Nobody Does It Better

The provincial Tories aren't too happy with Bill 144, in particular the portions of this proposed legislation which would see the return to card-based certification and an increase in powers of the Ontario Labour Relations Board to impose a union on a workplace.

When it comes to parliamentary debate nobody does it better than Bob Runciman. He really is a scary conservative and one suspects very proud of it.

So what does this mean? What it means is they are abolishing a secret ballot vote. That's what they're doing by replacing it with card-based certification. What they are doing is opening the door to intimidation. If you are in a workplace where there is an organizing drive underway, you no longer have the privilege of casting a ballot in secret as to whether or not you want to see that workplace organize, a private ballot so that you can express your views, "Is it good for us to have a union or is it a bad thing?" No, you have to sign a card. You have to show your indication of where this should go.

Runciman goes on to accuse Dalton McGuinty of pushing the legislation, without full debate, for less than honourable reasons.

But to compound this tragic lack of judgment and this mistake that's going to seriously damage labour relations in the province of Ontario, after Bill 144 was tabled in this House, received second reading and was sent to committee, guess what happened? I'll bet you can't guess, because I don't believe it has ever happened before in the history of this Legislature. The people benefiting from this legislation, the construction labour unions, held a thank you, thank you, thank you fundraiser for Premier Dalton McGuinty and his cabinet ministers.

Mr. McGuinty turned up for this -- we saw the brochure: "Thank you, thank you, thank you, Dalton McGuinty" -- right in the middle of public hearings on legislation that benefits this group. That's the reality. And what did they do? They handed over a $250,000 cheque to the Liberal Party of Ontario. What a thank you. What a great big financial thank you, right in the middle of legislation, when it's at public hearings. How objective can that be? I would question the legality, let alone the morality, of that.

The interesting twist of course it that this card-based certification applies only to the construction trade unions. The complete Hansard transcript is here with additional skullduggery.