The B.C. Conservative Party is taking a stab at ending the provincial government’s policy that only allows unionized tradespeople to work on public projects with a bill introduced by MLA Kiel Giddens and debated in the legislature on Monday (April 13).
And while Giddens’s private member’s bill has about zero chance of passing, the measure does indicate the party is likely willing to make ending these “community benefit agreements” part of an election platform.
“Let workers work on public projects,” Giddens said in a speech on the back steps of the legislature alongside several organizations representing “open shop” contractors. He called for the NDP government to allow “fair and open tendering” for projects.
NDP MLAs, meanwhile, held an event of their own earlier in the day outside the premier’s office, alongside unionized members of the B.C. Building Trades organization.
B.C. Building Trades CEO Brynn Bourke argued that Giddens’s legislation could take away jobs from local workers and lead the province “back to the old way of doing business.”
“An old way where we were building the Canada Line with temporary foreign workers operating the tunnel boring machine.”
But by Giddens calculation, the new way — current rules were introduced in 2019 by former premier John Horgan — has cost the province an extra $17 billion and led to a combined 158 years of delay on major projects such as the Pattullo Bridge replacement.
Mike Davis, president of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of B.C., stood with Giddens and argued that because 85 per cent of construction workers are non-union, public-project bidding is less competitive under the policy.
“More bidders provide better value,” he said.
Bourke disagrees, pointing out that cost overruns on recent projects are in line with other regions that do not have similar rules requiring unionized labour.
Bourke also doubts that the Public Sector Construction Projects Procurement Act will get any traction in the legislature.
But she does see it as a first salvo in a coming battle.
“I think we understand that the NDP is in government and the Conservatives are in opposition,” she said. “But what we wanted to do was show the Conservatives a strong response. This is obviously a trial balloon for a potential platform that they may put forward.”