Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: In this chamber, I call second reading, Bill 22, the School Amendment Act.

In Section A, the Douglas Fir Room, I call continued estimates debate for the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

[2:40 p.m.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 22 — SCHOOL AMENDMENT ACT, 2022

Hon. J. Whiteside: I move that the bill be read a second time now.

This legislation amends the School Act to support the province in addressing its constitutional obligations under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Free­doms to meet the capital needs of the Conseil scolaire francophone, or CSF, as defined by a 2020 Supreme Court of Canada decision.

The CSF is one of 60 public boards of education established under the School Act, but has a unique and specific mandate to provide public education in French. The CSF is the sole public francophone education authority in British Columbia and provides francophone educational programs primarily to students whose parents have constitutional rights under section 23 of the Charter to have their children receive education in the French language.

From 2010 to 2020, the province and the CSF were engaged in litigation primarily focused on the provision of land and facilities to support the delivery of francophone educational programs. In that litigation, the CSF alleged infringements of minority language education rights under the Charter and sought systemic as well as specific relief in relation to almost 20 B.C. communities. The case was ultimately heard by the Supreme Court of Canada.

In June 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada issued a judgment that creates a new legal analysis for determining what section 23 requires in a given community and, in particular, when separate minority language school facilities must be provided. The court specifically addressed the province’s obligations in relation to the communities involved in the litigation, increasing the number and scope of school facilities that must be provided. The court also confirmed that its new analysis will define the province’s section 23 obligations and, therefore, the Conseil scolaire francophone’s capital needs into the future.

Since the creation of the CSF in the mid-1990s, the ministry has used several mechanisms to acquire school and lands for the CSF, including having ministry staff dedicated to CSF capital projects, informal negotiation with boards of education and leveraging the ministry’s approval of boards capital project requests in exchange for that board’s agreement to provide surplus land to the CSF, as well as formal dispute resolution between boards and the CSF. But these mechanisms have proven to be insufficient to meet the scope of the province’s section 23 constitutional obligations, as now defined by the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2020 decision.

Under its newly defined CSF capital strategy, the prov­ince will take a coordinated approach to meeting the CSF’s capital needs and will build on existing mechanisms to do so by increasing its efforts in collaborating with the CSF and exploring the creation of a CSF project office, supporting the use of Crown land where possible and, if necessary, transferring land held in fee simple by boards of education to the CSF.

The proposed amendments to the School Act support the implementation of the Crown land and land transfer elements of the CSF capital strategy. In particular, the ministry is proposing a minor amendment to permit the Minister of Education and Child Care to make orders that will require boards of education and the CSF to report information and records to the ministry respecting all lands that they own and lease.

This reporting requirement will allow the ministry to create and maintain an inventory of all lands used for K to 12 purposes to support efforts to better inform capital planning to meet the CSF’s capital needs over the long term.

[2:45 p.m.]

In regard to the proposed new authority to transfer property held by boards of education, the ministry is committed to using all internal and collaborative approaches to provide land to the CSF. However, we recognize that there may be situations where a board is not in a position to negotiate a transfer of some of its land, and all other options that would allow the province to meet its constitutional obligations have been explored and unsuccessfully exhausted.

To address this hopefully rare circumstance, the proposed legislation includes a new two-part authority for the Minister of Education and Child Care. First, an authority to designate land that is held in fee simple by a board of education for a potential transfer to the CSF and, second, an authority to apply to have title to the designated land transferred to the CSF. The designation authority will be exercised by order of the minister with prior approval of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council and can only be exercised if the minister is satisfied that transfer of the designated land is necessary to give effect to section 23 of the Charter.

As noted, after a parcel is designated, the minister may then apply to the registrar of land titles to cause the title to be transferred to the CSF. It is important to reiterate that this proposed new power will only be used as a last resort, if and when the other available mechanisms have been explored and have failed to provide the school facilities for the CSF that are constitutionally required.

The proposed new division that creates the designation and transfer authority also allows the minister to take steps to protect designated land before it is transferred to the CSF, by filing notice of a designation in the land title office and permits the minister to make regulations respecting compensation that is required to be paid if land is transferred to the CSF under these provisions.

Finally, the proposed legislation also includes minor housekeeping amendments to update the ministry’s name in the School Act.

I will leave my initial comments there.

H. Yao: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

H. Yao: Thank you so much. I apologize for that. I do have a friend who’s actually in the building, in the House. She was actually in the chamber, and I failed to introduce her. So I do apologize.

Her name is Reah Arora. She used to be a colleague of mine — I used to work in a constituency office — a phenomenal individual who is charismatic, caring and very progressive. She has done a phenomenal job pushing along the community agenda to ensure that we’re creating a fair, just and equitable society for all. So I’ll take a moment to just recognize her.

Thank you for the introduction.

Debate Continued

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to the minister and to your staff for the work that was done to bring this bill forward.

I’m pleased to speak to Bill 22, the School Amendment Act. This legislation enables British Columbia to fulfil its constitutional obligation as defined by the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2020 decision, which is to respect minority language rights and improve access to French-language schools for francophone British Columbians.

Under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, minority language educational rights, Canadian citizens are entitled to have their children educated in one of Canada’s official languages. The provincial government is required to provide that education to Canadians in the official language of their choice, even in areas where a minority of residents speak that language.

Language, as we spoke about this morning, is more than a means of communication. It forms part of the identity and culture of individuals and linguistic communities in Canada’s multicultural society. We acknowledge the im­portance of working with the francophone community in British Columbia to ensure minority language education rights are respected, and this amendment act is a necessary step to fulfil the Supreme Court decision.

While this bill gives the Ministry of Education the authority to collect land data from school boards, my concern is that there are no limits placed on how and where such data are stored, accessed and shared. We need to be vigilant to ensure that these data are not used in scenarios unrelated to meeting section 23 of the Charter. Boundaries should be set for data usage, and the ministry has a responsibility to be transparent on how these data are used.

[2:50 p.m.]

In addition, the bill gives the ministry the authority to expropriate land from other school districts and transfer the ownership to the CSF, which could potentially lead to the closing of a school on the land and, effectively, require students to move. This poses a legitimate concern to parents regarding how their children will be affected in areas the court has listed, where the francophone authority needs new schools to meet demands: Whistler, Chilliwack, west and north Victoria, Burnaby, northeast Vancouver and the Central Fraser Valley.

While we fully support CSF’s long-term capital strategy to deliver projects in communities, it should not be at the expense of the disrupted education of other students. With that, the official opposition looks forward to exploring details in this bill regarding the new power of data collection and the land transfer for the ministry during the committee stage.

S. Furstenau: I rise to speak to the bill that proposes changes to the School Act. I think this is a step forward for our province and, particularly, for francophone students in our province. It is encouraging to see the province respond to the recent Supreme Court of Canada case and move forward to ensure that section 23 Charter rights are protected.

These amendments give the province the ability to transfer land from an education authority to the Conseil scolaire francophone for them to build schools and increase access to French language instruction. There are 6,500 francophone students in our province, approximately 1.5 percent of the school population. For decades, the provincial government has been found to have underfunded French language education, and it’s important that these inequities be addressed.

I hope to see this as, actually, a foundation for how this government will also address other inequities that we see in our province — that it is a hopeful sign for the thousands of students wanting to be instructed in an Indigenous language or for the students who are waiting to receive equitable instruction for their special needs. There are 71,000 Indigenous students in British Columbia and 73,000 students with special needs.

The concern that was just raised by the critic for the official opposition around what the implications might be for specific parents and schools across the province exists in my riding as well. Parkside Academy is a non-profit daycare in my riding in Cowichan Valley. They have 127 children and are trying to grow more than 150 spots. Their waiting list is over 250 children long. They’ve been based out of the Somenos school for five years and provide excellent child care for the community. Recently the CSF has sought to purchase the land they’re on.

I think what’s going to be important as we move forward with this legislation and with the required and essential accommodation of francophone students is that others are not, in fact, losing access to education or to child care spots — that this becomes an expansion of what is offered in British Columbia as opposed to a contraction. I’m also recently seeing a lot of school districts announcing that they are having to cut funds in their budgets and cut programs like music or positions like school counsellors and psychologists.

I think, in the context of this bill, it is important to recognize the absolute necessity for equitable, universally accessible and high-quality public education across the province.

I hope to hear more from the minister on that topic and will be supporting this bill.

K. Paddon: I’m going to only take a few minutes. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, as somebody who attended a school that was run by Conseil scolaire francophone in Chilliwack.

I’m an army brat, which is a loving term that I fully wear. When we moved to British Columbia, I had the pleasure and ability to attend École La Vérendrye for elementary school. As a matter of fact, my first English class that wasn’t English class didn’t come until grade 11.

[2:55 p.m.]

I attended a francophone education, which is distinctly different than French immersion. Both programs are really incredible, really amazing and a wonderful way to share the French language. However, they are very different. I appreciate the work that has been done by the ministry and that will be done, enabled through this legislation, to recognize the needs for CSF to be able to offer that kind of education.

I’ve heard from several parents in Chilliwack-Kent who are seeking to continue their children’s education, which is their right to do, as they move into high school. Chilliwack still enjoys the ability to send our children to École La Vérendrye for elementary school. However, when it comes to the middle school or high school option, it gets very difficult. Often the choice is French immersion, which comes with some limitations as to which programming and which schools somebody can go to and which spots are available. It isn’t the francophone education that the parents are looking for.

I rise to support this bill fully and just to recognize that I’m hearing, from across the way, concerns about contraction and whether this will mean that somebody else is losing. What I would offer there is that we have…. This ministry and the public service have been able to grow the available courses and experience, the ways of learning and the ways of knowing so much over the past years. I look forward to seeing how having this kind of education truly available benefits everyone.

Maybe I would still be speaking French if I had more French students who were coming to my office to tell me about it. I know that a lot of people in the House would probably agree that we lose our second or third languages slowly over time if we don’t practise them. I know that in Chilliwack and the Fraser Valley, where this is such an important topic, I will be hearing positive things from a lot of the parents.

To the parents who have given me their time, in Chilliwack-Kent, to explain to me how important it is and the difficult choices and decisions that are being made, and who have contacted me to let me know that this is really just such a great, enabling way of moving forward and that they appreciate that section 23 is being recognized for them and their children, I thank you for taking the time to share with me. I thank you for allowing me to rise and just offer my support to this bill.

Hon. R. Fleming: It’s a pleasure to rise to speak to this bill this afternoon. It is a very important piece of legislation, one that is going to enable the government to honour a lot of jurisprudence and a Supreme Court decision of great significance, in 2020, that had been brewing for a long time.

Really, this issue goes back to the modernization of our constitution in Canada in 1980 and the explicit reference to the two official languages of Canada and the right to have equivalent services for the most important things in life, public services. And what could be more important than, of course, education? What British Columbia is trying to construct is something that has been a feature of life in the education systems in Ontario, in Quebec and in New Brunswick, an officially bilingual province, but is late coming out west.

When we look at the timing of this bill…. I think it actually comes on the heels of a lot of positive mom­entum, where we were able to work with the 59 anglophone school districts and the one provincial francophone school district, on a basis where they are working cooperatively in almost every instance. When the minister spoke of how this bill was necessary but, hopefully, rarely, if ever, invoked, I think it was accurate, based on the momentum that is positive and the cooperation that we’re seeing between anglophone school districts and the francophone district.

[3:00 p.m.]

However, having said that, there may be occasions where it is necessary and where the province has a responsibility to respond to the courts and to show progress on that decision that is instructing us. Of course, we are showing tremendous progress, but there is urgency here. A lot of people don’t understand that while there are a number of fast-growing school districts in the province of B.C…. We can think of Surrey. We can think of the Sooke school district here on the Island, which is mainly growing very quickly because of the municipalities of Langford and Colwood. We think of Langley.

Overall, though, there’s a very stable, manageable growth in the school system in most regions of the prov­ince, but the francophone school district is actually one of the fastest-growing school districts in the province. So there is tremendous demand here.

From my own experience in my own area, my own region, where I represent a number of francophone constituencies, parent groups, students, in the early 1990s when École Brodeur was established, it was remarkable, first of all, how popular it was but also how quickly the classrooms filled up in that district, and understandably so. This is obviously the home to Canada’s Pacific Fleet. We have a historic francophone community. We have a number of parents and families stationed here who are serving in the Armed Forces, for example — where that demand was coming from.

That doesn’t answer the question as to why a second school was needed so quickly thereafter. Again, this is a success story that the Minister of Education can be very proud of: that on a voluntary basis — i.e., without needing Bill 22 or such legislation — recently there was a transfer, at Lansdowne Middle School, of significant acreages, I think seven or eight acres, to construct our second francophone public school in this region, in the north part of Victoria, which I believe the opposition critic referenced.

Soon that specific reference in the court document will be satisfied by progress that is happening, thanks to the provincial government and the very robust capital program, if I can put it that way, that is enabling this to happen.

A few years ago, when I was Minister of Education, we were grappling with previous decisions, prior to 2020. That was, really, a result of another appeal. That isn’t so much important as it was that we were under the same imperative: to provide better francophone education in regions where it was warranted, based on the student numbers. I was very pleased to work with members on all sides of the House to work with francophone families in their constituencies to, in some cases, be able to resolve that.

I can think of the Okanagan-Skaha district and of the member for Penticton being a particular champion in working for the transfer of lands and a school facility to the francophone school district, which was successful and which was fairly done to the school district, as have been the other examples. We’re talking about, basically, a market land value that is properly assessed and that is transferred to the anglophone school district. We’re not talking about taking land and giving nothing to the district in exchange for that asset.

Very recently…. It’s fortuitous that I’m sitting next to the minister for child care here. In Burnaby, just two weeks ago — I’m reading from a press release here — the Burnaby school district was able to work on a cooperative basis with the francophone school district to, again, have another win, both for Burnaby anglophone students and francophone families in Burnaby. There is a long, rich history of the francophone linguistic community in that part of Metro Vancouver.

The success was that the province of B.C. provided the Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique with $24.5 million to purchase the former Duthie-Union Elementary School site from the Burnaby school district. Again, it’s a fantastic win, based on a negotiation and based on both parties being able to share goals in that land transfer, which will not require the bill that is under debate today. I want members to be aware of that.

I think that going forward, there will be most instances, possibly all instances, of land transfer, satisfying to the court, done without this legislation. But this legislation must give us the tools, in instances where that is not possible or that is not the case, or where the negotiations are stalled out and we’re not meeting the timelines that have been established by the court and, therefore, are in violation of the court. That’s why we need this bill.

[3:05 p.m.]

I’m going to go back to this news release here, because I like the quote from Jen Mezei, who is the chair of the Burnaby board of education. She said this, speaking on behalf of the anglophone district in Burnaby: “It was important to us as a board that the land remain in the hands of a school district providing public education. We are pleased that with this sale, there will be a francophone school in Burnaby providing another learning opportunity for children and youth in our community.”

