Yesterday, the legal team for ICBA and several other associations, employers, workers and two progressive unions, filed a factum with the BC Court of Appeal making the case to overturn a BC Supreme Court decision on the Horgan Government’s so-called “Community Benefits Agreements.”
ICBA and others are challenging the Transportation Minister’s ability to discriminate against 85% of B.C.’s construction workforce by creating the NDP government’s labour framework for the sole purpose of benefitting its Building Trades Union (BTU) supporters.
Earlier this year, a judge ruled that the government-appointed Labour Relations Board should deal with the industry’s concerns. But ICBA’s legal team argues otherwise in this factum: “There are no labour relations issues under the Labour Relations Code that need to be adjudicated,” it says. “The issue is solely whether the Minister reasonably exercised her statutory authority under theTransportation Act, which comes within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts in our constitutional system.”
ICBA is simply asking for a fair shot at government-tendered work for its members and the hundreds of thousands of men and women they employe. The BC Court of Appeal is expected to hear the case in the coming months.
Read the full factum HERE.
