Editor:
Re: Hiebert touts poll support, Nov. 5.
MP Russ Hiebert (South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale) claims that he has polling information indicating that Canadians support the provisions of his draconian Bill C-377, which singles out unions for discriminatory treatment.
He says that the sponsor of this poll, the Canadian LabourWatch Association, is “non-partisan.”
In fact, LabourWatch is an anti-union front group for organizations that believe minimum wages are too high. LabourWatch issued an earlier poll back in 2011 that Hiebert used constantly to make his case for Bill C-377. Well-known pollster Allan Gregg described that poll as “horrendously biased” to get the results that LabourWatch wanted in order to promote C-377.
Unions are transparent and our members can easily access any information they want about our finances.
But let’s talk a bit more about transparency. The Conservative party’s recent convention in Calgary was largely a secretive affair.
Hiebert and the Conservatives preach about transparency but don’t observe it themselves.
Ken Georgetti, Canadian Labour Congress president, Ottawa
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I found it a bit hypocritical of Conservative MP Russ Hiebert to be asking the unions – or anyone, for that matter – to disclose anything.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper won’t answer any questions about anything. He is the most secretive PM Canada has ever had.
He was going to bar a CTV cameraman from a recent trip because he had the nerve to ask a question that had not been scripted. The only media to which Harper will respond are the right-wing radio talk-show hosts that swallow everything he has to say.
Harper shows no respect for the citizens of this country when he will not answer their questions. At the same time, one of his yes men is demanding that unions be more forthcoming.
Perhaps, in this case, the prime minister has created the template that the unions have chosen to use.
George Stone, White Rock
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I see in the Peace Arch News that our MP, Russ Hiebert, would like to break the unions.
When you think of it, that would not be easy. I would think the police and the fire department and the teachers and the nurses and all the trades would not like that.
Ralph E. Johnson, Surrey