Now, that is exactly the right attitude and positivity and cooperation that we would expect to see and that we are seeing in districts around the province. But I can tell you that there have been instances, one in particular, where significant effort has been put towards trying to create this similar dynamic, with fair compensation in place.

The Vancouver school board, a district, by the way, that has 20,000 vacant seats and has significant excess lands compared to any other district in the province — there is nobody that compares to that particular situation — has been unable to work with the francophone school district to identify sites on the west side of Vancouver where they desperately need a school to serve the francophone community, which was specifically referenced by the court.

The court, by the way, also said — this isn’t legally enforceable, but they did note in the reasons for judgment — that anglophone school districts ought to work side by side with the province to resolve the conclusions of the court, which was that these language rights needed to be satisfied, and that the public school system should work cooperatively to find solutions.

While I think there have been a lot of well-intentioned people that have put a lot of work in at the Vancouver school board to do this, it has not been brought to any successful conclusion after years and years of work. It may be the case that this bill is needed in that instance, and it may not be. I don’t have full, up-to-date knowledge on how well discussions are going in the Vancouver school board.

I can tell you that if we had had Bill 22 when I was Minister of Education, I likely would have used it to come to a satisfactory resolution that would already, probably, have produced a school building and might have produced some benefits by providing fair compensation to the Vancouver school board, which could have been invested in other capital priorities in their long range facilities plan. Instead, there was an inability to get to an agreement.

Unfortunately, nothing has been done for francophone students to improve the situation, where they lack a school, or for kids in some of the fast-growing areas — in a district that is otherwise continuing to experience flat enrolment or even modest enrolment decline. I’m speaking specifically of the community around False Creek.

I want to go back to Ms. Mezei’s point again. I think she has displayed exactly the right kind of attitude that we should expect from our education leaders and that MLAs in this House will recognize.

We represent anglophones, francophones and all kinds of communities. We have just introduced a bill a couple of hours ago — which communities of colour, Métis and Indigenous peoples worked with the government on producing — to counter discrimination, to hold government accountable, to make sure that in employment, housing and education there is no discrimination happening as we go forward, that we measure that, that we report on that and that we stamp out racism in all forms.

Indeed, it is in that spirit that this bill, I think, will enable us to overcome any resistance, should there be any, to the linguistic rights of the francophone community in British Columbia. There are some voices, some influential voices, in the Vancouver education community that have seen cooperation as a bad idea, that have seen it as taking something away from the Vancouver school board in an area where — let’s face it — land is hard to come by and land prices are amongst the highest in North America.

They have seen the project of working cooperatively for the betterment of public education in a city, a government and a local situation that represents both the francophone minority and the anglophone minority as: “It’s something that’s not our problem. That’s up to the province.” Well, that’s the wrong idea if we’re going to make progress, if we’re going to satisfy the court and if we’re going to allow the francophone minority to have what the court has rightly said is an entitlement to have the same type of high-quality education facility and instruction in a community like Vancouver.

[3:10 p.m.]

I hope we don’t need Bill 22, but it certainly may be quite helpful to have this law come into force and break a logjam if we can’t do it on a voluntary basis together. But I think that we won’t need it. I think that we’ll continue to do what Penticton has done. We will continue to do what Kamloops school district has done and the Victoria school district and so many others, and we’ll continue to make progress in northern B.C., where there is a vibrant, growing francophone community.

I want to thank, again, the minister for her work in moving this forward and also in getting a number of positive agreements in very recent weeks and months to satisfy the court decision that obliges us as lawmakers to satisfy the court decision around this important language right that is long established in Canada. Thank you.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, does the minister wish to close debate?

Hon. J. Whiteside: I would like to thank the member for West Vancouver–Capilano for her comments. I look forward to our further discussion during committee stage.

I would like to thank the Leader of the Third Party for her comments and, of course, my colleagues for their perspectives on what is an important step forward, certainly, in addressing our constitutional obligations with respect to francophone students but also that really is in the spirit of recognizing that we have really one educational system in the province and a diversity of students and that we need to find ways to work together to ensure that the needs of students are met.

With that, I’ll close my comments there.

Deputy Speaker: The member moves second reading.

Motion approved.

Hon. J. Whiteside: I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 22, School Amendment Act, 2022, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. R. Fleming: I call second reading of Bill 21, the Professional Governance Amendment Act.

The Attorney General has brought the wrong binder. He will be back in the House momentarily. I suggest that we recess until he appears to begin debate.

Deputy Speaker: Very good, Minister. We will take a short recess.

The House recessed from 3:12 p.m. to 3:13 p.m.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

BILL 21 — PROFESSIONAL GOVERNANCE
AMENDMENT ACT, 2022

Hon. D. Eby: I move that the bill be now read a second time.

Bill 21 consists of amendments to the Professional Governance Act. These amendments have been primarily driven by the operational experience of the office of the superintendent of professional governance and the regulatory bodies operating under it. They reflect the requirement in the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act to ensure that B.C. laws are consistent with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Proposed amendments also draw from recommendations made in recent reviews of professional governance models in B.C. health and legal professions to reflect ongoing development in governance best practices.

[3:15 p.m.]

The key amendments included in this bill will enable the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council to set out regulations in respect of an annual fee on regulatory bodies to fund performance management functions; express confirmation that reserving professional practices to register in civil professions does not impact Indigenous traditional knowledge or practices; enable government to achieve flexibility in the designation and amalgamation processes to reflect right-touch regulation principles; enable regulatory bodies to address non-compliance with administrative matters, such as completion of continuing education requirements outside of the discipline process in a manner that is procedurally fair; enable the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council to set out regulations to enact feasible requirements around declarations of competence and declarations of conflict of interest and transition to the terminology, which better reflects that regulatory bodies are not membership organizations.

This includes transitioning away from councillor/president terms to board member/board chair terms and from professional association to professional regulator.

The regulatory bodies, which include the Applied Science Technologists and Technicians of B.C., the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals, the B.C. Institute of Agrologists, the College of Applied Biology and the Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C., along with the Architectural Institute of B.C., which will be transitioning under the Professional Governance Act later this year, have been engaged on these amendments.

The First Nations Leadership Council and the B.C. alliance of treaty First Nations were also engaged in the development of the amendment related to Indigenous traditional knowledge and practices.

Since the Professional Governance Act received royal assent in 2018, the office of the superintendent of professional governance has provided value in promoting best practices and holding regulatory bodies accountable to performance standards while being responsive to their operational needs. It has advanced transparency to and trust of the public on professional governance matters and has demonstrated its own accountability in its annual reports to the Legislature.

These proposed amendments reflect this government’s commitment to administrative efficiency and will ensure the regulatory bodies continue to operate under a modern governance framework that protects the public interest.

M. de Jong: On Bill 21, my comments won’t be lengthy. We have just heard from the Attorney General that what we are dealing with here is a piece of legislation that is designed to draw on the experiences of the last 3½, four years, since the passage and the enactment of the Professional Governance Act. He has enunciated and summarized some of the proposed amendments — changes and updates — included within this package, this Bill 21.

The original act, of course, is a lengthy document, almost 110 pages of legislation, and it’s not terribly surprising, therefore, that along the way, some issues may have arisen that require addressing in subsequent legislation.

For the purposes of the debate that will follow, the discussion that will follow, in committee, I can tell the Attorney General that a general line of questioning will be to seek from the Attorney and the staff that he’ll have with him an explanation for the experiences that may have given rise to some of the changes that are being proposed. Some of them are linguistic, as he’s pointed out. The shift from membership language to regulatory language is reflected in a number of sections of the bill.

He won’t be surprised to know that there will be an interest expressed on the part of the opposition as it relates to the provisions of the legislation that deal with the creation of a regulatory power around the creation of a fee. We’ve had the benefit of a brief discussion with the staff about what might be contemplated there, but the Attorney will appreciate that we’ll seek some comment from him on the record as part of the committee proceedings about what the nature of those fees are likely to be, what they’re intended to cover, how they might be applied, how they might be determined and subsequently applied.

It’s a piece of legislation that, quite frankly, lends itself more appropriately to a detailed discussion at the committee stage, and for that reason, the opposition is content to facilitate passage through second reading to the committee stage of debate.

Those are my comments.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, Attorney General.

Hon. D. Eby: Thank you, hon. Speaker. I always appreciate my critic, the member for Abbotsford West, giving a roadmap of potential questions that assist me and staff in being more complete in our responses. I’m grateful for that.

With that, I move second reading.

Motion approved.

[3:20 p.m.]

Hon. D. Eby: I move that the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 21, Professional Governance Amendment Act, 2022, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. D. Eby: I call continued second reading of Bill 10, Labour Relations Code Amendment Act.

BILL 10 — LABOUR RELATIONS CODE
AMENDMENT ACT, 2022

(continued)

P. Milobar: It gives me pleasure to take my place back in the debate today. I only had a few minutes there when we closed up on Thursday for the week, so I’m glad to continue my comments around Bill 10 and what is essentially, really, the stripping away of democratic process in the workplace in British Columbia. I say that because that’s really the core of Bill 10.

We’ve heard government members speak to Bill 10 already. I’m not sure if they think the bill is something other than it is, or if they’ve read something different. We’re not redoing the labour code in terms of safety practice and safety standards in the workplace. Bill 10 is not designed, and its intended purpose is not, to make workplaces safer, yet that’s what the majority of the commentary by government members has been to this point. Absolutely, everyone deserves and has a right to work in a safe workplace — no one is disputing that — but stripping away the right to a secret ballot does not accomplish that.

No one is saying that you should not have the right to assimilate and be part of a union. Of course you should have the right to do that, and you have that right in British Columbia right now under existing legislation. What Bill 10 does is that it actually strips away the democratic right of joining that union that you have. That is where the problem lies, from my perspective.

I was thinking back to what got me to this place, and I went through a nomination process. I know, probably, most government members that would have been part of a snap election wouldn’t have had a chance to go through a nomination process in their riding, but I certainly did. That was contested. It’s interesting, because there are similarities. You sign a card under the current system. If there’s enough people that sign cards, it goes to a vote a few days later.

In my case, for my nomination, I went out and sold memberships. People had to sign to become a member of the B.C. Liberal Party. I’m sure the NDP operates in a very similar way in terms of people taking out a membership. Then there’s a few days’ period at the end of those membership sales, at the end of signing those cards. People get together again, and they have a secret ballot to decide who will be their representative. That’s what enabled me to become a candidate for our party in my riding.

We then carried that forward to having an election, where you fill out a whole bunch of paperwork, and you sign your intentions on papers, of what you would like to try to do. You ask the people for further confirmation. It’s a secret ballot. That’s essentially the same process we have if you would like to join a union in British Columbia. Unions come in. They make representation. They try to convince members that it would be a good idea to join their union and why they would benefit in that particular workplace. That’s not a problem at all.

If they convince enough people to sign a card showing intention that they would like to explore this further, they do. They then move forward with a secret vote that’s overseen by an independent neutral party, much like Elections B.C. In this case, it’s not Elections B.C. I believe it’s the labour board that comes in and supervises. There’s a secret vote. If enough people vote yes, the unionization of that workplace continues on — not a problem at all. You don’t need to change the legislation to enable people to have that right to move forward with the process.

[3:25 p.m.]

To say and to try to suggest, in any measure, that a secret ballot creates intimidation and coercion, instead of sitting in a room full of people, co-workers and organizers — and saying that a show of hands, essentially, is less onerous on people and less stressful on people, to be able to provide their true thought and true intention — is laughable.

Like with my nomination, just because someone took out a membership, it does not necessarily mean, when they’re standing in the privacy of that voting booth by themselves, that they actually marked my name down on the ballot. That’s okay; that was their right.

It’s just like in an election. When I first ran for city council back in 2002…. I can’t even remember how many thousands of votes I got. I can guarantee you I almost had twice as many people tell me to my face that they voted for me. That’s okay. It gets awkward sometimes. People don’t know what to say. Every former local government official in here probably knows what I’m talking about. That’s what people do.

Stripping away the right of somebody to have a secret ballot on something as critical as what will shape the future of their work, potentially for their career, the length of their career…. It’s critical that something like that demonstrate what their true intention is.

No one is saying they shouldn’t be allowed to have that right to join a union. Absolutely, they should. If it’s working conditions that are driving the need for that, that will shine through in a secret ballot vote. Under the current rules, if an employer is deemed to be meddling in this whole process, then, in fact, the certification is immediate, automatic. Pretty high stakes for a business to go to the levels of coercion that are being bandied about by government right now as an excuse to strip democratic rights for people.

Now, I’m no expert, obviously, when it comes to who forms the bulk of NDP delegates when they go to a convention. I would imagine there’d be a lot of labour leaders, a lot of labour organizers, people that would be trying to set up unions in various jobsites. That’s fair enough. It’s no secret, the connection with the NDP and labour. They should be allowed to freely associate with whatever political party they choose to associate with.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

It’s interesting that those exact same organizers, trying to say that a secret ballot is a coercion tactic, don’t seem to have a problem electing all of their executive in an NDP election by secret ballot. Those are the same people that would be walking into workplaces and saying that a secret ballot is too onerous and too rife with problems. Here, let’s look at some of the elected positions with the NDP, where it’s a secret ballot by these same people, many of whom, in the room, would be the ones going into a workplace to organize.

Interjection.

P. Milobar: I look forward to the member for Na­naimo–North Cowichan’s commentary. I’m sure he’ll get to his feet and defend why stripping away a secret ballot…. That way, he could actually have it on the record instead of just Hansard marking him down as interjections in the middle of this.

Other elected positions: party president, secret ballot; treasurer, secret ballot; regional representatives on the party executive, secret ballot; northern caucus representative on the party executive, secret ballot. The chairs of the participation of women committee; the New Democratic Youth of Canada; the racial justice and equality committee; the Aboriginal commission; the lesbian-gay, bisexual-transgendered committee; the persons living with disabilities committee; and the federal caucus representative — all secret ballots.

Not a showing of hands in the middle of the convention. Not people standing up, one by one, at a microphone to proclaim who they feel would be best suited — many of whom would be the same organizers, going into workplaces, that are now saying that a secret ballot is a problem.

In fact….

Interjection.

P. Milobar: It’s interesting. Someone just asked me how democracy works, from the government side. If that doesn’t say it all right now…. That’s remarkable to me. We have someone asking, from the government side, how democracy works when we’re debating a bill that would strip away somebody’s democratic right to have a secret ballot. That, to me, speaks volumes about what is wrong with this bill.

[3:30 p.m.]

