Showing posts sorted by relevance for query ROB ANDERS. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query ROB ANDERS. Sort by date Show all posts

Monday, June 06, 2022

'Very relieved': Crown stays tax evasion charges against former Calgary MP Rob Anders


CALGARY — The Crown stayed all charges of tax evasion Monday against a former member of Parliament from Alberta.

A trial for Rob Anders, 50, was scheduled to begin in Calgary on five charges, some of which dated back to his time in politics.

But before it did, Crown counsel Tyler Lord informed Judge Heather Lamoureux that he was entering a stay of proceedings.

"Last week, new information came to my attention, the consideration of which led me to believe that I no longer had a reasonable prospect of getting a conviction," Lord said outside court.

"He's very relieved," defence lawyer Paul Brunnen said of his client.

Tax authorities alleged that Anders failed to report more than $750,000 in net income over five years. They accused him of evading taxes payments between 2012 and 2018, and of claiming refunds or credits he wasn’t entitled to receive between 2012 and 2015.

Anders was first elected as a Reform MP in 1997 and went on to represent his riding of Calgary West — as a Conservative in later years — until 2015. He was a co-founder of the Conservative Party of Canada.


He did not run in the 2015 federal election after losing the nomination in his redistributed riding. He tried to run in the rural riding of Bow River, but lost that candidacy bid as well.

Anders was not in court Monday.

"Mr. Anders was not required to come down today." Brunnen told the court. "There's a bit of a collection of press people outside. We were a little concerned."

Anders attracted media attention several times while he was in office. Saying Nelson Mandela was a "communist" and a "terrorist," Anders was the sole parliamentarian to vote against making the anti-apartheid revolutionary an honorary citizen of Canada in 2001.

In 2005, Anders used public funds to send pamphlets to residents in Richmond, B.C., far removed from his own riding. The leaflets included a survey question about homosexual marriage in a mailout otherwise addressing crime and crystal meth abuse.

Anders also served as a member of the veterans affairs committee in Stephen Harper's government in 2011, but was removed a year later, partly based on his tendency to fall asleep during meetings.


This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 6, 2022.

Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press

Crown stays tax evasion charges against former Calgary MP Rob Anders


CALGARY — A two-week trial scheduled to begin in the tax evasion case of Rob Anders, a former Conservative member of Parliament, has been cancelled after the Crown stayed all charges.

Anders, who is now 50, faced five charges, some of which dated back to his time in politics.

He was elected as a Reform MP in 1997 and went on to to represent his Calgary riding until 2015.


A Crown prosecutor told reporters that he received new evidence last week that would have made it difficult to secure a conviction.

Anders' lawyer said his client was very relieved.

The former MP was not in court today.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 6, 2022.


Tax evasion trial scheduled to begin for former Calgary MP Rob Anders

CALGARY — A two-week trial is scheduled to begin in the tax evasion case of former Conservative member of parliament Rob Anders.


Former Calgary MP Rob Anders

Anders, who is now 50, faces five charges, some of which date back to his time in politics.

He was elected as a Reform MP in 1997 and went on to to represent his Calgary riding until 2015.

Court documents show that tax authorities allege Anders failed to report more than $750,000 in net income over five years.

He has entered not guilty pleas to all of the charges.

The government alleges that Anders under-reported his income in 2012, 2013, and 2014.

Prosecutors further allege that between 2012 and 2018, he evaded payment of taxes, and between 2012 and 2015 he claimed refunds or credits he wasn’t entitled to receive.

An application to obtain a search warrant for his Calgary home was filed in March 2013 by the Canada Revenue Agency and outlines some of the allegations in the investigation.

The charges stem from an audit in 2012 and 2013 that found reported net rental losses on properties in Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario at the same time as there were “unexplained” deposits in Anders’s bank account.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on June 6, 2022.

SEE


Saturday, December 24, 2005

Vote Out Anders

Is notorious right wing anti-union, pro aparthied hack Rob Anders in trouble in Calgary West?

We can only hope so.

Like his pals Jason Kenney and Ezra LeRant, Anders is a graduate of the Fraser Insititute intern program.

He went on to become the point man for the joint Fraser Institute/ National Citizens Coalition campaign against unions in the ninties.

And like Kenney he cut his teeth in politics south of the border working for the Republicans. And he still keeps his Republican ties.

He was the spokesman for Canadians Against Forced Unionisation, a Fraser Institute/NCC front group to push for Right To Work laws in Alberta,in 1995, thinking the Klein government would be open to these 'reforms'.

In his bio on the Conservative.ca election page they coyly refer to his union busting attempts;

"Prior to entering Parliament, Mr. Anders directed a labour market project (sic) for the National Citizens Coalition."


Labour market project, yeah right, he was pushing for Right to Work laws, and ending 'compulsory unionization' in Alberta.


In 2000 Anders got into hot water for denying, whether by commission or ommission, student employment projects for his riding.

Rob Anders, Canadian Alliance MP for Calgary West, refused to approve 83 out of about 200 grants recommended for his riding by Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC), which has been the subject of an ongoing financial scandal. The funding provides summer jobs and work experience for students by helping organizations and businesses cover the cost of hiring them.

And then he really made the news with his denouncing Nelson Mandela;
In 2001, the Federal Government decided to give Mandela honorary Canadian citizenship, making him only the second foreigner to receive such an honour. Rob Anders disagreed, calling Mandela, "a communist and a terrorist," decrying Mandela as "the politically correct Left-lib poster boy of today", and predicting that he would be forgotten in 30 years.

For this Warren Kinsella placed Rob Anders in both the second and third place catagories for top ten political outrages of the Parlimentary session of 2000-2001

As a poster boy for the extreme right in the Reform/Alliance and now Conservative party, he has used his position as an MP to do little for his constiuents and much to advance his own personal right wing agenda.

As a result in the 2004 election residents in his Calgary West riding launched the Vote Out Anders Campaign, complete with website. And apparently they are back as of this week.

His problems don't end there. On the CBC forum on Calgary West where folks can leave their comments they are overwhelming against Anders.

One of his personal political campaigns is against China. Now being the complete opportunist he is, he has latched onto the Galun Fong and Tibetans in order to persue his personal anti-communist agenda.

Just as the old right wing would admonish about the communist reds in Russia and Cuba, Anders is opposed to Red China. And he has the support of friends who are even slimier, like the notorious racist and fascist, Paul Fromm who is associated with White Power and Nazi groups in Canada and internationally.

It is typical of proto-fascists to disguise their poitics as anti-communism. It was traditional in the the 1960's for folks involved in the KKK and White Power and Nazi movements to claim that they weren't racist but saving America from communism. When it came to Martin Luther King these same creeps claimed he was a communist. Anders is no different, his attack on Mandela was racist and fascist, using red baiting as a cover.


Today he does the same around China.
Reform MP Rob Anders was asked to leave a Chinese New Year celebration
on Parliament Hill
because he was wearing a T-shirt calling for China to
get out of Tibet. The 27-year-old MP for Calgary West appeared at the Wednesday night event wearing the T-shirt, which a1so bore the slogans Stop Tiananmen
tanks, forced abortions, burning books, and independent Indo-China,
Korea and Taiwan.

As a flack for the NCC he is Stephen Harpers loyal syncophant. Harper defended Anders outrageous comments about Mandeala and offered no criticism around his Anti-China provocations.

