Orders of the Day

Hon. J. Osborne: I call second reading on Bill 5.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 5 — PUBLIC SERVICE LABOUR
RELATIONS AMENDMENT ACT, 2023

Hon. K. Conroy: Hon. Speaker, I’m pleased to stand before you today to move Bill 5, the Public Service Labour Relations Amendment Act, for second reading.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Bill 5 will provide collective bargaining rights to the valued civil lawyers who work in the B.C. public service. These civil lawyers play an important role, under the Attorney General Act, in supporting the Attorney General to fulfil her unique obligations.

This government is moving forward with Bill 5 and supports their right to join a union. This amendment creates a clear space for government civil lawyers to exercise their collective bargaining rights under the Public Service Labour Relations Act.

For the past 50 years, the Public Service Labour Relations Act has supported the reliable delivery of vital public services, while respecting employees’ and unions’ collective bargaining rights. The act has achieved this in two ways. First, by requiring all bargaining unit employees in the public service to belong to one of three bargaining units: the British Columbia Nurses Union, the Professional Employees Association or the B.C. Government and Service Employees Union. Second, by providing the three bargaining units with the structural options necessary to allow for the effective representation of all public service occupational groups, regardless of how big or unique they are.

Every province and territory, except Prince Edward Island, has statutorily designated bargaining units in some form in the public sector. Government is amending the Public Service Labour Relations Act to recognize the civil lawyers’ freedom of association rights, under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to join a union that will collectively bargain on their behalf and bargain for their own unique needs.

The amendments will maintain the integrity of the bargaining unit model, under the Public Service Labour Relations Act, and help ensure that the vital public services British Columbians rely on are protected. The public service’s three bargaining unit structure has stood the test of time and has served government employees and the citizens of this province remarkably well.

The Public Service Labour Relations Act has the unique ability to balance the needs of the many with the needs of the few. These amendments will support its ongoing effectiveness by granting a new employee group collective bargaining rights within its structure.

[1:05 p.m.]

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the member for Kamloops–​North Thompson.

P. Milobar: Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to let you know, I will be our designated speaker on Bill 5.

Just a couple of preliminary comments in response to what the minister’s opening comments were, as brief as they were.

It’s interesting. The government continues to talk about freedom of association, but with Bill 5, it’s only freedom of association as long as you’re associating with a bargaining unit that the government deems appropriate for you. That’s not freedom of association. That’s directed association, as far as I’m concerned. That’s really at the crux of the problem with Bill 5.

Now, Bill 5 was introduced in this chamber…. I believe it was on February 9. Here we are with, essentially, 4½ days to go in this session, many weeks later worth of sittings. I believe we’re finishing up our tenth week.

This was introduced in the first week. It was shelved when it was first introduced by this government, because the lawyers that would be impacted by this legislation, by this directed association, not freedom of association, were in the middle of trying to work through issues with the labour board on exactly what they would like to do as it relates to organizing as a bargaining unit.

Now, it’s interesting. It’s a consistent pattern with this government and this Premier, in particular. If he feels things aren’t going his way…. They bring in a piece of legislation to try to put the thumb on the scales, as it were, and to try to have things the way the Premier, specifically, would like to see things move forward.

Bill 5 is just the latest example. In fact, in this legislative session, we’ve had examples come forward. Just a week ago we had a bill that dealt with the Arbutus project in Vancouver. I’ll touch on that in a little bit. Essentially, that bill said that it doesn’t matter what the courts say; this is how the government is going to do things.

That’s what Bill 5, essentially, is doing as well. It’s putting the thumb on the scales, by the Premier, and saying to the lawyers: “You must join the PEA.”

Now, there are a few problems with that. The PEA itself actually supports the lawyers’ right to have whichever bargaining unit they so choose represent them. Here we have the lawyers, who want the right to form a union, and the government is saying: “Well, you must have this organization, the PEA, as your bargaining unit.” That bargaining unit is saying: “Well, actually, the lawyers should be free to choose who they want to be bargaining on their behalf. We don’t need to. We’re okay if they don’t want us to do that.”

It’s important. It’s important, I think, that there is that independence. Part of the mindset for the lawyers and the concern — and the concern, frankly, I have — is…. It makes you wonder what was going on within the Attorney General’s office for the five-plus years that our now Premier was the Attorney General. One of the issues….

I quote the president of the BCGLA, Gareth Morley: “We want to make sure lawyers in government have that degree of independence so that they can tell the government something they won’t want to hear.”

I think it’s fundamentally important, if the government is going to be asking for in-house legal advice, essentially, on behalf of the taxpayers of British Columbia, that they actually get proper advice, not politicized spin on what the Premier wants to hear. Why I say it’s shocking to hear that actually come out is….

If you look at the track record of our now Premier, when he was the Attorney General…. His batting average isn’t very good in court. It makes you wonder how many times they were hoping to advise and maybe would have pushed back a little more forcefully on their advice had they not been feeling intimidated to do that. It has led, actually, to them trying to unionize and to have protections under a bargaining unit in providing that advice without retribution.

[1:10 p.m.]

Now, this isn’t publicly shared advice, obviously. It’s solicitor-client privilege. So we don’t have eyes on that, but certainly, it has created fear within government lawyers about the repercussions that are possible towards them if they give advice that the Premier doesn’t want to hear.

Typically with lawyers — and I know many lawyers — at a certain point, as long as you’re willing to pay the bill, they’ll give you the advice you want to hear. They’ll always put a bit of a covenant on that, saying: “Well, the odds aren’t good, but yeah, you might have a case there,” because ultimately, the client is going to do what the client is going to do. The lawyers will always make sure they give a good sense of the odds of success or not.

When you have a Premier or an Attorney General potentially compromising that advice, that’s a problem. All we have to do is look at the failed prop rep referendum that this Premier was in charge of. It had been described as a rigged game, a rigged system. It failed miserably, despite all the odds being stacked by the then Attorney General, now Premier, in their favour.

It does make one wonder what advice he was trying to get given by the government lawyers as they were developing the framework for something as critical as a public vote on changing our democratic voting system. It gives one pause to consider.

It gives one pause to consider, when you consider the multiple losses in court around the TMX project — a project that, this government proudly declared, they were going to use every tool in their toolbox to stop, although they would admit that they were somewhat limited in legal ways to do that. The courts showed that to be true as well. What type of advice were the lawyers trying to give the then Attorney General, now Premier, but were quashed from doing so?

What type of worry did they have that it led to the need to accelerate…. This has been a discussion going on for decades about unionizing and having a collective agreement. What type of worries were they feeling? What type of pressures were they feeling, worries about the work they were doing in that type of environment that would lead the government to accelerate, while they were at the labour board trying to get a ruling, on their right to have their own bargaining unit, to bring forward Bill 5?

Bill 5 has some other issues with it, with the lawyers as well, not the least of which is that the lawyers went through the processes, which have been recently changed by this government, on how groups can unionize. They did a card check, under the rules as laid out by the new legislation that this government brought in not that long ago.

When the results did not turn out as the government wanted, Bill 5 appeared. Bill 5 appeared, and suddenly, trying to circumvent a labour board ruling, the government says: “You’re free to have association with whomever you choose, just as long as it’s with whom we tell you.” Again, there’s a long history with this government, in their six short years of this situation playing out.

[1:15 p.m.]

If you look at the so-called community benefits agreements — which, we now see, are ripping off the taxpayers with bloated, excessive costs for projects — those projects are now subject to making sure that the workers belong to one of 19 handpicked, select unions from the government. The problem with that isn’t about unionization or not unionization. This is about freedom, of which union you belong to, to apply your craft.

In a community benefit agreement, if you don’t belong to one of those unions — even though there’s tons and tons of construction workers out there that are unionized and that would love to work on projects — they’re being told you’re not allowed to unless you quit your union and join one of our 19 handpicked unions.

That’s a shame, because it doesn’t match the minister’s words of freedom of association. Just like in Bill 5, where the government is directing who the bargaining unit will be for the lawyers, they’ve done the exact same thing with community benefits agreements.

We fully recognize, on this side, that unions have a place — that the unionized workforces do great work in our communities, high-skilled, lots of apprentice work. We just don’t believe that a contractor or their worker should have to belong to one of a very specific 19 unions to be able to help build a hospital or a highway. We believe that company, and whichever union, should be able to have open access to bidding on those projects and that work, and to be represented by whichever collective bargaining group they want.

Bill 5 makes you wonder where else the government intends to go with this type of legislation. When you’re telling lawyers that their only option for a bargaining unit is a bargaining unit that says that they don’t essentially want them to be part of their unit if they don’t want to be, it makes you wonder who is advancing this agenda.

Why does the Premier so desperately want to advance this agenda? When you look at the backdrop of community benefits agreements, it starts to show a pattern. We look at the Arbutus decision in Bill 26, that just recently came through here, to see if there is a pattern connecting them with Bill 5. Now, Bill 5 was introduced and sitting on the order paper since the beginning of February. Bill 26 comes in some weeks, if not months, later. What does that say?

Although a community is actively engaged in a legal action at a court in this province trying to get a ruling in a judgment about process and procedures that did or didn’t happen properly in the city of Vancouver at a public hearing process, that piece of legislation says: “It doesn’t matter what the court rules. The court case can continue. It doesn’t matter what the court rules. The zoning is deemed valid by this government and this Premier, and the project can continue.”

That sounds an awful parallel to the concept of freedom of association — as long as it’s with whom we tell you to associate for bargaining. “You’re free to go to court,” according to this government, “but we really don’t care what the judge has to say in the ruling, because our piece of legislation is going to override the court.”

It’s an interesting concept — considering this is a government that continually says that when it comes to crime and safety, they can’t direct courts, and they can’t tell judges what to do. They’re right about that, unless it’s Bill 26 and the Arbutus project — a project that the Environment Minister lobbied heavily for, to the Vancouver city council as well.

[1:20 p.m.]

When things don’t go this government’s way, when they feel it’s not going to go their way, they pre-empt. I guess those court losses around Trans Mountain, or maybe the failed referendum on prop rep, taught the Premier, former Attorney General, a thing or two about trying to avoid future court losses and still do whatever the heck he wants.

Bill 5 is directly connected to that same mindset. That should be a concern for every British Columbian, because each time this happens, it erodes people’s access to due process, especially through a judicial review of things.

The fact that this was brought in while the lawyers were actively engaged in the labour board, trying to get a ruling…. Then the government turns around and says to the lawyers: “Well, we’ll pull the bill as long as you negotiate with us.” That’s a pretty interesting negotiating tactic when you want to talk about negotiating in good faith when it comes to labour agreements. “Freedom of association, as long as it’s with the bargaining unit we tell you that you can associate with. And we want to have good-faith negotiations with you, but, by the way, if they break down, we’ve got this bill that’s already been introduced that we’ll bring down and pass.”

Well, here we are, after February 9, with four days to go in the legislative calendar, and guess what this government has done. They’ve brought the bill back for discussion. They’re flexing to say, “We really don’t care about due process. We really don’t care that the lawyers are worried that they don’t have the freedom to give actual advice to the government in an unhindered way” — that the government may not want to hear if it doesn’t align with their political ideology on a certain topic or a certain direction. “We don’t want you to have that protection.”

In fact, when the lawyers have recently threatened job action, the government has warned them that since they don’t have a collective bargaining agreement, they’ll be subject to suspensions, possible firings, other job action against them — including if they refuse overtime.

Imagine that. You’re a government lawyer who has now been told: “If you’re not prepared to work weekends, regardless of a family event that might be happening — even though it’s to give us advice we actually don’t want to hear, so you’re going to have to rechange your briefing note to us because we don’t actually like the way you’re headed with that advice — you could be disciplined.” That’s what this government is telling the government lawyers right now: “If you refuse overtime, you can be disciplined.”

Can you imagine if somebody that worked in the food service industry, in a non-unionized environment — as the lawyers are right now because they’re considered exempt staff — refused overtime? Said to their boss: “I just can’t. I can’t arrange child care. I can’t work an extra shift.” And they were reprimanded and/or fired. Can you imagine what an NDP government would be doing to that employer?

Just think about that — the outrage that would be happening from the members of the NDP if that happened. I can understand why they would be outraged, because it would be outrageous if that happened. But if you’re a government lawyer, it’s okay for the government to threaten you with that. Suddenly their moral outrage is gone, because Bill 5 will make it all better. We’ll just force them into a bargaining unit they don’t even want to belong to.

By the way, that card check they did…. Over 70 percent of their members said they did not want to belong to the PEA. They want a bargaining unit. They don’t want the PEA. And that’s the crux of all of this.

[1:25 p.m.]

The problem the lawyers are having, the problem the opposition is having and the problem many in this province are starting to realize is there’s a building track record with this government of strong-arming people with legislation if they’re not getting what they want — specifically, if the Premier’s not getting what he wants.

We saw it in his leadership race. He wasn’t getting what he wanted, so guess what. The candidate eventually got removed. There were no other candidates. Boom. Done. “Now I’m the Premier.”

It’s one situation after another after another. We’ve sat on this bill since February in this chamber. Talking with the lawyers as recently as last evening, when we all started to realize this bill was coming forward again, they shared some interesting information with me. The only real development since February is that after many weeks of talking, we proposed that the parties agree on a neutral expert to listen to everyone and make recommendations on the proper bargaining structure. It’s the only thing.

The government initially told us they’d get back to them in a week. Didn’t hear anything from them until yesterday when they told them that Bill 5 is back on the docket. That’s this government’s version of negotiating in good faith with their in-house legal team.

Then they wonder why, perhaps, the lawyers might be a little bit concerned that if they don’t have proper bargaining unit protection, this government, this Premier might be very vindictive if they actually have the temerity to give them up-front and honest legal opinions that don’t match up with their political narrative as a government.

It’s also interesting that the government waited until the last few days of the session to bring this forward. A lot of these lawyers actually helped with the drafting and vetting of legislation.

It’s interesting that after the government has finally got all of their legislation brought forward that they wanted for this session, after dragging along the lawyers with good-faith negotiations so that job action wouldn’t happen, even under the threat of retribution…. It’s interesting that as that timeline hits, magically Bill 5 is back in front of us.

Again, a government who threatens with Bill 5, while trying to negotiate supposedly in good faith, reintroduces Bill 5 back to this chamber for debate once all of the other work of those lawyers would have been dealing with over the last ten weeks for this House to work on.

Seems like a pretty convenient timeline, once again, for this Premier to have been able to manufacture and make sure that what he wants to see happen, happens and, if he needs a piece of legislation, to make it so, regardless of what people want in terms of access to free and open negotiations and protections. That doesn’t matter.

If you look at putting the thumb on the scale of things right now and when the government is picking and choosing when to do that…. They are fully engaged with Bill 5 to disrupt a labour board ruling and discussion and hearing that’s ongoing, and a decision. They’re willing to not negotiate in good faith, in my opinion, when it comes to making sure that the lawyers know ahead of time that if you take job action, there will be punitive action taken against you, ironically because you’re not part of a bargaining unit.

Yet at the same time, after repeated calls in the Abbotsford area for the government to try to intervene with the transit strike that is impacting tens of thousands of people on a daily basis for months now, this Premier and government says: “Oh, no, we don’t want to interfere. We don’t want to interfere. You’ve got to let bargaining happen. You’ve got to let bargaining play out. There’s no place for us to be in there. You have to let the two sides work it out.”

[1:30 p.m.]

Yet when the government is one of those sides, when this Premier is feeling inconvenienced…. And this isn’t inconveniencing the Premier to get to work. It’s not inconveniencing him trying to get to his university classes or any activities that he might want to do, like the Abbotsford transit strike is doing to tens of thousands of people daily.

No, this is inconveniencing the Premier because he might get told some hard legal advice that he doesn’t agree with because it doesn’t match his political narrative. So his solution to that is to put the thumb back on the scale and bring forward legislation.

I know the government is going to say that we’re overblowing this, that we’re conflating things, that they’re not the same. But they are the same. It’s a repeated pattern of this Premier and this government only wanting to interject themselves into things when it’s an inconvenience to the Premier. The rest of the population — it doesn’t really seem to matter if they’re inconvenienced on things. This government won’t inject themselves into that, based on their ideological beliefs. But if it’s an inconvenience to the Premier, they will inject themselves in it.

If it’s inconvenient to the Premier that a neighbourhood in Vancouver wants the simple act of the right, which every British Columbian should have, to take a dispute to a court and get a court ruling on it, the Premier is going to inject himself into that with a piece of legislation that says the courts no longer matter. But if neighbourhoods want what is being dubbed catch-and-release and soft-on-crime policies by this Premier dealt with in a different way, we can’t interfere with the court system because that would interfere with this Premier’s political narrative that he wants to stitch.

If the lawyers want to be part of a bargaining unit, this government says: “You’re welcome to do that. Freedom of association.” We heard the minister say that in her opening comments. A caveat to that is that Bill 5 says: “Well, freedom of association as long as it’s with the bargaining unit we tell you, you have to belong to.” The bargaining unit your own members say — by government rules set out in law that they followed — they don’t want to belong to. The bargaining unit that has said: “If they don’t want to belong to us, we’re fine with that. They should be allowed to go find their own bargaining unit.”

In fact, this piece of legislation…. Again, the government can try to make it sound like we are being over the top on our concerns around this and the implications of this bill. That’s not what the broader labour movement seems to think about this bill. The labour movement in B.C. actually agrees with us on this. They were telling the government to shelve Bill 5; that it’s not right, what Bill 5 is standing for; that the lawyers should have the ability to go find their own bargaining unit, create their own one if they like.

