Passage of a bill mandating prompt payment for subcontractors on public works has been delayed after senators declined to vote on it in committee. General contractors object to the measure: “We all know the dynamics, okay?”
The environmental impact of a national carbon tax is uncertain, say Access To Information memos from the finance department. Staff also warned all consumers will pay more under the tax to take effect in 2018: “Carbon taxes have disadvantages.”
Rail safety reforms enacted after the Lac-Mégantic disaster failed to avert the fiery derailment of tank cars in a 2015 wreck, warns the Transportation Safety Board. Investigators yesterday cautioned regulations appeared inadequate: “They did not perform any better.”
VIA Rail has again been cited by regulators for failing to accommodate disabled passengers. The ruling by the Canadian Transportation Agency followed a successful 2007 Supreme Court lawsuit against VIA by the Council of Canadians with Disabilities: “They still got it wrong.”
RCMP in 1983 secretly assigned undercover officers to shadow a teachers’ union president, newly-released records show. Access To Information files detail elaborate surveillance in British Columbia in 1983 and ’84 over fears of a general strike.
“It is absurd and totally inappropriate,” said Larry Kuehn, former president of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation who was monitored by plainclothes Mounties. “It is not subversive to disagree with a government.”
Confidential files of the RCMP Security Service were released by Library & Archives Canada. Records indicate police believed the Communist Party had infiltrated union groups protesting 1983 budget cuts.
“I wasn’t aware of this surveillance,” said Kuehn, 72, now research director for the Teachers’ Federation. “Ten years ago I asked for documents the Archives had from the RCMP Security Service, and the records they sent me were mainly from the 1950s and 1960s,” said Kuehn.
Police eavesdropped on Kuehn’s conversations with protest organizers, and on November 2, 1983 assigned two police to follow Kuehn as he met at a Vancouver diner with a local Communist Party member. The two spoke for 20 minutes, according to a surveillance report. “The individuals were too far away for any of their conversation to be overheard,” said the memo.
Kuehn met with Fred Wilson, provincial Party labour secretary. “I knew Fred and saw him at meetings,” Kuehn said yesterday in an interview. “We did not have a close relationship.”
Union protests followed a 1983 austerity budget that saw the province fire some 1,600 public employees and introduce legislation impacting labour contracts. A resulting strike shut down schools, courts, liquor stores and provincial government offices.
“It was a period with very deep anger and a sense of betrayal,” said Kuehn. “What the government did was attempt to bring about an end to a social safety net and labour rights. They wanted to sanction firing without cause.”
Feared A General Strike
Police feared a general strike in British Columbia, the first in Canada since the 1919 Winnipeg strike. “The possibility of a general strike is considered high,” said a November 2, 1983 RCMP memo Subversive Involvement In The Current B.C. Labour Dispute.
The B.C. Federation of Labour at the time formed Operation Solidarity, a coalition of union organizers and community groups opposed to cutbacks. Police at first saw little evidence of Communist involvement, but grew increasingly alarmed over alleged subversion.
A November 1983 memo concluded, “None of the information currently available indicates anything other than a peripheral role for any of our target groups. They have in essence jumped on the bandwagon and have played no significant role.”
By January 1984, RCMP feared Communists had gained influence. “The subversive movement was developing a significant voice,” said one confidential memo. “There is no intent on our part to imply in this submission that the entire Solidarity Coalition is subversive, nor that the Communist Party of Canada has been the sole instigator of the recent labour unrest in British Columbia. We do however believe that the Communist Party of Canada and other target groups are actively trying to exacerbate unrest that exists, and use their current efforts to build political momentum for future advantage.”
A follow-up memo dated June 1984 claimed Communist infiltration had grown. “The depth of subversive involvement in the Solidarity Coalition is extensive with Party people holding major positions within the group,” police reported. “It is not expected to be violent, but feelings are running high amongst the labour people in the province.”
Documents disclosed RCMP investigators tracked license plates of vehicles driven by union executives, and checked protestors’ names against a database of Communist sympathizers dating from 1959. Several memos indicated tips on subversion were provided by sources within Operation Solidarity. The names were redacted.
By Tom Korski 
Unpaid contractors on public works have faced blacklisting in attempting to collect money they’re owed, a Senate panel yesterday was told. Senators are considering a bill mandating 30-day payment to trades and subcontractors: “I can assure you it exists.”
The first parliamentary report on the impact of a national carbon tax is due in three weeks. The Senate energy committee yesterday served notice it will report by March 9 on the effect of cabinet’s greenhouse gas emission targets: “When will the government face the music?”
A medical marijuana grower received a $50,000 grant in the name of industrial research, say Access To Information records. An MP who co-authored a 2014 Commons health committee report on cannabis described the subsidy as inappropriate: “I wouldn’t invest any government money in the production of marijuana.”
Accidental damage to buried utility lines costs up to $5 billion a year, the Senate energy committee has been told. Senators expressed support for a bill to create a national call-before-you-dig system: “There is really nothing but upside.”
MPs last night protested an 11th hour bid by cabinet to amend a DNA privacy bill already endorsed by the Commons justice committee. Members of all leading parties accused cabinet of gutting the legislation: “This action makes me more than a little bit angry.”
Canada’s Public Sector Integrity Commissioner says a Court ruling that he breached a whistleblower’s right to procedural fairness will not be appealed. One MP called the case outrageous: “It raises very serious questions.”
The Canada Border Services Agency faces a federal lawsuit over alleged racial profiling. The Canadian Human Rights Commission has identified 77 profiling complaints against the Agency in the period from 2011 to 2016: “It was rude and humiliating.”
Most Canadians remain uninformed on major credit charges by lenders, says the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. The Agency paid a pollster $76,112 to survey the public on “knowledge of their rights and responsibilities.”
The RCMP in a case of disguised discipline unfairly revoked a file clerk’s security status as a means to fire the employee, says the Federal Court of Appeal. “This is huge,” said the British Columbia complainant in the case: “It got really ugly.”
Regulators had to “remove the punch bowl” with new credit curbs on indebted homeowners, says the CEO of Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation. However no additional restrictions are immediately planned, the Commons finance committee was told: “It is possible to have too much of a good thing.”
