By Tim Harper, Toronto Star
OTTAWA—Stephen Harper’s notorious, proposed anti-union legislation is still floundering in its fourth year, unloved, unnecessary, unfair and largely unconstitutional.
But not dead.
Bill C-377, first introducied by British Columbia Conservative backbencher Russ Hiebertin December 2011, has been revived by a Senate committee and there was Hiebert this week, again staking his clam to some type of Conservative medal as the man who has most doggedly pursued his boss’s agenda.
Hiebert is still flogging what must be considered the most fundamentally flawed piece of legislation to come from this majority government, a punitive assault on labour unions which would tip the collective bargaining process in the country to the employer, violate privacy and freedom of association rights of union leaders and tie up unions up with unnecessary, trivial, insulting paper work.
In short, it is just the type of confrontational piece of legislation Harper would like passed before an election.
It is a solution in search of a problem, but those “big labour bosses” the Conservative caucus loves to rail against provide just too much of an inviting target.
There was the tenacious backbencher back at it, wrapping his legislation in gauzy talk about transparency and accountability and “empowering (Canadians) to gauge the effectiveness, financial integrity and health of Canadian unions.”
Or, as Canadian Labour Congress president Hassan Yussuff, calls it, “an unwarranted, unconstitutional, venal and indefensible bill that is inherently flawed and must be withdrawn.”
This legislation has already once collapsed in the Senate.
Former Conservative senator Hugh Segal led the rebellion, leading his colleagues in amending a bill he called “badly drafted, flawed, unconstitutional and technically incompetent.’’
The law, as proposed, would require unions to publicly disclose any spending of $5,000 or more and any salary of more than $100,000. All documentation would be supplied to the Canada Revenue Agency and then to the public on searchable website. It would include the addresses of the union officials.