At its core, this bill’s problem is it’s just bad legislation. We’ve seen it time and again from this government. In fact, we just had a piece of legislation removed, a piece of legislation that was supposedly a trigger for an election, a snap pandemic election. That legislation was used as a reason for the election. It was going to come back to this House. Eighteen months later the whole concept is removed completely, because it was bad legislation.

This government has had bad legislation time and again. It shouldn’t be that shocking, I guess, that they have another piece of bad legislation when their own members are asking for democracy to be explained to them on a bill that takes away the democratic right to a secret ballot. A fundamental tenet of democracy is the secret ballot.

I know the Premier likes to refer people to the Google. So perhaps his own members could go to the Google and check out where secret ballots came from and see how far back they go — they go back to hundreds, BC — and why and the premise.

It was not just in one area of the world that this was happening. It was happening across the world, because it was widely recognized that a secret ballot is important. It’s fundamental. It’s the basis of all of this.

When you see that the NDP, to select their own members’ positions, rely on a secret ballot, it calls into question the sincerity and why this is really needed.

Now, there are other pieces of this legislation that are problematic, things like being able to go to a union to raid every summer instead of every three years. That will create problems. That will create big problems within the construction industry.

I’m willing to bet, for the first few years, the unions that will be raided are the ones that aren’t currently on the preferred list of unions to be able to get government work, because 85 percent of unionized construction workers in this province don’t belong to those 19 unions. I know the government likes to dismiss those unions, but there’s a difference….

Here, again, a member from the government said: “Well, it’s because there are non-union workplaces.” That’s not called union raiding. That’s called union organization, to the member. Two totally different things. They don’t understand their own bill.

A union raid is when a workplace is already organized and unionized, and union A goes in to try to supplant union B. That’s a union raid, which will now be allowed every summer.

The member from Chilliwack doesn’t seem to understand that. He’s comparing that to a non-unionized workplace, where the other part of this bill comes into play, where they stripped away the secret ballot, which, to the other member, from Nelson, is how democracy works. They’ve stripped away that and the other part.

Perhaps the members of government could get together and understand the two parts of this bill and how they actually interact with the two different workplaces, one which is already unionized and one which is not unionized. Perhaps, when they get to that fundamental understanding of this bill, we could actually have a proper debate.

That would probably explain why previous speakers have spent all of their time talking about workplace safety with this bill. This bill doesn’t impact workplace safety. This bill takes away the worker’s right to a free and democratic secret ballot vote on whether or not they want to be governed and represented by a union in their workplace.

If you’re a young person in that situation, literally your career…. Were it taking away…. With this bill, the government is trying to strip away — someone that might be 22, 23, 24 years old — the ability for them to say, by way of a secret ballot, whether or not they want to be a part of a union in their workplace. I don’t understand why the other side is so afraid of allowing a secret ballot on something as crucial as that for somebody deciding their next 30-year workplace. Why that is a fear of this government….

[3:35 p.m.]

Let’s be clear. This has been tried for the last couple of years. It only didn’t happen during the coalition government because the Green Party didn’t support it. You know who else doesn’t support it? Seventy-nine percent of British Columbians, including a heck of a lot of unionized workers. They agree that their brothers and sisters should get to vote with a secret ballot. In fact, you can only find about 5 percent of the population that actually thinks it’s a good idea, which means 95 percent are on one side of don’t like it to 79 percent that really don’t like it.

Only this government could try to advance something that only 5 percent of the population even remotely thinks is a good idea. That strips away democracy. It’s a shame. One would think that with “democratic” in the middle of their party name, they would actually understand the tenets of democracy. But as was pointed out earlier, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Bill 10 is just bad legislation. We have seen it time and again in this chamber. Some bad legislation has advanced. Some was used to trigger an election and has now been withdrawn. Clean energy. That was bad legislation. That magically has just disappeared, never to be talked about again. I believe that was an excuse for the snap election as well. Just quietly withdrawn.

This government has a track record of actually bringing forward bad legislation. FOI legislation. Yeah, they rammed it through all right. Hard-pressed to find anyone that says that was a good process, let alone good legislation. Secretive, not forthcoming. Those are the hallmarks of the most secret government in Canada. That’s what this NDP government is. What’s good enough for them apparently is too onerous for someone to have as a right to decide how they want to work at the job they’re already doing.

Somehow the only place in our society that a secret ballot becomes too onerous is in the workplace when a union wants to get certified. It doesn’t happen at student councils. It doesn’t happen in classrooms. If they’re picking a rep to be for their class, they do that as a secret ballot, even back in elementary school with, yes, a secret ballot.

There are very few things in our life that you can point to that are a show of hands in a public assembly where you’re then interacting with those people day in and day out. That’s why a secret ballot is so important. It’s the long-term, day in and day out, working with these people, side by side, that creates divisions, and that starts to create a toxic workplace. If you want to talk about an unhealthy workplace, this legislation will actually create it.

I go back to how I first got elected municipally. People tell you one thing but do a different thing when they get to the ballot box, which is their right to do.

The fact that some unions have found out, with a cold piece of reality, that what some workers told them they might want to do when it comes to a union by taking the first step and signing a card and then, in the security and privacy of a secret ballot, indicating the exact opposite just proves why this is bad legislation. It proves why people need to be able to have the freedom to, unhindered, voice their true opinion on whether or not they want to join a particular union.

[3:40 p.m.]

It could be that they don’t like that particular union, and then the next union that comes along they actually do want. That’s okay too. They should have that right to do that.

If they unionize, unions absolutely should be trying to push the bar as far as they can with their boss in terms of hours worked or working conditions, benefit packages and salaries and everything else. They absolutely should do that because that workplace, by way of a secret ballot, has said: “We want to entrust this bargaining group to do that for us.” I take no issue with that whatsoever.

The comments that you’re hearing from opposition are not anti-union. We’re not saying that there shouldn’t be any. They actually do play a space in our society. I had a very good working relationship with the various unions at the city when I was in Kamloops. Never had any work stoppages. WCB claim rates kept dropping. Stress leaves, those types of indicators, and grievances were all dropping. Didn’t have any strikes. Negotiated quite a few different agreements. So I don’t have a problem at all.

You should have the fundamental right in a democratic country, like Canada is, to use a secret ballot to decide how you would like to change your working conditions on something as fundamental as unionized or not. The fact that the government doesn’t understand, or cares not to understand, or cares not to care about the union raiding aspect of this, where, every single summer, construction unions are fair game for each other to go and duke it out to try to steal members away from one to the other….

The only reason I can think of that they wouldn’t care about that is that they’re fully expecting their 19 prioritized unions, which are the only ones to get access to the government jobs right now, to go after the remaining unionized workplaces and their members. They tilt the scales to make sure the government contracts only go to a certain subset of unions, and now they’re going to try to tilt the scales to make sure that those remaining workplaces can get raided on a yearly basis by those same ones that get access to the government work.

It’s fundamentally not right. That’s why I say it’s fundamentally bad legislation.

There are other ways they could have worked around things, but no. They chose to ignore it. This government seems to be very good at delaying and saying that they’re going to consult and saying that they’re going to go and ask for experts. In fact, they’re doing it right now.

We’re waiting to find out about the cooling-off period for real estate that the Minister of Finance says actually won’t affect house prices. It might actually make things worse. You could actually wind up losing your down payment that you took 15 years to save up for, thanks to her new legislation. There may or may not be geographic differences for consumer protection in that bill, but don’t worry. That’s what the government says on that bill.

On this…. They’re waiting for the BCFSA report to come in. They’re waiting for that group of experts to advise before they can answer any of those critically important questions. On this bill, they actually did get advice from experts. The experts said: “Don’t get rid of the secret ballot.” What does this government do? “It was really just an exercise of asking. It doesn’t mean we can’t have a difference of opinion on things.”

Well, it’s a pretty big difference of opinion when you’re talking about something as fundamental as a secret ballot and something as fundamental as a basic tenet of democracy. I challenge anyone to find definitions of democracy that don’t involve a secret ballot.

[3:45 p.m.]

That’s the process. That’s the core process to it. You can tweak it. You can say: “Well, it’s got to be 60 percent in favour or opposed.” It’s got to be this, or it’s got to be that. The baseline for all of it is a secret ballot.

We just went through the proportional representation referendum, which was another thumb on the scales by the Attorney General. That was to figure out how you would select people to come. But not once, through that whole process, was the secret ballot talked about being removed. They looked at — how many? — different voting systems around the world. All of them involved a secret ballot.

Somehow, in British Columbia, the most critical thing this government has to work on, the burning issue for them, is to remove a secret ballot for somebody to choose a union. Yet it took the Labour Minister five years to bring forward asbestos legislation. Asbestos accounts for one-third of all workplace deaths in British Columbia every year. It took the minister five years to bring that forward. It took him basically a year after the snap election to bring this forward, when they were unshackled from the Greens. If that doesn’t tell you their priorities, I don’t know what does.

All the well-meaning in the world means nothing when you actually stack it up to the actual workflow, the workplan, what they’re actually enacting, what they’re bringing forward by way of legislation and their prioritization of that. I’m going to end with that and repeat it, because I think it’s galling. I first started speaking to this bill, actually, on the Day of Mourning. One-third of yearly workplace deaths are attributed to asbestos exposure.

It took the same minister that’s bringing this bill forward five years to bring that forward to this Legislature, but one year after a snap election — and being unfettered from the Greens — removing the secret ballot for people in the workplace was brought forward. That’s shameful, and yes, it’s undemocratic. There is no way I can possibly support this bill moving forward.

I thank you for the time, Madam Chair.

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the Minister of Education and Child Care.

Hon. J. Whiteside: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s nice to see you in the chair.

I want to start by just saying what an incredible honour it is to have the opportunity to speak to this bill today. I want to thank the Minister of Labour for bringing it forward. I want to say that this issue is an important issue to people in my community, which, like many other communities, of course, is comprised of working people, many of whom belong to unions.

In fact, in New Westminster, we are home to several union central offices: the UFCW 1518, B.C. Building Trades, the Health Sciences Association, Retail Wholesale Union, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Unifor. You could say we’re bit of a union town.

I want to say to them that I am profoundly grateful for the work that they do to lift up working people, to build safer workplaces, because that work not only benefits their members, but it benefits all of society and ensures that we have a thriving, equitable economy. Ensuring the constitutional right of workers to join a union and to negotiate one’s working conditions collectively with your fellow workers is a right that must be one that can be practically accessed and that is real.

[3:50 p.m.]

This debate is important for people in our communities. Ultimately, this is a question of working people being able to act on their constitutionally protected right to join a union.

Now, I have had the privilege and the pleasure of spending most of my working life advocating for and with working people, mostly health care workers. Over the decades, I’ve seen the incredibly important role that unions play in providing public services, and I’ve seen the struggles that working people have experienced in accessing the right to unionization. I’ve also seen the struggle and the operation of power in this field.

I have seen the faces of people I’ve worked with who have suffered situations where their right to join a union has been interfered with, where they have been deprived of that right and where the barriers that they face are insurmountable, despite freedom of association being enshrined in law.

I will say that many of those faces are racialized. They come from communities that have been made vulnerable because of racism, discrimination and inequity, and forming a union is the path for them to experience dignity and decency in their working lives. This fact must remind us all that unionization is a force for equity and that unions are a critical feature of modern civil society.

I want to also just reflect on some of the work that I have done, over the course of my career, that looks at the relationship between unionization and outcomes for patients and residents, particularly in nursing homes. Peer-reviewed research demonstrates a positive correlation between unionized workplaces and quality-of-care outcomes for people who live in nursing homes. We have seen that in our own experience in this province — the relationship between unionized workplaces and the care that is received and the quality of the lives of people who are patients or residents who get care in our care system.

I could line up incredible care providers around this building many, many times who could speak to the degree to which they care for the people in our province and the importance of their ability to have stable labour relations, the kind of stable labour relations that come with a unionized environment, the kind of dignity and decency that comes in having structured ways of ensuring that you have a safe work environment.

These issues are not theoretical. They’re not abstract about what democracy is. They are very real about the material conditions that people experience every day. Working people are driven to join unions because they experience injustice at work. They experience inequity, indignity, a lack of safety in their work lives.

Those are generally the kinds of experiences that cause people to want to join with other working people to improve their working conditions. It is the material effect of these circumstances on the lives of working people and their families and their children that is important to understand here. Whether it is a lack of access to a livable wage, a lack of access to a family-supporting wage, whether it’s the experience of harassment or discrimination at work or a lack of access to benefits or to paid sick leave, there are many experiences that have a material impact on the health and well-being of workers that cause them to come together to bargain collectively to improve their experience at work.

[3:55 p.m.]

Once we understand that the reason that unionization is the only path to remedy this experience, we understand that it is the power imbalance in the workplace between workers and their employer that is, really, just simply a fact of how our workplaces are organized. That is just a fact of labour relations.

My friend and colleague the member for Langley gave a very eloquent and extensive description of the framework of labour relations in this country, in this province, which is intended explicitly to provide for labour stability and to promote, to the greatest extent possible, a sort of a levelling of the playing field in that regard. That’s an important context and framework to understand the way in which this particular provision in our labour code is working — or not working, in this particular instance.

We have an approach both constitutionally and set up in our labour code which understands that there is a differential in power between workers who are employed and their employers. That is the framework in which we have established a labour code that says that working people can come together, under a clear set of rules and in the interest of labour stability, and have access to a pathway to improve their working conditions and, thus, their lives.

Much has been made of the notion of the only form of democracy being a secret ballot, but I will say that I think it’s a false equivalency to suggest that voting in a municipal or a provincial or federal election is really sort of the same as, in this instance, making a decision about joining a union, precisely because of that power imbalance, which does not exist in those other circumstances.

I also am troubled, frankly, by the way in which it ignores the reality of people, the lived reality of people. If you talk to working people who have been in workplaces where there is intimidation, who have been through this process in some cases of trying to organize a union and have had that right frustrated, then you will understand that this is a real and material condition that people experience. I think to disregard that, to dismiss that experience shows, really, a troubling lack of regard for the experience of people.

I have seen it. I have seen workers who have been fired en masse and have tried to come back and have gotten hired and have tried to form a union again that have been unable to do that. I have seen workers work in situations, in environments, where there is a culture of fear. That culture of fear is designed to prevent workers from deciding to join a union. I have seen that. I have talked to workers. I see their faces right now.

To somehow say that there is sort of an equivalency, that there’s no such thing as power operating anywhere here between how we elect governments and how workers choose to form a union, is a real false equivalency. That power imbalance simply doesn’t translate into those other circumstances.

If we look at the process by which people actually join a union, then you really see the opportunities for employers to frustrate that right. Indeed, the stakes are very high. Members across the aisle have noted how high the stakes are. They are very high for working people who are looking for decency and dignity in their lives, very high indeed.

What did we hear during the labour panel review? That was a really big process. We heard much evidence, much testimony put forward by working people, much analysis by experts who comprised the panel. What we heard from one of the unions that provided testimony at the panel was that one of the major impediments to union organization is employer opposition. That opposition can easily manifest itself during an organizing campaign when employer representatives express inappropriate opinions on the question of unionization.

[4:00 p.m.]

We accept the view that employers have a legitimate interest in whether their employees organize for the purpose of collective bargaining. On the other hand, we believe employers must maintain a circumspect position during an organizing campaign, to ensure that employees are able to freely choose whether or not they wish to belong to a trade union. This is a subject that has been talked about in a number of different forms — in the ’90s, during the process to review the code at that time, and then again in 2017-2018, when the code was being reviewed.

I want to go back to the most recent discussion by the panel and just put into context the recommendation that came from that panel with respect to the secret ballot process. I’m just going to quote from their analysis.

What the panel said was:

“A secret ballot process gives rise to two main concerns: the potential for delay and unlawful employer interference. Under a secret ballot system, employers have more opportunity and incentive to engage in unlawful union avoidance. Longer timeframes for certification votes or lax compliance negatively impact the success rates for certification. However, employer unfair labour practices continue to be concerns, indeed, under a card-check system as well.”

I imagine that employer unfair labour practices would be a concern under any system. What we’re seeking to do here is to mitigate the worst impact of that.

They went on to say:

“While secret ballot votes are integral to our democratic political system, we recognize that certification votes occur in very different circumstances than political votes. Certification votes occur in the context of the power imbalance between employers and workers in the workplace. Employers control the operation of the business, have the right to fire employees and can curtail or close the business.

“Unlike political votes, section 7 of the code limits unions’ ability to communicate with workers during working time. Employers, on the other hand, have an unrestricted ability to do so throughout the workday. Political candidates have voters lists, while in the certification context, unions have limited information to determine the bargaining unit constituency.

“Although employers have a legitimate interest in whether their employees choose to access collective bargaining, that interest must be weighed against the fundamental right of employee choice. There is no dispute that unlawful employer interference can significantly influence or undermine the exercise of employee choice. One of the most significant barriers to the exercise of employee choice is employer opposition and, more importantly, unlawful interference.

“During the public consultation process, we received numerous anecdotal examples consistent with studies that unlawful interference has a significant impact on the certification success rate.

“Concerns regarding unlawful interference with employee choice during a secret ballot vote are legitimate. The code must protect the right of employees to access collective bargaining.”

It’s not as though the panel didn’t acknowledge there is not only lived experience on the part of many working people who have tried to form a union but that also many academic studies have identified the fact that votes for electing governments are not the same as the exercise of this right to join a union for the purpose of collective bargaining.

I think it’s important to note, as well, that the panel was not unanimous on this point. There was a dissent registered about this question. Sandra Banister’s dissent states:

“Employer concerns that the card-check system does not accurately reflect employee choice are contradicted by the paucity of attempts to revoke union membership cards. The idea that employees may be coerced into joining a trade union is not supported by unfair labour practice statistics. Nor is there any evidence to support the suggestion that some employees join trade unions due to peer pressure. To suggest employees sign union cards capriciously or are not making an informed choice when they do so ignores the fact the decision to join a trade union is often difficult.

[4:05 p.m.]

“We heard anecdotal evidence that employees are frequently concerned that they will be fired if their employer learns they sign a union card. Further, card check actually requires greater employee support than the ballot system, since the threshold, which ranges from a simple majority to super majority of 65 percent, is based on all the employees in the unit, rather than simply the majority of those voting.

“The freedom to associate is a Canadian value enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Preserving employee choice free of employer interference is critical to that right.”

What we have seen and what we have experienced since the revisions to the code flowing from this process is that, in fact, the attempts of employers to frustrate workers’ ability to exercise their right to freely associate continue to occur.

I think it’s worthwhile just noting the record of unfair labour practice complaints that have been submitted to the board. From 1990 to 2007, there were 254 unfair labour practice complaints submitted to the board. One hundred and ninety-seven of those were against the employer, 54 were against a union, and three were against individuals.

Of the 197 that were against an employer, 152 were wholly or partially found to be meritorious, and 90 percent related to unlawful termination or communication during organizing raids. That statistic backs up the experience that many working people have of trying to organize a union and having that right frustrated because of the delays and the multiple steps in the process for them.

I know that this has already been put on the record. But just to say, again, recently…. This is not ancient history. This is recent history. The Labour Relations Board continues to hear cases and continues to find that there are examples of employers who continue to work quite against the spirit of the labour code, quite against the spirit and the Charter right of workers to join a union, and they have been found to be in violation of that right.

It can be very difficult to unring the bell once that happens, and once it’s gone, it can be gone. So workers, having put in hours and days and months of effort to make that decision to work with their co-workers and make the decision and sign the cards, wait for the vote, only to have that process interfered with. That can set them back for a very long time.

Despite the changes that were made in 2019, employer interference and unfair labour practices are continuing, and we need to do more to ensure that workers can make a choice about unionization without interference from everyone. That is their right under the Charter. Workers should not have to go through multiple steps to make that decision to join a union.

You know, I think part of what is troubling about this debate is that I think about other jurisdictions in the world where unions are just really seen to be sort of a public good and really seen to be part of a healthy civil society. That ought to be the case here as well.

We know there is a positive correlation between unionization and social outcomes in terms of economic security for working people, in terms of health and safety, in terms of all of the reasons why people seek to form a union — the search for dignity and equity in their work. Indeed, I think that unions are part of a thriving modern civil society, and we should not be putting up barriers in the way of workers executing and acting on their Charter rights.

This legislation ensures that the right of association, the right to form a union, is a real right, that it’s a real promise, that it’s a real option.

[4:10 p.m.]

Finally, I just can’t help but reflect on the experience we’ve all been through, collectively, over the last two years during the pandemic. I know much will be assessed and written and analyzed about this experience, but for me, I think there’s been a fundamental change in how we think about work and how we value work.

Whether that work is making sure that grocery stores are open and staffed so that we can buy the food that we need, whether it’s working in hospitals or long-term care facilities or in social services or in transit or in any of the distilleries that were producing hand sanitizer — all of the elements of the supply chain, hydro, everybody who contributed to keeping our society going and keeping us safe — I think we all think about work differently now. I think we also think about the impact of a major health crisis like that on different populations in different ways as well.

It certainly brought to the surface the differential impact on vulnerable populations, so we see these things more with an intersectional lens. We need to bring that intersectional lens to this question about who has access to unionization and under what circumstances. Yes, let’s have a conversation about what democracy really means in the context of how power operates in workplaces, in the context of how racialized workers and workers who are made vulnerable by their social circumstances…. How do they have access to this in the best, most productive way?

Those are the questions that I think people in my community want us to be talking about and finding answers to. There is an answer here. There is a solution here that is an elementary solution that we should be supporting and moving on with so that we can get to some of those other, more complex questions about how we ensure that everybody in our communities is taken care of; that everybody in our communities has economic security, has dignity, has decency in their work life, in their lives, in our communities.

Again, it is such a pleasure and an honour to be able to stand in this House and talk about working people, talk about the people I have had the privilege and pleasure of representing over the course of my work with unions. It is an honour to see their faces and have their faces in my mind as I say these words. I hope that everyone in this House in the context of thinking and debating this issue keeps the people in our communities front and centre.

T. Wat: It is always my honour and pleasure to take my place in this House and debate on the bill. I think today I really feel sad that we have to debate on the stripping away of the secret ballot, which is a fundamental tool of our democracy.

Before I do that, I’d just like to take this opportunity, as we are all settling into this four-week stretch in the Legislature, to take a moment to thank my incredible staff here in Victoria, as well as back home in Richmond, who do so much support in both my role as an MLA and also as the opposition critic for Tourism, Arts and Culture as well as multiculturalism.

Here in Victoria, I have my legislative assistants, Hannah Levett and Elishia Butler; my research officer, David Decolongon; and my communications officer, Sam Arno Burgess. Back in my riding of Richmond North Centre, my constituents can rely on the incredible work of my constituency assistants Trix Chan, David Shum, William Tu and Tony Lu Wei, who do so much to address any concern, inquiry or request our riding’s residents may have.

Now I would also like to thank my colleagues, who have all spoken with me and articulated so well many of the concerns British Columbians have with this legislation that is before us.

[4:15 p.m.]

As I said, the secret ballot is a fundamental tool of our democracy. The electorate who entrusted us to be their chosen representatives in this House all make that choice through the secret ballot because our democratic institutions recognize that the only way for people to make this difficult and influential decision — free of pressure, free of inference, free of intimidation or harassment — is to ensure the utmost privacy and security of their choice and voting decision.

I just try to remember when I entered politics in 2013, since I’m an immigrant myself. I’ve been here for more than 30 years. In my circle, there are a lot of immigrant Canadians. Of course, I was trying to talk to them. Hopefully, they will cast their votes in support of me. But many of the immigrant friends, especially those that come from countries that don’t practise democracy, are so afraid of casting their votes because back home in their country, their voting records are with the government. But once I told them no…. I told them that this is Canada.

That’s why I came from Hong Kong, where we don’t have full democracy. There is no western democracy. It’s a British colony. I came here because I wanted to vote. I want to cast my vote for any elected official of the three levels of government without them knowing who I am voting for. That’s why a lot of immigrants, even though they have become Canadian citizens, are still worried. They are worried about whether the government will do something to them if they don’t vote for the governing party when they become the government.

During the break week, I was talking to my constituents. Many of them are immigrants. They’re Canadian citizens. I told them about this Bill 10, and they were shocked. They were wondering why they came to a country that they admire so much, that represents the full democracy, expressed as a secret ballot. The secret ballot is really the fundamental spirit of western democracy.

Now this New Democratic government is taking away that basic, fundamental spirit of democracy. They are asking me: “MLA” — I can’t mention my own name — “is this a new form of democracy happening in British Columbia? That’s why this party is called New Democratic Party.” I said that must be a new form of democracy. They are worried.

They are extremely worried, and they asked me to come here and put forward their concern. As an immigrant to this country, I share the story of millions of British Columbians who come here to this province to call it home. I came to it seeking a better life, better freedoms and the better opportunity British Columbia and Canada offer. I respected the rules and regulations that protected workers’ rights and freedoms of choice, whether in the workplace, in their home or in their public institutions.

Trade unions definitely have a role in any community, in any country. We definitely support trade unions, be­cause they’re protecting the interests of the workers. When I began my career in public service, I took the oath to protect British Columbians’ rights and freedoms and to preserve the policies and institutions that uphold them. And the secret ballot is one of the greatest tools we have to ensure this.

[4:20 p.m.]

How we vote is not, nor should it ever be, the business or purview of our peers. You can understand my shock and frustration to witness so many members of this side of the House advocate so strongly for legislation that seeks to strip away the privacy and security of the secret ballot. Too, that is the reason they stand in this chamber here today.

The secrecy of a person’s ballot is an integral pillar of our democracy. That’s why so many immigrants and refugees all over the world come to Canada. They value our democracy. It does not only pertain to voting for our elected officials. It is the chosen process, in many situations, in which the decisions we make and the votes we cast have significant impacts on our lives.

In our workplaces, unionization is an incredibly daunting decision that many in this province may face. No two situations are the same. While the decision to unionize can come with benefits, it can also come with detrimental costs. They often demand we sacrifice a degree of our independence and professional autonomy and entrust our rights and freedoms with a collective body.

While many British Columbians have made the active choice to unionize or join unions, 70 percent of British Columbians have chosen to work outside of a union. Of course, unions can be invaluable in select businesses and industries and bring incredible benefits to workers. That is why we support a worker’s right to decide for themselves whether they wish to unionize or not, a decision that must be allowed to be made free of coercion, interference or harassment.

For 30 of the last 38 years, the secret ballot has existed in this province and has helped protect the privacy, independence and democratic right of every worker to vote either for or against union representation. It is the norm in the majority of the rest of Canada, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and most industries in Ontario.

Why on earth would this NDP government choose to eliminate one of the most vital tools to ensure workers can comfortably make this choice for themselves? Does the government have to make choices for every British Columbian? No.

Stripping away the secret ballot not only goes against the wishes of the vast majority of British Columbians. It goes against the recommendation outlined in the government’s own Labour Relations Code Review Panel. This government and all government MLAs who will stand up today and have stood up a while ago to defend this bill must surely be aware of this. It was back in 2018 that a report titled Recommendations for Amendments to the Labour Relations Code was released.

It suggested several changes to this code. Among them, most certainly, wasn’t eliminating the secret ballot. In fact, it was quite the contrary. Recommendation 5 in the report stated: “The secret ballot vote be retained providing there are sufficient measures to ensure the exercise of employee choice is fully protected and fully remediated in the event of unlawful interference.”

[4:25 p.m.]

Why on earth would the Premier choose to go against the wishes of the vast majority of B.C.’s labour force as well as the recommendation of his own panel?

Now, the members opposite may claim this transition to a single-step card-check system will actually improve workers’ rights and benefits. Not only do I disagree, but I don’t think this is the motive for this legislation at all. To understand the Premier and this government’s reasoning, we look further back, then, just to the tabling of this legislation.

Back in 2017, before the current Premier was even the Premier, back when he was just the Leader of the Official Opposition, his party received the largest political donation in B.C. history — a whopping $672,576. Who was the benefactor of such a generous political donation? The United Steelworkers. It is no secret that the New Democrats have traditionally enjoyed strong political and financial support from trade unions over the course of their existence. This donation is just one example of a long list of generous donations the current ruling party has received here in B.C.

Over the past 20 years, many of these same unions have seen their membership numbers gradually shrink. As of 2021, the current rate of unionization among B.C. workers sits at 30 percent, while an overwhelming number, 85 percent, of construction workers do not belong to an NDP-aligned building trades union.

Now many of these same unions are pressuring the current ruling government, which happily cash many of the cheques they wrote, to take action to help boost membership back up to pre-2001 numbers.

Why all of a sudden take this action now, nearly half a decade into their administration? Well, as many in this House are aware, this is not the first time this government has tried to implement these kinds of changes.

Back in 2019, the Premier tried to push through similar labour code amendments that would have taken away the secret ballot. The only issue back then was that the Premier was not operating under a majority government, and the Green Party did not support it. It depended on the support of this House to pass such an act. Unfortunately, because the majority of the members of this House rightfully considered this action undemocratic and refused to support it, the Premier found himself dead in the water.

Fast-forward three years later, and after a snap election in the middle of the pandemic, the Premier finally got the majority that would allow him to pass through these labour amendments, regardless of the overwhelming op­position to them.

Now, many members opposite will undoubtedly try to downplay the gravity of the changes outlined in this legislation. They will say this will actually improve the democratic process when it comes to unionization voting and collective bargaining.

I think it is important for those listening to recognize that the government’s talking points are designed to make light of a very serious decision.

Stripping away the secret ballot will have profound consequences in workplaces, businesses and industries across B.C. It could significantly impact the daily lives of countless British Columbians.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

[4:30 p.m.]

For government to be so casual about a decision with such gravity is deeply concerning, to say the least. For a government that has been labelled as the most secretive in Canada, it is completely hypocritical of them to strip away workers’ rights to the privacy and security of the secret ballot. It is a sign of a government that wants eyes on everything and everyone, without allowing anyone to look in on itself.

This is a decision that should require close consultation and deliberation with the businesses and industries who would be most impacted by this. By the level of public outcry we have already witnessed, it is very clear that no such consultation has taken place. This bill is another example of this government ramming through legislation without the proper opportunity for public input.

On April 6, a collection of associations, including the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade and the Surrey Board of Trade, just to name a few, issued a public statement on the introduction of Bill 10.

In their news release, they stated: “We are disappointed that the minister did not fulfil his 2022 mandate letter responsibility to ‘create new consultative mechanisms to engage employer and worker representatives in consideration of any changes proposed to workplace legislation to ensure the widest possible support.’ We call on the government to pause the legislative process and engage in a fulsome and proper consultation with employers.”

We have seen this disturbing trend of this current administration in bill after bill, where they ram through controversial policy, leave much of the policy up to later regulation behind closed doors and provide little or no opportunity for review or consultation from the opposition, the general public or those who would be impacted most by this legislative change. It is not just the contents of this bill that are undemocratic but the process and condition under which we are passing this bill too.

Let’s dig deeper into this bill, because the elimination of the secret ballot is not the only item of concern here. Bill 10 will also allow union raiding in the construction industry every year between the months of July and August. Union raiding is the practice of an outside union trying to take over the membership of an existing union. Under our current system, this practice is only allowed to take place once every three years. But by allowing this practice to now take place every year during the busiest months of the construction season, the impact could be profound.

Look at the state of the province under which this government is making these policy changes. We are in the midst of a massive labour shortage. We are experiencing ongoing supply chain issues, have the highest rate of inflation in decades and are in the midst of the housing crisis.

[4:35 p.m.]

Nearly five years into their mandate, this NDP government has built only a fraction of the promised 114,000 housing units. Recent statistics from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver show the average detached home in Metro Vancouver now costs — you know how much? — $2.3 million, an all-time high. My own riding of Richmond North Centre is one of the fastest-growing jurisdictions in the province, and it is becoming too unaffordable for more and more families every day.

Now more than ever we need legislation and policy that will build residential, commercial and infrastructure projects faster, cheaper and on a far greater scale than this government has managed to achieve up to this point. But instead, what are they doing? Implementing legislative changes that run the very real risk of further increasing costs and delays and do little or nothing to address the growing labour shortage.

Through union raiding, unions will now have the opportunity to spend each summer engaging each other in bidding wars over our construction industry’s already limited workforce. This could lead to increased delays and cost overruns on construction projects across the province.

We’ve already seen what happens when this government implements policy that benefits their select insider unions. Insider labour agreements like the community benefits agreements, CBAs, are already locking out the majority of B.C. workers and contractors from bidding on public infrastructure projects and could add as much as $4.8 billion in costs over the coming years.

We are seeing the impact of CBAs on projects across the province already, which are being reduced in scope and are plagued with millions of dollars in cost overruns, including the Illecillewaet and Kicking Horse Canyon projects and future projects like the Pattullo Bridge replacement and the Broadway SkyTrain expansion.

Housing and infrastructure are not the only areas where this bill could have detrimental effects. Our province is currently in the midst of a health care crisis, and more and more British Columbians are losing access to vital health care services every day. Even with the current state of our health care system, hospital projects like the Cowichan Lake hospital, with a CBA requirement…. The December 2018 Infrastructure B.C. report assessed the CBA arrangement to increase construction, reserve and contingency costs by $174.3 million, 24 percent.

CBAs or not, the government is falling behind on a concerning number of hospital and health care projects, like the Richmond Hospital expansion. Construction of the acute care tower has already been delayed to 2028, while the south tower and Milan Ilich Pavilion have been delayed to 2031.

Deputy Speaker: Could the member help the Chair to understand the relation to the bill? That would be great. Thank you.

T. Wat: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for your reminder.

This government is implementing legislation that could lead to further delays on vital projects like this. This will do little to bring our communities the increased capacity and health care services they are desperate for. This legislation, Bill 10, is completely ignorant of the needs and concerns of the millions of British Columbians who are desperate for these kinds of public projects to be built so they can finally bring their promised benefits to our communities.

[4:40 p.m.]

While this government claims that the changes outlined in this bill would create a more open playing field for all unions to expand their membership, I have no doubt in my mind that it is government’s intention to create conditions that will benefit their handpicked insider unions the most, expanding this fear of interference and reducing choice in association and union representation for workers across the province. While I do support unionization, I also support workers’ rights to choose their representation and association.

Just like British Columbians deserve to vote for whom they wish to represent them in Victoria or Ottawa, they deserve to vote for whom they would like to represent them in the workplace — it’s so simple — if workers prefer a union or to remain independent. It’s such a simple theory, which this government cannot understand.

This bill we have before us does not better serve British Columbians, especially the 70 percent of British Columbians who choose not to be represented by a union. How can you force these 70 percent of British Columbians into a union if they don’t want to join? This is Canada; this is a democracy. This bill is not only a disregard for the privacy and independence of workers, it is a complete disregard for the democratic process that allows us all to be here today.

For this reason, I cannot support this bill. I think it is really a sad day that we have to stand here to discuss the stripping away of the secret ballot, which is the fundamental spirit of western democracy. That is why I and my whole family, many immigrants and many refugees have decided to immigrate to this great country of Canada and to British Columbia, because we value the secret ballot. We don’t want people to know whom I vote for. Shame.

A. Olsen: I’m pleased to stand and speak to Bill 10, the Labour Relations Code Amendment Act, 2022.

It’s important that I create the appropriate frame for this speech. Protecting workers’ rights is a critical responsibility of all the members of this Legislative Assembly. It doesn’t matter the colour of the banner behind your name or the party you’re affiliated with. It’s the role of this provincial government to protect workers and to stand up for their rights.

Last week we recognized the National Day of Mourning for workers who have been injured and who have died on the job. We heard speakers from all parties acknowledge the right of workers to make it home safely at the end of the day. We heard support across the aisle for workers who survive a workplace accident to get better support in their recovery and their rehabilitation. Standing here speaking to this Bill 10, it’s those workers that I have in my mind and in my heart.

It’s unfortunate that I have to say this, but I can’t think of a better issue to drag this Legislature back into the tired, binary debate of labour policy that has been going on in this province for decades. This bill is pretty straightforward, and it does, essentially, two things. It creates a single-step union certification process, removing the secret ballot, and it changes the rules allowing construction workers to change unions every year.

[4:45 p.m.]

Frankly, as I’ve listened to the arguments that have been put forward in this Legislature, I feel the best arguments, actually, to vote against this bill have been made by the members of the government themselves. Especially, I listened with interest to the speech from the minister. Unfortunately, the speech, in many places, contradicted itself.

The minister failed to provide examples of why moving from the vote to a card check is necessary. He said that he has example after example of unlawful lawyer interference in the organizing process and then decided not to share them with us.

He outlined the panel report, which informed changes made to the code in 2019, when we reduced the number of days workers in the certification process had to wait to cast their secret ballot from ten days to five days. The panel advised government to stick with the secret ballot, unless it could be demonstrated that unlawful interference continues.

Back then the minister was prepared to make the change from secret ballot to card check, despite the advice against the move from the expert panel he appointed. Now he states that he’s following the advice of the panel, that he has the evidence, but the minister decided not to provide it for the members of this House or for the people of British Columbia.

If he indeed has examples — “examples after examples,” which is a quote — if the data is in the government’s favour, then you would think that they would just roll it out here for us to see in the many debates that we have had in this place. But no.

Instead, they stand here and deliver excruciating speeches wandering around the topic, talking and bringing up things that have been brought up for the last 30 or 40 years in this province. They know that no matter what the end of this debate, they’re going to use the majority government to pass and to change, once again, as we’ve seen happen, the policy lurch — swinging back and forth. I can be persuaded on this issue, but I think that the members, from government’s own arguments, have done more damage to the cause than they have of explaining why it is that we need to do this now.

From what I understand, the change is actually going to have marginal impact. There is about a 9 percent increase in certification with card check, as opposed to the current secret ballot method.

If the minister stood in here and said the nature of work is changing, if he showed the examples of the local and multinational corporations who hire tens of thousands of low-paid front-line workers using their power to thwart labour organizing and block workers’ constitutional right to association, that would be one thing.

If he talked about the examples of Walmart and Starbucks and the recent news from Freshii, if the minister stood in here and the members of government stood in here and said that these multinational tech companies are disrupting established marketplaces and established workforces, that the gig economy has turned millions of workers into independent contractors with few or no rights, few or no benefits, and those workers need the protection of unions, it would be one thing.

If he took time to highlight the dramatic changes in the working conditions caused by the pandemic, if he spoke to the 5.5 million Canadian workers who lost their job or who had their hours cut, the low-wage workers who have consistently been the hardest hit not just by job losses but by the COVID-19 infections and, indeed, COVID-19 deaths….

That’s not how this debate has been framed. This debate has not been framed around the fact that 87 families have more wealth than the bottom 12 million Canadians combined, that we’re facing inflationary pressures unseen in decades, that while this government celebrates increases to the minimum wage, the reality is that $15.20 per hour is far less than what a living wage would be for most British Columbians.

If unions are able to secure better wages and working conditions for workers, the conditions being what they are in our society, even a marginal 9 percent improvement in union certification should be seriously considered. That is a compelling argument for change — not arguments that are being made here, though.

[4:50 p.m.]

I don’t get a sense that these are the reasons why this government or this minister is making the change, considering the fact that I was a part of the discussion previously, when the minister and the government were considering making this change even when the expert panel suggested against it. Now this argument is being brought forward that there is evidence that it need be made.

Again, I point out that none of it was laid out clearly by the minister in defence of this bill. Instead, what we’ve got is language around what we’ve seen in this province for decades, which is how this policy has swung back and forth depending on the brand of political ideology that is sitting on the government side of the benches. We hear arguments that have been collecting dust for decades — arguments that were used in the 1990s and arguments that were used previous to that.

Workers’ rights are actually separate, in many respects, to the interests that big unions have. That needs to be named in here. Workers deserve better than this kind of debate in this Legislature, because workers in this province have real challenges. Workers in this province probably expected this B.C. NDP government to actually look out for their interests. The B.C. NDP actually have failed on so many of their commitments to protect the rights of workers. It begs the question: is this government really up to the task to be representative of the working class?

The B.C. NDP, over the last five years, have proven to be a worker camp, a man-camp party, a defender of the multinational corporation, handing billions of public taxpayer money in many of the same ways that they were critical of the previous government for doing.

In some respects, this is a performance. This Labour Relations Code amendment is a performance, one that was promised earlier in the former government and wasn’t able to be delivered. It’s now finally…. The majority government is going to be able to ensure the smooth procedure here as we go through this debate. But it’s a small action to protect workers. Remember, it’s a 9 percent increased certification.

Meanwhile, there are many ways this B.C. NDP government could be showing British Columbian workers that they are indeed up to the task to protecting their rights. I know that members of the B.C. NDP are going to view this as sort of an existential attack. How dare anyone ever question the NDP, with their roots growing through Tommy Douglas and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. Nobody would ever dare challenge the NDP as a worker labour party.

An honest person actually must take the time to reconcile the many ways that the B.C. NDP have abandoned workers on many fronts. I wonder what the tens of thousands of minimum-wage front-line workers that went to work every day, facing COVID-19, when this B.C. NDP government delivered half the number of sick days that are the OECD standard…. Those workers are the most marginalized, most vulnerable to getting or dying from COVID. I wonder if they feel that this government has been standing up and protecting workers.

I wonder if the tens of thousands of front-line health care workers feel that this government has…. When this government abandoned the well-known, decades-old public health measures like quality well-fitting masks, protecting them from a virus, an airborne virus, from overwhelming their health care facilities…. I wonder if they feel that this government has been standing up and protecting them.

[4:55 p.m.]

I wonder if the tens of thousands of teachers feel that this government who failed to provide the most basic air circulation, ventilation and purifications in classrooms across this province…. I wonder if they feel that this government over the last number of months and years has had their backs.

Then there’s the particularly troubling reality of Stephanie Cadieux, who tabled pay equity legislation a half-dozen times, and then had to resign her seat to get it debated for one hour on one day. I hope that this government’s House Leader makes sure that we finish the debate of that private member’s bill. Although, I’m not confident.

The best that our B.C. NDP government could muster on pay equity legislation was a promise to consult about pay equity more.

Deputy Speaker: Member, of course, legislation before the House is to be debated in that forum, not in this forum. We are currently debating Bill 10. Thank you.

A. Olsen: Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Speaker.

The minister stood in here last week and repeated time and again the rhetoric of a good worker party. That’s what a lot of worker protections in this province have amounted to: rhetoric. The right is enshrined in the Canadian constitution. Charter of Rights and Freedoms for all Canadians, our right to association — that the right should not be impeded by anyone. Allowing workers a voice. We think workers should be safe. All of these key words are important for workers to hear.

I understand that this isn’t a Workers Compensation Act amendment, but if this government believes that workers should be safe, then they would act on the many recommendations of their own advisers, ones that were put forward to protect injured workers. Janet Patterson’s report New Directions, the report on a WCB review from 2019. Paul Petrie’s 2018 report, Restoring the Balance: A Worker-Centred Approach to Workers’ Compensation Policy, and the addendum, Claim Suppression: The Elephant in the Workplace. Ombudsperson of B.C. Jay Chalke’s report Severed Trust: Enabling WorksafeBC to Do the Right Thing When Its Mistakes Hurt Injured Workers.

Too many of those recommendations languish in the background, undermine this government’s commitment to workers — recommendations that include the following. Workers compensation must be worker-centred. The compensation board must be more accountable to injured workers. Each injured worker must be treated fairly and as an individual with patient-centred medical care. Worker-employer communication must be improved, and more resources published to help people to navigate the system. Better assistance to get workers back to safe and meaningful work, and easier to correct unfair decisions.

We had that act open in this session to address important issues about creating strict policy for asbestos. This was important to make workers safe. But it was not enough.

That’s what actually undermines all of the arguments that are made here by the government side saying: “We’re here to protect workers.” The actual things that protect workers, the actual tough conversations, the ones where, admittedly, people have said, “These are not going to be easy….” Those ones are languishing in the background.

