committed in principle to pay equity. Without making an allegation or impugning the minister one way or the other — if you can impugn someone in a positive way! — the point still remains that a government committed to pay equity or to the principles of pay equity would not introduce into labour legislation the type of language that appears in sections 137.96 (l)(a) and (b). It's totally inconsistent and not harmonious at all with the objective of pay equity.
Understanding that, the minister must then understand that there is indeed relevancy between what's stated in (a) and (b) and the comments we're making on this side of the House. How can you possibly have pay equity when you want to maintain the appropriate relationship between classifications of employees? How can you possibly have pay equity when you're saying that you have to compare the wage scales with similar occupations in the relevant community within the province? It's an impossibility. Therefore the only inference that I can draw, logically put — and I invite the minister to point out where this logic is flawed — at the end of the day is that this government is not committed to pay equity. If that's the case, then it's shocking.
You know, it's interesting. I've often heard the Premier and other ministers say in question period: "Well, we want to show leadership in British Columbia. We want to move into new areas, new territory. and be at the cutting edge of change in this province." Well, conservative Ontario — eastern Canada — has introduced legislation, among other provinces and the federal government. Why is this government not willing to take the same leadership that the feds or the province of Ontario have taken?
Clearly, if there was a will or a commitment to pay equity.... Let's not forget which classifications or socioeconomic groups in society suffer the most when we get down to pay equity issues: women — foremost, women. No two ways about it. Women have been traditionally underpaid — as well as underemployed — in this society. They're the ones who stand to benefit and who ought to benefit from pay equity programs. By far and away, women.
Secondly, the poor. Of course, it only stands to reason that, given depressed wages, they're going to find it difficult to get out of their situation.
Thirdly, immigrants. A government with a sensitivity to pay equity is a government that has a sensitivity to improving the human condition that working people find themselves in. This section, for those who are employed, for those who end
[ Page 1840 ]
up in disputes, for those who end up in disputes and arbitration.... They are going to find it very difficult, if I want to put it diplomatically, and impossible, if I want to make a submission, to be able to achieve pay equity. So in a funny sort of way this section just continues those traditional difficulties that women and immigrants and poor have had in this society. I think that all of us expect a little more leadership from this government than is demonstrated in these sections.
MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Chairman, it was my intention to move on to 137.97, unless the member for Surrey Guildford-Whalley has another brief interjection to make.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I want to head off some comments perhaps from the Chair or from some of the back-benchers on relevancy. What I want to do is again talk about who this anti-pay legislation section is going to affect. I want to remind the minister — and we have brought this to the House before — that the people he is affecting, as the previous speaker said, are women, and that 61 percent of all Canadian families would fall below the poverty level if it wasn't for women's wages in that family. What the minister is doing by restricting their ability to improve their wages is ultimately restricting the ability of 61 percent of Canadian families or B.C. families to struggle above the poverty line. That is who he is talking about.
On the issue of pay equity — and again I am talking about the restrictions that the minister is imposing in this legislation — what we are talking about is figures such as.... They are bandied around, and I am sure everybody has heard them: women make 65 percent of men's wages. I have done a really interesting sort of tabulation on the women's wages in my riding. My riding is a very working-class riding. We have a lot of working poor in our riding, a lot of single-parent families. When you look at the comparison of male to female wages in Surrey-Guildford-Whalley, what you see is that we aren't even up to the national standard of these 65-cent dollars. Within working families and working communities, women make 48 cents on the dollar. That's for a whole variety of reasons. It has to do with education level; it has to do with access to job opportunities; and it has a lot to do with the kinds of contracting out the government has done with some of their services, because what that has meant to women is that they now have the option of part-time jobs rather than full-time jobs.
I wanted that on the record, and I want the minister to understand clearly what he is talking about when he is talking about maintaining an appropriate relationship between occupations or classifications. I want the minister to understand that this is anti-pay equity legislation. I want the minister to understand....
MR. R. FRASER: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I think in the rules of the House there is another part called "tedious repetition." The member who has been speaking recently has been going on and on, and says she is "reminding" and is "going to repeat." I think there are legitimate limits to repetition, which have now been exceeded.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair thanks the hon. member. There has been some degree of repetition, but I think the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley is trying very hard to make a particular point. So I have shown some leniency, and I am assuming that she has almost completed this dissertation.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I think that the member's point is that I'm an optimist. I'm hoping that by reasoned debate and by my bringing information to the minister, perhaps he might reconsider. If he clearly understands who he is affecting and what he's doing, he might reconsider. Rather than being repetitious, I'm hoping that I'm putting information to the minister in a very optimistic, positive way. I'm hoping the minister will respond on that note.