So even the labour movement in this province, which, let’s face it, is much tighter with the NDP than they are with this side of the House — that’s no grand secret — has been telling the members of government that Bill 5 is not acceptable.

In fact, Bill 5 sat on the order paper for so long — I don’t know if it was meant as a courtesy or it just had been forgotten — we were offered a briefing on Bill 5 again today. Now, that happened back in February when it was first introduced, thankfully. The minister’s office is usually very good about getting us briefings. But it had been sitting so long that they either felt we hadn’t had one or it had been so long that maybe we needed a refresher on what this bill stands for.

[1:35 p.m.]

That’s how long it has been dangling over the process, the supposed good-faith negotiations that this province has been having with the lawyers, a process which has had silence over the last several weeks from this government on a very simple request by the lawyers on having a neutral expert weigh in. Not binding arbitration — a neutral expert. That was too threatening for the Premier.

Instead of just agreeing to have a neutral expert…. Heck, at least go through the motions if you’re the government. At least go through and try to pretend you’re actually having some good-faith negotiations. But that’s not what’s happening.

Bill 5 has been used as a hammer this whole time. That’s happened with CBAs. That’s happened with the court cases. It is running across government. It makes one wonder, when you start hearing the push-back around bylaws, around municipalities wanting to deal with things in their boundaries around parks and playgrounds and open hard use drugs. The government doesn’t want to go there. It makes you wonder what the push-back from this government and this Premier will be if that’s being done in a way that the Premier deems to be not acceptable for his political narrative.

We saw it in Penticton when the Premier, who was the Attorney General at the time, pushed back against the Penticton council because they didn’t want to extend a shelter. The response was: “Well, I’ve got 1,000 tents and sleeping bags I can shift to Penticton.”

Deputy Speaker: Member, I’d remind you that we’re speaking to Bill 5.

P. Milobar: Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair.

And that’s the problem. That’s the backdrop that the lawyers are dealing with. Remember, these are the same lawyers that would have been advising the Premier on things like shipping 1,000 tents and sleeping bags to Penticton, when they were talking about using paramountcy to tell the city of Penticton: “It didn’t matter what you wanted to do or not. The province is coming in and doing what they want.”

The Premier would have been getting legal advice. Bill 5 takes away the ability for the lawyers, in their own words, to make sure lawyers and government have the degree of independence that we can tell government something they won’t want to hear.

Again, solicitor-client privilege. Perhaps the Premier wasn’t very thrilled with the advice he got about threatening to ship 1,000 tents and sleeping bags to Penticton. So you can see why the lawyers are worried about Bill 5.

Now, Bill 5 is a pretty light document. It’s one page, one section. Well, two sections if you count the commencement date. That’s one section. But it does not create the freedom of association that the Finance Minister has indicated. And the interesting thing is, as history has shown with this Premier’s track record in court, when he tries to ram things through to get his own political way, it usually blows up in court on him.

The lawyers have already indicated that they’re likely going to challenge Bill 5 in court. It will be interesting to see, and drag the process out even further and sour the negotiations even more, how the courts will respond based on a minister saying freedom of association when we’re dealing with the bill that very clearly does the exact opposite.

[1:40 p.m.]

That’s why you’re likely going to see Bill 26 still challenged. Not only will the bylaw process, the public hearing process, in Vancouver continue with a court case; you’re likely going to see Bill 26 challenged in court too. It essentially says, by this Premier, that you have no recourse to go to the courts in British Columbia. It’s going to be what the Premier decrees is the way forward.

If you’re a government lawyer, you have no way forward with Bill 5 unless, as decreed by the Premier, you join the PEA. Then you’re free to negotiate all you want. Then you’re free to have association all you want, as long as it’s with the PEA.

Now, just for those at home, it makes it very clear the way this bill is worded…. The minister alluded to it, as well, in her opening comments, accurately alluded to it. You have to either be a member of the BCNU — which is the nurses’ union, so there’s no way that fits for lawyers, obviously…. The BCGEU — that doesn’t seem to fit either. So at first you go: “Oh, the PEA, the Professional Employees Association. That makes sense.” It’s professionals, and it covers off things like engineers and others within the public service that have a bit more specialized area. It has some flexibilities.

At first blush, you would think that government is being fairly reasonable with Bill 5. They’re letting the lawyers get what they’ve been asking for, for some time now, admittedly, even while we were in government: the ability to have a collective bargaining group. But it’s a half-measure. It’s not allowing them to pick whatever collective bargaining group.

It would probably be an easier pill to swallow for the lawyers if the government just flat-out said: “We’re not changing anything. You’re not part of and you can’t be part of a collective agreement.” At least, that’s very certain. “Your job classification is such that you cannot be part…. You’re going to be considered exempt staff.” They wouldn’t like it, and they haven’t liked it for decades, but they would at least understand where they stand.

Instead, with Bill 5, it’s waving a carrot in front of them and saying: “Yeah. You can finally have a collective agreement, but only if you do it the way we tell you to do it.” To sweeten the pot: “If you have any job action, we’re going to be punitive on you. And oh, by the way, we’re going to have open and fair and transparent, good-faith negotiations, but we’re going to keep this bill dangling over your head. Thank you for your suggestion of having a neutral expert to listen to both sides. We’ll now ghost you for the next several weeks, and our response will be to re-engage Bill 5 on the floor of this chamber.”

That’s the process that we’re at. As much as the minister wants to mutter at what I am saying, she knows this to all be true. She knows that it was being billed, when it was first introduced, as this great step forward. And she ought to have known — I’m sure the Premier knew because he was the Attorney General for 5½ years — that this was not what the lawyers were looking for. But it was billed publicly as it was.

In fact, when we first saw it, we thought that lawyers might be happy with this. Then we saw a comment or two. A few of us reached out, as well, and lo and behold, no, the lawyers weren’t overly thrilled with Bill 5. I wonder if any of them actually had to write it on behalf of the government. I guess we can get into that in committee stage.

There’s just this overwhelming track record of evidence of overriding. Bill 5 is the most recent example — not chronologically from when it gets introduced in this chamber; it was introduced in the first week we were back — the latest example of what we have in front of us to deal with. We saw the Premier run roughshod over issues with ICBC. We’ve seen issues within B.C. Housing, don’t want to be confronted, and now we see issues in Bill 5.

[1:45 p.m.]

The words simply are not matching the actions. The words of “free association” aren’t matching what Bill 5 will action. Bill 5 will action a very clear decision that the lawyers will be left with. You can either have a bargaining unit that will be the PEA, or you will be exempt staff. If you are exempt staff and have a family issue — can’t get babysitting and we need you to work overtime — we have the right to discipline you. Whether or not it’s true job action or not, we reserve that right. It was made very clear recently by government that that’s a hammer they hold if the lawyers choose to engage in any type of job action when they do not have a bargaining unit protecting them.

Again, I would love to hear what the Labour Minister would have to say if this side of the House had brought forward a private member’s bill that is structured like Bill 5. Because you know what big labour says about Bill 5. Big labour says it’s not a good thing. Big labour has been saying the province needs to withdraw this and actually start again with the lawyers.

So it would be truly interesting to see and hear…. Of course, the government would have to call a private member’s bill for debate at some point. So that’s never going to happen. I guess we never will actually hear what they have to say.

But the characterization…. The most concerning part about this whole bill is the way the government has been characterizing this bill all the way through, from its introduction to today. It was introduced as almost a housekeeping-type bill. Minor amendments will enable collective agreements for the lawyers. Then you scratch the surface, and you find out there’s a lot more to Bill 5 and the consequences of Bill 5 moving forward.

Then you put Bill 5 up against the backdrop of what’s happened with community benefit agreements and how that process unfolded and was ramrodded through — not to the betterment of the taxpayers, because we’re paying way more for projects than we ever have, not for the betterment of unionized workers, because way more of them are excluded from projects than are included in projects.

With Bill 5, the concerns are endless. The track record of this government is mounting — of this Premier. And it’s really a shame. It’s really a shame that — as we saw with Bill 36, where closure was enacted with two-thirds of the bill not even debated — this bill will likely see the same fate. It gets brought in at the last possible minute. I fully anticipate evasive non-answers, long waits in between questions when we get to committee stage.

It does a disservice to the 350 or so government lawyers that simply wanted to be treated with a bit of respect from their employer. I’m sure they never envisioned that an NDP government would be the ones bringing down the hammer on them like this.

Mutual respect in the workplace you would think would be an important part of any bargaining process. But when the power imbalance…. The power imbalance is great in this case, given that the Premier was the Attorney General, the top law officer in this province for 5½ years, overseeing these lawyers — massive power imbalance already.

Now the Premier is saying: “Well, we need Bill 5. We need Bill 5 to actually have even more power imbalance happening in negotiations. But don’t worry, public; we’ll call it good-faith negotiations. We won’t actually talk with the lawyers for weeks on end. We’ll call them good-faith negotiations.”

[1:50 p.m.]

“We won’t even tell the lawyers we don’t agree with their latest suggestion of a neutral expert weighing in. Our response will be, weeks later, to say that we’re going to advance debate on Bill 5 instead, as the House shuts down, winds down its business.”

There are a couple of motions left for us to debate next week. There are one or two sets of estimates left. That’s when this gets brought in. In fact, the government expectation was that we’d only have one or two speakers to this bill, that it would move through.

Interjection.

P. Milobar: No, it’s actually been the government’s expectation, just to be clear to the Finance Minister, who’s seeming to think that she was assured we’d only have one or two speakers. We’ve never confirmed with the government we’d only have two speakers. In fact, the government seemed a little surprised yesterday that we might actually have a few speakers. So she may want to chat with her House Leader about the process around Bill 5.

But as we’ve seen time and again with this government and with this Premier, the last-minute introduction of legislation that they try to slough off as nothing usually has pretty potential, significant ramifications moving forward.

If they’re willing to treat their own internal legal advisors this way, just imagine what it must be like to be a non-profit who might want to tell the government they don’t agree with what’s happening or a non-profit trying to give their honest opinion of a policy or a way forward that the government is talking about.

If the lawyers, the government lawyers, are nervous about doing that for fear of retribution from this government and the response from the government is to introduce Bill 5, imagine how little honest feedback this government’s probably getting from non-profits and other people that rely on government funds to operate in this province. Just imagine the tone that sets across a wide range of areas that this Premier is trying to dabble his fingers into.

The government can laugh that off, and the government can shrug it off and say that we’re just fearmongering, and that’s not really happening. Well, I can tell you: I hear from organizations that have felt that pressure. Now we actually have verification through the lawyers that it does happen, because it’s happening on something as critical as legal advice to this government.

One only has to look at E-Nationalize to see how the Premier was trying to force that case to be brought forward again with the way he reworded it to ask the special adviser to look at that, who even still came back and said: “There’s no more court case here for us to pursue.”

The track record’s long with this Premier doing things like we see in Bill 5. It’s disappointing to see. It’s disappointing to see, yet again, this government and this Premier decide to be so heavy-handed with a piece of legislation.

Again, the lawyers have been asking for this for decades. The rush on this government’s part to bring in a piece of legislation to bring down a hammer on the lawyers, instead of continuing to just have those discussions, really defies logic. But I’ll tell you: it does make you wonder, when you see the mounting court losses under this Premier’s watch as both Attorney General and Premier, what type of legal advice are we just ignoring in the first place?

The fact that the government is so anxious to bring down Bill 5 and circumvent a labour board, circumvent fair, open and proper negotiations…. As I referenced, literally while we were watching them take a total hands-off approach to a transit strike that stretched on…. Well, Sea to Sky transit was the longest in B.C. history, just recently. Government didn’t want to interfere there either.

[1:55 p.m.]

But when it’s their own direct legal advice, the Premier comes in with Bill 5 to put the thumb on the scale and say: “I’m going to interfere. This is inconveniencing me. This is inconveniencing my political narrative I’m trying to set through the courts and through other areas.”

We need Bill 5 to just quash that. We need Bill 5 to make sure that the lawyers are brought to heel one way or another.

They’re either going to organize under Bill 5 rules and be part of the PEA, which they don’t want to belong to, or they’re going to stay exempt staff, and we can continue to make sure that they work in an ever-building toxic work environment whose employer has no problem suggesting retribution for refusing overtime, for working your strict hours that you’re actually paid to work.

Those are the two choices the government lawyers are going to be faced with once Bill 5 passes. The option for free association is gone once Bill 5 passes. Bill 5 is going to fundamentally take that away.

The interesting thing is when you have a group of lawyers saying that they’re prepared to challenge Bill 5 in court and they’re the same ones that have watched this Premier lose court case after court case after court case, they might actually know what they’re talking about.

They’ve had a front row seat to this Premier/Attorney General losing in court time and again, and the only conclusion you can draw is that they haven’t been willing to receive or listen to and follow the actual direction they’re getting from the government lawyers that Bill 5 is going to directly impact.

That’s the only conclusion you can render. Employees don’t put in writing, in the middle of negotiations, that they’re worried about providing honest feedback, honest opinions, especially when they’re professionals guided by professional standards, to their employer for fear of retribution if it doesn’t align with the views of the employer, especially when it’s confidential advice.

They’re not giving the Premier legal advice at a podium. They’re giving the Premier and this government legal advice that’s subject to confidentiality. Even in that setting, they don’t feel they have the ability to give the straight goods of a legal opinion.

Yeah, I think it does have significant bearing, Bill 5, on how community groups and non-profits and business organizations, you name it, will view how they’re going to be treated by this Premier and this government moving forward, the chilling effect it will have.

Now, that might be great for the government, because they can live in a bubble, just like they do in question period, when the only people in the province clapping for them are in this chamber, with their non-answers. The outside world is shaking their heads, saying they didn’t even come close to answering that.

That might work for them, that their ministers and this Premier will keep going into all these rooms and being told what they want to hear about how wonderful and great they are. That doesn’t make it reality, though.

Telling the lawyers, as you introduced Bill 5 for debate, that it’s about respecting the right of free association but not pointing out that Bill 5 is anything but that, because it actually tells you that you have to be part of group PEA, just backs up that whole narrative. And it’s a problem.

As I say, we’ve seen this time and again. We’ve seen this Premier use this tactic, as we’re seeing in Bill 5, over and over and over again. We saw it in his leadership race. We saw it in Bill 26 recently. We saw it with ICBC. We saw it with the transit strike, where they took total hands off.

[2:00 p.m.]

We’re seeing it across the board, and Bill 5 is just the latest example. Shockingly enough, I probably would’ve had more respect for the timing of Bill 5 coming forward if it had happened when they first introduced it.

It’s going to pass. I say this all the time. News flash to the government. They outvote us two to one. That’s not a great secret. It’s going to pass. Why didn’t they bring it forward right then? Oh well, labour rose up against it.

Remember when there was that slight delay in us getting any legislation brought forward, and everyone just assumed it was the new House leader that didn’t quite know…? I don’t know. Maybe it was just that the House leader was still learning the ropes. Could be. It is a steep learning curve. I’ll give him that. But it could’ve also been that there was a slight slowdown of legislation coming forward. We’ll never really know. It could’ve just been that the ministers weren’t signing off on the legislation they were supposed to have ready to go. We’ll never know.

Bill 5 was introduced on February 9. Is the government worried that passing it would mean that there would be that slowdown of legislation moving forward for the rest of this session? Possibly. Timing would indicate so. They now only want to deal with it with a few days left in the session.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Rest assured, and I’ve assured the lawyers, that we’re going to do what we can do to try to shine a light on this as opposition. We’re going to do our jobs. We’re going to hold the government accountable. We’re going to hold this Premier accountable for his actions that have led to Bill 5 being debated here today instead of good-faith negotiations continuing on with the lawyers. That’s what the taxpayers are paying us to do as opposition: be here, hold the government to account and stand up for those that don’t get to stand on this floor and speak. So we’re going to do that.

The government has backed down once. Frankly, we’re hoping the government backs down again. They’ve pulled this bill for debate once before in this session. They can do it again.

They just introduced exposure bills. Now, for those at home, they might not know what those are. The lawyers would know what those are. An exposure bill is just a bill that won’t be debated in this session, but it’s ready to go for the fall.

Deputy Speaker: Excuse me, Member. Sorry, I see another member.

A. Singh: I seek leave for an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

A. Singh: In the House, I’d like you all to welcome the grade 10 students, with Ms. Matheos, from McRoberts high school, which is in my riding. They’re about to leave and meet me outside. I just wanted to say welcome to them. Welcome.

Deputy Speaker: Welcome.

A. Olsen: I’ll take this opportunity to seek leave for an introduction.

Leave granted.

A. Olsen: I’d like to introduce a special guest from the B.C. Government Lawyers Association. In the gallery is Margo Foster, secretary, doing an excellent job on behalf of British Columbia. Would the members here please make them feel welcome?

Debate Continued

P. Milobar: As I was saying, I just wanted to touch on, briefly, the timeline of Bill 5 here, as I wrap up my comments. We could have the government pull this bill again. It’s totally within their right to do that, and it would be the right thing to do. We’re back in the fall, assuming the Premier doesn’t call a snap election, and he keeps saying he’s not. Maybe, for once, we’ll take him at his word on that.

But exposure bills have been presented already in this session. An exposure bill is simply a piece of legislation the government tends to advance. There’s not enough time to debate it right now. It provides for longer scrutiny by the public, by the critics and by affected agencies and stakeholder groups. Then it comes back in the fall, and the government has something to work on right as we start the session up. We’d start right back into debate where we left off.