Certainly we all remember Tianamen square, and I have blogged here critically of the state captialist regime in China but Anders is an opportunist. He is not genuinely concered with Tibet or even the Falun Gong. He is doing this because he is a fascist and red baiting anti-communist propaganda is a sure sign of it.

At a Conservative fundraiser in Calgary this past spring it is reported that he raised the old right wing bugaboo about bilingualism being forced on all us good White English Canadians.

"Bilingualism is a problem today" Rob said. He complained that plaques that had been unilingual are now English and French and that it "didn't help" that people spoke "Chinese and Arab and other languages too" in Canada.
Yep he really feels for the oppressed Chinese peoples.

During the second week of the election campaign Anders used his parlimentary franking privleges to send out a torrid pamphlet denouncing crack addicts, homosexual sex marriage, and calling for law and order, in Richmond B.C.!

But take a look at the front of this pamphlet, typical scare tactics and fearmongering so commonly used in Nazi like propaganda campaigns.
Does this look like an election pamphlet to you?




Wow I didn't know Richmond B.C. was New York. But considering the crime rate and the increasing gun violence in the Lower mainland which has people worried this was a provocation. And you paid for it with your tax dollars.

The term homosexual sex marriage, used in this pamphlet is another provocation. He deliberately called it that. He did not call it Same Sex Marriage. He attempted to conjure up lewd sexual imagery with his misanthropic malapropism. Again from last spring Anders said this;
Then we got to Rob's favourite topic - "moral decay". "The problem with homosexuality and gay marriage" was that it led to a declining birth rate
Huh? The man defintely has sex on the brain, but the decline in the birth rate is not the fault of gays or lesbians.

Rob is a Roman scholar as well. He like many reactionaries before him uses the decline of the Roman empire to explain what he sees as moral decay in modern society. During the Same Sex Marriage debate in the House of Commons he said this;

Edward Gibbon goes on in his work, the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, to cite several things that made for the decline of the Roman Empire. One of those, the first that he cites, was the immorality that destroyed the integrity of family life.The second thing that Gibbon talks about is gender confusion and the problems that had in the Roman Empire. The third is disregard for religion. I think we can see some parallels today.

Once again, Augustus Caesar, to elongate the Roman Empire, restored the sanctity of marriage.

Those guilty of initiating divorce lost three-quarters of their property to their spouse. They did not get 50%. A woman would be stripped of her wealth and ornaments, and if the man introduced a new bride into his bed, his fortune would be lawfully seized by the vengeance of the exiled wife. We should think about that in terms of divorce rates. Offenders were even disabled from the repetition of nuptials. In other words, if people had a divorce they could not get remarried.

He stimulated the birth rate. He rewarded the parents of large families. As a matter of fact, if parents had as many as five children under the Emperor Augustus, they no longer paid any tax. One can imagine what not having to pay tax would do for a Canadian family with five children.

Yep you read that right Rob opposes divorce, and supports tax breaks for families with five children or more.

Another politician that was impressed by Augustus Ceaser and applied these same policies to his Reich was Adolph Hitler.

Augustus himself was not innocent of plotting executions to eliminate personal enemies. He favored loyalists like Herod who controlled their subjects, whatever the method. In fact, when he found that Herod was more effective in suppressing revolts than Roman governors In running the empire as a centralized corporation, he was more concerned to suppress public dissent than to promote social justice. Thus, he was also the father of the totalitarian state.

Both Hitler and Mussolin were fascinated with ancient Rome and attempted to ressurect it in the modern age.

For a self professed Christian, Rob sure does like them authoritarian pagan Roman Emperors who were slave owners and drenched in the blood of conquered peoples.

And despite his admonions about how great Augustus was, how moral, Rob did overlook Augustus Ceasars incestous affair with his sister. But then they hadn't run the HBO mini series Rome on cable yet.

Augustus' personal life, on the other hand, was a series of disappointments & disasters. He had no son & his only daughter's sons all died before him. So, he was forced to adopt his wife's son, Tiberius, whom he disliked. In public Augustus posed as champion of traditional family values; but the intrigues & scandalous behavior of his own family, including his wife, daughter & their children produced one of history's most lurid soap operas, complete with the murder of kin, public debauchery & incest.


In a commentary article in the right wing National Review Online Rob had an article on humour, a Canadian export south, where he said;

the Liberal party supports what is increasingly becoming a dogmatic, one-party-state (secular) theocracy.
Huh? A what? How can you be a secular theocracy, is Paul Martin the Pope or Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire? Is this another Roman refernce by Rob? After all Canada is a Catholic country.

And Rob wrote this last January the Liberals were a Minority government. Minority as in there were more opposition members than Liberals. I think Rob has gotten Ottawa confused with Alberta.


Besides voting against Same Sex Marriage, during the past sitting of the House,
Anders voted against:

C-2, Child Pornography
C-278, Employment Insurance

C-263, Prohibition of replacement workers in labour disputes
C-272, Sponsorship of a relative for immigration purposes
C-283, Immigration and refugee protection and sponsorships
C-206, Alcohol warning labels

C-14, Tlicho Land Claims and Self-Government Agreement
C-21, Not-for-profit corporations
C-13, DNA data bank
C-11, Whistleblower protection and procedure
C-17, Marijuana
C-65, Street racing
C-64, Prohibit removal of Vehicle Identification Number
C-63 An Act to amend An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act
C-260 An Act respecting the negotiation, approval, tabling and publication of treaties (Treaties Act)
C-48, Budget Amendments

But he did vote in favour of
C-30, Parliamentarian salaries to increase in accordance with private sector salaries

Rob has a real thingee about drugs, in an article in the conservatice weekly Human Events he attempted to link the bust of B.C. provincial Liberal party staffers, members of Gordon Campells government, with Paul Martin and the booming B.C. marijuana trade.

So the citizens of Calgary West are once again being asked to vote, but unlike last election they have an alternative to Mr. Anders.


Jennifer Pollack the former chair of the Calgary Board of Education is running against Mr. Anders. Ms. Pollack is a high profile canadidate.

And one who has faced the wrath of Ralph Klein. She and members of her democratically elected board were ousted after the Klein government, in an unprecidented move, because they refused to be his scapegoat for deficits that were a direct result of his governments failure to fully fund public education.
It appeared this coup de dat was organized with the conivance of Conservatives on the the board. Fights began right after the election between the minority of Conservatives and the majority Liberals on the board. After being deposed by the Klein government, Pollack
ran again and was relected to the school board.

Last election Anders got over 55% of the vote, with a lower voter turn out. than the 2000 election. The Liberals got just over 29% with a low impact campaign with a no name candidate. With an active Vote Out Anders campaign, pragmatic politicks calls for a united front vote for Pollack.

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Sunday, January 01, 2006

Rob Anders Update

Well I must say I was disappointed it appears that Rob Anders Calgary West Reform/Alliance/Conservative MP has slipped down to eigth place in Warren Kinsella's list;

THE TOP TEN JERKS IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE, GIVE OR TAKE


Rob Anders – Conservative MP who, problematically, still exists. Called Nelson Mandela a terrorist. Unfit to clean out the toilets in the cell Mandela occupied for decades.

Warren seems to have missed Anders recent foray into B.C. Politics for his update. He reminds us of Anders dissing Mandela, which remains Anders crowning moment of Parlimentary Infamy.

Though for me Anders more recent comments attacking Gay Marriage err 'homosexual sex marriage' as immoral leading to the destruction of civilization as we know it, runs a close second for parlimentary infamy.

