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Blue-collar Oshawa is the last place you’d expect to find a candidate who believes labour unions are unholy. But don’t underestimate those god-fearing Alliance types.
Their Oshawa candidate, Barry Bussey, a lawyer for the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, wrote a position paper a few years back that states, “Members should not join or financially support labour unions.”
Bussey also believes that while the Church doesn’t “condone the employers taking unfair advantage of their employees…, we abhor mob force that threatens violence when it does not get its way on the shop floor. It was a mob-driven frenzy that nailed our Saviour to a cross.”
Bussey says the Church doesn’t disallow union membership, it just counsels against it.
“I will be the first to admit that unions have done a lot of good,” Bussey tells NOW during a recent Stockwell Day stop at his campaign headquarters. “But unions have also caused some struggles for people.”
He says unions should respect the religious rights of individuals not to participate in union actions. NOW tried to ask Day if he shares Bussey’s views. But this reporter was immediately bumped out of the Alliance leader’s path by one of his handlers.
Says Hemi Mitic, assistant to CAW president Buzz Hargrove, “It’s certainly disappointing.”
