Worker representation. Child care. The pandemic. The 2021 Canadian federal election is bringing many issues to the fore, and the faculty and students of the CIRHR are lending their expert opinions.
This page will be updated on an ongoing basis. Last update: August 24, 2021.
On the Conservative Party proposal to require large federally regulated businesses to appoint at least one worker representative to their boards of directors:
August 23, 2021: "Conservatives pledge worker representation on boards, but union leaders remain skeptical about shift in approach," by Mark Rendell in the Globe and Mail and featuring commentary by Centre Director Rafael Gomez
Professor Gomez noted that this is historically a conservative idea, since "If labour and management can fix the problems together, then we'll have less government regulation. Government regulation steps into the vacuum left by lack of worker representation." And while Canada has not had serious policy discussions along these lines since the early 1980s, the political discourse has shifted.
"There's a lot more sensitivity to worker's issues, a lot more support for things like minimum-wage increases ... because of the erosion, actually, of unions. They're not there in the private sector any more, largely. They're a public-sector phenomenon. So you have the vacuum. ... And into that vacuum, ideas like this can emerge.
On the pandemic: