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The WFC helped tremendously in the election of the McGuinty Liberals in 2003. This page is a live webpage dedicated to tabulating everything the WFC sponsors have gotten from the government since 2003. Unfortunately for the taxpayers of Ontario, the $5-million the WFC sponsors invested in 2003 has been paid back many many times over to the sponsors using your tax dollars.

As Ian Urquart of the Toronto Star noted:

"All (the WFC Sponsors) have reasons to be thankful to the governing Liberals for either increasing spending in their area or changing laws and regulations to their liking."

Who are the WFC sponsors?

On the WFC website, there are nine unions who are the official sponsors of the Working Families Coalition: They are three non-construction unions:

• Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association
• Canadian Auto Workers
• Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation

The remaining five unions are linked through the Ontario Building Trades and Construction Council - commonly referred to as the Building Trades. These unions are:

• International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
• Millwrights
• International Union Of Operating Engineers Local 793
• Painters District Council 46
• Ontario Pipe Trades Council

What the Building Trades have received:

Pat Dillon, spokesperson for the WFC, is also the Business Manager of the Ontario Building and Construction Trades Council. Pat Dillon and the Building Trades have done exceptionally well with the Ontario Liberals since 2003.

Benefits received by construction unions include:

Skills Training Infrastructure Program: $25-million in 2007.
Union-run skills training centres are very different from community college training centres. Community colleges are open to all Ontarians. Union-run training halls, however, exclude all Ontarians except those belonging to that particular union. Regardless of this fact, in 2007 the government of Ontario bestowed Building Trades Union affiliated training centres with some $25-million for this program. Again, this public money was granted with no requirement that the training centre be open to all Ontarians. Check this link for more information.

Bill 144 - Labour Relations Statute Amendment Act
The McGuinty government introduced and adopted this Bill with scarcely any consultation and it provided the Building Trades with significant new advantages in the certification process that are in direct contrast with the McGuinty Liberal's promise to fix the "democratic deficit" in the province.

• Card-Based Certification - the Bill removed the right of workers to vote via a secret ballot in construction certification applications making it much easier for construction unions to organize a contractor even if most of its employees do not want the union. The vote was replaced with membership-based evidence that is fraught with problems.

• Remedial Certification - the Bill granted extensive new powers to the Labour Relations Board to certify a construction trade union, not withstanding the wishes of a contractor's employees not to have the union, if the Board finds the contractor behaved in a way that may have frustrated the certification drive.

These new powers have resulted in a number of certifications that probably would not have occurred under the old rules.

In addition, Bill 144 did not address two significant problems of which the government is aware that continue to give construction unions unfair advantages over the working lives of construction workers who have not chosen to join a trade union.

• Non-construction employer definition - The McGuinty government continues to allow municipalities, retailers and other companies that are clearly not in the construction industry to be certified by construction unions due to a very narrow interpretation of the "non-construction employer" definition. This results in a situation where two employees on a municipal job site can get a construction union certification in place so that thousands of employees that do not belong to a construction trade union are prohibited from working on that municipality's projects. This drives up construction prices to municipalities, such as the City of Toronto, by 100's of millions of dollars.

• Timing of Application - The McGuinty Liberals did not fix a procedural ruling of the Labour Board that uses the number of employees working on the date of a certification application as the basis for determining the union's support. Unions know if they file an application on a day when a job-site is short-staffed and when enough of those employees have signed membership cards, the Board will not consider that wishes of the tens or even hundreds of employees who may have worked the day before the application or the day after. This is undemocratic and not in the public's best interest, yet the McGuinty Liberals did nothing to correct it.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses said at the time Bill 144 was passed that: "the government has shown that it is more concerned with paying back its Union buddies than in developing sound public policy that would bolster economic growth."

Do you have more information? We need more details and costing. Please send it to us at info@WorkingFamiliesWatch.ca.