He declared in the House of Commons his expertise in morality and Roman history by invoking Augustus Ceaser in his defense of heterosexual marriage and moral values.

Now Augustus was Caesar when Jesus was born and had appointed Herod as his tax collector in Charge of Bethlehem.

And Augustus was rumoured to have had an incestuous relationship with his sister.

He introduced the moral laws Anders likes so much;

Augustus also launched a morality crusade, promoting marriage, family, and childbirth while discouraging luxury, unrestrained sex (including prostitution and homosexuality), and adultery. It was largely unsuccessful (indeed, his own daughter was banished due to it.)

Despite his moral cursade, Augustus was the very antipathy of Christian Morality that Anders is defending. Go figure.

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Friday, December 30, 2005

Anders Redux

While the Liberals have their Klander, the Conservatives have Rob Anders their rogue rightwhingnutbar extrodinare. My Blahg has commented on this as well, with more stupid quotes from Anders.

So has The Sir Robert Bond Papers:
Now compare Klander to say a Rob Anders, or even a Stephen Harper, and you can see the fundamental difference between Liberals and the Conservatives - the Reform-a-Tories - the Connies.

Klander resigns, likely before he was fired.

Anders? Well, the guy who still thinks that Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, the guy who was too chickenshit to take Mandela's phone, the guy who is spreading anti-gay propaganda in other ridings besides his own?

Anders is a star Conservative candidate.

And Stephen Taylor's blog is remarkably silent on the entire affair of Mr. Anders and his current campaign activities.

Compare that to the number of Liberal blogs that have denounced Klander.


James Bowie and Jason Cherniak continue the expose and documentation on why Calgary West deserves better than Anders.

Now these lads are blogging Liberals however, pardon the pun, most right thinking, level headed Conservatives are outraged by Anders comments and antics as well as his failure to represent his riding.


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Friday, February 10, 2006

Why Rob Anders Supports TheFalun Gong

The cult group the Falun Gong in China which has gotten a lot of support in Canada, including from members of our new Conservative Government like rightwhingnut MP Rob Anders ,has a less than savory background.

MP Rob Anders' Speech at "A Closer Look into China" Forum Special to The Epoch Times

And while the repression they face in China is not acceptable, neither is their ideology except to people like Rob Anders. They are anti-gay and anti-Semitic!

The cult is politically active in Canada distributing their propaganda paper Epoch Times in Canada's cities.

In San Francisco the cult has caused controversy with Republican members of the Board of Supervisors calling for support for them which has alienated both the gay and Chinese American community.


Supes support 'homophobic cult'
SF.Indymedia.org, CA - 6 Feb 2006

Amid accusations it is giving a San Francisco seal of approval to what some contend is a "homophobic cult," the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution this week in support of ending persecution of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement banned since 1999 in China, where members of the group are routinely imprisoned.

Both the city's gay supervisors, Bevan Dufty and Tom Ammiano, joined in the 9-2 vote to pass the resolution, despite calls for them not to give any support to Falun Gong, whose founder has called gays "demonic" and has said that "the priority of the gods will be to eliminate homosexual people."

"People need to be aware of what their leader or founder has written. It is not just the homosexual community, but all the other things he said in the book about who gets to go to what level. It is very anti-Semitic also," said Hu. "I am hoping for support from the entire city, whether the gay community or the entire city."

Falun Gong, Barred From San Francisco Parade, to Show Up Anyway

Falun Gong's practices and meditation were introduced in China in 1992. It has 10,000 followers in the U.S. and tens of millions in more than 60 countries, the group says on its Web site. Sherry Zhang, a spokeswoman for the group, said the parade's decision extends oppression of the group from Asia to the U.S.



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Saturday, October 31, 2020

Former MP Rob Anders accused of not reporting $750K in income for tax purposes

CALGARY — Tax authorities allege former Conservative MP Rob Anders failed to report more than $750,000 in net income over five years, court documents show.
© Provided by The Canadian Press

Anders faces five charges, including tax evasion. Some of the charges date back to his time as a member of Parliament.


Anders, 48, was elected as a Reform MP in 1997 and went on to to represent his Calgary riding until 2015.


He did not appear in person at his first court date Friday, but was represented by a lawyer who indicated he had just received disclosure on the matter.

Anders has reserved his plea and the case was set over to Nov. 20.

The government alleges that in 2012, 2013, and 2014 Anders under-reported his income, which led to multiple charges of making false statements on a tax return.

Prosecutors further allege that between 2012 and 2018, he evaded payment of taxes, and between 2012 and 2015 he claimed refunds or credits he wasn't entitled to receive.


An application to obtain a search warrant for Anders's Calgary home was filed in March 2013 by the Canada Revenue Agency and outlines some of the allegations in the investigation.

The charges stem from an audit in 2012 and 2013 that found reported net rental losses on properties in Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario at the same time as there were "unexplained" deposits in Anders's bank account.


"I reviewed the history of the rental income and rental expenses reported by Mr. Anders and noted he had reported a net loss on his rental properties every year for the 2001 to 2015 tax years inclusive," wrote the case investigator in the court document.

"I have reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Anders has understated his income."

The document estimates the unreported income at $752,694.


None of the allegations in the 35-page document has been proven in court.

In 2012, members of Parliament made about $157,000 a year, and by 2014 they were making about $163,000.


This report by The Canadian Press was first published October 30, 2020.

Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press

Monday, March 28, 2005

Right to Life = Right To Work

Those on the right who oppose gay marriage also oppose a womans right to choose abortion, they also oppose publicly funded daycare and a living wage for daycare workers.

They also oppose unions and while not saying it outright they support "right to work" laws, those that would end 'forced unionization' in the work place the ending of the Rand Formula.

"In Canada, the union security clause requires that all workers in a bargaining unit belong to the union and/or pay dues. The mandatory collection of dues is protected from Constitutional challenges under a 1945 ruling by Supreme Court Justice Ivan C Rand (origin of the Rand formula for authorizing dues payment) saying the collective rights of workers supercedes individual rights. These provisions are crucial for unions to maintain control in the workplace."
Could BC be Canada's right-to-work beachhead?

Right wing groups in Canada cross post each others press releases, and research. It is common for a right wing reseracher say with the Fraser Institute to quote from the Cato Institute, both right wing think tanks, to legitmate their research. The same applies to the right wing -anti-abortion, anti-daycare, anti-feminist, and anti-gay lobbies.

For instance a Real Women of Canada Press Release posted on the Canadian Family Action Coalition complains that Taxpayers Fund Gay Legal Challenges for Same-sex Marriage

"With the funds they receive from compulsory union dues, Canadian unions are also financially backing homosexual activists. EGALE lists Canadian Auto Workers, Canadian Union of Public Employees and Canadian Labour Congress as its “Gold” sponsors on its website."

Subtle eh, "compulsory union dues" is a phrase used by the right wing opposed to so called 'forced unionization'.

An example of this kind of language can be found at the American Right Wing Anti Union
"NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR LABOR RELATIONS RESEARCH" site.

