(Queen’s Park) - Randy Hillier, MPP for Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington brought up questionable union tactics during Question Period today, demanding to know why the Minister of Labour supports questionable methods used by unions in Ontario.
“This government has become a government of special interests, not one of public interest,” said Hillier. “We all know that the McGuinty Liberals receive massive union donations, and so it’s easy to see why we have some of the most backwards labour laws in Canada.”
The question was spurred by a letter from Arc Electric in Ottawa, which has been destroyed by union tactics which have been made illegal in other jurisdictions. The company was victim to “salting” – where union organizers join a company without announcing that their goal is to certify a company, and “stripping”, where a union removes workers from a company, causing it to default on its commitments. It was also forced to compete with “Market Equalization Funds”, where unions subsidize certified companies through union dues collected on other projects.
“The Minister has no answers to these questions. He says that we’re “all in this together”, but his union backers clearly don’t feel the same way. They’re more than willing to bankrupt companies if their employees don’t want to join the union, which puts to bed the notion of worker’s rights,” stated Hillier. “The McGuinty government clearly has no problems picking winners and losers in the marketplace, and we should shine a light on which winners it’s picking.”
Randy Hillier, MPP Lanark Frontenac Lennox, is a co-founder of the Lanark Landowners Association, which was brought to life to address government imposition on the rights of private property owners, and to address the regressive regulatory impositions that government was bringing down upon farmers and business owners in rural Ontario.
In 2006, Randy resigned as President of the OLA in order to run as a candidate for the Progressive Conservatives. Randy was elected in the 2007 provincial election.
Randy a long-time resident of Lanark County, an electrician by trade and member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), continues to co-publish and edit rural Ontario’s successful magazine “The Landowner.”