MR. GABELMANN: Just before we move on, the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley has only been in the House for the last hour and a half. To get the vote, women took decades of pleading and arguing, and if they're going to get pay equity they're no doubt going to have to take, unfortunately, the same kind of time to make the argument, because sometimes people in control in society take years to understand the argument.
I just want the members to know that on this side of the House we accept and agree with the arguments made by the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley, and I hope it doesn't take as long for the principles she is enunciating to come into place as it took for women to gain the vote in our society.
Moving onto 137.97, a lot of the arguments that we could make under this section have been made under previous sections. I'm not going to repeat those arguments, but there should be no misunderstanding of that. It doesn't mean we don't have similar kinds of concerns with these sections, but the arguments have been made, and there is no point in repeating them.
There has been no argument yet about the Lieutenant Governor-in-Council or the cabinet having the authority to do what the Legislature has always had the authority to do, which is order people back to work. This section allows for the cabinet to act if the Legislature is not sitting, and I just want to say that we are opposed to two things about this. Firstly, we're opposed to this institutionalized method of involving the Legislature in an almost routine way in labour disputes. If the Legislature wants to act, it can act. It doesn't need a law saying it can act. The Legislature is supreme, and it doesn't need to be governed by any law. That point needs to be made. But we are really concerned, beyond that, about the ability of cabinet just to go ahead on its own and do things which more properly belong to this Legislature.
There are times in this province when the Legislature doesn't sit for as long as seven months in a row. We've had years recently when the Legislature will adjourn in June and reconvene in March. It's been as long a gap as that in some years. It means that the cabinet has been given authority that should properly rest with this legislative chamber. We want to express our opposition to that particular power given to cabinet. If you want that kind of activity to take place, then call the Legislature and let the Legislature have a debate about it and make a decision.
We also need to, without going into any detail, express our opposition again to this principle of the employer being made an agent of the state, as expressed in subsection (8). If an employee refuses to obey a back-to-work order, as laid out in this section, it's not the state that disciplines or penalizes; it's the employer. To involve the employer as an agent of the state in that way is totally inappropriate in law.
I wonder where the section 1s disciplining the employers who break the law. Again the whole thrust of the legislation is aimed at the workers. If the workers break the law, the employer can penalize them. But if the employer breaks the
[ Page 1841 ]
law, who penalizes the employer? The minister will argue, I know, that there is a subsequent section that used to be there in the Labour Code dealing with penalties. But the penalties aren't equal to losing your job. The equal penalty would be that if the employer breaks the law, the assets of the company would be turned over to the employees, or something similarly stupid. That's how stupid this idea is that the employer gets to act as the police officer and the judge, at least in the first stage, instead of society having that right. If you break the law, then the lawmakers should prosecute, not the employers. It's a fundamentally wrong principle. We've had the debate earlier in a previous section which had the same principle involved in it.
[5:00]
I want to ask one question in conclusion on this section. I want to ask the minister, given a situation whereby this section 1s used fully, at what stage a collective agreement actually takes effect.
HON. L. HANSON: I just wanted to point out a couple of things. I do agree with the member that some of this discussion has gone on earlier, certainly as it relates to employers and discipline. I think we did have that under 137.97. In any case, I'd just like to add again to the same point that my critic made. He expressed his concern that the employers will be disciplined by the grievance or be in contempt of court or be under some other penalty.
I would also say that in regard to the reference the member made earlier to the cabinet as opposed to the Legislature, I want to point out that it doesn't say that the cabinet shall act when the Legislature is not in session. It says it might, and I guess it would depend on the circumstances of the concern. I think it's a very real possibility that there may be a decision to recall the Legislature, as opposed to....
On the applicable date, having reference to any provisions in the old agreement is....
Interjection.
HON. L. HANSON: Oh, it would come into effect, I see. Okay, I understand. I was just passed a note here.
It would come into effect, I think is what the message is, on the applicable date, having reference to any provisions in the old agreement. Does that answer your question? Maybe you would restate your question, then.
MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Chairman, let me give what I think is the answer. I think the answer is that the collective agreement would come into effect on the date that the Legislature ratified, if it chose to do so, the new terms and conditions of the collective agreement following subsection (10). What this says earlier, in subsection (9), is: "...the minister shall, as soon as practicable, lay before the Legislative Assembly a copy of" the agreement. And then the Legislative Assembly has the right to vote yes or no.
If that's the case, let's just take the following scenario. If the powers that the cabinet have are used and the dispute is, say, in the late spring, and then one process or another is used and sometime in the summer a collective agreement is proposed through arbitration or one of these various mechanisms, that does not become a collective agreement until this Legislature has ratified it. If the Legislature doesn't sit until the following March, it might be that there is no collective agreement in place and the people who are employed there will continue to work under the terms and conditions of the expired collective agreement, as they had been doing until the time of resolution.
If I'm wrong about that, I'd like the minister to show me where I'm wrong, because I haven't.... I'm not going to say that I've studied it exhaustively on this point and I may be missing an obvious point, but it seems to me that it's not a collective agreement until the Legislature approves and confirms it, as stated in (10)(a).
HON. L. HANSON: I appreciate that clarification. I don't agree with your interpretation. In section (9) it reads: "Where under this section...a copy of the collective agreement arrived at or determined...." And then: "Where a...collective agreement is laid before the Legislative Assembly...." So that says to me that a collective agreement has been imposed, and in the time between the imposition and the ratification or whatever of the Legislature, those employees would be working under a collective agreement and the terms and conditions of the one imposed.
MR. GABELMANN: So if the Legislature disapproves the collective agreement eight months after it's been in effect, and as a result of the succeeding events there is a roll-back of wages in a subsequent collective agreement that is finally ratified through some process, those employees will be required to pay back the difference from what they were getting in this disallowed contract that had been in place for perhaps up to eight months. Is that correct?
HON. L. HANSON: I don't think that is correct. I'm quite sure it isn't, as a matter of fact. It appears to me that in the case where a collective agreement was not ratified when it came before the Legislature, the two parties would be back at the exact point they started from before the imposition of the legislation, and the terms and conditions of the agreement that were imposed in the meantime would be effective until that decision is made. That's been a subject of discussion at some great length, and that's my advice — that that would be the situation. Did I make that clear?
MR. GABELMANN: I don't know if you did or not. I'm not clear from that answer.
I'm doing this off the top of my head, so it may be a bit rough, but let's say that in July the commissioner, through one of his mechanisms, provides a collective agreement. There is now a collective agreement in place, and the terms and conditions of that collective agreement start to be implemented. Let's just deal with wages. They get the wages provided for in that collective agreement. The Legislature isn't sitting in July, and as soon as is practical, the minister is to present to the Legislature the terms and conditions that have been arrived at. The Legislature may not sit until the following March. The Legislature will then be presented, soon after it meets, with this collective agreement that the commissioner drafted and is now in place, wages being paid for that period of time. The Legislature in its wisdom might say: "We don't like that collective agreement. It pays $1 an hour too much to those employees." I'm being totally theoretical, and I'm exaggerating the point in order to clarify it. What would then happen if the Legislature disallowed that contract? The parties would go back to square one, renegotiate a contract, and if in the settlement they sawed it off so that those wages were rolled back 50 cents from that particular
[ Page 1842 ]
agreement imposed in July, then the employees would be required to pay back.
I know we're not supposed to mention people who aren't members of the House while we have this discussion, but I see a certain head shaking in disagreement. I think the shaking of the head means that that collective agreement, during the period of time between the commissioner imposing it and the Legislature disallowing it, would be a legal collective agreement, no longer effective the day the Legislature disallowed it, but effective in the preceding seven or eight months, let's say. The disallowance wouldn't be a retroactive disallowance, but rather a disallowance on the day the Legislature met. That was the point of my first question, and I guess I've finally answered my own question through this tortuous process. Again, the bill doesn't fail or pass on that point, but I just wasn't sure, based on how this was worded, what the effect was going to be.