(don't you love that name, sounds like a government department,
or a legitimate labour relations institute when really is a right wing anti-union lobby front)

Where they say in an article about Canadian Unions: Trouble in Big Labor 'Paradise'

"U.S. Employees Are Free to 'Vote With
Their Feet' Against Forced Unionism

In the U.S., nearly four out of every 10 private-sector employees work in a state with a Right to Work law that bars union officials from forcing anyone to join or pay dues to a union as a job condition. And the share of employees who are protected by Right to Work laws is steadily increasing. Every year, non-Right to Work states suffer an average net loss of roughly 500,O00 citizens who "vote with their feet" by moving to one of the 22 Right to Work states. But not one of Canada's 10 provinces has a Right to Work law. Forced union membership or dues payment is authorized under federal law and under every provincial law. Therefore, employees have no opportunity to "vote with their feet" against forced unionism unless they are willing and able to leave the country! It is not just Canada's lack of any Right to Work protections for employees that appeals to U.S. union officials. They also love the fact that Canadian labor laws put even tighter restrictions on employers' ability to resist the forced unionization of their employees than does U.S. labor law, and that the penalties for recalcitrant employers are far more severe."


And while Canada does not have Right to Work laws, that has not stopped the Right Wing from lobbying for it. As the Labor Notes article Could BC be Canada's right-to-work beachhead? points out. (my comments in bold)

"There are advocates in Canada who see right-to-work as a tonic for the country's economy and a way to free workers from the yoke of "forced unionism". Support comes from the National Citizens Coalition whose "top priority" is "to push governments to reform labour laws so those union bosses can no longer use forced dues to subsidize their political causes." The NCC launched Canadians Against Forced Unionism in Alberta during its 1995 right-to-work debate. The former president of the NCC, Stephen Harper, is the newly elected leader of the Canadian Alliance party. (now the Conservative Party of Canada)

The spokesperson for CAFU was Rob Anders who is now a Calgary Conservative MP .

["Just as the Reform Party lost Harper as an MP to the NCC, it picked up a former NCC employee to run in his seat. Rob Anders, who headed up the NCC's project "Canadians against forced Unionism," was selected by the Reform Party to replace Harper as the candidate in Calgary West. (Prior to being hired by the NCC, Anders was active in the Reform Party club on the University of Calgary's campus. Anders worked on the NCC anti-union project, set up according to Somerville to “expose and oppose Canada's oppression labor laws" from 1994 until November 1996.) He won Harper’s Calgary West riding for the Reform Party in February 1997." ] StephenHarperSaid.ca

Completing the axis of ideological allies, the Fraser Institute's Michael Walker and Fazil Mihlar write, in Unions and Right to Work Laws, that such laws "constrain excessive demands by unions and keep wage increases in line with productivity growth," meaning an employer is likely to hire more workers when wages are lower rather than invest in labour-saving technologies.

Rob Anders, Ezra Levant and Jason Kenny the young Turks on the Right were all student interns at the Fraser Institute. Kenny and Anders are now Conservative MP's, Levant (the mouth that roared) is publisher of the Conservative Western Standard.

Alberta's Ralph Klein government and set up a joint review committee to study the economic benefits of right-to-work in 1995. Organized labour responded with concerted lobbying efforts to stop this scheme from going further. In the end, the committee reported there was no economic justification for introducing right-to-work as Alberta already enjoyed an advantage over the rest of Canada.

Today, the Alberta government continues to pass contentious labour legislation like Bill 12 to prohibit teachers from striking. Could right-to-work be resurrected there anytime soon? Selby thinks not. He explains, "In Alberta, the labour movement is not considered a significant threat to expand much beyond its current base - in other words, the current labour legislation is already doing an admirable job from their point of view." According to the AFL, Alberta has the "worst labour code" and the lowest unionized workforce (23 percent) in Canada."

The most recent union busting right to work legislation passed in Alberta and supported by the Federal Government is allowing Oil Sands companies and their allies in the Construction industry to bypass the building trades unions and bring in contract workers from Venezula in cooperation with the fake union: CLAC (Christian Labour Association of Canada).

CLAC is the arm of the Christian Reformed Church in Canada, and was founded here in the 1950's by post WWII Dutch immigrants . The Dutch immigrants came to Southern Alberta and Southern Ontario to farm, and they formed a similar Farmer Association. These are politically right wing associations, opposed to the traditional unions and farmers organizations that created the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and New Democratic Party (NDP).


"The Christian Reformed Church does not allow women to hold official positions in the church and also strongly supports the establishment of private Christian schools , Christian Reformed parents sponsor the largest network of primary and secondary Christian schools in the United States.The CRC has consistently condemned divorce, except when infidelity is part of the picture." New Religious Movements Christian Reformed Church



Christian Reformed Church (CRC) on Labour Unions


Position

Church membership and membership in a labor union are compatible as long as the union does not warrant or champion sin in its regular activities. Church members should discontinue membership in any unions whose common practices are clearly in conflict with the principles of the Word of God. Christian conscience cannot condone membership in a union if it continues in sinful practices in spite of protests against them. Membership in unions which have engaged in sinful practices does not of itself make one liable to ecclesiastical censure, but if church members themselves are guilty of acts contrary to the Word of God, the usual means of discipline should be applied. Churches should be aware of the practices of labor organizations in their communities and vigorously emphasize the scriptural principles regarding the relation of the Christian to the world and the organizations of the world.

History

The CRC has dealt with the issue of labor unions several times in its history. From the 1880s to the 1940s the following matters were discussed: whether church members ought to be members of labor organizations, whether members of a union are responsible for its decisions and acts, and which labor unions were appropriate for church members. In 1904, 1928, 1930, and 1943, synod reasserted its basic position with regard to unions. In 1934, 1936, and 1943, synod recommended the Christian Labor Organization for moral and financial support. Synod 1965 adopted resolutions of the Reformed Ecumenical Synod regarding Christian organizations. This discussion went beyond labor organizations to include social and political organizations.

And what sinful activities does the CRC Oppose; birth control, abortion, in divorce it does not recognize remarriage, the scientific theory of evolution, membership in Freemason or other oath based fraternal Lodges.

They also oppose:"
The endorsement or use of contemporary inclusive language for God (both gender-egalitarian and gender-neutral) is unacceptable to the CRC. "

On Dancing, until the 1970's they were opposed to it;
"As a result, Christians are not to reject dancing, but to redeem it, realizing that some forms of dancing are more difficult to redeem than others."

They opposed going to movies,
The CRCNA made its first official declaration on the topic of film arts in a warning against movie-theater attendance in 1928. But by 1966 "The film arts were then considered a legitimate cultural medium to be used with discernment by Christians."

They support capital punishment "
The CRC has declared that modern states are not obligated by Scripture, creed, or principle to institute and practice capital punishment. It does, however, recognize that Scripture acknowledges the right of modern states to institute and practice capital punishment if it is exercised with utmost restraint."

They are biblical literalists; "Holy Scripture in its entirety is the written Word of God, inspired by God to be our rule of faith and practice. This inspiration is organic, extending to the ideas and the words of Scripture, and is so unique that Scripture alone is the Word of God."

On the Church and State

"The state is instituted by God and is endowed with power in order that it may promote, within the limits of its authority, the maintenance of human life and its development in agreement with God's law. The state is called to protect the church with all the means given to it by God in order that freedom of conscience to serve God be guaranteed and anti-Christian powers which threaten the church be resisted and prevented. The church recognizes and honors the state for its God-given power and service, faithfully proclaims the gospel to all in the state, and prays for all people, including those who are in authority, in order that all may lead quiet and peaceable lives. The state should not assume the right and power of the only King of the church, Jesus Christ, and should recognize that the church owes allegiance and responsibility to him alone."

On War: "Glorification of war for its own sake must be warned against, but pacifism that causes people to refuse to bear arms under any conditions is also to be condemned. The CRC formed its position on war in the 1930s, when the threat of the Second World War loomed and pacifism was a controversial issue. The basic statement adopted by Synod 1939 has not changed."