It would be nice to see the government use the same power they’re exerting to bring this one through to bring in some of those recommendations that have been languishing for far too long. We know that labour relations policy is challenging. Government has a responsibility to develop fair and balanced policy. Strict oversight and enforcement of the rules. Robust rehabilitation, and a fair compensation system to protect workers’ rights.

For Bill 10, when we get to committee stage, I hope that the minister shares with us example after example, cases after cases, the mountain of instances that he suggested of illegal employer interference into the union certification process. I think it would benefit the quality of this debate for us to see what has changed from when the panel that the minister appointed suggested: “Not right now. Don’t do this work right now, but if it gets worse, then do it.”

[5:00 p.m.]

Presumably, that’s what this is built on, or what it should be built on, if we are working in evidence-based and taking advice from the experts. I would be interested to understand how the ministry and the Labour Relations Board has fared in investigating the mountain of cases of illegal interference. It would be important for us as a body here to learn how the board has enforced those violations of workers’ charter and constitutional rights.

Has the board and the ministry taken any other remedial action to stop this trend of illegal employer interference in the union certification process that’s overseen by the board? By the same token, has the government taken any remedial action to stop the trend of illegal employer interference in workers’ rights to claim compensation, as documented in Petrie’s 2002 claim suppression report?

Until that information is on the table, it feels like we’re just jumping straight to changing the legislation without anybody in government actually feeling like they need to outline that the problem has gotten worse, and to be specific. Because it’s curious that the minister has chosen to stay general in his comments on this bill, when specificity actually would have really sold us on this. It is important that details are important in this.

Employer intervention, injury claim suppression, the need for a worker-centric culture at WorkSafeBC — the warnings have been delivered with little action since 2017. This ministry has not been the architect of reform. They’ve delivered modest changes — tinkering — largely as token gifts to unions and the B.C. Federation of Labour.

I think that, actually, this B.C. NDP government, from what I’ve seen over the last five years in this place, has taken their position and their relationship with workers for granted. I think they’ve taken their role in this Legislature as the de facto voice for the workers for granted.

When you have so many recommendations, so much of the hard work languishing on the sidelines for a long time, when you’re opening the bill up repeatedly, over and over and over again, to make adjustments to it with­out taking a crack at the really tough recommendations that have been laid out, when you see worker injury suppression claims increasing in this province and not doing anything about it, it sends a message that there’s a feeling that there’s no one else.

The members of the official opposition are never going to be able to represent workers, because we’ve created this narrative in this province. How dare they even raise it. This is offside for them to raise it. For 16 years, they’ve been evil. So there is actually little tension in this place to do the big things, the difficult stuff. I hope we can create some of that tension, because the last thing that workers in this province need is their rights to be taken for granted.

I will be very, very interested to engage this bill as it goes through the rest of this debate and watch and learn of the examples to understand what’s changed since 2019, to give the minister the opportunity, which he didn’t take in the second reading stage of the debate, to outline what’s changed, and to give this NDP government an opportunity to really ensure that the workers in this province are seeing good value from a government that has, over decades, staked a claim to this territory and made it nearly im­possible for anybody else to even talk about it without being thoroughly and utterly criticized, because you don’t carry the banner and you haven’t been part of that labour movement or you haven’t been part of that party.

[5:05 p.m.]

My hope is that we get a chance to see that information.

With that, I thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill 10.

D. Coulter: I just listened to the strangest speech I’ve heard in a while. Twenty-two minutes of: “I won’t support this bill because I don’t believe the NDP cares about workers, and they cannot talk about workers.” Anyway, strange. That wasn’t where I was going to start my speech.

It was somewhat surreal. It’s also surreal when the B.C. Liberals claim that they’re sticking up for workers by wanting a secret ballot.

What we’re really talking about here is an imbalance of power. The opposition wants to maintain that imbalance of power in favour of the employers. That’s what they want here. It’s obvious. They will claim that they’re on the side of workers when they’re claiming about a secret ballot, but it’s really about an imbalance when it comes to employers.

Unions level the playing field. They create better conditions for workers, better wages and benefits, allow workers to choose the times that they’ll work — and also safer working conditions.

I know the member from Kamloops North took um­brage with us talking about worker safety. In the context of this bill, which makes it easier for workers to exercise their right to join a union, their right of freedom of association…. In the context of that, yes, unions make workplaces safer.

I’ll just stop here. This crew over here claims they care about workers. It’s really bullpucky. Last week everyone was making statements about the Day of Mourning and how we care about workers and injured workers and stuff. Well, let’s walk the walk and talk the talk here.

In 2001, they changed the pensions for workers who are catastrophically injured. I’m one of them. They made it not a lifetime pension any more, and then they indexed it to CPI minus 1 percent. That’s vicious and mean-spirited towards workers that are severely injured in the workplace. Then they talk about the Day of Mourning and how much they care about workers. It’s untrue. It’s not real.

Oh, you know who was at the cabinet table when this happened? Their new old leader.

Interjection.

D. Coulter: Exactly. That guy was in cabinet when they did this vicious, mean-spirited thing to injured workers.

We’re talking about the Day of Mourning. It’s empty words when it comes from them. I think people should realize that.

There’s lots of talk, also, in this chamber right now about the report and what the report says — that it says we need to keep the secret ballot. Well, it says we need to keep a secret ballot except if it doesn’t solve the problem of unfair labour practices in the context of organizing drives. It says that then we should look at card check.

I’ll read from the report here.

“While secret ballot votes are integral to our democratic political system, we recognize that certification votes occur in very different circumstances than political votes. Certification votes occur in the context of the power imbalance between employers and workers in the workplace. Employers control the operation of the business, have the right to fire employees and can curtail or close the business.

[5:10 p.m.]

“Unlike political votes, section 7 of the code limits unions’ ability to communicate with workers during working time. Employers, on the other hand, have an unrestricted ability to do so throughout the workday. Political candidates have voters lists, while, in the certification context, unions have limited information to determine the bargaining unit constituency.”

When the other side…. I heard this today from the member for Kamloops–North Thompson. When he’s trying to equate political elections with organizing drives or union certification, he’s conflating two different subjects. We’re talking about two different things here, right?

The report goes on to say:

“Although employers have a legitimate interest in whether their employees choose to access collective bargaining, that interest must be weighed against the fundamental right of employee choice. There is no dispute that unlawful employer interference can significantly influence or undermine the exercise of employee choice.

“One of the most significant barriers to the exercise of employee choice is employer opposition and, more importantly, unlawful interference. During the public consultation process, we” — I’ll say we, but they, the panel — “receive numerous anecdotal examples consistent with studies that unlawful interference has a significant impact on the certification success rate. Concerns regarding unlawful interference with employee choice during a secret ballot vote are legitimate. The code must protect the right of employees to access collective bargaining.”

It goes on to say:

“The panel is acutely aware the secret ballot vote can only be an effective mechanism for employee choice if the code deters and prevents employers from engaging in unfair labour practices and provides meaningful consequences for such practices. The exercise of employee choice through certification votes must be protected by shortening the time frame for votes, ensuring the expeditious and efficient processing of certification applications and unfair labour practice complaints, together with the expansion of the board’s remedial authority. If these enhanced measures are not effective, then there will be a compelling argument for a card-check system.”

Those have been ineffective. The other side has also said: “Oh, well, there is no abuse by employers. There is no illegitimate interference in the certification process — the right of workers to organize, freedom of association.” The Labour Relations Board has ruled on many cases over the years, including cases since 2019, where they found employers had engaged in unfair labour practices that interfered with certification efforts.

Recent examples include February 2022. The LRB ruled that an electrical contractor on Vancouver Island improperly interfered with their workers’ attempt to organize their workplace with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers with tactics such as threatening layoffs. In January 2022, the LRB ruled that a waste management company in the Lower Mainland improperly fired a worker with 22 years’ experience for attempting to organize their workplace with the International Union of Operating Engineers. In October 2020, the LRB ruled that a food-processing company in the Okanagan improperly fired two workers for attempting to organize their workplace with UFCW.

There is illegitimate interference with the certification process. That’s why I say this is really about a power imbalance. The secret ballot process gives rise to two main concerns, and under a secret ballot system, employers have an opportunity, an incentive to engage in unlawful interference into the certification system.

[5:15 p.m.]

Now, why, when we’re talking about the freedom of association, which is a right guaranteed in the Charter…? Why would we allow employers to meddle in that system, to meddle in the right of workers to certify? Why would we allow that? We don’t allow other countries to meddle in our elections, so why are we allowing people…?

Interjection.

D. Coulter: Yes, that’s right.

You want to talk about…. You want to equate the two — certification and political involvement. Then let’s use some examples.

Interjections.

D. Coulter: The other side is obviously uncomfortable with this, because they don’t believe in worker choice. I mean, you only have to look at the almost 15 years that they fought in courts with the BCTF. You only have to look at that.

The Supreme Court came back in record time to tell the B.C. Liberal government that they were doing the wrong thing — actually, an embarrassingly short period of time. Then they come in here with nary a blush on their face as if they had just rolled in here and they had not been in government for 16 years — like they rolled in here and, all of a sudden, they’re discovering that there’s inequity between workers and employers.

Another thing is they’re talking about the right of workers to organize, to collectively bargain. Time and time again, when they were in government, they threw away contracts. This is what…. If we want to talk about the political process and getting involved in the process, you know what got me involved in the political process? My mother, who’s close to her retirement, worked as an employee at the hospital and was in the HEU. They threw away the HEU’s contract, reduced their wages by 15 percent and then forced them to pay the 15 percent they had been paid at the time of their ratification — forced them to pay back all that money.

Interjection.

D. Coulter: Shame is right. Vicious, mean-spirited actions against workers. Then they roll in here like they care about workers and the secret ballot system. No, this is about an imbalance in power, and this imbalance of power favours the employers. That’s what they really care about here.

When the member for Richmond North Centre, I believe, stands up and says: “Oh, the NDP took big donations from unions. Yada, yada, yada….” They have taken massive donations from corporations.

Interjections.

D. Coulter: Oh, you’ve never taken a contribution from a corporation — never.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members. Members, let’s focus on the legislation here. Let’s leave the attacking each other for outside of this room, as best as we can. Let’s talk about the legislation, please.

D. Coulter: Yes. Okay, Mr. Speaker. I’ll talk about the legislation, but it’s very hard to talk about the legislation without talking about the record of the B.C. Liberals, especially when they claim that they care about workers. But I’ll move on to the legislation.

When workers have a free choice to join a union, it raises the standard of living and helps build a strong middle class, which is true. It helps reduce inequality and inequity. Joining unions does build a middle class. Not having unions means that we basically have workers and capitalists, and workers lose every time.

I’m going to conclude my remarks there. But I just have to say that I encourage all my colleagues in this House to vote for this piece of legislation, to vote in favour of Bill 10. It’s good for workers, it’s good for the middle class, and it’s good for people.

[5:20 p.m.]

D. Davies: I’m not fully sure where to start. I did have a great starting here until I started hearing the last 15 minutes of false statements and things that I think are quite incorrect to paint, broadly, a picture of our side — that we don’t care about worker safety.

Deputy Speaker: Member, if I might….

Members. Members. If we’ll just take a moment, please, Members. I would just ask to turn down the temperature in here a little bit with each other. Let’s respect each other as hon. members as best as we’re able to do in this debate. Let’s focus on the words in this legislation as best as we can, and let’s try to not just attack each other because we can, okay?

We can talk about records. We can do all of those things. Let’s just try to focus on the work we’re doing on behalf of all British Columbians, okay?

D. Davies: Thanks, hon. Chair.

Anyways, back to safety. I do have notes here in somewhat of a chronological order, but I will probably not follow them perfectly. I do want to talk about worker safety and the claim that we’ve heard from numerous speakers across the way that this will somehow make worksites safer. Good legislation does that.

Many people in this House know that I was injured in a workplace accident just a few short years ago — in a union setting, I might add.

To make the claim, which has been made over and over again, that somehow, if it’s a union shop, it will be safer is incorrect. To say that this is a political gesture or positioning that we’re trying to make…. Well, the counter of that is that it’s a political gesture that the government is making regarding bringing in Bill 10. This is purely a political move. We know it’s to pay off the big unions.

The previous speaker from Chilliwack had mentioned about us receiving corporate donations. Well, they have received the biggest donation in history from a union.

Deputy Speaker: If I might, Member. We try not to ascribe false motives to others for their decisions. Again, let’s try and focus on the legislation and being good to each other as best as we’re able to — and being critical as well. That’s your job.

D. Davies: I do respect your input, hon. Speaker. It’s hard following the last few speakers who have been doing that exact same thing about members of the opposition.

Deputy Speaker: I agree, Member. Apologies. We should have stepped in with direction earlier. There were too many on all sides, I must admit. Thank you.

D. Davies: Maybe I’ll go back to my notes, then.

Hon. Speaker, thank you for allowing me to talk in this important debate today. Some of the points that have been previously spoken I will be bringing up in my points.

This is not about us not supporting unions. I’ve heard from many of my colleagues that have been or are members of unions. I, myself, have worked in many different union shops. I just mentioned a story of working in the construction industry for a number of years in a union workplace. That is not what this is about. We hear government saying that this is what we’re only against, and that is not the case. The case is about bad government legislation, which is being introduced, called Bill 10. The piece around it is removing the secret ballot.

I want to thank all of my colleagues that have continually brought up this point over and over again. British Columbians recognize the importance of…. When they vote, it is a secret.

The issue here is a bigger issue. It’s the transparency of this government. It’s transparency, obviously, on this, how they’re moving forward with Bill 10. We could lay the Cariboo challenges, the issues around transparency there; the snowmobile, the closure of the back country up in my riding; the freedom-of-information challenges that we have seen in just this past year; even the sheer reward or award of receiving the most secretive government in Canada.

[5:25 p.m.]

It’s a building legacy that this government is really…. I’m not sure if there’s a higher award. Maybe it’s a world award of secrecy. This government is well on their way to getting that one too.

One of the fundamental rights — again, we’ve heard this over and over again — is the secrecy of a person’s ballot. When voting, all of us, 87 seats in here…. Many of us — I would say most of us — have probably gone through two votes to get in here — through a nomination process, which is done in secret, to the general election, which is done in secret. It’s done in secret so that there are not external pressures that can sway a vote.

The secrecy of my ballot is a right — I’m sure that I speak on behalf of all British Columbians — that I would not give up. It is a right that no one would give up.

People are comfortable heading to a voting centre, whether they’re, again, a municipal election or a provincial election or a federal election, whether it’s a school board election. They are comfortable going to a voting station, a voting booth, knowing that there is going to be no influence that is going to impact their vote. It is done strictly in secret. It’s been going on for roughly 7,000 years. Since fifth century BCE, it’s been going on. The Greeks perfected the secret ballot. The government is violating their right by enabling intimidation and by enabling harassment while voting is underway.

