The Liberal government’s failure to push Canadian Labor Code reforms through Parliament before an election call leaves prairie grain farmers “big losers,” says Alberta Wheat Pool president Alex Graham.
The legislation would have forced non-grain employers and unions on the West Coast to move export grain even if other commodities were grounded by a work stoppage.
It died when Progressive Conservative senators refused to approve it the last day Parliament sat April 25.
They had been bombarded by a strong lobby from west coast employers and national business groups against the bill.
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While they objected to the special status given to grain, their broader objection was to other provisions in the bill which they thought were weighted too much to unions.
Death of the bill, strongly supported by grain lobbyists including prairie pools, left Graham fuming. He blamed Reform MPs who debated the bill in the Commons, and Conservatives in the Senate.
Real progress
“We in the grain industry saw for the first time major progress on addressing the issue of west coast stoppages,” he said in an interview from Calgary.
“I cannot understand why the senators would have fooled around on this issue. I think if the Liberals made an error, it was one of timing but the fact that we got some filibustering by the Reform party in the House shows there was just too much politics and not enough addressing the reality.”
Reform MPs have denied responsibility. Rather than a “filibuster,” they proposed some amendments and debated the massive bill for just a few hours.
They blame the Liberals for leaving too much legislation to the end of the Parliament and then expecting opposition MPs to approve it without much debate.
But Graham said the opposition is to blame, particularly the Conservatives.
The winners are west coast employers who can use the fact that a strike or lockout by longshoremen will stop grain, which will raise political pressure and which will lead the government to intervene with a imposed settlement.
“As long as the B.C. maritime employers’ association is able to use grain so the rest of the industries don’t have to bargain, it is unacceptable and the real losers again are the farmers of Western Canada,” Graham said. “I’m disappointed with Tory senators from the West who did not get their fellow members to realize the importance of this.”