That could happen with this bill. It already has, since February 9. The fact is that this has been going on for decades with the lawyers, back and forth, as to: should they be exempt or not? At least the government’s relented and said that, no, they don’t have to be exempt if they don’t want to. They can have a collective agreement, a collective bargaining unit.

[2:05 p.m.]

They could pull Bill 5 until the fall and actually have meaningful, real engagement with the lawyers over the summer. Then they can always pass it if need be. That’s as basic as it gets, quite frankly. But this Premier doesn’t seem to be willing to do that type of thing. This Premier seems to want to ram things through, bring in legislation to override things and proper due process to suit whatever timeline he deems is important to him and him alone.

This government can pull this bill. They have already pulled this bill until now. I would ask him to seriously consider it between now and when we get to committee stage, so we don’t leave second reading on this bill, and actually, meaningfully engage with the lawyers, not ignore them like they have been doing over the last several weeks.

This isn’t high school. You don’t have to ghost them just because you didn’t like something they said at gym the day before. Just engage and actually negotiate in good faith. Do the exact same thing with the lawyers, as the employer, that you’re expecting the transit company to do with their transit employees in Abbotsford.

Let the process play out. I’m not seeing any legislation here demanding that the transit workers get back to work or that they have to have a settlement. So just let the labour process play out the way it’s supposed to play out and let the labour board do their work, just like we should be letting the courts do their work in the case of Vancouver.

There are these systems in place that have been developed over a lot of years to safeguard and provide rights to British Columbians. We don’t need to trample on them, one small piece of legislation after another, just to fit this Premier’s agenda. It’s not appropriate. It’s not right.

Bill 5 is a heavy hand that is not needed at this particular time. What is needed is real, true, meaningful, good faith negotiations with the lawyers. Let this sit on a shelf, like it has been since February 9 anyway. It would be ultimate if you pulled it completely, so it wasn’t hanging over their heads. But that’s…. I was going to say it’s left the bus station, but certainly not in Abbotsford.

That would be the simple thing to do. That would be the right thing to do. That’s what a good employer would do. They would work with their exempt staff to find a way forward without threats and literal legislation to fit a Premier’s personal agenda. The power imbalance in this situation is massive, and Bill 5 makes it even worse.

I thank you for the time, Mr. Speaker, and I look forward to hearing other people’s comments.

S. Bond: Well, it’s back. Here we are with four days left in the session, and the government has decided to bring Bill 5 back to the Legislature. I think the concern that we have is the growing pattern of this government that Bill 5 represents.

It’s certainly not the only time we’ve seen that. In fact, my colleague — and I appreciate the comments that he made today — has pointed out a list of situations similar to that with Bill 5 where the government has decided that, regardless of what anybody has to say about it, we are just going to march it through the Legislature.

People might be wondering why there is such concern. One of the things that I’ve learned in my time as a legislator is that the length of the bill doesn’t really indicate, necessarily, the implications. This is a short bill. In fact, there is one page with an explanatory note, and, as my colleague pointed out, there is one section, and then there is the commencement section. But what this does is significant.

[2:10 p.m.]

This government has heard concerns not just from the B.C. government lawyers, but from a number of labour organizations, not just in British Columbia, but from across the country, in fact. I think it’s really interesting that we have the Minister of Finance being sent in to defend this bill. I look forward to hearing comments from the Minister of Labour, who has been a champion of worker rights for most of his life. I look forward to the Minister of Labour defending this action and, frankly, he should. So should other members in the chamber today.

Let’s talk about what is happening here today. The government is going to use their majority to unilaterally move ahead with this legislation. If it was the first time, that would be one thing, but over and over again, we see this government behave this way. Talk, more talk, create legislation, ignore the talk, ignore the advice, ignore the concerns, and then ram it through. Why? Because they can. That is simply unacceptable.

In the case of Bill 5, many British Columbians may not be aware, because they’re just busy getting through every day, trying to figure out how they’re going to feed their family or get their child a child care space. But this bill relates to the ongoing situation with the B.C. Government Lawyers Association and their right — not their “maybe I’d like to do this” or “maybe we should,” their right — to choose what union they belong to. This government has decided — this government, of all governments, has decided — they are going to remove that right.

The Finance Minister tried to give an explanation the other day which simply didn’t line up with what the bill was doing. It wasn’t accurate.

There are two issues for discussion here. One is the content and the impacts of the bill, and we’ll certainly talk about that. My colleague has done a great job of walking through the bill. But let’s talk about the process, because that’s my concern.

We have four sitting days left and, to our surprise, we find out that there’s going to be a debate on Bill 5. Guess who else was surprised. Well, that would be the government lawyers.

Think about it. Gareth Morley, president of the British Columbia Government Lawyers Association, said he was informed late Tuesday that the NDP planned to bring forward the bill for second reading. How on earth is that a way to have constructive, thoughtful conversation about an issue that has been ongoing for many years? Suddenly, this government has decided that: “Nope, we’re bringing it back to the Legislature. We’re going to ram it through” — despite all of the concerns that they have heard, and they are not insignificant concerns.

Here’s what the British Columbia Government Lawyers Association…. One would assume that they have a sense of what might be constitutional or not. Here’s a quote from them: “We’re convinced the bill is unconstitutional, and once it’s in force, we’re going to take legal action in the courts. We’re certainly open to continuing discussion, and I’d be willing to talk to the Minister of Finance or the Premier, and they said no to that.”

So here we are, Thursday afternoon, debating a bill where there are significant concerns. People have expressed their concerns. They’ve even offered to sit down with the Finance Minister or the Premier and say: “Let’s sort this out.” What was the answer? No. One has to ask themselves why.

The most difficult thing…. I thought it was really interesting when B.C. government lawyers summed up the legislation and the NDP’s approach by saying this: “This would be appalling for any government. It is galling from one that claims to respect workers’ rights.”

[2:15 p.m.]

Not my words, The words of lawyers who, in this province, believe that there is a government who constantly talks about the importance of worker rights. Yet on a Thursday afternoon — surprise — we’re bringing back Bill 5, and we’re going to ram it through.

As we’ve said earlier, not the first time we’ve seen that happen. We certainly saw that happen with Bill 36 — similar to Bill 5, except the difference was the fact that Bill 36 had over 600 clauses. In the same way that Bill 5 is being treated, Bill 36 was brought to the Legislature with the intent of passing it no matter what.

The “no matter what” in that case was: “It doesn’t matter if we get to discuss all 600 clauses. Oh, no. Let’s just ram it through.” No matter how this government tries to twist its story about that, that is precisely what happened. That bill, like Bill 5, was brought to the Legislature, and there was not an opportunity for fulsome debate.

We recognize the concerns that B.C. government lawyers are expressing. But we’re concerned also about the process. This government has the opportunity to do things in a collaborative constructive way, and instead it chooses to ask for advice, quietly pulls the bill out of the Legislature and then unceremoniously drops it back in after saying: “Nope, we don’t want to talk about that anymore. We’re just going to ram this through.”

Is it significant? Yes, actually, it is. We have heard — and the government has heard — loud and clear that there are concerns from many organizations. But let’s just talk about whether or not this legislation is just about forcing members to join a union that none of the lawyers had ever voted to join.

Let me provide the Finance Minister with another quote that talks about the process. “This is also about a government that has decided to change the rules of the game and impose legislation that denies a group of government employees their chance to have their case heard and decided upon by the Labour Relations Board. It’s something that has never been done in Canada.”

Never been done in Canada. We have an NDP government in British Columbia that, in fact, absolutely stands up and touts their record supporting workers’ rights, while they’re leading the country again…. Again, another first. We look at some of the other firsts this government has managed to rack up: highest rents in the country, you name it.

Here we have a situation where a government that is expected to, and one would assume would, stand up for worker rights…. Instead they are changing the rules of the game and imposing legislation that denies a group of government employees their chance to have their case heard. In their words: “It’s something that has never been done in Canada.” Let’s see what a few other organizations had to say.

Well, the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel actually wrote a letter to the current Attorney General. That was in February, no less. Here we are; we’re in May. These concerns were raised specifically with the Attorney General in February. Again, we’re talking about the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel. Let me quote from their letter. “We are of the view that Bill 5 is both unconstitutional” — oh, where have we heard that before? — “and draconian.”

Now, members can react to the fact that the word “draconian” is being used, but it isn’t my word. It’s the word of the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel. This is why, they go on to say: “First, it imposes a bargaining agent upon employees that is not of their choosing.”

As I recall, when we think about the community benefits agreements — agreements that were mandated by this government — there was a similar process. In fact, the government chose specified unions that workers needed to join so they could work on infrastructure projects in British Columbia.

[2:20 p.m.]

Bill 5 continues the pattern. Apparently, government knows best, despite the fact that the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel calls this bill “unconstitutional and draconian” because “it imposes a bargaining agent upon employees that is not of their choosing.”

Here’s another, and this is unprecedented, in the same letter: “Secondly, it circumvents the certification process that was ongoing before the British Columbia Labour Relations Board.” It circumvents a process that this government purports to support. But when it’s convenient and when the government wants to get it checked off their to-do list before the session ends, we end up with the bill back in front of the Legislature, despite significant concerns being expressed not just by our B.C. Government Lawyers Association but many other labour organizations, all falling on deaf ears.

I can hardly wait to see which members of government are going to get up and defend this bill because I’m thinking it’s probably slim to none.

The letter goes on to say this. Honestly, I found this actually hard to read as I was reading the letter: “We are advised that part of government’s rationale for opposing government civil lawyers’ right to choose their own bargaining agent is that there is purportedly ‘nothing unique about the role performed by counsel for the legal services branch or the obligations imposed on them’ and that ‘the job of lawyers in LSB is to take instructions from government as opposed to Crown prosecutors, who are to be aloof from instructions of government.’”

What does the letter say? “This is a false premise. Government civil lawyers are the guardians of the rule of law in western democracies. Their work is crucial to ensuring that governments implement policies and enact legislation which is in keeping with the rule of law.” I would suggest that that is a fairly substantive argument. And that is why the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel calls this bill unconstitutional and draconian. But then, of course, this government would know something about losing cases because the current Premier, former Attorney General, had a streak of losses.

Here we stand with the people who work extraordinarily hard to provide advice to government and who are threatening job action. And a vast majority, a large majority of their members, agree with taking job action.

The letter goes on to say — by the way, it was copied to the Premier, the Finance Minister, the Minister of Labour, leader of the Green Party and others: “A majority of all associations of government civil lawyers and Crown prosecutors in Canada presently enjoy bargaining rights. The few that do not are well on their way to securing those rights, as the Charter demands. Of those associations that presently bargain collectively, all of them” — in the letter, I should point out that the word “all” is underlined, capitalized and printed in bold — “are allowed to bargain under the banner of an agent of their choosing. The B.C. government’s civil lawyers deserve nothing less. We strongly urge you to reconsider your course of action in this matter.”

We add our voices, as my colleague previous to me did, to the government to ask them to reconsider this course of action. There is plenty of time to have constructive and meaningful discussion about this issue. But instead, a surprise drop of the bill on the floor of the Legislature.

It’s not just the Canadian Crown counsel organization. No, indeed. It is typically people that are significant allies of the government that are also raising concerns. I can imagine how it must have felt for the government to receive a statement from the B.C. Federation of Labour.

[2:25 p.m.]

Here’s what that statement said: “This month, the Labour Relations Board was to hear the BCGLA application under the Labour Relations Code for recognition for collective bargaining purposes. However, on February 9, the B.C. government introduced Bill 5” — the bill that’s back in front of us today — “to amend the Public Service Labour Relations Act. This legislation will circumvent the LRB and assign these workers to an existing union.”

Here is the kicker. “The B.C. Federation of Labour is disappointed that the government has chosen this path instead of letting the Labour Relations Board complete its work. It is important to protect the rights of working people to join or form a union of their choosing.” Instead, the B.C. government has chosen to actually call the bill back, force legislation through the House, before letting the Labour Relations Board do its work.

Bill 5, introduced by this government, essentially negates an ongoing Labour Relations Board hearing in which the LRB was to rule on whether the BCGLA can form a union to represent its members who work for the government. It is shocking to think that that has never been done in Canada before. Members don’t seem to understand the hypocrisy that this represents from a government who constantly reminds us and British Columbians that their mandate is to protect worker rights — apparently except in the case of B.C. government lawyers.

It is time for this government to rethink this process. As my colleague prior to me articulated, it’s not the only time. There is a complete lack of recognition by this government about the process that they continue to engage in: listen, talk, ignore, ram through the legislation. It happened in Bill 36. Believe you me, I know, because I was on my feet for the first 232 clauses of that bill. But the government decided, oh, that was enough time. Session was ending. We’re just going to close debate and ram through the bill. I can assure you that members on that side of the House heard about that and continue to hear about that. Yet here we are again. We’re back at it.

You know, it was interesting to read in some of the articles about what’s taking place here, people asking themselves the question. It is unclear to many as to “why the NDP is picking this fight” and taking it to significant “extremes, rather than…letting civil lawyers organize into whatever union they want.”

There certainly have not been specific answers about that, but there’s been lots of speculation. The Finance Minister has attempted to answer the question, which no one found credible. Let’s quote the Finance Minister. Discussions are underway, and “we believe that things will work out.” Well, apparently, they didn’t work out, but somebody forgot to tell the B.C. Government Lawyers Association, even after they said: “We’ll come and sit down and talk to you.” They offered to talk to the Premier, to the Finance Minister and probably anyone on that side of the House that would actually listen to them.

It is astounding to me. This is the first time this has happened in Canada, and we have silence on the other side of the Legislature. No one prepared to jump up and defend this. Well I can tell you, being a long-time legislator, I don’t think I can remember when I’ve seen B.C. government lawyers having to protest on the front lawn to get attention.

[2:30 p.m.]

Here’s something else. I think that the government thought this was just going to slip on through. But what happened? Labour organizations are rallying, even organizations that are considered friendly to this government, to say: “This is not acceptable. You have intervened in a process.” Again, I look forward to having the Labour Minister stand up in the Legislature and defend this bill. I’m not sure how he would do that, and perhaps that’s why he isn’t going to defend the bill.

But it doesn’t stop there. The Minister of Finance and the Attorney General got a letter, this time from the Canadian Bar Association. So we have the B.C. Federation of Labour. We have Crown counsel. We have the B.C. Fed. Everyone is standing up and saying that this must not take place. Again, they point out the fact that Bill 5 circumvents BCGLA’s LRB application for union certification and, if passed, compels most of B.C. government’s in-house lawyers into an existing bargaining unit of the government’s choosing, rather than being able to exercise the freedom to choose their association.

Legislative counsel, who are included in the certification application, are noticeably absent from Bill 5, which potentially leaves them with no right to collective bargaining.

The Canadian Bar Association said to the Minister of Finance that it was their understanding that the legislation was tabled without consulting the BCGLA or legal counsel within government. “The only communication from government appeared to be an invitation to the BCGLA’s president to meet…regarding an undisclosed policy ‘project’ that would affect BCGLA and its members.”

It’s going to affect them, all right. They are going to potentially…. Well, when I say, “if this bill passes,” we all know that it will. That is the intent of this government bringing it on a Thursday afternoon with four days left in this session and other items that have to be debated and dealt with. We still have estimates to finish as well.

Let me quote the letter from the Canadian Bar Association: “The short time frame and limited communication is not the full and transparent discussion the development of this legislation warranted.” Is that not enough for this government to take a sober second look and say: “Look, we rushed this through. We tabled it. We pulled it out. We dropped it back in here”? It would be the responsible thing to do.

How difficult could it be to say, “You know what? We’re going to take some time, and we’re going to stand on the principles we believe in,” which I’m sure every member over there got elected on, which was to stand up for worker rights in British Columbia. This does not do that. This removes worker rights, and not a peep from members on the other side of the House.

The Canadian Bar Association president said: “We urge the province to reconsider proceeding with Bill 5 and…allow BCGLA’s application for certification…to proceed.” Again, someone else is saying to this government: “Take the time necessary to do the right thing. Pull back the bill again, and make sure that this is done properly.”

When we look at what happened on February 14, the government agreed to hold off on Bill 5 to provide space for meaningful discussions about Bill 5. What did the B.C. government lawyers have to say? “We went into negotiations in good faith. After ten hours of discussions over two weeks, it is clear there is no point in continuing discussions in their present form.” Here’s the important thing. “We remain open to negotiations about alternatives to Bill 5, but we are not going to agree to our employer choosing our union for us.”

[2:35 p.m.]

Gareth Morely goes on to say: “Our membership is solidly behind potential job action. In free societies, employers don’t choose unions; employees do.”

That’s what the heart of the debate is about. It’s about a government that says one thing and whose actions are completely contrary to what is a fundamental belief of the New Democratic Party — that worker rights are critical, essential. Well, apparently not for the B.C. Government Lawyers Association.

After Bill 5 was introduced, the BCGLA’s members voted 97.1 percent in support of taking job action if necessary. I can say this to the government members that are listening. It doesn’t have to come to job action, but it will if the government insists on this course of action, if they insist on ignoring the concerns that have been expressed. We have articulated a whole list of organizations that have said: “This is not what we should be doing.” But here we are, the government forcing this action to take place.

Promises were made to the B.C. Government Lawyers Association by the previous Premier that there would be fair discussion and that their right to choose a union would be paramount. So it’s not just: “Let’s get the legislation through the House.” It’s disrespect for a process that puts this government in the embarrassing position of making this the only time this has ever happened in Canada.

