Backers of union law under fire over tactics
OTTAWA — A B.C. Conservative MP and a Vancouver-based advocacy group are fighting for a tough union disclosure law using tactics that showed disregard for the very principles the legislation is attempting to entrench, according to a new academic paper.
MP Russ Hiebert and the antiunion organization LabourWatch are the key players behind C-377, a bill that would require unions to publicly disclose financial statements and details of all expenses over $5,000 and remuneration to anyone totalling over $100,000. But their effort provides a case study on how Canada’s laws shouldn’t be constructed, the authors argue.
“The evidence marshalled in this paper shows that the broader campaign to adopt C-377 — a bill meant to force U.S.-style financial disclosure mechanisms on Canadian unions — has ironically demonstrated a disregard for transparency and accountability,” according to Andrew Stevens and Sean Tucker, members of the University of Regina’s business faculty.
The bill, which according to the labour movement would impose a punitive and unfair administrative burden on unions, has been passed in the House of Commons but has been stalled in the Conservative-dominated Senate. The legislation is backed by the Harper government but described by former Conservative senator Hugh Segal, a bill opponent, as “an expression of statutory contempt for the working men and women in our trade unions.”
The paper looks at the lobbying tactics and especially the use by Hiebert and LabourWatch of a controversial 2011 survey by one of Canada’s most prominent polling firms, Nanos Research.
That poll, which suggested an overwhelming majority of Canadians supported the tough disclosure legislation, was aggressively used by C-377 backers to promote the bill.
The paper delves into the background behind an investigation into the poll, prompted by a complaint from the Canadian Labour Congress.
The Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, a polling industry organization, found after a 2013 probe that Nik Nanos didn’t violate the organization’s standards, but nonetheless concluded the pollster “allowed potentially biased information to be reported” to the public by LabourWatch, which paid for the poll.
One concern was that respondents were “primed” before one key question by a preamble that appeared aimed at skewing results in favour of the answer sought by LabourWatch. The second concern was that both Nanos and LabourWatch didn’t release the results of one question which suggested — in direct contradiction to the broader conclusion of the survey — that Canadians were split on whether full public disclosure was necessary. The authors said Nanos was required by the association to provide full disclosure of the flaws in the 2011 poll.
The authors assert that LabourWatch, a group that is highly critical of the labour movement and that offers employers advice on how to decertify unions, did not comply with the Nanos request to disclose the poll’s flaws on its website.
The Sun attempted to contact LabourWatch president John Mortimer this week by telephone in email, but he did not respond. In late 2013, he said in an email that the marketing association decision included a requirement that he allow the public release of the undisclosed data. The Sun, however, has obtained a letter from Nanos to the association in mid-2013 which said the company had asked LabourWatch for permission to make that data public, but didn’t receive a reply.
The authors note that LabourWatch was described by Hiebert in media interviews as “non-partisan,” yet one of its key members, the non-union construction association Merit Canada, actively lobbied Conservative politicians to support the bill, according to the lobbyist registry.
Hiebert said in a statement Thursday that the authors focus too much on the 2011 poll, and don’t adequately consider a 2013 Leger poll that found almost the same percentage of Canadians — around 83 per cent — support a tougher union disclosure law.
“I recognize that some union leaders do not support my bill, but it is clear to me that financial transparency will be of benefit not only to the general public and union members, but will also demonstrate that most union leaders manage their members’ money responsibly and efficiently,” he said.