I want to move on and conclude our comments on section 62. I don't want to say anything particularly about 98 and 99. We're talking about issues we have talked about now for however many days we've been involved in section 62. In conclusion, I think it would be appropriate to say just a few things about the Industrial Relations Council and the powers that have been granted to Mr. Peck and this agency. It's obvious that the government decided, as a result of last fall, and perhaps other events in our industrial relations history, that it needed a mechanism because it was afraid that the industrial relations climate was such that unless we gave a signal to the world that we had our labour relations under control, we wouldn't get investment. I haven't argued their case very well, but that's essentially their case.
I want to read from an industrial relations bulletin from the Business Council of B.C., dated February 11, 1986, a year-plus ago — a year in advance of this legislation being finally drafted. I won't read much of it, just a couple of extracts: "The key to continued economic growth, and therefore more jobs, in B.C. is new investment, and the province must try harder to attract it by highlighting its positive attributes and putting its labour record in perspective." The province, they say, must put its labour record in perspective. They then refer to a report of the Ministry of Industry and Small Business Development that was commissioned to study the impact of B.C.'s labour relations climate on investment in B.C. Twenty-two corporations representative of various North American firms replied. I just want to talk about some of the perceptions that flowed from the results of this survey.
"The survey outlines perceptions about B.C.'s labour relations climate, and the council" — that is, the Business Council — "is confident that the reality is more positive." They go on to talk about a few things. Then they say: "There have also been some signs of business, labour and government making efforts towards a less adversarial labour relations climate." The number of worker-days lost through work stoppages is down. They talk about how in 1985 it was only 165,000 compared with 3.25 million in 1981. Now 1985 was a light year, but nevertheless the proportion it dropped was significant.
Then a final paragraph I want to read:
"These positive developments mean that a poor reputation for labour relations may in part be more a reflection of poor public relations than of reality. Business, labour, government and media must attempt to give unexaggerated reports of existing problems and work to build on the present trend of conflict reduction."
This is February 1986, the Business Council of that day talking about how there was a good trend in industrial relations, that our record was not as bad as we all say it is, and that efforts were being made by all the parties to put things together.
[5:15]
That was followed in the rest of 1986 by continued efforts on the part of labour and business, which culminated in the decision earlier this year to establish a relationship between the Business Council, the Vancouver Board of Trade and the Federation of Labour in developing an industrial relations institute. Clearly, significant efforts were being made, and these efforts were being recognized by many people. But the results of some decisions somewhere in government or out of government to proceed with something as massive, as interventionist and as intrusive as section 62 has destroyed, for I don't know how long in the future, all of those initiatives that were being made and were being recognized by all of the parties. So the efforts that we were making, which were recognized by everybody, toward getting a better labour relations climate, toward projecting our actual record more effectively and more accurately to the rest of the world, have all been blown out of the water by the establishment of a mechanism such as the Industrial Relations Council that we see in section 62.
It's for those reasons and for many, many others, philosophical and practical, that we on this side of the House are absolutely and fundamentally opposed to all of the concepts and philosophy contained in section 62 and will vote against that particular section 1n the next few minutes.
[Mrs. Gran in the chair.]
Section 62 as amended approved on the following division:
YEAS — 27
| Brummet | Savage | Rogers |
| L. Hanson | Richmond | Michael |
| Parker | Pelton | Loenen |
| Crandall | De Jong | Rabbitt |
| Dirks | Veitch | S. Hagen |
| Strachan | Davis | Johnston |
| R. Fraser | Hewitt | Chalmers |
| Ree | Bruce | Serwa |
| Vant | Messmer | Jacobsen |
NAYS — 17
| G. Hanson | Barnes | Rose |
| Harcourt | Stupich | D'Arcy |
| Gabelmann | Blencoe | Cashore |
| Guno | Smallwood | Lovick |
| Sihota | Miller | A. Hagen |
| Clark | Edwards |
MR. BARNES: A point of order. I'm sorry, but I didn't hear the Minister of Labour's name. Was it called?
[ Page 1843 ]
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Yes.
MR. BARNES: I thought he was trying to stay in his seat on this.
HON. L. HANSON: With agreement, Madam Chairman, we shall return to section 30.
On section 30.
HON. L. HANSON: I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]
On the amendment.
HON. L. HANSON: The concern that was expressed in the House was that the original version of section 30 was more intrusive than had been the intention, and we have introduced the amendment to ensure that the voting procedures described in section 30 will be on a question of whether to strike or lock out, or whether to accept or ratify a proposed collective agreement, which narrows the term.