B.C. government lawyers believe that this bill is unconstitutional, yet here we are. It is unbelievable that we find ourselves in a position where we are going to watch this government force through another piece of legislation. That’s just not how this place is supposed to work.

If the government is going to get up and tout how they believe in consultation and how they listen and how…. That is what we hear endlessly, yet example after example — Bill 36, community benefits agreements, engaging with parents of children who have autism…. “Oh yes, we’re going to listen. We’re going to pause. We’re going to engage.” Yet all that is for naught when we stand in this House and this government has an intent to ram through this legislation.

Well, the opposition is going to do its part, including the Third Party. I’m sure they’re going to do their part. My colleague is eagerly waiting to get up.

The government has time to do the right thing. The right thing would be to put this bill on hold, engage in the consultation that it promised and make sure that British Columbia isn’t embarrassed by an action that is the first time this has happened in the country.

A. Olsen: It’s kind of like the twilight zone in here right now, frankly.

Interjection.

A. Olsen: Yeah, thanks for the soundtrack. It’s like the twilight zone in here to listen. Who would have ever thought — anybody who’s been tracking British Columbia politics over the last 20, 30, 40 years — that they would have heard B.C. United, formerly known as the B.C. Liberal Party, quoting rather damning press release quotes back at the B.C. NDP government.

It’s not just the B.C. Federation of Labour, as has been pointed out by my colleagues in the opposition. It’s other labour organizations and other lawyers who are criticizing the B.C. NDP for attempting to ram through legislation that undermines workers’ rights to freely negotiate with who they wish to organize with.

[2:40 p.m.]

Bill 5, the B.C. Public Service Labour Relations Amendment Act, permits the government lawyers to unionize with the B.C. employee association against the wishes of the B.C. Government Lawyers Association. It comes after years of back-and-forth litigation, debate and bargaining between the BCGLA and the government to allow the BCGLA to represent government lawyers. BCGLA has an active case before the Labour Relations Board, and the government has changed the rules of the game midway through those proceedings.

The BCGLA represents approximately 300 to 350 civil lawyers in government and has been around for three decades, 30 years. They have had ongoing attempts to unionize with the B.C. government over the past decade. It started in 2013, when the BCGLA received a mandate to seek the status as a bargaining agent. In 2014, the former Premier Christy Clark said it was inappropriate for lawyers to bargain collectively, even though the Crown Counsel Association had been doing it for years. In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Charter protects the rights to collectively bargain. From 2015 to 2022, delays and ongoing discussion.

In 2022, the former, I guess interim, Attorney General met with the BCGLA following the current Premier’s commitment to do so. They then sought a card mandate under the Labour Relations Code and received cards from 70 percent of legal counsel in our government. In November 2022, the BCGLA filed certification application with the B.C. Labour Relations Board. Government fought back and said that legal counsel are not an appropriate bargaining unit, I guess echoing the comments from former Premier Christy Clark. BCGLA argued that they were exempt from the Public Service Labour Relations Act, so the government could not invoke it in their arguments.

January 2023, just this year, the PSA told the BCGLA in late January that a policy proposal was coming that would impact them, and they’d need an urgent meeting to be consulted and had to sign confidentiality agreements of unknown scope. In February 2023, government introduces changes to the B.C. LRA to now include government lawyers and win the case against the Labour Relations Board. That’s what we’re debating in the Legislative Assembly today.

It’s important just to be clear that B.C. Green caucus will be voting against this bill.

The Premier, when he became the Premier just a few short months ago, talked about supporting people who play by the rules, but this government is changing the rules mid-game to suit themselves. Government is not allowing their own lawyers to form their own union. This government was in good-faith talks with our lawyers, and instead of keeping those going, this government has gone behind their backs and decided to push this bill through. It’s ironic, given that this is the same B.C. NDP government that passed card-check legislation just one year ago. And I’m going to talk about that a little bit more later.

This B.C. NDP government has long claimed to stand for the rights of workers and for workers to choose their own union. They’re meant, or they at least fashion themselves, as the workers’ party, a labour party, yet this is what we’re doing with our own public servants.

For the record, let’s outline what’s happening here. The B.C. government lawyers want to form their own union, as is their right. The B.C. NDP government is forcing them into a union that they didn’t pick. That very union, the Professional Employees Association, doesn’t want the government lawyers in their union against their wishes and stands with them in their right to pick their own union.

The B.C. Government Lawyers Association had the former Premier’s word that the B.C. NDP would not force them into a union through legislation. This government has broken that promise by tabling this bill back in February and has further entrenched that by continuing to debate it here this May.

Once this bill was tabled and this government’s show of force was clear, good-faith talks began again behind closed doors. The government lawyers had no reason to believe those talks were breaking down or that the government was acting in bad faith until last week, when Bill 5 suddenly materialized once again for debate.

[2:45 p.m.]

This government has acted duplicitously with our own lawyers. A B.C. NDP government is actively suppressing the workers’ right to unionize and to form their own union at that. Collective bargaining rights are a constitutional right, and they cannot be bestowed by this government. The government’s lawyers work on behalf of the public to ensure the government is working in accordance with the law. With these changes, those very same lawyers are potentially prepared to go to court to defend their constitutional right.

This is an embarrassment for both this so-called progressive government and so-called workers’ party, no less. But for this government’s own mismanagement of this Legislature at the end of this session, we stand here with nothing else to debate. We have a new Premier who would, presumably, have had a full legislative agenda. Instead, we see a limited, timid legislative agenda.

Let’s put on the record who opposes this legislation: the B.C. Federation of Labour, the B.C. Government Employees Union, the B.C. Crown Counsel Association and the Professional Employees Association, the very same union the government is trying to force these lawyers into.

The government offered an independent adjudicator behind closed doors who could review this matter and make a decision on behalf of both sides, but the Premier and Attorney General couldn’t stand to be wrong, so they rejected the offer. Sorry, it was the union that did that.

Let’s be clear. This government is fearful of the independent adjudicator and the thought that they would lose, and this is a government that doesn’t like to lose.

This government knows that this forced deal is wrong. It goes against the values of their very party and tells the world that the B.C. NDP do not value the independent voice of lawyers. This is a dangerous implication from this government. It’s also, I would consider, weak leadership from our current Premier and former Attorney General.

One point that I’d like to make here, as it has been framed to us and how at least some voices within B.C. Government Lawyers Association are feeling, is that they are largely female lawyers. Let’s compare that with the B.C. Crown Counsel Association, which is predominantly male. This is how it has been framed to us. The B.C. Crown Counsel Association was allowed to form their own union. The B.C. Government Lawyers Association is not. These gender differences have not gone unnoticed, and they’re important for me to put on the record.

When I take a look at the government that’s putting this bill forward, it actually is making them into a sort of hilarious brand of a social democratic party that fashions themselves as a labour party. See, this is the same party that found it acceptable to take a small step toward pay equity by passing pay transparency legislation instead, burdening yet another generation of women, gender-diverse and minority workers with receiving less than equal pay for equal work done.

This is the crew that threatened to turn their labour buddies loose on my colleagues and I if we didn’t support the single-step certification, which they actually didn’t need to threaten. We did support that. But here they are now, basically fashioning themselves as a neo-liberal party and further limiting the right of workers in our province to freely associate. I expect the labour movement to organize with a more vociferous voice than just some press releases.

I think it’s important for British Columbians to understand that our B.C. NDP government is showing us exactly who they are, and we have to believe them. They may mesmerize us with colourful rhetoric, but we shouldn’t be distracted. We just need to look at their actions.

[2:50 p.m.]

Let’s not forget this is the party that was against Site C until they were for it. They were against Christy Clark’s LNG, but secretly they supported their own much more expensive version. They ranted and raged, basically calling former Ministers of Children and Family murderers. But now that the system is their responsibility, I get heckled for raising the current reality that children in care continue to go missing, continue to suffer critical injuries and continue to die while in care of this government.

They supported Indigenous land defenders until the pipelines were their idea. And now they unleash the community industry response group partnered with their own corporate private security agents arresting Hereditary Chiefs in this province. They stand in here and celebrate World Press Freedom Day while also standing by and watching the RCMP limit media access and arrest journalists — TMX, CGL pipeline, Fairy Creek. They used to believe that housing was a human right. Now their Housing Minister stands in here and tells me that he believes that humans have a right to shelter.

So, basically, what this B.C. NDP government has been reduced to is a mat on the floor of a church basement. They used to believe in housing co-ops and non-profit housing, and now their Housing Minister hands billions of taxpayer dollars to private developers and expects a market-driven business model to deliver housing affordability.

They used to believe that environmental crimes should be investigated and environmental criminals should be prosecuted, yet they keep the B.C. conservation service on a tight leash under the full control of the Minister of the Environment. They used to believe that people with disabilities should get the support that they need, yet they keep their PWD payments well below the poverty line and punish anyone for trying to make their life more affordable. They used to volley vitriol at the B.C. Liberals, and now they are more similar than different than the B.C. Liberals.

I want to read some quotes. A strong amount of correspondence has come from us concerning government lawyers regarding this bill. I’m going to read some of these snippets into the record because I believe their correspondence needs to be on the record of this debate.

“This is a shocking and disappointing piece of legislation by the B.C. NDP government.”

“It’s our goal, as expressed to the B.C. government in numerous ways over the last ten years, that we be represented in collective bargaining by the BCGLA. It’s disingenuous and even dishonest for the government to describe the situation otherwise.”

“I’m the daughter of retired B.C. teachers. I believe that unions are necessary to protect not only the rights of workers but advance the interests of people served by the members of unions. In my parents’ case, the BCTF’s bargaining improved our province’s education system and assisted our children to achieve academic success at a very high level. As lawyers advising the B.C. government, it is our duty to assist government to achieve its lawful objectives in the public interest and to see that the administration of public affairs is in accordance with the law. We seek to protect the fundamental democratic principle of the rule of law, and to do this, we need protection of our own union, one that understands our unique role and issues.”

“How does this bill implement and enable collective bargaining rights, given that another employee association that has represented lawyers in government for over 30 years, the B.C. Government Lawyers Association, currently has a certification application before the Labour Relations Board seeking that very relief, using the very process that this NDP government put in place last year to protect employees from unscrupulous employers?”

[2:55 p.m.]

“Is the government saying the BCGLA is not an appropriate bargaining agent for legal counsel? Why? They have represented government lawyers for over 30 years and consulted with the LSB management and PSA through joint committees for almost as long. They have a mandate from over 70 percent of legal counsel. How are they materially different from the B.C. Crown counsel or other lawyer unions in B.C. and across Canada that have their own bargaining unit?”

“We repeatedly stated our position to the Premier when he was the Attorney General, to the interim Attorney General, to the current Attorney General, to the current Minister of Labour and to the former Minister of Finance. If staff of the Public Service Agency have framed it this way to the current Minister of Finance, that would be deeply concerning. The only way someone could convince themselves that this is acceding to our request is to selectively focus on our statements that excluding government civil lawyers from bargaining is unconstitutional. But that ignores our repeated and vehement opposition to joining the PEA.”

“The PEA has never sought to organize us, and our members have never voted for them. To their credit, the PEA continues to publicly support our right to choose who represents us in bargaining. If government has a different interpretation of the effect of Bill 5, they owe it to us to explain how it doesn’t force us into the PEA in order to access collective bargaining.”

“If Bill 5 passes, we will be required to join the PEA if we want to access bargaining. This would quite obviously render the BCGLA’s application for certification before the Labour Relations Board moot. If government honestly believes that this doesn’t affect the LRB process, it owes to us an explanation.”

“When the price of consultation is for the leaders of a democratic organization to be muzzled, is that really consultation? This position is deeply suspect, especially when it comes to our legislative counsel colleagues. If Bill 5 passes, they would not be able to join the PEA. Many of these lawyers are BCGLA members. You should know that it’s not normal for legislative drafters to be excluded from unions of government civil lawyers across the country. Government has not provided any rationale for this exclusion.”

“In 2018, we had assurances from the government under the former Premier that no legislation would be introduced to change our status without our consent. That promise has been broken.”

“If the employer chooses the union, whose union is it?”

Finally: “We’re convinced that the bill is unconstitutional, so we’re going to watch it. Once it’s enforced, we’re going to take legal action in the courts. We’re certainly open to continuing discussions. I suggested that I’d be willing to talk to the Minister of Finance or the Premier, and they said no to that.”

It’s inexplicable what’s happening in here right now, especially with the way that the government framed their previous initiatives specifically around a card check-in and around single-step certification. That was a big deal a year ago. It was an important piece for this government to move forward. In fact, sitting in the government benches right now are many former labour leaders recruited from the ranks of those people who are opposing this step right now.

The reality is that anybody who didn’t support that single-step certification was going to feel the pain of that decision. Yet here we are today debating a bill because this government has decided what the outcome of this process is going to be. When they weren’t able to achieve it through negotiation, they’re using legislation to do it instead.

[3:00 p.m.]

It’s at this point today that this government loses its credibility as friends of labour. It’s these actions that create a distrust amongst the public for a government and a party that has said one thing for years and then, when it suits them, manipulates the outcome to their benefit.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

It’s important that those comments were on the record. It’s important that British Columbians understand. When a political party acts, we believe them. Rather than listening to the rhetoric and following the rhetoric, follow the actions. This action today speaks volumes louder than any of the rhetoric that they’ve spewed about being friends of labour and supporting the rights that they have claimed to support over the last years.

This is an indication that they will support them only on their own conditional basis. When they’re outside of those conditions, “Well, we’ll just pass a law. We’ll just put it on the agenda as a threat and get everybody back to the table. If that doesn’t work, in the waning moments of this legislative session, we’ll put it back on for debate, and we’ll pass it using our majority government.”

With that, Madam Speaker, thank you for this opportunity.

HÍSW̱ḴE SIÁM.

Hon. G. Heyman: It’s my pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill 5, a bill that is firmly in line with decades of well-evolved labour relations practices in British Columbia.

Before I begin my other remarks, however, I would like to also reserve my right to raise a point of personal privilege with respect to comments, made by the member for Kamloops–North Thompson, which essentially accused the government of threatening lawyers if we did not get the advice we were looking for, and that lawyers therefore were somehow afraid to give impartial, independent advice. That is simply untrue, and it’s an insult not only to government but to government lawyers.

First of all, it’s important for us to think about what Bill 5 actually does. What Bill 5 actually does is remove a prohibition that currently exists, in the Public Service Labour Relations Act, from government lawyers being recognized as having collective bargaining rights. That is what the bill does. That is what the words say; that is what the words mean.

Everything else that has been referred to by members so far has to do largely with the assumption that the Public Service Labour Relations Act somehow would not apply, no matter what this government did, whether it brought in Bill 5 or didn’t bring in Bill 5, or let the government lawyers proceed to the Labour Relations Board for recognition.

The Public Service Labour Relations Act is really clear. If you work directly for the provincial government in the public service of British Columbia, unless you are excluded from collective bargaining rights as a union, you will join one of three unions: the BCGEU, the PEA, or the Nurses Union.

That piece of legislation has been in place for 50 years. Prior to its introduction, people who worked for the government in the public service had no rights to collectively bargain. Instead, they were represented at a very minimal level — understandably, not effectively, because legislation did not allow them the rights of unionization — by a broad range of occupationally based associations.

[3:05 p.m.]

One of the principles of labour relations that the labour board itself has established, and upholds on a regular basis, is the non-proliferation of bargaining units. What that means, quite simply, is that we should not have employers that have large numbers of unions, all of which can bargain independently, strike independently and reach independent, separate collective agreements, because that destabilizes labour relations.

In the case of government, where three bargaining units have been allowed, what that would mean is that the provision of critical services to British Columbians would be destabilized. It is important to not think that this is simply about government lawyers having the right to form an independent union.

The claim that that should be allowed — that that is somehow synonymous with freedom of association, which is simply not true — opens the door to a massive proliferation of bargaining units in the public service. This is not in the public interest and, I will say — as a former president of one of the unions representing public service workers — is not in the interests of people who work for government and the public service, because the end result will not be equitable, will not be fair and will not lead to stable labour relations.

I also think it’s important…. I’ve heard from two members of the official opposition — one member of the Third Party and the member for Kamloops–North Thompson in particular — and it is just patently obvious to me that a basic understanding of labour law, of the functions of the Labour Relations Board and of labour relations in general would be of great benefit to this debate, but I haven’t heard it until now.

To say that we’re denying freedom of association, when Bill 5 simply removes the prohibition from unionization, is just flat-out wrong and incorrect. Bill 5 gives the right to collective bargaining to government lawyers, which they have not had prior to this time. To hear, frankly, the member for Kamloops–North Thompson say that our government somehow is standing against the rights of workers to organize or of freedom of association….

He is a member of a party, formerly known as the B.C. Liberal Party, that brought in legislation that overturned collective agreements for health care workers, so that their jobs could be contracted out to non-union agencies. It then brought in another bill that said if they organized and if the contract was given up by the contractor, they did not have the same rights as every other unionized worker in British Columbia to successorship status.

That government was willing to do everything, in very laser-focused, targeted pieces of legislation, to deny collective bargaining rights, primarily from women of colour working in the health care sector — the same women who provided services to people, during COVID, who were struggling, who were dying and who were separated from their families in long-term-care homes.

It is frankly offensive. He should be ashamed to even make the allegation in this House, with the track record of the party on the other side. It is just simply outrageous, and British Columbians deserve and need to remember the history of that party when it was in government.

