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"A government that does not respect the very Constitution of the country is a dangerously rogue government." — Larry Brown, NUPGE Secretary-Treasurer
Commentary by Larry Brown, National Secretary-Treasurer, National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE).
Ottawa (21 July 2015) — The Harper government would like Canadians to believe they are a law and order government, intent on treating criminals harshly.
Harsh treatment for criminals, surely. But a law and order government? Nothing could be further from the truth.
This is a government with demonstrable contempt for the rule of law, for the courts, and for the very basis of Canada’s laws, the Constitution of the country. This is a government of thugs, operating outside the bounds of legitimacy. For them "might makes right," and the Constitution is an inconvenience.
An overstatement? Let’s look at three pieces of evidence to support that assertion.
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that our Constitution protects the right of working people to have independent unions and bargain collectively through those unions. Given the number of times the Conservatives evoke the interests of "hard-working Canadian families," one would expect that to be music to their ears.
The Supreme Court ruling came on a case involving a government in Saskatchewan that passed legislation giving themselves, as an employer, the right to decide how many of their employees had the right to strike, and how many were going to be denied that right because the employer felt they were essential. Of course, that’s a denial of the right to strike — how could an employer’s decisions, on which of its employees could strike, possibly be seen as objective? The Supreme Court said the legislation was a violation of workers’ constitutional rights.
Here’s the rub: the government of Canada has a law that is almost a carbon copy of the Saskatchewan legislation, one the current government adopted, giving themselves the unilateral right to decide which employees are too essential to strike. It is impossible to read the Supreme Court decision and not conclude that this federal law is therefore also in violation of workers’ constitutional rights.
Any truly law-abiding government would move to fix that, to change a law that is manifestly unacceptable. Our gang of law and order devotees haven’t lifted a finger. They obviously couldn’t give a rip about the Constitution of this country. They’ll wait and enforce an illegal law, until a court specifically orders it repealed.
A government that does not respect the very Constitution of the country is a dangerously rogue government.
Example two: the Supreme Court has ruled that governments as employers must respect the bargaining rights of their employees. That’s also based on the Constitution. Shortly after that ruling was issued, this federal government passed a law, buried in a massive budget bill, that says the government reserves the right to unilaterally change the collective agreements of its employees and gives them, as employer, the right to strip federal workers of their negotiated sick leave.
The Minister in charge even says, with consummate hypocrisy, that the government will bargain in good faith, even though they have this weapon ready at hand. That’s like bargaining in a dark alley at night with someone with a big gun; not what you’d call a level playing field.
The government knows that they are engaged in unlawful activity. They are deliberately violating the rights of their employees. But they are plowing ahead, knowing that it will take some time before this can get before a court, and in the meantime, they will use their unlawful, unconstitutional power to bully their employees.
Example three: the government just rammed through a bill that virtually no one in the entire country thinks is valid. It’s called Bill 377 and it requires unions to report publicly on every expenditure of over $5,000. It’s an absurd intrusion into provincial jurisdiction over labour law, it’s an infringement of the privacy of everyone who works for a union or provides any kind of service to a union.
This law will be struck down. It is on its face invalid. The government knows that; it has capable people working for it, and they will have advised the government of this fact. But the government doesn’t care. It might take long enough, before a court rules, that they will get some small measure of vengeance against unions, their enemies, the representatives of working people.
These are not accidents; these are not inadvertent slip-ups based on ignorance of the law. Besides, if criminals plead ignorance of the law, that’s no defence.
These are deliberate, calculated violations of the highest law of the land, the Constitution of Canada, and they are actions deliberately contemptuous of the courts of this country.
And yet this government thinks that all criminals who deliberately break the law should be jailed. Except them.
NUPGE
The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 360,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE