Harper jackboots the unions

I continue to disbelieve the public's complete lack of awareness of Bill C-377 and what a blatant political attack it was on unionized Canada. And, as you'll see below, I'm amazed that the media have not seen this Bill for the drive-by shooting it is.

Last night, I sent the following email to the CBC National Radio program  As it Happens after hearing a ridiculous interview with an Ontario teacher's union rep about Bill C-377:

Tonight, Carol Off came off sounding like an attack dog aimed at her interviewee (missed the name) re Bill C-377. She impugned the interviewee's motives by focusing on the Ontario teacher's strike and linking it to the timing of the interviewee's statement against Bill C-377.  Typical CBC/Central Canada media focus....whatever is happening in Central Canada (the teacher strike) is the ONLY thing happening, right?

To be fair, the woman (frustratingly to me) confined her comments to a very narrow scope, framing Bill C-377 as an attack on collective bargaining.

But it was obvious to me (a contractor to several construction unions here in Alberta) that Carol and/or her researchers had not even read Bill C-377.

Does she know that it requires unions to report every single transaction a union does with anyone doing more than $5,000 in cumulative business with the union in a year? That's EVERY SINGLE transaction, including the name of the payee, the amount of each transaction and its purpose.

Does she know it requires unions to report what percentage of time, and how much money, they spend on activities like organizing (an incredibly important, legitimate and highly strategically sensitive union activity), as well as politcal lobbying?

Does she know that it requires unions to report exactly how much money and what percentage of time they spend on "political activities,and other non-labour relations activities" as well as on collective bargaining?

Is she aware that it requires unions to report incredible detail about salaries, bonuses, expenses, etc. by union management? Or what the union spends on training?

Does she know the Bill requires unions to deliver an annual  "statement with the aggregate amount of disbursements on legal activities, excluding information protected by solicitor-client privilege"?

Is she aware that the government intends to have all of this information made available on the web for public view, including viewing by sworn enemies of unions, like the Christian Labour Association ( a fake 'union' that is, in fact, an employer-controlled employee association) and Alberta's Merit Contractors' Association.

And finally, is she aware that the government's main justification for this Bill is that union dues are tax deductible?

If she is, has she asked herself the question:  Why is it that doctors', dentists', geologists', engineers', accountants', PR professionals' and literally hundreds of other professional associations  – all of whom charge TAX DEDUCTIBLE dues to their members, and all of whom also represent their members' interests in lobbying efforts – are not victims of this Bill?

Why is it that ONLY organized labour is targeted by Stephen Harper and his pack?

It's because this was just one more step in Harper's re-shaping of Canadian society, the same master plan that also includes attacks on the scientific community, environmentalists, historians and a dozen other kinds of people who are standing here, watching their world jackbooted one step at a time.

If Carol and/or her researchers knew anything about unions, they would realize that Bill C-377 is not just a harpoon that will force unions to spend up to 20% more on administration costs (thus forcing union dues up). It will also compromise the unions’ strategic privacy, and certain parts of the Bill’s forced revelations will cause some members (known as ‘two-percenters’...the bitchers and complainers...to go into overdrive with uninformed, knee-jerk accusations about how union management has made certain spending decisions, undercutting their own well-intentioned union managers.

Wake up, Carol!

Barbara Frum and Laurier LaPierre would have been screaming at the top of their lungs about C-377. There are huge, fundamental, historically-deep democratic and social  principles at threat in this Bill, and they’re about to go down for the count unless the Senate has an actual sober second thought and kills it dead.

Please give this Bill the focus it deserves.

CBC is one of the last lines of defense that fair-minded Canadians have.

Please defend the line!

The true spirit never dies

This is a wonderful poem written by Nguyen Chi Thien, who literally stormed past guards at the Hanoi British Embassy in 1979 carrying 400 poems he'd written. He handed them to an embassy official to be shared with the West, then peacefully allowed himself to be arrested:

They exiled me to the heart of the jungle
Wishing to fertilize the manioc with my remains.
I turned into an expert hunter
And came out full of snake wisdom and rhino fierceness.

They sank me into the ocean
Wishing me to remain in the depths.
I became a deep sea diver
And came up covered with
scintillating pearls.

So after the Alberta Liberals and the NDs merged...

Suppose Kent Hehr and Corey Hogan managed to convince two gullible parties to merge, and lo-and-behold the NDs and Alberta Libs become one.

Here’s what would follow:

1.   Brian Mason and Raj Sherman would both resign, as each knows he would be unacceptable to the other former party’s members. Since they couldn't share interim leadership, and neither could be lone interim leader, a third party would need to be appointed, and neither party’s former members would agree on THAT appointment. The new ship would be totally rudderless.

2.   Tom Mulcair, in his profound Alberta tone-deafness, would again say something stupid and critical of the oilsands. Half the new party would stand up and cheer. The other half would scream bloody murder. Then the two sides would go at each other.

3.   Alison Redford would immediately label the new party the ‘New Alberta Socialist Party’. She would deploy her 61 MLAs into their ridings to make sure that their constituents hear the phrase “Alberta Socialist Party’ at least 1,000 times. And her party would spend a million bucks for good measure to tell the Alberta public that the PCs – “now the even-clearer choice for progressive Albertans” – welcomes the new ‘Socialist Party’ to the left-hand fringes of the political spectrum.

4.   Former Liberals who couldn't stomach the new party's more ideologically strident members on the far left would quietly desert for the PCs. The Tories would end up ruling Alberta from the security of the centre for at least a couple more decades, until the ‘new’ party saw the light of day and endured five years of tortuous internal turmoil ... before splitting back up to form the NDs and the Alberta Liberals.