We saw the power of when there is a movement toward trying to either swing unions or unionize a location around some of the pressures that can already happen now in a secret ballot system. That’s fine if a union wants to try and unionize. There are steps and procedures in place.

When votes have major impacts on our lives, the secret ballot is most often the ballot that is used or the method that is used. We’ve seen this again, as I mentioned, in all the different elections. I’ve been a part of those elections, from being elected here in this House to formerly sitting as a city councillor, elected five times with a secret ballot, right back to student council days — grades 10, 11 and 12 — being elected by a secret ballot of my peers. Library boards being elected.

Everything that we do as a society is done in a secret ballot when it comes time to make a big change. I would suggest that unionizing or changing a union is a pretty significant change that opens up the door for an incredible amount of pressure that could happen and likely will happen if there is no secret ballot. This is one of the many reasons why I am stunned by the amount of support from the government side that there is over this piece of legislation.

The number of members that are such strong advocates of legislation designed, really, outright to remove the privacy of the secret ballot is quite shocking, especially when it put every single one of them in this chamber. Even the national NDP themselves use a secret ballot when they elect a leader in their nomination process, as almost every one of us in this room did.

[5:30 p.m.]

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Out of the last 38 years, for 30 of them here in this province, the secret ballot has existed. It ensures that privacy. It ensures the independence that every worker has that democratic right to cast their vote without any coercion, which would come otherwise. We’ve heard the opposite from the government benches — to say that the secret ballot could somehow be coerced.

I have great difficulty trying to make that connection the government benches are trying to make. It’s alarming how casually this government is taking away something that is so opposed by not just a majority of British Columbians but is opposed by the vast majority of workers in British Columbia. How we vote is not and should not ever be anyone else’s business. Those who have voted for us have chosen their representatives by doing it through a secret ballot.

We’ve heard a few comments just recently, around the expert panel that came back. Again, you can pick out what you wish. The bottom line was that the panel recommended against removing the secret ballot, for reasons of recognizing that interference can happen. If you look at the few jurisdictions around…. Again, there are only a few. I think there are three jurisdictions in Canada that have done that. It is no secret, though, that the Premier has intended to scrap the secret ballot for a while now. I think it was introduced and kind of pushed aside when some relationship issues happened.

Some 70 percent, though, of the workers in British Columbia have chosen, though, not to join a union. However, select unions that have been strong political supporters of the NDP have seen their numbers shrink in the past 20 years. As of 2021, the current rate of unionization among B.C. workers sits at about 30 percent, while an overwhelming number, 85 percent, of construction workers do not want to belong to NDP-aligned building trades unions. So you wonder where the motivation comes from for this government to move toward removing the secret ballot.

To cast a stone across at us — to say that we are making it a political thing — is quite astounding. This government has a majority. They’re now able to pay off their big political backers, which they weren’t able to do previously. It’s that straightforward. It is political; it is 100 percent political. Workers’ rights in this province are being sacrificed so that this government can push through legislation that will only benefit them. Instead of looking at the impact on the workers or the larger community, the government is intent on eliminating protection of voters’ rights.

Not only is this bill going to have immense impacts on voting rights for British Columbians, but I look at the impact it’s going to have on the construction industry. If you look at clause 1, it allows union raiding to take place in the construction industry between the months of July and August every year.

[5:35 p.m.]

In July and August of every year, union raids can happen in the construction industry. Well, these are our only construction months in northern British Columbia. It used to be every three years. Every year union raids can happen on construction sites. Actually, it’s the busiest construction time across the province, but it’s critically important when you come to the North.

I look at construction sites in my region, like Site C. That’s already, due to the mismanagement of this government, at $16 billion. You know what’s going to happen? I hear the other side laugh, but let’s be honest. We handed this project to the government on time and on budget. It’s now doubled in price. And rest assured, if this legislation goes through, it’s not going to be at $16 billion anymore. It’s going to be way north of that.

This government’s claims that this is being implemented for workers who might be unhappy in their current union are far from reality. What we’re really seeing is another tool that will serve the government to pressure even more workers, through labour insiders. This does more than create unnecessary pressure for workers deciding about their union. It also creates massive job uncertainty on our…. Well, B.C. has some of the biggest construction sites in the country.

Interjection.

D. Davies: For projects we started on time and on budget. Did I mention that?

Talk about labour unrest. Now if…. Maybe we’re looking at LNG Canada or, as mentioned, Site C or the CGL projects or the…. The list goes on and on. British Columbia has a lot of big projects.

When you open up this ability now to do union raids at the busiest work time of the year, that creates labour unrest, which is not good for any project. It is certainly not good for when we’re trying to get people to invest in our province. It certainly is going to impact that, and B.C. already has those issues having people invest in our province.

In fact, I would say we’re nearly dead last on the continent when it comes to our competitive edge. Bill 10 will be another — trying to think of something witty to say, but I can’t — jab against that competitiveness.

We look at affordability lately, which has been unbelievably not affordable over the past couple of years. We’ve seen…. I’m sure my colleague from Peace River South, who is up to speak here shortly, will talk about some of the impacts that may or may not have on the housing industry.

You’re talking construction sites and the negative im­pact that this could have on housing starts, which causes a chain reaction on housing supply, which builds into the whole cost and affordability piece in an industry that is already struggling. We heard from my colleague from Richmond, who talked about it earlier a little bit.

We know already that we’ve seen the impact of the community benefits agreement, the negative impact that it has had on cost overruns on projects. We’ve seen the impacts that it’s had on less for more. We’ve seen that on multiple projects across the province because they cannot come in on what they initially had because of a lot of the things that Bill 10 is going to, let’s say, enhance.

[5:40 p.m.]

Hon. Speaker, I’m not sure, but I mentioned at the very start…. I was kind of going off there, following the member for Chilliwack. I think I did briefly touch on the safety aspect. This piece of legislation is not a good piece of legislation. I’m sure you can understand that I won’t be supporting it. To have government say that we don’t care about people’s safety because we’re opposed to this, that only union sites are safe, is, quite frankly, untrue.

I mentioned that I did work in a union setting when I was in a critical industry accident. What makes worksites safe is good legislation. I think that is where…. If that is the real reason behind this, that’s where the government needs to be going, but that is not why the government is doing this. That’s just a speaking bullet.

The government is doing this for political gain. The government is doing this to create an imbalance of power, which the member for Chilliwack mentioned often — an imbalance of power.

This is a very poor piece of legislation. This is poor legislation because what’s next? What’s next in regards to removing the secret…? Are we going to go to hands-up for elections? Once you open the gate to removing things that are so incredibly fundamental to our democracy, what’s next?

We’ve seen some pretty crazy things over the last few years around transparency, challenges around how this government, well, just isn’t that transparent. So what is next? As long as I’m elected to this place, my number one role will be to make sure that I’m here to protect British Columbia’s democracy, Canada’s democracy. That’s why we’re here, not to start whittling away at what is so fundamental.

With that, I’ll take my place. Thanks very much for the time to have my voice heard.

J. Routledge: I am honoured to take my place here to speak to Bill 10, which makes changes to the B.C. labour code. I specifically want to talk about the restoration of single-step union certification, familiarly known as card check. I want to remind us this is the method by which workplace democracy has been enshrined in every jurisdiction in Canada prior to 1977, when Nova Scotia changed their labour law and other conservative-leaning governments throughout the country soon followed suit.

Opposition speaker after opposition speaker has in­voked democracy to argue against Bill 10. I agree that Bill 10 is all about the democratic rights of working people, but not in the way the opposition would have you believe. I’d like to share some personal experiences and, perhaps, correct some faulty thinking.

I was a teenager the first time I met a union organizer. My roommate and I worked part-time at one of the large grocery chains. One day there was a knock at our door, and it was a union organizer who wanted to talk to us about joining the union.

[5:45 p.m.]

He was probably old enough to be our father. He was kind, respectful and helpful. He didn’t pressure us into signing union cards. He didn’t make any promises. He talked about worker solidarity. He talked about our co-workers and how many of them were immigrant women trying to provide a decent life for their families. He talked about sharing and about how this multinational corporation could afford to pay its workers a living wage. He let us draw our own conclusions that our co-workers needed us to stick together with them so they would have the collective power to improve their pay and working conditions and that that is what a union is.

He left the cards with us. He told us how we could submit them while maintaining the secrecy of our decision. That was our experience. That was my personal story, and it’s the story of most people who are approached to form a union.

I also want to tell you about a time when I was one of the union organizers. I was in my 20s, and I was working on the Canadian Labour Congress campaign to organize bank workers. The board at the time ruled that we had to certify branch by branch. Big banks had hundreds of branches. The way I remember it was the majority of the staff at this particular branch signed cards, and the union applied for certification.

A two-step process was in place at the time, so the workers who had already, in effect, voted to form a union by signing union membership cards had to vote all over again. This gave the employer time to temporarily transfer in management trainees from other branches to increase the number of employees eligible to vote. Some were even brought in from out of town, and, of course, we lost the vote. Now, I know that this is what the employer did to keep the union out, because I’d gone to high school with one of the people brought in to vote against the union.

This is not an unusual story. It is still happening today. The expert Labour Relations Code Review Panel that we appointed in 2019 basically put bad employers on notice. They gave them time to voluntarily clean up their act. They recommended that if the changes they proposed to curb employer interference in the certification process weren’t working, that would make a compelling case for single-step certification. Well, the case is compelling, so our government is reinstating single-step certification. It should not come as a surprise to the opposition.

One of the speakers who spoke earlier this afternoon alleged that we had not provided evidence. He was waiting for examples of recent employer interference. So I actually have some that I can share with you. Here’s one. One union organizer told me recently that smaller employers who want to keep out the union are still hiring extra staff during vote week to pad the list and then sometimes let them go right after the vote.

Another organizer from another union told me about a recent organizing drive that failed because the employer hired a law firm that specializes in union-busting to meet with some of the more vulnerable employees, precariously employed employees, to explain to them that they weren’t entitled to join a union and would be fired if they signed a card.

Another organizer in a different union told me about a union drive that failed after some employees were given special perks while others were identified as union sympathizers and fired. They were fired after 15 years of service and good records. Workers who live in company housing tell about being visited late at night by their bosses during vote week. Workers in food-processing plants tell about employers picking up the line speed during vote week, but only on the lines where they suspect strong union support. Then there is the story of a large tech firm that basically bribed their employees during vote week with massive pay increases.

[5:50 p.m.]

Some organizers have referred to vote week as a pressure cooker. As soon as the employer is notified that the union has applied for certification, they fly in the bigwigs from headquarters to spend vote week spouting anti-union rhetoric and guilt-tripping the staff about loyalty.

These are all examples of intimidation tactics that have been happening in workplaces in the last couple of years. Many of these examples are public knowledge because the employer was caught, caught interfering with their workers’ constitutional right to form a union, and complaints were made to the Labour Relations Board. Those are the employers that got caught. It’s like speeding. It’s against the law, but many drivers gamble they won’t get caught.

When it comes to union-busting, there’s a whole in­dustry out there ready to help. Some of them even post tips on their webpages. Check out LabourWatch. The first thing that comes up is how to decertify a union. There are law firms and international companies that employers can hire to advise them how to undermine an organizing drive without getting caught and how to sow fear and distrust between workers. They are doing this at a time in our history when we need social solidarity more than ever.

Speaking of history, workers have always had to fight for the right to earn a family-supporting wage and safe working conditions and enough time off to enjoy the fruits of their labours. I have a button I sometimes wear on Labour Day that says: “Unions — the people who brought you the weekend.”

Since the 1860s, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency has conducted operations to keep workers from organizing. They built a lucrative business infiltrating unions, spying on workers, keeping suspected union sympathizers out of factories, recruiting operatives to intimidate workers. It’s well documented that some of the bloodiest strikes in history were aggravated by employer-paid operatives — the Homestead strike of 1892; the Great Railroad Strike of 1877; the Saint John, New Brunswick, street railway strike of 1914; the Giant strike of 1992. Pinkertons has an office in Toronto today.

I grew up in a union family. My father was a member of the Carpenters Union and, later, the Public Service Alliance of Canada. My mother was a member of the United Auto Workers in the 1940s. My uncle was an officer of the electrical workers union. My father-in-law and mother-in-law were members of the International Woodworkers union.

My parents and my uncle are buried in Siloam Ceme­tery in London, Ontario, near the graves of some of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. The Tolpuddle Martyrs, for those that may not be aware of them, were British farmworkers who were found guilty of trying to form a union and were transported to Australia to do hard labour.

I take it personally when members opposite stand up to disparage workers for trying to self-organize. They would have you believe that it’s employers associations that represent workers and protect their rights. They said as much last week, while debating Bill 10. They said that workers need to be protected from each other, not their employers. History does not support this contention.

Let me turn directly to the issue of democracy. The opposition would have you believe that the two-step certification process is a democratic principle. Not true. They try to compare it to voting to elect our governments. Not true. The two-step certification process would be like voting in a general election and then, if the party in power loses the election, having five or ten days to get you to change your mind and then making you vote all over again.

[5:55 p.m.]

What is comparable is that both systems of democracy are overseen by an independent body. Certifications are overseen by the B.C. Labour Relations Board, and legislative elections are overseen by Elections B.C. There are rules in both spheres that anticipate that democracy can and has been corrupted by power imbalances, rules that are meant to prevent it from happening again today.

I’ll never forget being told by my elders about voters lists that were nailed to the top of telephone poles so that people couldn’t actually look at the voters list and find out if they’d been left off. I remember when bars were closed on election day so candidates or their representatives couldn’t ply voters with alcohol to get them to vote for them.

Today Elections B.C. protects the integrity of the ballot by ensuring that campaign signs located near polling stations are taken down before the polls open, and campaign material can’t be brought into the polling stations. Nor can you take photos of yourself or others inside the polling station. Elections B.C. doesn’t make you vote a second time to confirm that you knew what you were doing the first time.

Some opposition members have taken offence at the notion that employers would try to manipulate the certification vote. I will concede that most employers wouldn’t break the law. But we have laws that make it illegal to steal.

That doesn’t mean we think everyone steals, but we have laws that protect us from the minority who might. We have laws that make it illegal to assault someone. That doesn’t mean we think everyone is likely to punch us, but we have laws to protect us from the minority who might. Single-step certification isn’t aimed at good employers who can be counted on not to play dirty tricks to undermine the democratic wishes of their employees, who will respect their employees’ right to form a union as clearly spelled out in the Canadian constitution.

I wish the opposition would acknowledge that when Bill 10 is passed, it will help correct a power imbalance in the workplace. It will level the playing field. But given some of the histrionics we’ve been subjected to in this debate, one wonders if they really want a level playing field. Look at all the things they did when they were in government to tip the balance of power in favour of those who are the most wealthy. After all, theirs was the government that introduced two-step certification in the first place.

It’s worth repeating that everywhere in Canada that it has been introduced, it was brought in by governments aligned with big business. Prior to 1977, every jurisdiction in Canada had a one-step certification process, and multiple studies, multiple academic studies, have shown that union membership dropped by 20 percent under two-step certification.

One would be forgiven for being skeptical and wondering if the real intent behind two-step certification is not to uphold democracy in the workplace but, rather, to thwart it. It’s also worth noting that the B.C. Liberals continue to define themselves as the free enterprise party. That is the lens through which we must view their defence of two-step certification. It begs the question: enterprise free of what? Workplace democracy?

Some members opposite have held up the United States as the model of legislated workplace democracy. They might consider that an unfortunate comparison that under­mines their arguments against card check. Does the U.S. have a two-step certification program? Is that the standard the opposition holds themselves to? I remind us that according to the annual democracy index, the U.S. is a flawed democracy. Nineteen states passed voter suppression laws just last year.

[6:00 p.m.]

In conclusion, I want to say that I believe in the principle of the secret ballot. I believe everyone on this side of the House believes in the principle of the secret ballot, but the theatrics and drama and fearmongering with which it has been presented reminds me of newspeak. Newspeak was the phrase coined by George Orwell in the novel 1984. It’s using powerful, familiar phrases to obfuscate real intention and to confuse loyalties.

I invite those listening to this debate to decide for themselves who’s on their side.

M. Bernier: I apologize in advance for my voice here. I’ve had the pleasure of speaking quite a bit today. I’d like to use the excuse that I was up singing all night in a rock concert, but I can’t use that one tonight.

Look, before I get into some of the very specifics that I want to talk about, let me just say…. Look, we’re in a political arena here. In a political arena, we bring forward bills, and we also have the opportunity to debate those bills. Why? Because more often than not, we’ll have a difference of opinion of how we try to get to the goal line. We’re all trying to get to a goal line. We just have a different idea of how we want to get there.

The reason why I’m leading off with that is I’ve heard a lot of members, especially on the government side, talking about worker safety. Let me say that what appalls me by some of the comments, especially from the member for Chilliwack, who spoke just a few people ago, was the, I’d like to say insinuation…. Basically, right on the record he says the NDP are the only ones that care about worker safety and went as far as to say that we were faking our support during the National Day of Mourning.

That is absolutely appalling. Absolutely shameful. The next time that member stands in this House, he owes the House an apology. That is absolutely appalling. I mean, I’ve heard a lot of crazy things in this House. I’ve seen a lot of lows. That’s got to be one of the lowest of the lows I’ve ever seen in all of my years in this chamber, when a member comes in here and personally attacks another member or members of this House with untrue facts.

Look, we can have differences of opinions. That’s no problem. We can try to bring up old records, present records. That’s what happens. But to stand in this House and insult the members of this House is absolutely shameful, and again, he owes an apology, if not a withdrawal, to this House for those absolutely absurd comments that he made.

What also is important is what we’re talking about in this bill, obviously, is about rights. It’s about democracy. It’s about how we’re going to support workers. Nobody’s arguing that. In fact, to the point that nobody’s arguing it, the NDP members, very few of them….

I think I’ve heard one, when I’ve gone back and looked at all the transcripts. I’ve actually heard one who actually talked about the bill, actually talking about the merits of the bill of removing the secret ballot. They keep talking about workers safety, workers rights. We heard some great stories about union certification and the process. Those are all supportable, going through that process.

I spent 25 years — well, I shouldn’t exaggerate, 24-and-a-bit years — with the IBEW. Before that, I was in the Carpenters Union. I know the process very well that I went through. I started off as a member. I worked up to a shop steward. I worked my way up. Before I left and went into management, I was a union negotiator. I travelled around the province with the IBEW. This is something I did and something I know quite well from that angle.

It leads me to wonder, though, on this specific bill that we have in front of us around removing the secret ballot, who’s asking for this? It’s not the workers. We’ve seen the latest stats and polls that have come out that almost 80 percent of the workers in British Columbia don’t support this.

[6:05 p.m.]

They didn’t say they don’t support unions. We’ve never said that we don’t support unions. Workers are saying: “We deserve the right to make a decision, a decision ourselves, a decision without being coerced.”

Now, we’ve heard that it’s about levelling the playing field. We’ve heard most members…. It must be in their speaking notes, and I say that respectfully because almost every single one of them has stood up and, in their comments, talked about levelling the playing field.

Well, if they truly believe those comments, I’m looking forward to the Minister of Labour coming to this House during committee stage and referencing, proving and showing the thousands, obviously, of times that businesses have taken advantage, coerced or not allowed union certification, because that’s not the reality in British Columbia that I know.

If we’re talking about that imbalance of power, how is it not swinging the pendulum so far to the benefit of the unions? When we talk about balance of power, does “balance of power” actually mean that as a union organizer, a union certifier, a union boss, I get to know how you feel, I get to know how you vote, and I get to know what you want to do, because we’re removing the secret ballot? How is that a balance of power?

In fact, right now most experts will say that the secret ballot is actually the most democratic method of conducting union certification. In British Columbia, we’ve heard laws referenced. We’ve also heard…. The member that spoke before me talked about the Labour Relations Board, Elections B.C.

Absolutely, under the act, to try to make sure that we don’t have coercion, we actually have the opportunity for both sides, in the present system, to state their case. Using the example of a non-union company, they can state their case of why they don’t want to go to a union, and the union can state their case of why they think the employees should unionize. That is all carefully monitored under the system by the independent Labour Relations Board. That happens right now.

To go with the member before me, I’ll acknowledge that maybe there are the odd situations where a company — a small company or a large company — maybe went too far. There are probably just as many examples of a union doing the same thing. That’s why we have the rules and the laws in place: to ensure and safeguard workers’ rights right now.

When you look at the whole concept of a secret ballot — I think my colleague from Peace River North mentioned it earlier — this goes back thousands of years. It started in ancient Greece. In fact, it was perfected through law in Roman times.

The reason why…. When I did some research on this in the library, the secret ballot was brought in, back in those days, mostly to stop ostracism that was happening in the Roman days because of the coercion — in fact, harmful coercion — that was taking place to convince people how to make decisions in society at the time. They brought in the secret ballot to ensure everybody, under a democratic system, had the right to make their personal decision and did not have to share that.

I think every single one of us could probably tell the stories of sitting around the kitchen table, growing up as kids, when election day was coming and mom and dad would talk about it: “Don’t forget. When you get older, you have to vote.” Most of us would say: “Well, how are you voting?” They’d say: “None of your darn business.” I know my parents did that.

Now, I kind of had an idea, by who they cheered for on election night, who they voted for, but that’s beside the point. It was none of your business. Why? It’s because you need to educate yourself. You need to make the right decision for you, for your present and your future, and then you’re accountable for that vote or that decision that you make.

[6:10 p.m.]

I looked up the definition for “secret ballot.” The definition for “secret ballot” is “a method of voting that protects a person’s rights and intentions in a vote to forestall any attempt to influence the voter by means of intimidation, blackmailing or potential vote-buying.” Well, when I read that definition, I look at this bill, and I’m saying: “How can anybody in their good conscience stand up and say: ‘We want to get rid of the secret ballot’?”

For the members of government to continue to bring up and hide around workers’ safety, unionization, rights of workers…. Look, those all have merit. Nobody’s arguing those. If the bill was about that, we’d probably have unanimous support for it right now in the House. We could all just move on to the vote if that’s what we were doing. But that’s not what this bill does.

The fundamental roots of this bill, I would argue, are contrarian to what we’re hearing about protecting workers’ rights. I thought, as a former pinned member of the IBEW, I’d go look at their website. I checked out the BCGEU, and I checked out a few other union websites that support this government. That doesn’t mean their members do, but I’ll put that on the floor as part of the argument here.

Wouldn’t you know it? Right on their websites, every single union that I could find when I looked it up, there is support for the secret ballots within unions. From one of the websites: “We support the secret ballots to protect confidentiality because it’s important for our democratic rights as union members. The cards you sign will always be confidential. Your vote for any union matter will always be strictly confidential.”

I’m quoting here from one of the union websites that I just referenced. “Voting for a tentative agreement brought to the members will always be done by secret ballot to protect your confidentiality. Any vote for a strike consideration within a union will be done purely by secret ballot.”

I reference that. I stopped looking earlier. While members were talking, I just went to a whole bunch of the different union websites, and almost word for word in almost every union website I could find when it talked about how they conduct their internal business, they all talk about their constitutional rights within the union for the secret ballot to protect workers’ rights.

I go back to saying: who’s asking for this? Is it a few union bosses? I don’t know. It sure doesn’t sound like it’s the workers. Is it this government as part of this bill? I don’t see it here, but as we know, this government, they’re pretty secretive. They leave things up to regulation and do it at a later date.

Is part of this bill going to mean they are now going to be telling unions how they run their elections? Does it mean they will be telling unions that they now have to change their constitutions, that they’re no longer allowed secret ballots within union decision-making? Little hypocritical if they don’t, because they’re now saying it eliminates the secret ballot for the decision to join the union. But hey, once we got you in the union, now it’s all secretive again.

Look, if we’re talking about workers’ protection, workers’ rights, then put bills on the floor that are going to do just that. This, on face value, looks like nothing but a political bill. When the government’s own panel of experts that they asked to review this came back and said: “Look, we got a whole bunch of ideas, a whole bunch of recommendations. One of the biggest ones is: don’t eliminate the secret ballot.” Typical for this government is: “Thanks very much. We’re not listening to the so-called expert panels that we continue to put out to give us information and feedback.”

Again, it’s a bit of a smoke and mirrors thing, or maybe it’s just an exercise that government likes to go through to make it look like they actually listen. But if they were listening, maybe they should be looking at the recommendations that come back and take them at face value, take them with some credibility and really consider about whether this is the right thing for workers.

[6:15 p.m.]

I go back to if it’s truly about workers, I’m not hearing a very solid argument on the floor from government members that removing their democratic right to a secret ballot is in their best interests.

I’ve heard lots of government members talk about how this will benefit unions and unions that want to certify. Fair enough. As I said, I mean, nobody is saying here we don’t support the concept or the idea of somebody joining a union, or a company in operation certifying and becoming unionized. It’s all about the process that this government is choosing to go through.

We’ve had the secret ballot system here in Canada for a couple hundred years. Basically since Canada started, we’ve used a secret ballot system in almost every single thing that we do. Right now, for now, until this majority government, I assume, will pass this, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia — who else am I missing here? — Saskatchewan, if I didn’t say Saskatchewan, most of Ontario…. So a good portion of Canada still follows this democratic process.

I heard something interesting earlier today, an hour or two ago in this debate, when one of the members in here from Kamloops was reading out part of the NDP constitution. In that NDP constitution, it actually talks about the importance of a secret ballot. It actually talks about how, at all their conventions, all decisions that the NDP will do will be by secret ballot. Whether it’s party president, treasurer, regional reps, their caucus, anybody on the executive, decisions they’re making on policy will all be done by secret ballot.

Wouldn’t you know it? When one of our members was making that point, the member for Nelson-Creston yells out: “Of course. That’s how democracy works.” I had to stop and scratch my head for a second. For everything else that we were referencing in this House, of the importance of the secret ballot, the argument from the member for Nelson-Creston was: “That’s democracy. There needs to be a secret ballot. That’s the democratic right of those people” — unless you want to unionize. So that’s typical, again, from this government. Those rules are in place to protect everybody when it’s convenient, but now we want to change it for this one place.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Again, it’s very hard, on face value, to hear some of the speeches from the government members that aren’t acknowledging what the bill truly is doing.

The member for Nelson-Creston — I applaud her for her honesty. You’re right. It’s about the democratic rights of people.

Too bad that wasn’t part of the speaking notes, though, of why that member and many other members wouldn’t support a bill to remove those same democratic rights for members who want to decide and vote on whether they should or shouldn’t vote to join a union — or in that same sphere, about which union to join.

I come from a part of the province where a lot of the industry is non-unionized. They’ve created associations. I look at McMahon plant, for instance, up in Taylor. It was non-unionized, an association for decades — worked great. I think they ended up changing, and parts of it became unionized. That’s fine, if that’s what the voters, through a secret ballot, the members and the employees wanted.

Again it goes back to the whole point of this bill that is fundamentally flawed and fundamentally being left out of the discussions from the NDP members.

[6:20 p.m.]

I would love to hear one member stand up and say: “I acknowledge we’re taking the secret ballot away. I acknowledge that those rights that you have right now to your privacy of your decision-making are fundamentally going to be changed under this bill. But we as a government figure that’s the right thing to do.” If one member stood up and said that, I could applaud that. At least they’re being honest. But they’re not. That’s where it’s really hard to look at a bill like this that’s on the floor and to support it.

We have heard lots of commentary, I think, on the debate, on both sides, and that’s what this House is for. It’s so we can share those opinions. As I started my speech…. We all want to get to the finish line. I think we’re all running even the same race. We have different paths, maybe, to get there. We have different ideas of how we want to help workers. We have different ideas of how we want to make a safe workplace. Nobody has argued that we’re not trying to do that.

It’s important to recognize that when you have a government that continues to bring legislation forward that does not seem to be in the best interests of the people we’re trying to serve in the province of British Columbia or that’s left up to regulation, as we saw with…. Whether it’s the last housing bill or the ministry of community services or last estimates….

I mean, we continue to see a lot of things happening where government just doesn’t want to talk about it. It’s this whole, “Trust us,” I would argue, and, I hate to say, the arrogance of a majority government that shows through in times like this, where it doesn’t matter what you think. It doesn’t matter what the opposition thinks. Even worse, it doesn’t matter what the 79 percent of workers in the province who said they were against this think.

To push something like this through after people are against it…. The panel that the government put forward for recommendations was against it. For everybody who is discussing this, who seem like they can’t support it, except for a few quotes that I read from some of the unions…. Of course, the government asked for quotes for their press release. I’d be interested in what the workers — the people we’re supposed to be representing, the people we’re supposed to be standing up for — think, though, because 80 percent of them don’t support this.

I’m a little flabbergasted that the government doesn’t have the courage to stand up and actually state the obvious, which is: “We’re pushing this through. We don’t care what all those people think. We, as the government, think it’s the right thing, regardless of what everybody else is saying, so we’re just going to pass this.”

I look forward to committee stage. I look forward to a lot of the explanations that the minister will have on this to counter all of the different stories that we’re hearing out there around the support for this bill.

M. Bernier moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Committee of Supply (Section A), having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

Hon. D. Eby moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 6:24 p.m.