On Race; The CRC was involved with the Reformed Church of South Africa the church of Aparthied and the Boers. And while they now proclaim to be inclusive that was not always the case;

"During the 1960s and 1970s the church dealt with the issue at home as it struggled through a race-related case regarding Timothy Christian School in Cicero, Illinois, and abroad as it held discussions with the Reformed Churches in South Africa regarding its policy of apartheid.

Synod 1985 appointed a committee to deal specifically with the RCSA and apartheid, awaiting its recommendation rather than acceding to overtures to sever ties with the sister church. In 1989 this committee did recommend suspension of ties of ecclesiastical fellowship, and synod agreed. That suspension was in effect until 1996, when synod lifted the suspension because of changes in the RCSA's position and practices re apartheid and the changes in the political and societal situation in South Africa."


1989, it took till 1989 before the CRC recognized that apartheid was sinful. Gee someone should have told them to talk to Dr. Tutu, Opps nope these are Boers after all. They were one of the last of the Reformed Churches to end their relationship with the Aparthied regime and its Church in South Africa.


These are the Christian values that CLAC supports and promotes.

CLAC supports Right To Work legislation and is opposed to "forced unionization" and opposes the Rand formula, though they abide by it when they "represent" their workers. CLAC does not unionize workers, they approach the employer as labour management consultants and in a private agreement (voluntary representation under the Labour Relations Act) with the boss they become the union for the workers. There is no voting on whether the workers want to be represented by CLAC, it is a private deal between the employer and CLAC.

This has caused CLAC no end of trouble with Labour Relations boards which have ruled that while they are an association they barely fit the judicial definition of a 'union'.

As CLAC says on their web site:


Can I be forced to join the union?

Canadian law has given unions the right to force people to join their ranks as a condition of employment. CLAC believes this is fundamentally wrong and an abuse of Canadians' constitutional right to freedom of association.

It is our policy that no one is forced to belong to CLAC. If you cannot in good conscience support the union, you do not need to sign a membership card, and you can apply to CLAC to have your dues directed to a mutually agreed upon charity. No other union offers this choice or respect for your freedom of association. Workers who are granted non-member status cannot participate in union affairs and have no voting rights."

While the Supreme Court ruled that the Rand Formula was the law in Canada, see Lavigne case below, CLAC likes to take the same position that Lavigne and the NCC did back in 1998 that union members who disagree with the unions politics should have the right to put their dues in a Charity.

For instance in their FAQ about CLAC they say about being a "Christian" Association,

"
The word "Christian" in our name comes from our distinct philosophy that guides our policies and practices as a trade union."

Yeah right, it comes from being founded by the Christian Reformed Church, a specific Dutch protestant Calvinist faith sect. They can't even be honest about that.

Gee for a Christian organization they sure do fib a lot. They fib about not being in favour of Right To Work while denouncing Forced Unionization, which is right wing talk for the same thing.

CLAC has used their 'Christian' appelation to be able to represent Save-On Foods employees, who never got a chance to vote on being represented by CLAC. A private deal was swung by this Christian Association and Save-On Foods owner, multi-millionare, born again Christian, Jimmy Pattison. It has meant CLAC has a secured source of dues revenues to expand its raids into other sectors, such as healthcare and nursing care in Ontario and Construction in Alberta's oil sands.

What kind of bargaining does CLAC do for the bosses well we will let them speak for themselves:
"We have the opportunity to chart a new course in workplace relations. We challenge all, including ourselves, to explore the possibilities of labour-management cooperation and partnership, based on a preponderance of mutual rather than different interests. In this we appeal particularly to the employers of our members, to put aside fears and suspicions, and accept and respect their employees (and their union) as responsible partners." Working at Cross-Purposes By: Ed Grootenboer

Ah gee, that sounds nice doesn't it. We should all get along, what it means in reality is that the partnership CLAC has is with the boss not the workers it reperesents. It will bend over backwards to maintain labour peace at all costs.

It is called corporatism and was practiced in fascist states of Spain, Italy and Germany and by the Catholic Church when it formed it's own labour movement, just like the Christian Reformed Church has.

"Historically, corporatism or corporativism (Italian corporativismo) is a political system in which legislative power is given to corporations that represent economic, industrial, and professional groups. Unlike pluralism, in which many groups must compete for control of the state, in corporatism, certain unelected bodies take a critical role in the decision-making process. This original meaning was not connected with the specific notion of a business corporation, being a rather more general reference to any incorporated body. The word "corporatism" is derived from the Latin word for body, corpus. Ostensibly, the entire society is to be run by decisions made by these corporate groups. It is a form of class collaboration put forward as an alternative to class conflict and was first proposed in Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which influenced Catholic trade unions which were organised in the early twentieth century to counter the influence of trade unions founded on a socialist ideology." Wikipedia

And like other right wing groups CLAC opposes "compulsory union dues" being used for political purposes.

"
Telling you how to vote is one thing. But a good number of unions even use their members’ dues money to support a particular candidate or party—whether members like it or not. And in a much publicized case in the early 1990s, the Supreme Court of Canada told unions they could do so!" Unions and Their Sleeoing Partners By: Gideon Strauss

Sounds just like the complaints from the right wing groups like Real Women, Alberta Federation of Women United for Families, etc. And it should because the Christian Reformed Church is well represented in these groups. For instance the editor of AFWUF is a Christian Reformed Church member. Here's her opinion on fair pay for daycare workers in Alberta.

AFWUF "Voice" Archive
"It Takes A Mom vs Day Care
Fall 2001 Vol 20 No 4
In July, in response to a year of intense lobbying from social workers, daycare owners and career women, Alberta Children's Services Minister Iris Evans announced that the government would begin subsidizing the wages of Alberta's daycare workers. The province already gives grants worth $350 per year for every child in daycare as well as doling out $20 million in subsidies for the most needy parents over the last two years. I'm sure Alberta is not unique and other provinces do the same or more. This means that every Canadian family where mother cares for the family's children is subsidizing the lifestyle choice of those who daily put their children in an institution. Government subsidies to harm children. Now that's sad."

The right wing likes to talk about lifestyle choices, its the same accusation they make against women who have abortions and of course against gays and lesbians.

It's a choice we make; working for a living in a province with the worst labour law and lowest minimum wage in Canada is not a lifestyle choice. It's a neccissity. So both parents work.

Interestingly AFWUF accuses working women as being 'career women', identifying them as privleged. In reality it is career women who can afford nannies, not daycare. These so called career women are in fact the women who serve you in the resteraunt, at the 7/11, or work in daycare centres. Their career is making a living.

Many of Alberta's daycare workers were making minmum wage and even now still are seriously underpaid. But AFWUF doesn't sympathize, why should they, daycare to them is an attempt to destroy the Christian family. The family where the woman knows her place.

CLAC is no better their position on the recent Federal announcement of federal funding to increase public daycare spaces is that government should give money to both daycare funding and child tax credits for stay at home mothers. This is the same position as the Klein government and the Federal Conservatives.

CLAC has its own Research Arm that lobbies for Right to Work, tt's called Work Research Foundation, Van Pelt, Strauss and Pennings have been associated with CLAC, and the funding for WRF comes from CLAC and the Christian Reformed Church of Canada.

The Work Research Foundation was established to influence people to a Christian view of work and to promote the idea of sphere sovereignty as a framework for renewing the economic sphere and public life.

However there is no direct linkage between WRF and CLAC websites, giving the (false) impression that WRF is an independent research foundation. You have to ask why and what are they hiding.

Well WRF like CLAC supports the right wing idea of corporatism. And their vision for labour relations is a right wing corporatist state, a theocratic state where we all work together.

History of the WRF

The WRF researches issues surrounding the organization of work, the movement of trade, and leadership in the economic sphere. The WRF organizes its projects on three levels: academic, macro-economics and public policy, and the front-line workplace. Together, these perspectives help us identify the changes that will characterize the contribution of work to our socio-economic prosperity in the decade to come.

The Work Research Foundation (WRF) was incorporated and registered as a charitable organization in 1974, with Harry Antonides as the first part-time research director. Antonides argued for a view of work rooted in the European Christian tradition. In 1983, Antonides launched the WRF Comment, a bimonthly journal devoted to issues of work and public life.

Between 1987 and 1994, Antonides published two books through the Work Research Foundation. Servant or Tyrant? was a collection of papers presented at a joint conference between the Christian Labour Association and the Work Research Foundation, with contributions from Christian luminaries such as Paul Marshall, Michael Novak, and Al Wolters. Servant or Tyrant? explored and analyzed the main trends of contemporary politics, and discussed ways in which Christians can actively preserve and enhance freedom and justice in the political realm. Three Faces of the Law, by Ian Hunter, was based on a series of lectures to the Ottawa Summer School of Biblical and Theological Studies, and critically examined the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and its subversion of justice, liberty, and life.

The profile of the WRF increased substantially with a $325,000 project relating to freedom of association from 1997-2000. In March 1997, the WRF commenced its biennial survey of Canadian attitudes toward unions. The survey indicated that Canadians are looking for a less confrontational and adversarial approach to labour relations. The WRF built on this insight over the next few years with conferences and publications devoted to alternative labour relations structures.

In 2000, the WRF developed an aggressive business plan and hired Michael Van Pelt, its first full-time President. Van Pelt rebranded the WRF as a full-fledged research institution and think tank, focussed on investigating work, productivity, and work relationships. Van Pelt hired Dr. Gideon Strauss to edit Comment, and Ray Pennings to create an alternative model for industrial relations policy.

Since then, the WRF has begun to promote a holistic view of the economic sphere, in which the individual worker, the trade union, management, economics, and public policy are vitally interdependent. In projects ranging from its Corporate Partners Program, Sphere Sovereignty Project, and revamped Comment magazine, the WRF is charting a new path for economic life and civil society.

WRF has used polling of Canadians to see whether or not their push for Right to Work laws will fly. The survey done in 1997, 1999 and 2002 always asks if Canadians accept forced unioniziation, and compulsory membership. It is used by the WRF/CLAC to justify their corporatist ideology for changing Canada's labour laws.

"
Overcoming the adversarial labour relations model that has characterized Canadian labour-management relations requires systemic public policy change that, to date, has proved elusive. " Ray Pennings, Cooperative Labour Relations: Translating Theory into Practice,” a symposium conducted by the Work Research Foundation on November 25 and 26, 1999 in Vancouver, B.C.

"
The solution is to create local work communities that model the sort of respect workers and managers owe each other as fellow human beings and to work within structures that reinforce that respect. Besides the good will and positive benefits of living civilly with our neighbours, solutions based on mutual respect are the best recipe for social and economic prosperity."
Beyond Unions? by Ray Pennings Published in the Summer 2002 issue of The Comment

Besides polling to see if there is room to move to a corporatist right to work model of labour organizing, WRF launced an Industrial Relations Institute (another CLAC front group) which proposes:

"Our second project will focus on work organization practices in the construction industry and seek to quantify the various implications that arise from how we organize the workforce. The conventional craft method of organization will be compared with the wall-to-wall and open shop models and we will document the particular challenges and opportunities offered by these different approaches. The construction sector is one of those in which the monopoly model of worker representation is predominant, supported by various legislative provisions across the country. The implications of this model are profound on both a micro and macro economic level and the study we are undertaking should result in a series of monographs and symposiums tentatively planned for the latter part of 2002." Launch of the Centre for Industrial Relations Innovation
(Ingersoll, ON - September 19, 2001; Vancouver, BC - September 26, 2001; Edmonton, AB - October 17, 2001)
by Ray Pennings, Chair

It is this research that has been used by CLAC to give it an opening in the Construction Industry in Alberta in its work with Ledcor and CNRL and its corporatist collusion with the Klein government in recent months.

With its membership in the right wing World Confederation of Labour, CLAC has contacts with its Christian union counterpart in Venezula, the Central Latino–Americana de Trabajadores (CLAT). It is CLAT workers that CLAC will import into Alberta to work at wages below those of the other Trades Unions.

"It was in 1920 that was founded, in The Hague (Holland), the international trade union organisation currently known as World Confederation of Labour - WCL. Born in the European cradle and inspired by the basic values of Christian humanism, this organisation was constituted under the name of "International Federation of Christian Trade Unions". As was stipulated in the first Statutes, the new international trade union organisation wanted to protect, in an independent and autonomous way, not only the concrete workers' interests but also values such as the dignity of the human being, the priority of labour, democracy, justice and solidarity across the national borders. The Dutchman Pieter Jozef Serrarens was the first secretary-general, the Swiss Joseph Scherrer the first president"
A Brief History of the WCL

"Forced unionization" is right wing speak for right to work and is used by Conservative politicians when they oppose unionized construction projects. In Alberta it is what allowed the Human Resources Minister Mike Cardinal to void the labour relations act in favour of CLAC and Canadian National Resources Ltd. to allow the importation of workers that did not belong to or would be allowed to belong to the Building Trades Unions.

In Manitoba the Conservative opposition whined about Forced Unionization there too.

Mr. Hawranik – Legislative Assembly of Manitoba to request the Premier of Manitoba to consider ending his government's forced unionization plan of companies involved with the Red River Floodway expansion and to consider entering into discussions with business, construction and labour groups to ensure any qualified company and worker, regardless of their union status, is afforded the opportunity to bid and work on the floodway expansion project. (G. Friesen, P. Funk, R. Funk and others)

CLAC attacks the CLC and the CAW as being class war unions, while it portrays itself as the prince of peace in the labour movement. Discussing the CAW dispute with the CLC over raiding in 2000 the WRF news magazine Comment said this:

"Closed shop dogma

But Buzz deserves only two cheers, not three. While the CAW is for the moment a voice for union choice, it is not yet a voice for thoroughgoing freedom of association, and it is far from a voice for labour peace.

Hargrove would like working people to be able to choose which union should represent them. But he does not want people to be able to choose whether they want to belong to a union in the first place.

Many people find that their dues are used for causes beyond that of justice in labour relations. Sometimes, dues go directly into the pockets of political parties that many union members would not support in an election.

Both the CAW and the CLC unions sponsor schemes for social reengineering that go beyond the interests and concerns of their grassroots members and that some of their members cannot in good conscience support. But the zealous dedication of both the CAW and the CLC unions to the closed shop dogma means that such members must choose between their job and their conscience.

"Closed shop" means that if you want to have access to work in a unionized place of employment you have to be a member of the union representing workers in that workplace. Many unions feel strongly about the closed shop. In their opinion, it prevents the vice of freeloading. The freeloader would refuse to join the union or to pay dues but would by law enjoy the privileges of union representation and the benefits of collective bargaining.

