Canadian Politics Today

Another reason why CUPE has no credibility.

Newly elected Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s recent rhetoric pandering to workers contradicts his long track record of attacking unions and dividing workers, experts say.

Poilievre has spent much of his leadership campaign paying lip service to Canadian workers and claiming, without evidence, that workers support him.
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Poilievre aggressively fought card-check legislation that would make it easier for workers to unionize in favour of a two-step process that gives employers more time to interfere in the union drive.
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Under Stephen Harper’s government, Poilievre was one of the loudest supporters of the anti-union Bill C-377, a likely unconstitutional piece of legislation that tried to force Canadian labour unions to disclose all of their internal finances while big corporations would not have been subjected to the same rules.

Poilievre is also a major proponent of bringing US Right-to-Work laws to Canada. Right-to-Work laws weaken the labour movement by making it more difficult for unions to collect membership dues which pay for the collective bargaining process. Wages and benefits are lower on average in states with Right-to-Work laws.
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Poilievre also used xenophobic rhetoric arguing that “foreign” migrant workers were taking Canadian workers’ jobs and driving down wages.

Poilievre was Stephen Harper’s Employment Minister while thousands of migrant workers had their work permits expire in 2015 which forced them to leave the country or remain as undocumented workers.

“That’s why they’re called temporary foreign workers,” Poilievre said about the looming deportations in 2015.
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Poilievre defended his management of the temporary foreign worker program and the deportations: “Broadly speaking, we made the right decision with the program, and we’re going to continue.”