Heather McPherson wants to outlaw the targets of her private member’s bill. She refers to them politely as “employer influenced unions.” Many workers know these repellent bodies as “yellow dog unions,” ugly creatures that pretend to be unions but put most of their energy into helping employers, often against the interests of the actual workers they purportedly represent. Think Colonel Sanders claiming he can negotiate on behalf of the chickens or Dracula acting as a blood donor broker.
Unsurprisingly, the head of one of the unions that McPherson singled out for criticism, the Christian Labour Association of Canada, (CLAC) founded in 1952, objected to the proposed legislation. Wayne Prins, CLAC’s Executive Director, said “Nothing in this bill advances the interests of everyday working Canadians, and nothing in it provides protections that don’t already exist in every labour code in Canada……McPherson’s comments are a desperate attempt to garner favour with rival unions to CLAC, and they expose a remarkable lack of understanding of real labour relations in Canada.”
Speaking of lack of understanding of Canadian labour relations, it is worth noting that CLAC’s understanding of labour relations led them within living memory to form a lobbying alliance in BC with the Progressive Contractors Association, the Independent Contractors and Business Associations, the BC Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the Canada West Construction Union (CWCU). With the exception of the CWCU, which appears to be closely aligned with CLAC, these are all employer side organizations. I guess the folks at CLAC haven’t got the memo yet about being judged by the company you keep.
On June 4, McPherson’s bill had its first hour of debate, with a second hour slated for October. To those of us who see CLAC as the prime example of yellow dog unionism in Canada, seems like a glacially slow time line, but private members bills (proposed by MPs who are not cabinet members or cabinet secretaries) are often slow to move, often taking several years to be resolved, and in many cases they are where good intentions go to die in Ottawa.
One of the speakers scheduled to speak at the June 4 press conference being held to mark the first hour of debate on the McPherson bill, is BC heavy equipment operator and human rights advocate Mike Pearson. Pearson’s advocacy for a family whose son, Sam Fitzpatrick, died because of management recklessness in 2009 at a Peter Kiewit Sons ULC construction site at Toba Inlet in BC, where workers allegedly were represented by CLAC, gave him his own reasons to oppose the pseudo union. Pearson is outraged that CLAC wrote a letter of support for the multinational construction firm when BC’s Worksafe BC issued a then-record fine against the lethal employer, claiming that Kiewit had a “prior demonstrated commitment to safety.”
This is a questionable claim, given how often Kiewit has been cited in worker deaths, injuries and shoddy workmanship at its projects (see my Tyee story linked above.) With CLAC support, Kiewit got the reduced fine it sought, in what many observers, including this one, saw as an insulting-to-workers slap on the wrist.
Despite this reduced fine, Worksafe noted “In these circumstances, we would describe it as ‘heedless,’ ‘wanton,’ ‘extreme,’ ‘gross,’ and ‘highly irresponsible’ for the employer to have known that there was a potential for rocks to roll through the worksite but not take adequate steps to contain this risk by way of a detailed and carefully monitored scaling program.”
“My task is to laser focus on the CLAC supporting a smaller fine for the American corporation, rather than advocating for the dues paying (now dead) worker. I’m not here for the politics, I’m doing this to further support worker safety and rights on the jobsite,” Pearson told me in a recent email.
(Full disclosure, I spent years covering the Fitzpatrick death and Worksafe BC’s fine reduction and through that reporting came to know and respect Pearson) I am not a neutral on this topic, or on the question of CLAC’s dubious legitimacy.
Neither are spokespeople for organized labour in Canada and abroad. CLAC, which currently claims to represent over 60,000 Canadian workers (https://www.clac.ca/About-us) was suspended from the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in 2011 and does not belong to Canadian labour bodies like the Canadian Labour Congress, which hailed McPherson’s bill in a January social media post that read:
Canadian Labour Congress – Congrès du travail du Canada January 2:
“We applaud @heathermacnow for introducing Bill C-259, the Fair Representation Act, taking on employer-dominated “company unions” and standing up for real collective bargaining
This bill gives the Canada Industrial Relations Board stronger tools to protect workers’ right to independent, democratic unions Canada’s Unions supports this bill because workers deserve a real voice and real power on the job.”
Other union bodies that offered early support for C-259 include the Edmonton and District Labour Council IUOE local 955( IUOE Local 955 support) and IBEW local 424 (IBEW Local 424 support.)
Avi Lewis, the newly elected NDP leader, has voiced his support for this initiative, saying “Workers fought for generations to build strong, independent unions. Those gains shouldn’t be taken for granted. Protecting union independence means protecting workers’ ability to stand together and fight for better wages, safer workplaces, and more dignity on the job.”
Heather McPherson has called on every member of Parliament who claims to support labour rights and worker safety to support her bill. She told the Tyee at the end of 2025:
“One of the things I like best about the anti-CLAC legislation is, if Pierre Poilievre really wants to show himself as being opposed to company unions, if he’s really on it for the side of workers, his folks will support that bill. Otherwise, his cards are on the table and it’ll be pretty clear that’s not who he’s here for.”
In my view, that goes for every MP, not just the Poilievre posse. I urge every reader to let their MP know you want them to support this bill, and get your union local, labour council, faith group, book or bowling club to tell Parliament that bill C-259 should be passed and implemented. Some people are worried, too often rightly these days, about the phenomenon of “fake news.” We should also beware of “fake unions”.
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