In Canada, unions and trade groups are afforded some of the most lucrative tax benefits in the entire world. What's more, these same unions are free to contribute unlimited amounts of money to political messaging and advocacy - and union members are left in the dark about how their own money is being spent. Whether we look to the United States, Europe, or Australia, Canada lags far behind the international standard for union disclosure.

Crestview, the lobbying firm founded by Hudak’s campaign manager, Mark Spiro, has been hired by large labour organizations to lobby the federal Conservative government about legislation that would hobble their ability to fund political campaigns such as Working Families, that devastated Hudak’s political ambitions in the last election.

A proposed private member's bill that would compel unions to disclose their spending is causing ripples in Canada's labour community.

Bill C-377 - put forward by Conservative MP Russ Hiebert -- would reveal how labour groups use funds collected through union dues.

On December 5th Russ Hiebert, Conservative MP for South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale, B.C. introduced Bill C-377 an act to make union books public. You might remember in early November his previous bill C-317, on the exact same topic had to be withdrawn due to parliamentary procedures and didn’t even make it to second reading. It must have been a big defeat for Mr. Hiebert given he had the coveted 1st spot on the private members bills priority list and now it’s back again (at the bottom of the pile) with a new name and a few changes (he can’t introduce the same thing it’s against the rules).

For organizations that claim they have nothing to hide, Canada’s big labour unions definitely don’t act like it.

Take the saga of Conservative MP Russ Hiebert’s recent private member’s bill which, if passed, would have obliged labour unions to regularly and publicly file statements of their finances. This is a basic level of transparency and accountability that applies to Canadian charities, for instance, as a condition of their preferred federal tax status.

The move by the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada — the people who police our food safety, monitor the ozone layer and the threat of invasive species, protect the security of your personal information and forecast the weather — have, in effect, fired the first shot in the coming war.

Bill C-317, which had become a symbol within the labour movement of a perceived government escalation of attacks on unions, was stopped by Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer, who decided the bill should have been preceded by a ways and means motion — required for spending and tax measures — because of the possible tax implications on unionized workers.

I just love newspapers. You learn such interesting things in them - things you might never have known otherwise.

Take the front page article in Thursday's Citizen about how the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), representing professionals in the federal public service, is considering joining the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). The CLC is the big union central that brings together under one umbrella most of the trade unions in Canada today.

The biggest player when it comes to giving money to political parties in Ontario is the union representing carpenters, a distinction that surprised even them.

"The No. 1 issue facing our union and the labour movement as a whole . . . is the all-out attack on unionized employees in this country, particularly those of us working in Canada's public service," said PIPSC President Gary Corbett. "We have a majority Conservative government that is using every opportunity to demonstrate its anti-union bias."

In the midst of June’s 47-hour filibuster over back-to-work legislation for Canada Post, New Democrat MP Wayne Marston was moved to recall the events of 1946, when “workers and veterans fought side by side in the streets” of Hamilton for better working conditions, thus launching the modern labour movement and paving the way for what would become the NDP. When it was her turn to speak, Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner apparently felt compelled to respond. “Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to many nostalgic comments across the way about the old labour movement and the unions back in 1946. I am wondering if the members opposite recognize that we are in 2011 and that we have just come through a great recession that has damaged so many countries and from which we are just recovering,” she said. “When will they realize that we are not in the old socialist days of the good old union? We are in 2011.”

A Conservative private member's bill to force unions to open up their financial records could turn into a grudge match between two of the region's members of Parliament.

It's already clear the NDP and the country's big unions are going to devote considerable resources to fighting Conservative plans to force unions to reveal the inner workings of their finances in public.

The list of exemptions from tax - so-called tax expenditures - rolls on and on. Dozens and dozens of them pockmark the tax code. Many have been there for decades, yet remain without scrutiny. Client groups have come to expect them. Remove or dilute any, and listen to the howls. And yet, at a time of large deficits, what better time to review their utility? And what better time than after a blue-ribbon panel under Open Text CEO Tom Jenkins ripped apart a range of failed corporate tax credits designed to aid research and development.