There is a flexible way in which to allow freedom of association to people who cannot in good conscience belong to a union or support all of its causes, while at the same time preventing freeloading: require bona fide conscientious objectors to contribute an amount equal to what would have been their union dues to a charity mutually agreed upon by the objector and the union.

Still class warfare

For the CAW-even more than for most CLC unions-labour relations remains class warfare. While many trade unions in North America are beginning to see the value of win-win negotiations, also known as mutual gains bargaining (MGB), the CAW is "totally opposed" to this kind of innovation.

"I see it as in the interest of the employer only," says Hargrove. "The goals of the corporation are different than the goals of working people."

Were it indeed impossible to reconcile the interests of labour and management, or of labour and the other stakeholders in the economy, then there could be no hope for real labour peace. Every collective agreement would be just a momentary truce in an ongoing war that no one could win.

An increase in union choice would be a boon for organized working people. But that choice would only make a significant difference if workers get to choose between significantly different trade unions. The choice between CLC unions and the CAW is a choice between Dumb and Dumber.

The CLC unions offer working people the closed shop within a union monopoly; the CAW offers them the closed shop within a union duopoly. The CLC unions offer working people class war lite; the CAW offers them class war turbo.

A real choice would include unions that offer workers real trade union democracy through genuine freedom of association and unions that realize the wisdom of labour peace through mutual gains bargaining. Labour leaders who offer such an option deserve the full three cheers that Buzz Hargrove does not."

Gideon Strauss is research and education director for the Work Research Foundation and editor of WRF Comment.

Clever to talk about the closed shop and the need for real choice, freedom of association this is the same language as right wing uses when it calls for Right to Work laws against unions.

And if you don't believe CLAC is right wing lets go way back to 1987 and see what the right wing psuedo libertarian Freedom Party of Ontario wrote:


"That
unions exercise legalized coercion as their method of "negotiating" is nothing new to those of us who believe in individual freedom. What is astonishing is how so much of the Canadian public, despite being aware of it, tacitly accepts this coercion --- and sometimes even outright violence --- as inevitable and legitimate aspects of the labour movement.

Our laws do not prevent the use of this coercion. Instead, our labour laws institute, sanction, and enforce it. Explicit in every union action from initial certification to its "negotiating" philosophy and ultimately to its political advocacies is the use of coercion and the denial of freedom of choice to anyone who does not agree with its militant labour stance.

Legalized coercion is the tool of the labour movement. Mutual consent is the target of its destruction.

It's coercion when individuals are forced to join a union against their will just because a "majority" votes for it. Don't minorities have any rights? Should the rest of us just stand back and keep swallowing the old union line that it represents its members when we all know that union methods of recruitment depend on the word mandatory?

Just ask Merv Lavigne what he thinks about union coercion. Ask him how he felt about being forced to fund political causes he doesn't even agree with."

Victory in “Lavigne Case”

Business Agent BG&PW Union and Legal Counsel for NUPGE, Cam Nelson stands beside approx 33% of legal documents researched and generated in this case.1988 also saw an important legal decision from the Ontario Court of Appeal. In 1986 a community college teacher named Merv Lavigne funded by the right-wing National Citizen’s Coalition, had gone to Court asserting that his rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms had been violated. He claimed that his Union (Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union – a NUPGE affiliate) was not entitled to use his dues for non-collective bargaining issues. If successful, this argument would have substantially prevented unions from participating in the political process.

Following legal precedents from the United States, the Judge at trial found in Lavigne’s favour, and ruled that unions could not use mandatory dues for political, social, or other non-bargaining related activities. On appeal, Brother Nelson acted as NUPGE’s counsel, and the Court of Appeal overturned the Trial Court’s decision and ruled that unions have the right to decide how they spend the dues they receive, including spending for purposes other than collective bargaining. Lavigne and the National Citizen’s Coalition immediately launched an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Once again Brother Nelson acted as counsel to NUPGE, and, on June 27, 1991, in a landmark decision, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the importance, value and legitimacy of the social and political role of unions in Canada and dismissed the Lavigne appeal.

Lavigne was awarded the Colin M. Brown Freedom Medal by the NCC for his efforts.

"The Colin M. Brown Freedom Medal commemorates the late founder of the NCC, who first started his crusade for "more freedom through less government" in 1967. Mr. Brown died on March 4th 1987."

The Right Wing supported Lavigne because he was challenging the fact his dues were being used to support the NDP, the party of the Canadian Labour movement. These are the same complaints CLAC makes about forced union dues and they denounce the NDP on a regular basis.

It's not about choice, its about denying that the working class and the employing class have nothing in common.

Right wing Columnist Andrew Coyne agrees with CLAC, about the tyranny of the closed shop, and says so in a National Post column talking about the Supreme Court rulings on the Lavigne case and the Quebec Construction Unions closed shop. And with friends like this no wonder CLAC has so many enemies in the Labour movement.

"So now not only is the Rand Formula constitutional, but so is the closed shop. The Court has a fine idea of workers' rights: not only can the union shake you down for your lunch money, whether or not you're a member, but -- at least in Quebec -- it can prevent you from earning the money in the first place. After all, there's all that "context" to consider.

The mob rule that first led the government of Quebec to enact this repressive legislation has now been sanctioned by the highest court in the land. God help us."
The closed shop is constitutional? Andrew Coyne, National Post Monday, October 22, 2001

The Freedom Parties assertion that mutual consent will eliminate unions, sounds like CLAC's approach to labour relations in their win win / mutual gains bargaining approach to labour management.

The Freedom Party being another right wing lobby regularly runs ads against "Forced Unionization" during Ontraio elections. This is the kind of company that CLAC keeps ideologically.

Unite The Right

TORONTO (March 20-21, 1998) - Fp president Robert Metz was among the key speakers participating in this year's Roots of Change Conference held at the Royal York Hotel. Accompanying him at the event was Fp leader Lloyd Walker, whose comments to Toronto Star reporter Thomas Walkom set the tone of that paper's coverage of the event.

Organized by Progressive Group for Independent Business (PGIB) president Craig Chandler, the Friday and Saturday conference was billed as a 'unite-the-right' event. With an impressive list of speakers with philosophies ranging from 'social conservative' to 'libertarian', attendees heard a wide range of opinion on the merits and pitfalls of uniting these various fragments of the so- called 'right.'

SPEAKERS LIST

FRIDAY: Toronto Sun Money Editor Linda Leatherdale; president of the Employer WCB Crisis Committee, Richard Fink; London South MPP Bob Wood; journalist, author and talk show host Michael Coren; Mackenzie Institute president John Thompson; Freedom Party president Robert Metz; former Halton School Board trustee Robb McLeod.

SATURDAY: president of Any Key Solutions, Tim McKay; past Reform Party candidate and Canadian Citizen's Alliance president Hugh Prendergast; Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada (APEC) president Ron Leitch; author, writer, and political activist Greg Vezina; Reform Party of Canada's executive councillor in Quebec Brian Rogers; Campaign Life Coalition member Steve Jalsevac; founder-president of Renaissance Canada Inc., Ken Campbell; PGIB Ontario youth chairman and board member of the Canadian Youth Rights Association, Karl Baldauf; president of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Youth Association, Walied Soliman.

