Are B.C. Liberals courting labour?

An unusual gathering at Premier Christy Clark’s legislature office last week served as a reminder of some of the challenges facing the New Democratic Party as it continues to rebuild after last year’s devastating election defeat.

A Who’s Who of B.C.’s organized labour movement met with Clark to see if there was any common ground on three issues: raising the minimum wage, reducing the reliance on foreign workers and increasing the number of apprenticeships at work sites.

Almost a dozen union leaders huddled with Clark in her office, which is about 100 metres from NDP leader Adrian Dix’s office. But when B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair appeared at Clark’s side in a joint news conference afterwards, the distance seemed much greater.

This was another example of the labour movement – traditionally a strong supporter of the NDP – making a bet that it was better to do business with Clark and her government, rather than simply aligning itself with the Opposition New Democrats.

The first such episode of this evolving relationship between labour and the B.C. Liberals came last fall, when Sinclair and building trades head Tom Sigurdson shared a public platform with Clark, to announce they had formed a joint committee to develop a skilled workforce that will be needed to develop the LNG industry.

Framed against these developments is the ongoing internal debate within the NDP that goes to the heart of the party’s increasingly tense relationship with at least parts of the labour movement.

The NDP cannot decide where it stands on a critical issue: the creation of jobs in natural resource industries. And so it finds itself struggling to hold onto the support of those private sector union members whose livelihoods may depend on these jobs.

This issue will likely dominate the party’s leadership race. The only declared candidate – MLA Mike Farnworth – has already been criticized by some of his caucus colleagues for daring to suggest the party take a neutral position on the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline.

Farnworth has also run afoul of the positions of two NDP-friendly mayors, as both Vancouver’s Gregor Robertson and Burnaby’s Derek Corrigan strongly oppose the Kinder Morgan project.

Farnworth (and fellow MLA John Horgan, should he decide to run for leader) advocate policies that are more accepting of natural resource industries, but there are many, many folks in their party who vehemently oppose such a shift.

Take the issue of fracking, which is used to extract natural gas from deep in the ground. The party is committed to a review of the practice, but the outright banning of fracking is a favourite position of many environmental groups as well as NDP activists.

Of course, if fracking was banned, the existing natural gas industry (which ironically grew significantly because of policies of the NDP government in the 1990s) would collapse, thus robbing the provincial treasury of hundreds of millions of dollars.

There are other hot-button issues that put some New Democrats in knots of course: mining, liquefied natural gas, port development, private power projects – the list is a long one.

These industries not only create jobs, but well-paying jobs – precisely the kind sought after by the labour movement.

So when not one, not two, but almost a dozen top labour leaders meet with the head of the B.C. Liberals to talk about jobs, that’s not a good thing if you’re a New Democrat struggling to maintain the party’s traditional identity as a workers’ party.

Now, to be clear, the B.C. Federation of Labour and its members are still supporters of the NDP and they’re not going to hold any fundraisers for Christy Clark anytime soon.

But those NDP ties have become somewhat strained, as labour leaders realize their members’ interests come well ahead of those of the environmental movement.

Some New Democrats who realize that turning their backs on the natural resource sector is a recipe for electoral disaster have spoken out.

Former NDP premier Dan Miller and former senior NDP aide Bill Tieleman have both written op-ed pieces or columns warning the party may be headed over a cliff.

Don’t be surprised if we see more labour summits in the premier’s office. Clark’s political savvy tells her they not only make good sense from a public policy point of view, but they also serve to magnify the growing rift in the party that is her chief political opponent.

Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global B.C.