MR. GABELMANN: I want to thank the minister for recognizing the concerns expressed on this side of the House about the referral to collective bargaining in this section. The amendment deals with that particular issue. It doesn't make us happier about the other issues we debated earlier, but I don't intend to recanvass any of that, other than to say that this particular point is looked after, even though I can't find the amendments on the order paper, unless I'm missing today's.... I'm looking at June 17; it should show up under section 30 and the other one should show up under 31. Unless I'm just getting blind in my old age, I can't see it on the order paper. I wonder if it actually was introduced.
In any event, we have looked at it. We have seen it.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, it appears that the Chair's is correct and some of the others aren't. Would you like me to read it?
MR. GABELMANN: I think for the record, given that it's not in today's Orders of the Day, unless the minister is saying to me that it is.
Interjections.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: It seems to be missing from some of them. It may be missing from yours.
Interjections.
MR. GABELMANN: Okay. It doesn't need to be read out, as long as the Votes and Proceedings of today's date include the wording of this particular amendment, so that those people who are referring to Hansard and Votes and Proceedings will have all the information in front of them. That's crucial in this issue. We understand what the amendment is; we've read it elsewhere.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, maybe it's best if I do read it out: "Section 30(a) in the proposed section 55(l) by deleting 'regarding a collective bargaining matter,' and substituting 'on a question of whether to strike or lockout, or whether to accept or ratify a proposed collective agreement,'."
MR. GABELMANN: That's all right. This is the end of the discussion, but I just want to say, Madam Chair, through you to the people who are in charge of making sure that these Orders of the Day are printed properly, that they have a look and see what happened, because clearly there are two different sets of Orders of the Day with the same date on them. I hope that that kind of thing doesn't happen again.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: It was, hon. member, apparently an error at the printing plant.
Amendment approved.
Section 30 as amended approved.
On section 31.
HON. L. HANSON: I move the amendment to section 31 standing in my name on the order paper — for the purposes of discussion, the same reference as to section 30. It's a matter of narrowing the information so that it relates to collective bargaining, or — I'm sorry — on a question of whether to strike or whether to accept or ratify a proposed collective agreement. It clarifies the intention of section 31. [See appendix.]
[5:30]
MADAM CHAIRMAN: The amendment to section 31 in the proposed section 55.1(1) by deleting "with regard to a matter related to collective bargaining," and substituting "on a question of whether to strike or whether to accept or ratify a proposed collective agreement." The member for North Island on the amendment.
On the amendment.
MR. GABELMANN: The same arguments apply here. There is a difference, but essentially the same arguments apply, and we appreciate the courtesy of the minister taking the time to look at these and to bring them back with the changes.
Amendment approved.
Section 31 as amended approved.
MR. GABELMANN: Madam Chair, may I suggest you call 63, 64, 65 and 66, and on 67 I will stand up.
HON. L. HANSON: Madam Chairman, just on a point of clarification, has 62.1 passed?
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Yes, we passed it with the amendments, Mr. Minister.
Section 63 negatived.
Sections 64 and 65 approved.
On section 66.
[ Page 1844 ]
HON. L. HANSON: Madam Chairman, I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]
Amendment approved.
Section 66 as amended approved.
On section 67.
MR. GABELMANN: Madam Chairman, I have a few questions on section 67, and I'll save those for the morning. With that, I move the committee rise and report progress.
The House resumed; Mr. Pelton in the chair.
The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I'd like leave to make an introduction, if I could.
Leave granted.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I notice in the gallery a very good friend of mine from Prince George, and an employee of the ministry. I'd like the House to welcome Tom Moore, regional manager of parks in Prince George.
Hon. Mr. Strachan moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 5:34 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 30(a), in the proposed section 55 (1) by deleting "regarding a collective bargaining matter," and substituting "on a question of whether to strike or lockout, or whether to accept or ratify a proposed collective agreement,"
SECTION 31, in the proposed section 55.1 (1) by deleting "with regard to a matter related to collective bargaining," and substituting "on a question of whether to strike or whether to accept or ratify a proposed collective agreement."
SECTION 63, by deleting section 63.
SECTION 66, in the proposed Schedule by deleting "British Columbia Steamship Company (1975) Ltd."