COMMON GROUND

Roots of Change organizer Craig Chandler wrapped up the two day conference by calling upon attendees to arrive at some consensus on the issues they could all agree to support, despite their many fundamental differences in philosophy and areas of concern. Surprisingly, support was virtually unanimous on six key issues, all of which are supported by Freedom Party policy:

(1) End government funding of abortion; (2) Seek an alternative to Canada's first-past-the-post electoral system; (3) Repeal the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; (4)Calgary Framework in its current form; (5) Promote less government, lower taxes, more individual freedom; (6) Limit law-making to those issues that protect individual rights. Oppose the

We are pleased to report that the last item (#6) was included at the behest of Freedom PartyMary Lou Gutscher, who was quick to warn all that item #5 could be interpreted in ways not consistent with individual freedoms. founding member

Chandler vowed to integrate these recommendations into PGIB's lobby platform when he returned to Calgary following the conference. Our thanks and appreciation are extended to both Mr. Chandler and the Progressive Group for Independent Business for hosting a most provocative and stimulating event.

And the right wing media loves to poll Canadians to prove their point that Unions are no longer relevant. As right wing columnist Terence Corcoran writes in his Labour Day Column in the National Post in 2003 when they polled Canadians about unions.

"
But there's more to worry unions here than general worker
crankiness about the usefulness or desirability of union membership.
The poll highlights the great fallacy behind the historical rise and
entrenched power of organized labour.

After decades of mythical struggles based on slogans of class
warfare, worker oppression and exploitation, the entire union
movement shows up in the poll as an ideological sham.
Self-portrayed as the champion of downtrodden masses of working
men and women, the union movement emerges today as the iron
protector of a privileged minority. The alleged saviours of a
struggling underclass are in fact the armed guardians of the
fortresses of a relatively wealthy overclass.

The poll shows only 32% of Canadians are union members, and the
vast majority of those union members (81%) want to hold on to
union status. They are generally better educated (more likely college
or university) than non-union workers, are members of well-paid
professional and service organizations such as teachers and nurses,
and are significantly older. More than 45% of union members are
more than 45 years old. And they mostly work for big government
(72%) and big business.

None of this is unexpected. All of the figures roughly correspond to
other workplace statistics. What is surprising is the degree to which
union members want to hold on to union status compared with the
large proportion of non-union Canadians who want nothing to do
with unions. Few Canadians pine for union rescue, perhaps because
they see fewer benefits of membership than they already enjoy.
But there are other reasons non-union Canadians have little use for
unions. The poll shows Canadians have a deep sense of fairness and
principle when it comes to their jobs and workplaces. They don't
care much for union seniority and prefer instead job advancement
and layoff policies that are based on merit. A large majority of all
working Canadians (76%) oppose government contract rules that
favour unionized companies. Canadians want secret ballots on union
certification and de-certification. They generally oppose the use of
union funds for non-union activities.

These aren't the views of a nation of union collectivists and socialists
who see their work and living conditions in constant deterioration
and in need of union rescue.

In fact, almost nobody thinks unions are a "very positive" force
behind Canada's growth and economic success. Nor are they much
taken with governments as national economic saviours. Canadians
see business as the engine of growth, especially small business.
While only 12% of Canadians view unions very positively, 67% see
small business as the nation's most positive economic driver.
Combined, 96% of Canadians look to small business and 79% to big
business as the major contributors to economic well-being, well
ahead of governments and unions.

The National Post/Global National poll paints a post-Labour Day
portrait of Canadians who love their jobs, respect and have good
relationships with their mostly private-sector employers, and who
are more than happy to make their way in the work world without
having a union boss by their side."

Well as the header to this blog says, the Ruling ideas are the ideas of the Ruling Class. And the National Post is the voice of the Reform/Alliance/Conservative Right Wing in Canada so what would we expect from them but this kind of conclusion. Cocoran's conclusions arise from a Leger Poll that the National Post commissioned, so it set the quuestions to get the answers it wanted.

First union representation in Canada may be low, 32% but it has actually increased. And it certainly is higher than in the U.S. Thats the complaint from Right To Work lobby in the U.S. that Canada's productivity is low because of high unionzation rates compared to them. Coyne and Cocoran would likely agree.

Cocoran asserts we all work for 'big government or big business' loaded terms, and that makes unionized workers an 'overclass'. What?!! Even in the relatively well paid sectors of the economy such as Gas Plant workers or Construction workers in Alberta, who may make around $100,000 a year, not exactly what the real 'overclass' makes when you look at the salaries of Doctors, Lawyers, Investment Bankers, Real Estate Agents or Journalists, who make more than that.

By asking the questions that the National Post and the majority of the private sector media constantly drum into us, they get the anwsers they want. Small business good, big business and big government bad, small business good, unions bad, small business good. Gee the National Post is a big business, so I guess it's 'bad'.

And their poll is completely contradicted by the survey done a year earlier by CLAC's WRF in 2002. WRF hired University of Lethbridge sociologist Dr. Reginald Bibby
(one of most reputiable sociological researchers in Canada and he is NOT a pollster) to do an independent survey of Canadian's opions about unions. That survey found 64% of Canadians approved of unions!! Despite asking their own loaded questions.

Bibby's conclusion is diametrically opposed to that of Cocoran's smug comments. Bibby found that amongst Canadians who did not belong to unions beleived ther best bet for protection of their workplace rights was the government and legislation. While union members believed it was their union that could best protect them. And former union members believed in unions and legislation.

The runs completely counter to assertations made by Cocoran and the National Post Poll.

The National Post poll is simply telling us what they want us to beleive that unions are no longer neccasary or relevant (tell that to Wal-Mart workers), and to promote the right wing agenda to smash unions.

Unions hold some blame for this, failure to publicize themselves, failure to clean up their act and be more democratic and responsive to their rank and file, failure to advertise on TV on radio in the media. Failure to develop a national press that speaks for workers.

That being said the right wing continues to attack unions and lays the ongoing ground work ending "forced unionization".

So lets go over this again the Right has a program and it includes ending "forced unionization", ending "taxpayer funding for abortion", opposing same sex marriage, opposing public daycare, opposing immigration( temproary non union workers are ok), opposing refugee rights.

Right now they are busy lobbying against human rights for gays and lesbians, challenging the right for a woman to choose, and opposing public daycare. But soon they will turn their focus on the unions again.

It is why the labour movement must make common cause with campaigns for same sex marriage, full funding for abortion services (which are currently underfunded and privatized), full funding for public daycare with living wages for daycare workers, and of course the right to unionize and the right to strike.

But it is not enough to just throw money and endorsements at these causes, its important to be active in them, to shape them, to recognize that for instance the gay business community is growing and is largely non-union!

That a womans right to choose also includes the right to having a midwife, for birthing, fully paid for as part of medicare which isn't now. And that mid-wives should be unionized and recognized as a profession.

The Christian right wing will attack prostitutes, prostitution and all aspects of sexuality outside of marriage. Labour must oppose these attacks and call for unionization of Sex industry workers, especially in order to assure these women's safety and their health.

The labour movement and the left must not be silent when confronting the Christian Right, we must speak out in favour of a unitarian pluralism, secularism needs to be defended against those who would impose their moral values on us.

The creeping theological domination of politics and the failure to confront it is best illustrated by the fact that creationism is being taught in schools and universities side by side with evolution.

You cannot reason with the right, nor can you reason when arguing with them, as T-Bone Slim said the politiest form of response is attack. And labour and the left have failed to do this.

Now labour and the left must speak out against the Christian Right as the real threat they are and as they have always been. It is time to FIGHT THE RIGHT.