Why that member would think that allowing a group of professional workers, or any workers working for the provincial government, who previously were barred from collective bargaining rights by the Public Service Labour Relations Act, to have a bill that quite simply removes that prohibition and then allows all the other pieces of labour legislation to apply — in this case, the Public Service Labour Relations Act and whatever interpretations the labour board may or may not apply — is somehow interfering with freedom of association or denying government lawyers’ rights, is just simply inexplicable.

I understand what government lawyers want. I might even understand why they would want it, but there are sound principles in labour relations to indicate that proliferation of bargaining units is simply ineffective for workers, employers and the public.

[3:10 p.m.]

In the public service, a proliferation of bargaining units…. Let’s be absolutely clear. You can’t pick and choose that you’re going to give one group the ability to organize a separate union, outside of the Public Service Labour Relations Act, but somehow deny it to other groups.

Life and the law do not work that way. We have principles established in the Public Service Labour Relations Act. We have them established in the Health Association’s bargaining acts, and we have them established by a range of decisions by the B.C. Labour Relations Board so that there is a balance between the rights to collective bargaining that workers have and the right of the public and employers to have a relatively stable labour relations climate.

Yes, there will be conflicts from time to time. Yes, there will be work stoppages from time to time. The point is not to have work stoppages serially, without prediction, any number in a year, because there are any number of bargaining units that can shut down an industrial operation or the operations of government. That simply will not work.

There is a history to the Public Service Labour Relations Act. It was developed 50 years ago, following a study and a commission that looked at what was the fairest way to ensure that government and the public of British Columbia had some stability in the provision of essential services as well as the broad range of public services provided by the provincial government, while at the same time recognizing the rights of workers to collectively bargain.

What was agreed upon was three bargaining units — not one, but also not 20. The effect this had was decades of relatively stable collective bargaining in the public service in British Columbia. Yes, there were some strikes, and yes, sometimes the strikes were conducted by different ones of the three unions.

Overall, there was a healthy, stable, mature, professional labour relations and collective bargaining climate that has stood the test of time. It has not caused the world to come to an end, as some people feared when collective bargaining rights were first extended. It balanced the rights of workers with the needs of government and the needs of the public to receive stable services.

So how did the people who wrote that legislation think about the particular interests that were unique of different occupational groups, whether they were professionals, whether they were administrative support workers or whether they were people who worked in the field, in the resource sector, or in transportation?

The answer they came up with, which has also been effective, is component agreements, or what are sometimes called subsidiary agreements. There is a master agreement that applies in the PEA agreement with the government, in the nurses agreement with the government and in the BCGEU agreement with the government. That covers common working conditions for everyone.

Then there are component agreements that are specifically established to enable particular groups of workers, like government lawyers, to bargain themselves about the unique conditions they face, the unique things they would like to see in their collective agreement to address their issues, their rights, their perceived difficulties that may not be the same for everyone.

Those agreements have also stood the test of time, and they’ve been important. That is also part of the balance between ensuring that there isn’t a massive proliferation of bargaining units but ensuring that people’s unique interests are not completely subsumed in the whole.

It’s a system that works, but again, it’s important to understand labour relations and not simply grab onto a particular bill and say that this is somehow a nefarious scheme to withdraw rights from people when what actually is happening is that rights are being extended that were never there before.

[3:15 p.m.]

We’re not proposing, but perhaps the members opposite are proposing, that we simply scrap the Public Service Labour Relations Act. I don’t think that would serve the people of British Columbia very well. I’m pretty sure that the members opposite, who were in government in the past, and who may wish to be in government in the future, would not want to do that if they were on this side of the House, because it is clear that it doesn’t work. That’s the advice that they would get from senior public servants who are responsible for collective bargaining.

For some people, like the member for Abbotsford West and the member for Prince George–Valemount — who have, in fact, been in government — they know. They know what I’m talking about, because they’ve been in the position of being ministers of the Crown responsible for government programs during times of labour disputes. They understand that.

It may be an easy political tool to use today, but it is not sound public policy to call for a proliferation of bargaining units in the B.C. government or anywhere in the public sector. It simply will not work.

I could go through a long list of claims and statements that have been made so far by members opposite. There may be more that are simply incorrect, but I can’t resist focusing on one from the member for Kamloops–North Thompson, who stood up in outrage at the thought that this government might require government lawyers to work overtime, on weekends, instead of having it be optional.

Well, news flash for the member for Kamloops–North Thompson. That is the case in every non-union operation, where people have no choice and can be fired for refusing. In fact, it’s also the case in many unionized operations, where workers, though they have a union, do not have the right to refuse overtime. One of the places where workers do have the right to refuse overtime is in public sector agreements, except in cases of extreme emergency.

This debate would benefit from more facts. But it would also benefit, frankly, from members not using a simple bill that’s extending collective bargaining rights, irrespective of the fact that the people we’re talking about would like a different structure and a different system…. That is their right, and I respect that, but we have a structure in place for a reason. It’s there for a reason.

If they wish to challenge the act itself, they may do that. If they wish to challenge it in a court or a tribunal of jurisdiction, they will be able to do that. But the fact is that the Public Service Labour Relations Act applied before Bill 5. It will apply after Bill 5. The change that’s being introduced is simply to extend collective bargaining rights to lawyers working for the provincial government on the same basis as everyone else who works for the provincial government.

I would love it if people could focus on the real issues in this debate and not drag in every story of perceived slight that members of the opposition and the Third Party have about actions of this government, most of which have not been factual.

In this case, we’re extending collective bargaining rights. We’re protecting the interests of British Columbians. We’re ensuring that government can operate efficiently and effectively while still respecting the rights of people em­ployed by the provincial government to bargain collectively and to be represented. That is what the bill is about.

With that, I take my place.

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the member for Kelowna-​Mission.

Interjection.

R. Merrifield: Oh, look at that. Applause before I even say anything. That’s great. High expectations. No pressure, though.

I want to talk a little bit about what the Minister of Environment just said, because he says that we’ve all misunderstood what the essence of this bill actually is. I vehemently disagree, as does….

[3:20 p.m.]

I don’t claim to be a lawyer. I don’t claim to understand labour law or labour relations the way the, I don’t know, BCGLA does or the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel would or perhaps the Canadian Bar Association does. If this was as simplistic as the minister would like to make it sound…. Well, clearly, the rest of Canadian lawyers have also misunderstood, which I think is highly unlikely.

The other thing I’d like to comment on, what the minister was saying…. That is that we benefit somehow from having very, very large unions rather than a number of different bargaining groups. That’s absolutely false.

We have just experienced, Canada-wide, one of the largest unions across Canada on strike. What did the headlines actually say? Well, we’ve got CRA…. That threatened PWD payments, because people couldn’t actually file their taxes and have notification of it. We’ve got immigration, which absolutely ground to a halt, including people’s passports and family vacations that they were looking forward to. Then we have the entirety of government, which is crawling at a snail’s pace, blocking city streets, etc.

The headlines actually talked about the catastrophic effect on the public — i.e., the economy. If the Minister of Environment thinks this is some sort of simplistic dotting of an “i” or crossing of a “t” and that large unions are the best way to go…. That is patently false.

Today I had my parents in the gallery. Dad and Mom taught me to stand for what is right, to defend those who are being bullied, attacked or whose rights are being threatened, to defend democracy, not only when it’s convenient, not only when it fits your agenda or helps your friends, not only when you agree. Always. I acknowledge today that my dad gave me courage, and Mom showed me how to be strong.

Now, if you got the opportunity to meet my parents in the hallways, you’d recognize that my mom is only…. Well, she says 5 foot 3. She’s not 5 foot 3. I’d say 5 foot 2, at best. She could tell you…. She would stand up for what she believed in. She would dig in her heels. She would make sure that nothing…. Nothing could dissuade her.

Today I’m standing. Today I’m vocalizing. Today I’m standing up for the guardians of the law. Today I’m saying that this bill is wrong. Today I rise to continue the debate on this legislation before us, Bill 5, the Public Service Labour Relations Amendment Act, 2023, a prime example of this government’s hypocrisy, this government’s betrayal of democracy.

This is not what this House is for. When this government and this Premier have an issue with a particular organization or group…. Well, this government seems to show up with a hammer.

The lawyers here are seeking to unionize so they can protect their members and avoid retaliation from the B.C. government when they provide advice that may not align with policy goals. As the BCGLA president, Gareth Morley, said: “We want to make sure lawyers in government have that degree of independence so that they can tell government something they won’t want to hear.”

Isn’t that what we want? Don’t we want those checks and balances to make sure that we’re going on the right path, to make sure that our laws are right? That statement actually raises a question about what kind of retaliation lawyers faced while the current Premier was Attorney General.

Despite 70 percent of the government lawyers wanting their own bargaining unit, the NDP government has introduced this bill, effectively taking away their ability to form their own union and giving them only one option, to join the Professional Employees Association. This would lump the 350 or so lawyers into a bargaining unit with foresters, engineers, other professional employees.

[3:25 p.m.]

They want their own voice. There’s a long-standing, fundamental right that employees, not employers, get to choose the union they wish to join. This is about the rights of employees being taken away through an abuse of democracy. This is another example of the B.C. NDP claiming to be on the side of the workers and unions. Yet it’s clear they’re only looking after their friends.

This move is particularly distasteful, as the lawyers have already been to the Labour Relations Board to create their own association. Bill 5 sidesteps the outcomes of these hearings, the outcomes of this process, the process that was set up for this particular situation, allowing the NDP to make the final decision themselves.

This can be interpreted as nothing other than an attempt by the Premier to muzzle government lawyers. More muzzling from the NDP government, which already has a habit of retaliating against, I don’t know, health care workers, if they speak out against their health authorities, or organizations, if they speak out against the NDP, or anyone.

Now the lawyers have no option but to start job action, such as only working 7½ hours a day and not being available on the weekends. What was this government’s response if it wasn’t retaliation? I mean, this is almost too ridiculous to even say in this place. The government’s response was that the lawyers are not currently unionized, so they don’t have the right to take job action. The lawyers’ option, according to the NDP? Wait for Bill 5 to pass.

Can you believe that, Madam Speaker? I can’t.

If the lawyers take job action…. Well, according to the NDP: “All employees are expected to continue to act with professionalism and respect and to abide by the standards of conduct and other policies that apply to all public service employees.”

For those unfamiliar with bureaucratic English, that means that if you take any job action to protect your rights, we will make you pay. It’s a veiled threat. Who am I kidding? It’s not even veiled. It’s just a threat.

As someone who, in my 25 years, has employed thousands of people, I can tell you. It’s their right to walk off the job if they don’t like how I am treating them. It’s their right, as an employee, to choose if they want to be unionized or not. It’s their right to choose which union they wish to be employed by.

I go back to the premise that the NDP have always told British Columbians. Only they were on the side of workers. I guess that was just a smokescreen, another example of saying one thing to British Columbians but doing the opposite in their actions.

On this point, I’m going to agree with the House Leader of the Third Party. Watch for the actions. Talk is cheap; action is everything. These actions fully call into question the motives of this NDP government. Why should British Columbians believe anything this NDP government pledges to do? That’s a rhetorical question. Based on how the NDP treat question period in this place, I certainly don’t expect an answer.

The NDP’s selective support for workers’ rights is evident in their flawed mentality, in their community benefits agreements, which are really just community ripoff agreements. Why are they community ripoff agreements? Well, these agreements exclude the vast majority of construction workers in our province from participating in infrastructure projects, resulting in increased costs and reduced benefits for British Columbians.

[3:30 p.m.]

How? Well, in order to bid and work on a government infrastructure project…. Think about the Pattullo Bridge. Just like with Bill 5, workers must be a member of a government-approved union.

Wait a second. This is just like the BCGLA. The last part of that is important: a member of the “government-approved union.” Hypocrisy from the party that claims to be there for the worker. Again, why should British Columbians believe anything this government says?

Supporting workers’ rights is essential in British Columbia, because it is the cornerstone of a thriving and equitable society. By ensuring fair wages, safe working conditions and the right to organize or not or how, we not only create a stable and productive workforce, but we also foster a sense of dignity and empowerment among our citizens. This, in turn, leads to a more robust economy, as workers with rights and respect are more likely to contribute to their communities and support local businesses.

Upholding workers’ rights also helps to reduce income inequality and ensure that all British Columbians have access to the opportunities and resources that they need to build a better life for themselves and their families. I have always, always believed in my employees’ rights.

In a time when the global economy is evolving rapidly, it is more important than ever that we remain steadfast in our commitment to protecting the rights of workers and building a prosperous future for all residents of our beautiful province. Does Bill 5 do that? No, it doesn’t.

Forcing government workers and forcing government lawyers into a union that they do not choose is not protecting the rights of workers. Just like forcing a construction worker to become a member of a government-approved union in order to work on a new bridge is not protecting the rights of workers. Using the heavy hammer of legislation to coerce employees to do what is demanded is not protecting the rights of workers.

Bill 5 is just wrong. It’s wrong, and the NDP know it. They don’t know it from our speeches. They know it from — oh, I don’t know — the BCGLA themselves. Or they know it because the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel actually says: “Bill 5 is both unconstitutional and draconian.” They have significant concerns. I’m quoting from these letters.

Or how about the Canadian Bar Association? They are writing “to express our deep concern about unilateral action in the face of ongoing process regarding Bill 5.” Not our words; their words.

The NDP government wants to jam this through before we rise, so they waited until the very last minute, so they have an excuse to rush it. With only five days left, this NDP government is going to use their majority to force this terrible bill through and take away the rights of workers, their own lawyers.

Oh, but this has happened before. This is reminiscent to Bill 36. You know, the minister talked today about how it was the second-longest amount of committee stage, but it also is one of the longest bills ever.

Sadly, this is something that our NDP government has actually demonstrated a penchant for, and our Premier certainly loves to strong-arm to achieve his goals, regardless of the consequences. Just like in Bill 5, taking away the rights of our government lawyers to unionize as they see fit.

[3:35 p.m.]

Our Premier is not willing to let anything stand in the way of getting what he wants, whether it’s a court decision, a charismatic opponent in the leadership race or his own lawyers. Let’s examine some of the examples of this behaviour.

Well, we’ve got the preferential representation referendum. The Premier definitely stacked the deck and rigged that one, using every trick possible to secure his desired outcome. He promised a fair and impartial referendum but didn’t deliver that, just like Bill 5.

On ICBC, when he didn’t win his battles in court, he used his legislative powers, just like he’s doing in Bill 5, to circumvent them, implementing the no-fault system he wanted, despite the courts ruling against many of his measures and actually deeming them unconstitutional.

Well, then there’s the recall campaigns. As Attorney General, he changed the rules around the recall campaigns to make them more difficult to succeed, just before a recall campaign against him was set to begin. Just like in Bill 5, if the Premier doesn’t like what he’s seeing or the way that things are heading, well, he doesn’t trust the process that has been put in place. No, he just changes the rules of the game.

Then there are the municipal issues. Well, the Premier has shown a willingness to go around the courts to achieve his agenda. In places like Penticton, he’d rather go and use threats of creating tent cities, by delivering tents to the homeless, than work with city council and hear their concerns.

Another opportunity, just like Bill 5, was when we actually saw that a decision was going to go to court for the Arbutus project. When that project, in Vancouver, got caught up in legal proceedings, instead of letting the case run through its course, he introduced legislation to push the project through. Wait: just like Bill 5.

Then there’s B.C. Housing. Under his watch, the Premier has quietly fired seven board members, buried a report concerning financial mismanagement, failed to inform the public about his decision to order a forensic audit and has been sitting on the audit for months. The Premier’s government even refused to share any details about this legislation — like Bill 5, with this legislation — unless the BCGLA actually signed a non-disclosure agreement.

After months of using this legislation as a bargaining threat, the government is now trying to force it through, at the last possible opportunity, just like it has done so many times before. The BCGLA president, Gareth Morley, summed up the NDP’s actions best when he said: “This would be appalling for any government. It is galling from one that claims to respect workers’ rights.”

Bill 5 is just another example of the NDP’s deeply ingrained hypocrisy when it comes to labour issues. The NDP should be ashamed of themselves for bringing forward this legislation. I don’t know who they think they’re fooling. Their motivations are so transparent. It’s incredibly disappointing that they don’t respect B.C.’s government lawyers — and their right to unionize — enough to give them the freedom to decide for themselves what union they join.

Bill 5 shreds any remaining credibility the NDP has when it comes to free and fair bargaining. This legislation is disrespectful, draconian and a complete degradation of democracy. The NDP loves to claim that the best place to resolve disputes is at the bargaining table, but it only applies when it’s convenient for them.

Just like the community ripoff agreements, Bill 5 will force government employees to join a different union than the one they have freely chosen. Ironically, in the case of this bill and the B.C. Government Lawyers Association, even the Professional Employees Association, the very union the NDP is forcing the lawyers to join, says that the BCGLA should not be forced into a union against their own choosing.

[3:40 p.m.]

The B.C. Federation of Labour supports the BCGLA in their right to choose their union — which is just further evidence that this NDP Premier and his terrible legislation are on the wrong track, heading in the wrong direction.

The NDP’s pattern of strong-arming is deeply concerning. Not only does it undermine the democratic principles our province was built on, but it erodes the trust and confidence that the people of British Columbia have in their government and in their democratic institutions. When something is rushed through — I’ll use the example of Bill 36 — you have entire associations standing up against it, saying: “No, this isn’t working for us.”

As elected representatives, it’s our duty to uphold the rights and freedoms of our constituents, not trample on them to serve our own interests. The Premier’s continued disregard for the law, rule of law and the rights of workers is a stain on the legacy of this NDP government. I urge my colleagues in the House to consider the ramifications of this legislation. Not only does it undermine the rights of government lawyers, but it sets a dangerous precedent for the rights of all workers in B.C.

The lawyers have already stated that they’re going to challenge this bill as unconstitutional and against their Charter rights — specifically, section 2(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the freedom of association which protects Canadians against “compelled association.”

The government lawyers have a case, and the NDP knows it. The Premier’s record shows that he has little regard for the constitution, but we must remember that it’s our responsibility to uphold these fundamental principles for the good of our province.

This bill is a first for Canada but not a first I would ever want to be known for — the ultimate denial of workers’ rights, degradation of democracy, a draconian bill that’s possibly unconstitutional. It would certainly not want to be one I would want on my record.

In conclusion, I hope that the NDP reconsiders this misguided legislation, although based on past behaviour, I don’t have any hope that they will. But I’ll try. I will urge government to do the right thing. As representatives of the people, we must put the interests of British Columbians first and not allow our own ambitions, our own allegiances to particular unions or to friends to blind us to the consequences of our actions.

It is time for the NDP to demonstrate their commitment to workers’ rights by allowing the BCGLA to decide their own fate, free from coercion and interference. Let us work together as a united legislative body to ensure that the rights of all workers in British Columbia are protected and respected.

B. Stewart: It’s a pleasure to rise in this chamber to talk about Bill 5, only because I think that it does deserve serious consideration, considering the ramifications of what my colleague from Kelowna-Mission just cited — many of the different organizations that represent groups across the country talking about the lack of constitutionality and the reasons why this kind of forced conscription of taking employees as not organized but forcing them into an organization that they don’t choose to…. I think that’s important.

[3:45 p.m.]

I think about, in my more than 40 years of being an employer and having literally hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands, of employees, never once ever having an issue. It’s not that I didn’t maybe have disagreements a very few times, but I think that the record of being an employer and somebody that respected the labour code, something that I certainly wasn’t informed about until I became an employer and had to write paycheques and make certain that people were treated fairly, they got paid for the time that they worked, made certain that the laws were upheld….

Sometimes, you know, you want to do something that is over and above that, and we would surprise people with a bonus or something like that. Now, I realize in a place like the public service, that’s not necessarily an option.

One of the things that I have sadly learned in the few years that I’ve been in opposition has been the fact that there is a trait that has kind of crept into what I see the government doing in terms of manipulation and using language that is suggestive of the fact that this is in fairness and protecting workers’ rights and making certain that they’re on the side of that. But I think about — some of my colleagues have mentioned about — the CBA agreements.

I happen to have a contractor that is unionized and that was working on one of our farms, all unionized labour. When it came to working on projects that they were bidding on, etc., they actually had to terminate agreements with the union that they have been working with for many years and, essentially, put these employees into the government’s pool. They could designate certain employees, but not all of them. It ended up that many of them became part of the new organization that allowed B.C. Building Trades, being the exclusively favoured union, to do some of the projects on hospitals, schools, etc.

We’ve certainly canvassed this a lot in terms of what’s going on in that agreement. But I think that when it comes to Bill 5, what people are looking for is a degree of fairness. They’re looking for the fact that they’re not being misled and lead down a path that “this is best.”

Now, we heard the Minister of Environment talk about the fact that there was this proliferation of bargaining units and that that becomes complicated. Sure, it’s complicated, but they’re different. Having professional foresters and the lawyers…. Maybe there are different concerns that they have. It’s not always about wages. Sometimes it’s about working conditions or safety or other things like that.

The reality is that there are differences. This is a professional group. I’m not taking any of that away. But I think the reality is that we have to be realistic. It’s a subset, and I just don’t know that Bill 5 addresses that. What ends up happening is that we extinguish the fact that they’re excluded and bring them in under that particular act.

I’m concerned that the perception is: “Don’t worry. We’re taking care of things. We’re looking out for you.” I think that’s mistaken. I think that they sense that, and I know that their representative, Garth Morley has quoted that: “We want to make sure lawyers in government have that degree of independence so that they can tell government something they won’t want to hear.”

When I think about that, there are lots of times…. I know that time and time again…. Having been on leg. review in this chamber before, I know that legislation has got to make sense. It’s got to work. We rarely had to amend pieces of legislation in this House in the time that I know that I was in government.

I do find that that seems to be the practice, that sometimes stuff comes in…. I can think of a bill last session, Bill 16. It had two amendments in a three-part bill because of the fact that it had been pushed or rushed, etc. I suspect that the people that are working on this, and the government lawyers, are actually being forced to rush and not necessarily do things. And I suspect that mistakes are made where they’re not properly vetted, etc. I think that that creates friction between, whether it’s the employer or, in this case, the government, and the employees that we’re talking about.

[3:50 p.m.]

I think there is a degree that things shouldn’t be rushed. I think the government needs and deserves to make certain this group, especially this group, which is advising government on legislation…. We make mistakes. We’re going back into having to rewrite acts, etc., because of simple errors. They do happen. I agree with that. But I think the idea of the fact that in this particular case, we’re singling out the legal profession that’s working in government as being a group that can’t speak out because of the fact…. They’re being told: “This is who you are going to be represented by.”

The former Attorney General, the current Premier, could’ve prompted a statement like this. It begs the question of what kind of retaliation lawyers faced while he was in office. I do wonder that, because I think that the whole situation is that when it comes to the situation about writing legislation and making certain it’s right, we do count on them. They are the legal profession that we employ and hire for that. The Premier, after all, has suffered no fewer than eight major court losses on everything ranging from the Trans Mountain pipeline to ICBC. So….

Deputy Speaker: I remind you that we are on Bill 5, and it must be relevant.

B. Stewart: Right. Okay. Well, thank you. I’m just trying to reflect on the fact that we count on the profession. If you’re in the business of being the Attorney General or government, then you don’t necessarily want to hear from the people that you employ to do that. That’s the outcome. You’re going to end up in front of courts, and you’re going to lose. That’s already been demonstrated.

The BCGLA did a card check, in line with the NDP’s recent legislation, and 70 percent of their members decided that they wanted to have their own bargaining unit. I guess the real question is: what’s the value in having card check or asking or canvassing the group that we’re talking about being forced into a bargaining unit that is not necessarily to their liking?

But instead of letting their lawyers unionize in the desired manner, the NDP government has introduced the legislation before us today, which effectively takes away the BCGLA’s ability to form its own union, giving them only the option to join the existing Professional Employees Association.

We’re basically in contrast to what the government’s saying. This act that essentially is really one clause or two clauses is essentially saying: “We’re going to take those rights away from you, and this is who you’re going to be a part of.” Honestly, I think about some of the people that I know in government, and I think about their background. I’m sure that if they were in the situation of an employee working in this particular organization, they’d probably feel differently too.

I suspect that probably there’s some friction or tension that we’re not seeing, and the reason that Bill 5 is being introduced is to force people to do something that they clearly have said they don’t want to do. They’re in front of the Labour Relations Board right now trying to essentially establish the fact that they deserve to be able to set up and align themselves where they think that they should be. Isn’t that part of workers’ rights — being able to make decisions on their own?

I’m sure that this act that’s in this book…. The fact that this act is over 50 years old, the Public Service Labour Relations Act…. I’m sure there have been many amendments to it over time. But this one has stood the test of many governments, including NDP governments, Social Credit and B.C. Liberals. I suspect that probably this is not something that was considered to be missing or whatever. I think that it’s unfortunate that it’s come down to a bill that’s going to order people to do something against their own wishes.

It’s surprising to hear from professional groups like the Canadian Bar Association speaking out against this. It’s not just the lawyers themselves. There are groups that are representative of thousands of lawyers across the country. In Bill 5, they’re basically saying that this is wrong. This should not be done.

What we’re potentially doing here…. This legislation is going to be rammed through in the last remaining days of this particular legislative session, and there likely is going to be a court case, which is going to cost taxpayers money. It’s going to make for an unhappy group of people that are working in government right now, who are essentially being told to be forced into the professional employees group. I think that the bottom line is that we should be trying to avoid the idea that we’re here to pass legislation that’s going to create conflict.

[3:55 p.m.]

I understand that sometimes things can be unpopular. Anyway, I just think that in this particular case, we’ve got groups like the Canadian Bar Association that say: “This is not right. It’s not constitutional.” It’s going to be challenged. I’ve heard my colleagues talk about the first bill of its kind in Canada, and I’m thinking: well, that certainly seems to set a precedent in my mind when I hear that.

I do worry that this bill is to muzzle government lawyers, and I really worry about that. I just don’t understand why a government that professes to be about employee rights…. The fact that they say they believe in transparency…. I think in Bill 5, they’re basically taking away those rights and, essentially, effectively, telling this particular group of employees: “You are going to participate in this particular thing whether you like it or not.”

Now, after months of holding this legislation…. It was introduced, Bill 5, way back in February. It was assumed that there were good-faith negotiations going on and that this wouldn’t be necessary. Certainly, we all knew that it was fairly heavy-handed.

But the fact is that in order to kind of see this through, NDAs were forced to be signed by Gareth Morley, and I think that the situation is that it’s really striking — the fact that there wasn’t really good faith in terms of what it was that they were trying to do, at least that’s the way it appears and that’s what they’re saying. I think that in order to stand up and make certain that they’re accountable, they should address those concerns. They should be open to having that discussion.

I think that the lawyers that are working for government have been very clear that this is essentially forcing them to have to do something that they don’t wish to do. I know that my colleague from Kelowna-Mission cited the fact that in the Canadian constitution, forced association is not something that is allowed under the constitution.

I guess the question I’d be asking is: who’s advising the government when the lawyers that write legislation are essentially being told that this is what they have to sign and be a participant in?

I worry about this. It seems to me that, again, we have the Premier, who is a lawyer himself, putting his fingers on the scale and just slowly tilting the scale and doing whatever it takes to get the desired outcome, regardless of the consequences.

I worry about that, because I mentioned earlier about losses in court that are on other bills that have been brought in and the fact that that costs taxpayers a lot of money — to continually be in a fight, defending your actions. I mean, that’s part of what it is to try to make certain that when we’re here in the Legislature, we’re thoughtfully making certain that the legislation that we bring forward or government brings forward has been thoughtful and is not going to lead to that consequence. I mean, the consequence of having the employees’ rights extinguished by doing this is just wrong.

There have been numerous examples, and I know that it’s been mentioned, but think about proportional-representation representation. At the last minute, there were rules changed, and I know that it was laughed about at the time — stacked deck, rigged game.

Obviously, the thing about it is that I think a lot of people felt that way, and it didn’t pass, thankfully. But I do think that it was one of those things that…. I don’t know why it was done that way, but it was amended to the point that it was made so that anything could happen to try to make it happen.

The same thing with ICBC. When he couldn’t win his battles in court, he used his legislative powers to go around them, bringing in no-fault insurance that he desperately wanted. And we’re starting to see now…. I know I have cases in my own riding where people have had their rights extinguished, like in Bill 5, with the lawyers working in government. Having their rights extinguished means that they don’t have a fair hearing, and they’re essentially, in that particular case, without proper coverage. Sadly, this is going to have a major impact on many people’s lives here in the province.

I do worry about the fact that every time that there’s something where a little bit could go wrong or whatever, we’re bringing in legislative changes to make those adjustments so that recall campaigns maybe are tougher than they had to be in the past.

[4:00 p.m.]

I just think that it’s very important that there is fairness, and we’ve heard that with Housing. Bill 5 takes away those rights. In Housing, we’ve heard arbitrarily that the Minister of Housing is now going to issue a decree that’s going to force municipalities to have to upzone properties — single family lots up to a minimum of four lots — and I know that there are lots of concerns about that.

I watched as my colleague from Penticton…. Their community was forced into having to do something. Essentially, the council there was very much opposed to the government’s action. But we’ve also seen in the situation of other initiatives…. We’ve just talked about a bill that just came before the House. On Arbutus, the fact that the government is now forcing the people that have raised concerns, etc., that are in front of court right now…. Essentially, their concerns are being extinguished because of the fact that the government has decided that — you know what? — it knows best. I don’t agree.

We’re here to create the guardrails to make certain that government functions and that people do their part. Cities, they have hearings, etc. The fact is that the people in that community that have been impacted have had their rights extinguished by the recent passing of that bill. I do think that that’s, again, the same kind of issue that we see on a continuous basis from this government.

As I said, as an employer, I had to learn about employees’ rights. I have never been in front of the Labour Relations Board. I have never once had a question where…. I’ve never even had a lawyer write me in terms of the thousands of people that have worked for me over the last 45 years. And I still, to this day, think there’s got to be some reason why that’s the case. It’s because I believe in good-faith bargaining. I believe in sitting down and talking to the employee, or the employees as a group, and making certain that their concerns are heard properly.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

I think that the other thing this does is it creates a form of chaos. Now, we watched this unfold last fall in terms of issues. I think it was on a Friday sometime in August. There was a dismissal of the entire board of B.C. Housing. I don’t know what it took to lose confidence in them, but at the end of the day, it created chaos. The fact is the employees that were working in B.C. Housing are essentially in a situation where they’re uncertain about what it is.

What does Bill 5 do about bringing certainty to the lawyers that are working in government, the job that they’re there to do? How does it bring that certainty by taking away their right to select representation by a group that they see more fairly represents them than being forced into the public service employees group that they’re being forced into?

I think that probably, when it comes to Bill 5, there are a lot more questions that have to be answered by government in terms of why it is that they’ve chosen to go this route. We heard the Minister of Environment speak very much about the fact that there’s a concern about a proliferation of bargaining units and labour unions. I think about how, sure, that might seem simple and make it easy, etc. But I think that when it comes to that, there are differences between different groups, and that needs to be respected.

I know that he used the term “serial labour interruptions” and that they’re feared. I think that the whole idea with government is to not necessarily have the concern or people fearing the fact that they’re going to take government or their employer to job action or whatever it takes to basically get the attention of the employer. I think we shouldn’t be concerned by that. I mean, if we’re treating people fairly and reasonably, they should want to work for government; they should want to work for whatever employer they’re working for.

This is a concern that I think is really a moot point. I think that the lawyers, in terms of Bill 5, deserve to have their own say in how they want to be represented and not be told by government.

[4:05 p.m.]

I do think that there have been many examples, as I mentioned, about the fact that there have been mistakes made in other pieces of legislation that have led to these disruptive actions by government, making people uncertain about their particular future, what they’re doing. It has made the citizens uncomfortable in terms of…. I mentioned no-fault insurance. The fact is that it sounds all right. It’s advertised as being fair and easy, but as you can tell, the people that are injured are the ones that are being impacted. Now we’re starting to see the effect of a simple change like that, where we’ve taken away rights.

I realize that it was brought in to cap and limit what people’s liability through ICBC would have been. I think that there is no reason to say that it should have extinguished the right, which it does. That’s what the law is saying. We have, I’m sure, not seen the end of the court challenges on that particular issue.

I know the Minister of Labour, and I don’t see him here in the House. But I’m looking forward to hearing his remarks about this in how he sees Bill 5 as being…. He’s a fierce advocate for workers.

Deputy Speaker: Member, we don’t comment on who is here or who is not here. Thank you.

B. Stewart: All right. Well, anyways, I look forward to hearing from the Minister of Labour on Bill 5. I look forward to the fact that he is a fierce representative of workers’ rights. I just don’t see that happening with Bill 5.

So why is the government so uncomfortable with supporting workers’ rights in this particular case? What is it that’s bothering the government in terms of their interest in seeing that these workers are treated as they would if they were a member of this particular bargaining group?

I just think that there is something underlying that is…. There is a hesitancy. I don’t think we’ve heard from the minister in terms of her explanation about why this is needed, why it’s best. We’ve heard advocacy about keeping things pared down, the fact that we don’t have a proliferation of different bargaining units, but I do think that there are lots of bargaining units out there.

I mean, my goodness, here in the Legislature, we meet with different labour groups all the time. I’m sure we only meet with a fraction compared to the government because, of course, they’re very involved with government, and they’re building great projects. They’re doing things every day in health care.

I can’t understand how it is that we’d want to have a group of people that are working for us to be basically annoyed that we took away their rights and forced them into a group that they don’t support. They’ve already done a card check on this particular thing, as I said earlier, and it was 70 percent in favour of not joining. I find that that’s a little bit, that’s a high number to…. They wanted their own bargaining unit.

Really, Bill 5 shreds any credibility that this government has when it comes to free and fair bargaining. They’re not doing it, they weren’t able to do it while this bill was sitting around for the last few months, and now we’re being forced to bring this in at the very end of this legislative session and make certain that we pass it without any amendments. It’s only three clauses long, and frankly, it’s going to have significant impact on the lives of over 300 employees that work here in government in Victoria.

This sends a signal to me that this government doesn’t genuinely have the concerns. That’s why I mentioned the fact that I know that the government says that it’s a fierce advocate for workers, but this is a step backwards. I don’t know why the government would even be doing that in the sense that I think that Bill 5 takes away rights. It essentially imposes a legislated rule in terms of who their representatives are going to be.

I find that a very uncomfortable situation, and I think that many other employees are going to wonder if that’s the case — that if they don’t align themselves with government or where the government wants to go, they’re going to be legislated through acts like Bill 5 that are going to force them into doing things that they don’t necessarily agree with.

I mentioned CBAs earlier. I haven’t talked to the employees that are actually a part of the CBAs and having to be a part of that union that they were forced into, but how is it working? Are they finding that their rights, the fact that government has taken away rights…?

[4:10 p.m.]

That’s what Bill 5 does. It takes away rights of over 300 people working here in the buildings, and the bottom line is that they’re essentially being told that they are going to have to participate in something that they don’t agree with.

Now, I’d be interested…. I don’t know if the government has had those talks. I’m sure that they’re happy that they’re working, but at the end of the day, a CBA is a forced agreement amongst workers to join a certain particular union. I find that that’s exactly what Bill 5 is doing. It’s forcing these people to have to do something that is not what they want to do.

I just don’t understand what the urgency is. Why are we…? They haven’t walked out. They’re not on strike or not providing the service to government, so what’s the urgency in rushing this through without them having the opportunity to negotiate and work with government? Are they saying things to government that limit the government’s ability to being able to do what it wants to do? I don’t know what it is. Maybe the government doesn’t like what they’re hearing. It sounds to me like that may be part of what we’re up against.

I can’t believe that the government thinks this legislation is something that they, especially being supported by labour in such a large way…. Why would Bill 5 be a bill that I want? I wouldn’t want to necessarily bring that forward unless there were circumstances that forced or made it so that there was a sense of urgency, a need to bring Bill 5 in to make certain that we could bring that into force and make certain that this group — it’s only 300 people — are essentially forced into the public service or Professional Employees Association.

There have been lots of quotes by their representative, Gareth Morley. He says that his members want their own union, in part because they want to negotiate contract guarantees protecting them if they give government advice that doesn’t align with the policy goals. That’s pretty simple, right? I mean, there needs to be the fact that governments have to listen as well. They have to make certain that if there are choices that they’re going to make and that they don’t want to hear the advice, well then… We want to make certain that they can either be heard or…. The fact is that they can’t speak out as one of those groups. They can’t take action.

“We want to make sure,” Gareth goes on to say, “that lawyers in government have a degree of independence so that they can tell government something that they don’t want to hear.”

The government asked Morley to meet in person about the policy proposal affecting association members, under the condition that Morley signed an NDA, and then he’s presented with this particular bill. It’s not really a fair and open and transparent way that I think this government prides itself in. I think it speaks for itself.

Bill 5 is taking away, I think, the workers’ independence, their rights as to what they want to be able to say, or make certain that they have the representation of the people that are going to make certain that their views are listened to and that they’re not going to be interfered with.

With that, I’ll take my place and look forward to hearing further from the government on this particular bill and about why it’s so important to have this rushed through in the dying days of this session in the Legislature of B.C.

B. Banman: It is yet once again a pleasure to have the ability and the freedom to get up in parliament and talk about a bill that’s in front of this House. I wish I could say more positive things, and I wish I could say I was in favour of this particular bill. Sadly, I cannot do that. There are a number of reasons why, the biggest of which comes down to freedom, freedom of choice. Bill 5, in a nutshell, is saying to the employees within the B.C. Government Lawyers Association — and there are about 321 of them, as I recall — that they must join a particular union.

[4:15 p.m.]

This government has said to them: “No, you do not have the right to pick your own. You must pick the one that we tell you to pick.” It just goes against everything that I was taught to believe in. As a matter of fact, and I’ll get into it in a bit, it actually goes against the very words of some of the government ministers themselves and the words that they’ve said.

Lawyers are in a unique position. They don’t always give us the news we want to hear. They quite often give us the news we don’t want to hear. As legislators, what we want to do is we see a problem, and we want to get it done. We come up with ideas as to how to get that done. It is the lawyers’ job to ensure that we do it legally — that we follow the rules, that we are making sure that the rules of the Crown, the rules of the land, are adhered to and followed.

That is very, very important to democracy. It really lies at the heart of Bill 5. What these lawyers are saying to us is: “Look, we feel unique because of our position, because we often are the bearers of bad news.” Like when the king would hold court, quite often the advisers would give news that the king or queen was not happy with.

Very often that is where lawyers find themselves. They have the awkward position of saying: “I’m sorry. You cannot do it that way. You have to pick a different path. This does not follow the rules and the laws of the land.”

Because of that, within Bill 5, they have said: “No. We do not feel that the union you are telling us we need to join is appropriate for us. We want to pick our own union because of that very unique position that we have of often being at the point of having to say: ‘I’m sorry. I know that’s what you want to do, but you can’t.’”

This government refuses to listen to them and refuses to consult with them. I find that very troubling and so should the citizens of British Columbia because, sadly, this is a pattern of this government. For instance, I will go with something as simple as an amendment to the Electoral Boundaries Act where no boundaries were suggested to be changed, but names that would be more appropriate for the regions that were there were going to be suggested.

It was a case, as you know, where members of government actually stood up and voted against that. One of the things that even…. It was unprecedented. A minister stood up and voted against the legislation. The reason that relates to Bill 5 is because it shows a lack of willingness of this government to consult and to listen.

If you are not going to abide by something, so that one of your own ministers stood up and said: “Hey, this simple little thing, changing the name of a community to reflect where that community was from….” If government is not going to listen to that, I can understand why Bill 5 is very problematic for the lawyers.

It is a sad state. Unfortunately, it is not the first time that government has not really bothered to consult in a meaningful manner. As Attorney General, the former Attorney General, the Premier himself should have full knowledge as to why lawyers are unique and special.

[4:20 p.m.]

When they get to the point of saying, “If you pass this, we will take you to court,” that is alarming. It’s, to me, a huge red flag. The government has become tone-deaf to the very people that advise government to help them come up with good policy. I would encourage this government to halt this Bill 5 and allow the lawyers to develop their own union, as they have suggested.

I said that there are those in government whose words…. I actually agree with the lawyers. Yet they seem to be falling upon deaf ears when it comes to this particular bill and listening to the lawyers.

If we listen to some of the words of the actual B.C. Government Lawyers Association on this bill, they have said very strongly that they do not think that this is the right union for them. They have said: “Look, we don’t have a problem with becoming a union — just not this one.” Some of the government’s own ideas when they implemented on how to unionize…. Seventy percent of the carded members said: “Hey, this ain’t the union we want. We don’t think it’s appropriate. It ain’t the right fit for us.”

That is remarkable. They want to unionize, yet government says: “No. You get this choice, and this choice only.” That does not sound very democratic to me. It’s shameful. It goes against everything I believe that this House stands for, which is the right and the freedom to choose — to choose who you want to associate with, to choose whether you want to unionize or not and to choose which union you think is most appropriate for yourselves.

This Premier has decided that, once again, he knows best. The king does not want to listen to the advice of the court, is basically what it sounds like to me. Sadly, this Premier…. It’s not the first time. He’s done this before. So these lawyers have, most likely, good reason to want to pick their own union. In spite of the fact that it is their right to pick their own union, they have watched, unfortunately, the pattern of this Premier, who was formerly the Attorney General, do similar things before.

You’ve heard some of my colleagues talk about the proportional representation and how poorly that was…. It is directly related to Bill 5 because it goes against the government’s ability to want to listen to the very ones that they’re consulting. It is directly…. It shows a pattern of disrespect. It shows a pattern of failing to consult. That’s exactly what we have before us. This Premier has decided that his way is the only way, that it’s the highway or nothing.

It is not going to end at the end of this bill. The taxpayers are going to end up having to spend money to defend a Premier who does not want to listen to the very people who advise him when it comes to legal matters in the first place. They have out-and-out said that if this goes through, they feel it is unconstitutional, and they will take government to court.

Is that what we want, to have the very lawyers that tell us how we should implement our laws to then take us to court? It’s an embarrassment.

[4:25 p.m.]

It can be avoided. It can be avoided by simply saying: “Upon reflection, upon a sober second thought, you lawyers have a point. You may join whatever union you wish, if that is your pleasure. It is your freedom to do so.”

It does not have to end in court. It can be avoided quite easily, with a simple amendment to this legislation, these few pages of legislation, which we have seen. It’s ironic that the Professional Employees Association, the employees of that association, the union that the lawyers are being forced to go into by this government, says that the BCGLA should not be forced to join the union if it is against their choosing. Even the union agrees with the lawyers.

Yet this Premier, once again, this NDP government, refuses to budge an inch. They’re going to go down to the mats, cost the taxpayers nothing but money, tying it up in legal battles. Just as it was with the electoral simple name changes, they just can’t be wrong. They can’t be wrong, and we’re going to give you what we think you need, whether you like it or not. Whether you agree or not, you will comply, and you will fall, and you will do as you’re told.

It’s no doubt that the lawyers are upset. I’d be upset. I’m upset thinking about it, yet this ugly mess, which it’s going to be, could be simply avoided. Let them pick and decide what they want to do. It’s not that hard of a concept. It’s not that hard, at all, to get your head around the fact that people still have a choice, that that’s actually the foundation of a free society. Yet this government refuses to listen.

It reminds me of Penticton, when they dared stand up and say: “Look, we don’t want this particular SRO in this particular neighbourhood.” This Premier threatened to bring in 1,000 tents if they failed and dared to stand up against him. It is the same reason that these lawyers, when it comes to Bill 5, are upset and standing up and saying: “Enough is enough. We still have the right to choose, and if you force this upon us, we’re going to take you to court.” They will most likely win.

They will most likely win, because when it comes to legislators who are not lawyers, I’m going to put my money on the lawyers. The fact is that they may know a thing or two about constitutional law, more so than those of us who are not lawyers, who sit in here and rely on their important advice to make sure that the laws that we pass are just and legal. They have sent up a red flag that says that this is unconstitutional. This government refuses, once again, to listen.

Once again, they’re tone deaf, and they would rather pick a fight with the people that give them good advice than accommodate and listen and actually have meaningful negotiation, actually have meaningful consultation.

For the life of me. I don’t understand why. You know, my granddaddy often said to me: “Make sure you pick your fights wisely.” This is a stupid fight, in my opinion. It is not a wise fight. I believe that this fight is going to do nothing but cause bad feelings and bad blood for years to come.

[4:30 p.m.]

When you talk about consultation…. We’ve heard that maybe the Premier doesn’t like what they have to say. He seems to have a pattern of not wanting to listen. After all, he is a former Attorney General. Maybe he thinks he knows the law better than anyone. We’ve heard that it feels as if this Premier is trying to muzzle the very lawyers who dare stand up in his way and say: “I’m sorry, Premier. You cannot do what you wanted to do. It is unconstitutional, or it is against the very laws of the land.”

So what do the lawyers get? They weren’t even consulted. They were told, “This is what you get to do,” and they now fear retaliation. And with good cause, with very good cause, because it was this Premier and this government who retaliated against health care workers who spoke out. So the lawyers have a point when it comes to Bill 5. They’ve seen how this Premier behaves, and it bothers them to the point that they are going to put it all on the line and take us to court.

The government and this Premier even refused to give the B.C. Government Lawyers Association any details about this unless they signed a non-disclosure agreement. “Put your tape over your mouth. We’re going to muzzle you. You’re not allowed to talk. This is how it’s going to be. It’s going to be my way or the highway, and you will conform and do as you’re told. You don’t have the right to talk about it. We’re taking that away from you, and the only right you have is to join the union that we tell you to join.”

From high on top of the mountain, the king speaks, and thou shalt conform. That’s how it sounds, that’s how it feels, and that is why this particular bill, Bill 5, should stop right now. It needs a rethink. We need to go back to the drawing board on it and actually listen to the very people whose lives we are about to affect. They have said clearly: “This is not the right match. This is not the right union. We are unique, and we are not like….”

The union you want to shove them into also agrees with them. It should be of their choosing. It doesn’t get much more clear than that.

As I look across the floor, I wonder what is going through the minds of government, those who form government. Why would they want to start a fight like this? Why is this their line in the sand? Why would they be so unjust and not follow the very rules that exist? If this government does not start to listen and actually consult in a meaningful manner, it’s not going to end well for this government. But it’s going to end well for this side of the House.

It is a disturbing pattern that we have all seen. Time and time again, this government does not consult in a meaningful manner. They tell you what you’re going to do versus asking: “What do you think we should do? What would you suggest works best for you?”

Nobody likes to be told, especially me. When I was a kid, I hated being told what to do. Trust me. Nobody really likes it. Nobody really likes to be micromanaged to the point where you have zero choice anymore. Yet that’s exactly what this Premier wants to do to the lawyers. “To heck with what you want. Well, I’m sorry that you don’t like strawberry ice cream because it gives you hives. You’re going to get strawberry ice cream. That’s the only flavour I’m feeding you, because I like strawberry ice cream. So that’s all you’re going to get.”

[4:35 p.m.]

We can do much better than this. We don’t have to have a fight with the very people that help us in this House on a daily basis, that help us make sure that the policies, that the good work that they want to do, is legal. I don’t know why you would. I just for the life of me do not understand the rationale of this government to force the lawyers to join a union that they don’t think is appropriate for themselves.

The president of the B.C. Government Lawyers Association, Gareth Morley, said: “We want to make sure lawyers in government have that degree of independence, so that they can tell government something they don’t want to hear.” That’s why they want their own union. They want to protect themselves from a government that has actually shown vindictiveness.

As I mentioned about Penticton: “You will open up what I tell you to open up, or I will flood your city with tents.” That’s bullying behaviour. I can understand why these lawyers are concerned, because this Premier has shown a habit of forcing and bullying his way through if he doesn’t like what he hears. This has everything to do with Bill 5.

Deputy Speaker: Member, we are to treat each other with respect. Thank you.

B. Banman: The behaviour, however, is not consultation. That’s telling you what you’re going to do. It’s confrontation. What these lawyers are saying is: “Look, we don’t want to deal with this kind of confrontation. This is why we have a plan that’s good for us.” As is their right. It’s their right to join a union of their choosing. This is not democracy — being forced to have one choice and one choice only.

It’s not as if the Premier’s track record is stellar when it comes to going into court. He’s had eight major court losses on everything ranging from the pipeline to ICBC. So the lawyers themselves, I believe, are going to be victorious in the end. There will be a bunch of anger, a bunch of money spent, a bunch of time in the press. There’ll be distraction at a time in British Columbia when we need all hands on deck.

We’ve got all these problems, and we’re now going to decide that this is the fight we want to have? What about the seven people a day that are dying, or close to seven a day that are dying, from overdoses? Isn’t that a better fight? To find a solution for that?

How about the crime, the random acts of crime from repeat offenders, finding a way to deal with that? Is that not a better use of this House’s time? But oh no, this Premier has decided that: “This is my fight. I’m putting my tent pole in, and I don’t care how bad the winds blow. I’m keeping it right here and till my last breath, I will ensure that they will comply and do what I want them to do.”

Now you didn’t care for my words earlier of behaviour, but I don’t know what else you call that. I really don’t know what else to call it, Mr. Speaker. This failure to listen, this failure to show one small ounce of compliance and consultation. I’d go back to…. If you’re going to vote against including someone’s name in a boundary, which doesn’t change the boundary and makes them feel as if it’s part of home, if you’re going to vote against that and have dissention amongst your own ranks….

Deputy Speaker: It’s starting to get repetitive, Member.

[4:40 p.m.]

B. Banman: That may be. So is the behaviour of this Premier. It is all too repetitive, because it shows a repeat behaviour of failing to listen, failing to listen, failing to listen. “I’m always right. I’m always right. I’m always right.”

If it sounds repetitive, Mr. Speaker, there’s a reason. This Premier has brought this upon himself, because his attitude towards consultation is that it’s like an annoyance: “Huh. Be gone with them. They annoy me. Huh. Listen, schmisten. We don’t have to listen. We know best.”

This province is better than that. I believe this government is better than that. We may disagree on many, many things, but this government, at its heart, I think, can do better than this.

This government could easily accommodate a very small, minor change that the lawyers wish to do. Don’t make them wear the wrong size shoe. That’s effectively what we’re doing. It’s like: “Well, we only have size seven. I know you’ve got a size 12 foot, but you’re just going to have to wedge that in there, because that’s the only choice we’re going to give you.”

We can all do better than this. The lawyers have said, the union has said, this side of the House has said, and the Third Party has said that this is not the right fit.

How tough is it to listen? How tough is it to say: “You know, on second thought, we might have got this a little wrong. Thank you for the input. What works best for you?”

“Oh, that would make you happy? And it still reaches our goals of what we want? I think we can accommodate that.”

That’s not a huge ask. It’s actually the right thing to do — to listen to your employees and say: “What’s best for you? What works well for you? We’re happy to do that.” But no, this government, yet once again, refuses to listen, refuses to consult in a meaningful manner, and wants to shove their will down someone else’s throat, literally. They want to force their will, because they think they know best.

That’s not freedom. That’s not getting the best out of your people. That’s not going to achieve the desired results that you want. It never works; it never works. It’s atrocious behaviour that this government needs to take a second, serious look at. It needs to listen to their people.

You may not want to listen to this side of the House. That’s fine, but for crying out loud, listen to your lawyers. Listen to them; they’ll do you proud. Your people will do you proud if you listen to what they have to say.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I see I’m getting close to the end of my time. Oh, you’ve just told me I can take an hour more? Perfect. I’m happy to go on for another hour, but I would say that for once this government needs….

Interjection.

B. Banman: You know, you’re more than welcome to get up whenever you want.

This government should listen to their lawyers and listen to the sound advice they’re giving. They’ve given you good advice in the past. They’re trying to do it right now. They should listen.

T. Shypitka: I paused for a second just to see if there were any takers on the other side, but apparently not. Even though, in the House here, we’re outnumbered 2 to 1, I think, at the last count I’ve got, we’re outnumbering them 10 to 1 on this debate here so far today.

Speaking to the Public Service Labour Relations Amendment Act, 2023….

Interjection.

T. Shypitka: Bring it on.

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Member.

[4:45 p.m.]

T. Shypitka: That’s okay, Mr. Speaker. We’re good buddies over there. That’s fine. He can have his turn right after mine. I have no problem.

Speaking to Bill 5, the Public Service Labour Relations Amend­ment Act, 2023, I take pleasure in rising today to speak to this legislation, this bill that’s in front of us. Unfortunately, it does reek of this government’s rampant hypocrisy that we’ve seen since they’ve come to be in 2017.

Now, I’ll try to take a light tone to this debate. I was a graduate of 1980. In 1980, there was a really good album. I don’t know if members on the other side ever listened to Devo before, but I was a big Devo fan — I see the member from Sunshine Coast nodding in approval — and one of their albums that came out that year was the Freedom of Choice album. Remember that, the Freedom of Choice album? The lyrics went something like: “Freedom of choice is what you want. Freedom from choice is what you got.”

I think that kind of speaks to what we’re speaking about here today. Freedom from choice. Freedom of association. We’ve heard the Minister of Labour, on the other side, many times, talk about freedom of association. He spoke many times on: “The best bargaining is done at the bargaining table. Let Labour take care of itself. Give them that choice. Give them that freedom of association.”

Not so with Bill 5. The government likes to spend their time falsely professing to be on the side of workers, on the side of unions. However, this bill makes it pretty clear that that’s not entirely true. This bill essentially eliminates the choice that the lawyers’ union, the BCGLA, has for making their own self-determination on the union they wish to be part of.

That’s somewhat appalling because when you choose, when you have that freedom of choice, when you have that freedom of association, it’s pretty intimate to what your working conditions are. It gives you greater bargaining power, better wages, better benefits, pensions, vacations, all depending on your skill set. The employees will pick that union that best represents their needs. That’s being, essentially, taken away from them at this moment.

Part of the other conditions that employees look for is a protection against unjust discipline and management harassment. That’s one condition. Also the respect in the workplace. That’s what some of these employees, the 321 employees under the BCGLA, are fighting for.

They fear that for some of the decisions that they make on government policy, being their legal representatives, there could be some ramifications or some unjust discipline, perhaps, or some management harassment on some of the decisions that they make against government policy. It’s critical that these employees, these 321 employees are given that right to be represented in a fair way when they bargain for all these conditions. It’s shocking.

Well, I guess it’s not totally shocking. We’ve seen other examples of what this government has done with collective bargaining agreements, saying that you need to be part of a certain union in order to get a government contract. This is an extension of that, saying: “If you want to be part of this government, you’d better join this union that we’ve selected for you, created for you by us.”

Even the Professional Employees Association, the union that the lawyers are supposed to fall in place to, agree that this is a bad way of going about it. I don’t see too many people that support this move. Surely, the people on this side of the floor are opposed. And the members from the Green Party have also said that this isn’t the right thing to do. Industry is saying it’s not the right thing to do. Other unions are saying it’s not the right thing to do. The B.C. Federation of Labour is saying it’s not the right thing to do.

[4:50 p.m.]

Why are we doing it? I think we really need to take a step back on this bill, table it aside. Let’s get some more thoughtful debate going. Let’s get some more thoughtful discussion and consultation. Let’s bring the BCGLA in. Let them voice the concerns that they have with this.

This act has been around for quite some time — 50 years, I believe. I don’t know what the exact number is, but it’s close to 50 years ago. I was talking about 1980, when I gradded. This even predates that. That’s how old this bill is, because I’m pretty old.

Back in 1973, 50 years ago, I believe songs like “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” by…. Who was that that sang that one? Tony Orlando and Dawn? That would have been about 1973. What was the fashion back then?

Interjection.

T. Shypitka: The hippie look kind of thing? Yeah, bell-bottoms, colourful, floral patterns. Now some of those things are coming back. They went away for a little while, but this bill has stood the test of time.

Yet here we are on a late Thursday afternoon, ready to break for the weekend, one more week left in this session, with several more bills to be presented next week. We’re still in estimates, and here we are on Thursday, late Thursday, resurrecting this bill. I think it was February 9, I believe, that it came out.

I thought the bill was done for the session. But no, a little surprise here from government, bringing this forward so late in the session, knowing full well that there are two options — either we’ll run out of time, or they’ll force us out of time — on something that’s as critical as this. These are our public service workers that do the great work of the people of British Columbia, and they’re being denied their freedom of choice, their freedom of association.

I believe it’s distasteful — I think it’s a good word, describing it — given the fact that the BCGLA has already been in court at the Labour Relations Board to create their own association. Bill 5, as I have mentioned, effectively performs an end run on the outcomes of these hearings and lets the NDP make the final decisions themselves. That’s not fair. That’s not fair bargaining. It’s not fair association. It’s a slap in the face, quite honestly.

This could be interpreted as nothing other than an attempt by the Premier to muzzle government lawyers. I don’t know how else you can say it. The government lawyers are saying: “We want to associate with this union.” Government, on the other hand, is saying: “No. We’re going to take that right away from you.”

The Premier and the government even refused to tell the BCGLA any details about this legislation unless they signed non-disclosure agreements. We’ve seen NDAs run rampant through this government since 2017. I used to always come up with initialisms for the NDP, like “no development party,” but I think in this situation, the “non-disclosure party” probably fits the bill.

With this legislation…. Well, let’s hear from the BCGLA president, Gareth Morley. He summed up this legislation, and the NDP’s action, best when he quoted this. Gareth Morley, president of the BCGLA, said: “This would be appalling for any government. It is galling from one that claims to respect workers’ rights.”

I’ll give credit to the Labour Minister. We had a catastrophe, a tragic event, that happened in Fernie just 5½ years ago, with the death of three people in the workplace. An ammonia plant leaked, and it took three lives. The minister called me up and told me the news, and we went to Fernie. Together we went, and we represented government. It was a really good moment. Well, it wasn’t good what had happened, but it was a good outreach from government to work together.

[4:55 p.m.]

I’ve heard the Labour Minister, many times in the House, say: “The best bargaining is done at the bargaining table. Let labour take care of labour.” This seems to be a 180. I would honestly like to hear the Minister of Labour justify this bill. I would be all ears, because I have some respect for the Minister of Labour; I do.

I think he misses the mark with this bill, and I’m surprised that he’s not allowing at least some time for us to digest what’s going on. Let’s hear from the BCGLA. Let’s hear from others that may have a different opinion of what this bill represents. That’s a fail. It’s a fail on government’s part not to do that.

It’s not a big step. We’re not really trying to ask for the world here. Why can’t we bring this back in the fall? Why can’t we do that work and that consultation? Why can’t this government show the same olive branch that they showed during a tragic event in my riding and show the same courtesy to these lawyers that are just asking: “Let’s have a talk about this.” That’s all we’re asking.

I think if some other members on the other side got up honestly, spoke to this bill, tried to rationalize it and just looked at it for what it is, I think we might have something there. I think we might get some understanding, but I see a lot of disinterest right now on the other side.

Prove me wrong. You’ve got opportunity here. We’ve still got another half-hour. I’ll sit down right now, if it pleases the Speaker, to bring another member from the opposition over. I’d be all for that, but I don’t think we’re going to get it. The Premier is not willing to let anything stand in the way of getting what he wants — and this bill represents that — whether it’s a court decision, a charismatic opponent in a leadership race or his own lawyers.

I just want to keep coming back to what the NDP and what government portrays and what they get back. They love to claim that the best place to resolve disputes is at the bargaining table, like I said before, just like the CBA — the same kind of thing. What is projected and what is reality are two different things.

Here’s a really good chance for government to turn around and say: “You know what? Okay. Yeah, we might have pushed this envelope a little too far here. We’re willing to bend. We’re willing to be a little bit flexible.” It’s not going to happen, I’m sad to say.

The Tyee is a fairly popular publication. I’m sure many members on the other side have subscriptions to it. They reported that one of the reasons lawyers are unionizing is to avoid retaliation from the NDP government. It was striking, in one of their articles, that lawyers were pushed to sign non-disclosure agreements about this legislation.

It’s not just us; it’s the media as well. It’s lawyers; it’s unions. It’s opposition; it’s the Third Party. I would just challenge even members on the opposite side to stand up and say who else, other than they themselves, support this move. That would be a good start. Then I could check that source out and have a conversation with them.

Maybe members want to say that. If there’s another entity, outside of government, that supports this bill, please tell us. I’d love to hear it. Once again, I think they’re standing on their own on this one. I think it’s a little pigheaded that they would not want to at least debate this bill. I’ll just read it here.

[5:00 p.m.]

Clause 1 of the bill “provides for the inclusion of practising lawyers and articled students within the meaning of ‘employee,’ except practising lawyers and articled students employed in the criminal justice branch or the office of legislative counsel or employed as a member of the staff of a court.”

On union choice — I think it’s another clause here. This is the Minister of State for Workforce Development. This is Hansard, February 9, 2023. This is when this bill first came out. “People will have the right to collective bargaining and to negotiate wages for themselves and negotiate conditions…. So we’re…allowing people to exercise their Charter rights to join a union and to negotiate a collective agreement.” Minister of State for Workforce Development, Hansard, February 9, 2023.

It doesn’t appear that way. Once again, what was said and what is actually happening are two totally different things — 180 degrees difference. Why would the Minister of State for Workforce Development, on February 9, when this bill first came out, say those things? Yet here we are today with a bill that restricts or eliminates the process to have the freedom of association.

Morley also said, for the president of the BCGLA, that “his members want their own union in part because they want to negotiate contract guarantees protecting them if they give government advice that doesn’t align with its policy goals.” Further to that: “We want to make sure lawyers in government have that degree of independence so that they can tell government something they won’t want to hear.” Furthermore, government, the NDP, “asked Morley to meet in person to talk about a ‘policy proposal’ affecting association members, under the condition Morley signed a ‘confidential agreement.’”

Summing it up, the lawyers are a little worried that if they join the union that is handpicked by government, they will be receptive to government harassment if they don’t line up with their own policy goals. It says right here: “Morley says his members want their own union in part because they want to negotiate contract guarantees protecting them if they give government advice that doesn’t align with its policy goals.”

That’s not only dangerous for the lawyers. It’s dangerous for the people of British Columbia. This is sound legal advice that may be altered in some way, shape or form that will affect the people of British Columbia.

I don’t know how much more I can really go on about just the simplistics of what this bill represents. I think we’ve hammered it out over and over and over again here, today. We’ve got 25 minutes left on a Thursday. Then we go into the last week, with lots of bills and lots of estimates still yet to come. We’ve got the Premier’s estimates. This is going to be buried. It’s either going to run out of time or we’re going to be called on time, and this bill will be put into legislation. These lawyers will now not have that freedom of association. That’s exactly what’s going to happen.

I challenge anybody on the other side to say that that’s fair. They can…. If somebody on the other side wants to stand up and say that that’s completely fair to the BCGLA — so 320 people — then I’d love to hear it. I’d love to hear them say it. Then I can be at ease with that. Then they could be at least accountable for what they’re saying. But they’re not going to stand up. They’re going to sit back.

Well, we have half a stand there. He’s ready to stand.

[5:05 p.m.]

But that’s what’s going to happen. It’s just going to be buried. Nobody’s going to say anything. We’re going to debate it on this side. The Greens have debated it on their side, and the majority is going to win. They’re going to push this through. The 321 people are not going to get the freedom of association that they desire, that the deserve. It’s a constitutional right.

As a matter of fact, I think it was the member for Prince George–Valemount that said earlier that this type of bill, this type of legislation that we’re seeing right now here today has never been done in Canada before. This is a first. That should be a red flag, quite honestly. Of anything that I’ve said here today, that should be a red flag.

If somebody on the other side has any kind of information that this is following another model somewhere else in Canada — Nova Scotia or Ontario or Quebec or Alberta or Saskatchewan, Territories — then let me know. Then I can actually look it up myself and see how it’s worked, maybe talk to a few folks in that province and see how it has worked out for everybody.

This is another first, kind of like the decriminalization that we’ve seen. That’s another first in Canada. Government seems to make these big leaps and experimentations that we’re seeing right now, and it’s not working out. I have fear that this is going to just be another failed experiment by this government.

I’ve got a bunch of notes here, but I don’t want to go down the scripted road. I think I’ve spent enough time on this already. I’ve got another couple of colleagues that want to get up and say something, and we’re almost out of time.

Just my last plea, my last plea to the other side. Either get up and say something, defend this bill, or let’s take a recess on it. That’s not a giant leap. Let’s take a recess on this bill. Let’s bring it back in the fall. Let’s give it some good look-over for the summer. Let’s talk to the BCGLA and all their representatives. Let’s bring it back. That’s not a big request.

Government has every right. They can do that. They can just say: “Okay, we won’t call it for it, and we’ll set it aside.” They brought it in on February 9 — or February 3 or whatever it was, early February — and here we are now at the last week of session in May. It sat on a dusty shelf for a couple of months. It could sit maybe a couple of months more and have the proper consultation that it deserves.

Maybe that’s the plea. The plea is just for somebody on the other side to stand up, debate the bill, give me some hard evidence that this has been tried somewhere else in Canada, or support setting it aside.

I think that’s all I have to say, but just, please, let’s have some compassion.

C. Oakes: I rise to continue debate on the legislation before the House. I have some significant concerns that this bill has a real potential to break a fundamental and critical relationship between government and the people that are charged with the very important task of advising this government.

Dismantling these relationships is a pattern that could have significant consequences to all members of this Legislature. It’s a pattern that we’ve seen from an erosion of transparency when we consider the freedom-of-information changes brought on by this government, a government that professes to be on the side of workers but clearly demonstrates through the process of the bill that they’re only looking after their friends.

This legislation specifically, as members of this House have talked about, addresses the ongoing situation in­volving the B.C. Government Lawyers Association, a group of government lawyers that have been in the process for unionizing for some time now. Let us all reflect, all members of this House, on the incredible importance that this group of individuals provide in supporting the work of this government, the functioning of this government and how we do business.

[5:10 p.m.]

The BCGLA, to be clear, did a card check in line with the NDP’s recent legislation that they brought forward, and 70 percent of their members identified that they wanted their own bargaining unit. But instead of letting their lawyers unionize in their desired manner, the NDP government has introduced legislation before us today that, effectively, has taken away the BCGLA’s ability to form their own union, giving them the only option to join the existing Professional Employees Association, a decision that they do not want to do.

Let us consider in a little bit more detail and understand the process of this government. We are literally in the final days of this legislative session. Imagine the surprise of the government’s lawyers — in fact, members of this Legislature — that this bill would be brought forward in this way. This can be interpreted as nothing more than an attempt by the Premier to muzzle government lawyers.

Let us consider the consequences of this. Consider for a moment that after months of holding this legislation over the BCGLA as a threat during bargaining, this government is trying to force it through at the last possible opportunity. How do you possibly bargain in good faith? How do you possibly imagine negotiations going when there is a piece of legislation that is being held over your head?

Members of this House have talked about what a lot of the associations have been saying. I will go through a few of them once more.

The Canadian Bar Association sent a letter to the Minister of Finance on behalf of the Canadian Bar Association and more than 7,600 members across British Columbia. “We are writing to express our deep concern about the unilateral action in the face of the ongoing process regarding Bill 5. This action is a further example of the need for government to better understand the role of lawyers in government and in our society.” A pretty damning letter.

How about the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel? Again, a letter to the Ministry of Attorney General. “We are of the view that Bill 5 is both unconstitutional and draconian.” That’s the bill that’s being brought forward in the House today. “First, it imposes a bargaining agent upon employees that is not of their choosing. Second, it circumvents the certification process that was ongoing before the British Columbia Labour Relations Board. Last, it completely strips legislative counsel of their right to collective bargaining.”

How about another letter? This one comes from the BCGLA, the B.C. Government Lawyers Association, which we’ve talked about before. Additional support has arrived from the B.C. Federation of Labour as the government’s civil lawyers challenge Bill 5, introduced by the government. “The B.C. Federation of Labour is disappointed that government has chosen this path instead of letting the Labour Relations Board complete its work. It’s important to protect the rights of working people to join or form a union of their choosing.”

Where is the right of workers? The hypocrisy of members of the NDP who have repeatedly stood in this House, both in government and opposition, talking about how they are standing up for workers. How is this standing up for workers? How is holding a bill over the heads, during the collective bargaining of workers…? How does that protect workers’ rights?

[5:15 p.m.]

Again, I am hoping that the government listens to the president of the British Columbia Government Lawyers Association, which represents the 350 lawyers that are impacted by this bill. He said: “We’re convinced that this bill is unconstitutional. So we’re going to watch it. Once it’s enforced, we’re going to take legal actions in the courts. We’re certainly open to continuing discussions.”

I hope, after today’s debate, that the government will listen and be open to continue discussions and willing to talk to the Minister of Finance and the Premier.

Again, if this legislation is passed — we know that the government holds the majority — it will have some significant consequences. The consequences, to all members of this House…. It’s a relationship that could desperately be broken, and once broken, I’m concerned it will have a significant impact on democracy and the functioning of this Legislature.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Noting the hour, I reserve my place and move adjournment of the debate.

C. Oakes moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Kahlon moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 10 a.m., May 8.

The House adjourned at 5:16 p.m.