Friday, April 12, 2024

Balancing Freedom and Compliance

Wise leaders understand that compliance is best achieved with a minimalist approach to law-making that preserves freedom

Guide Magazine

By Wayne Prins, Executive Director

Freedom is quite the loaded word. Throughout history, the pursuit of freedom has been the driving force of so much human behaviour. The act of denying or otherwise taking various forms of freedom from an individual or group of people is a root cause of injustice. Likewise, the granting of various forms of freedom is the foundation of justice.

Unions exist thanks to freedom of association, guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We can advance interests and ideas thanks to guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom of expression. When necessary, we can protest thanks to the freedom of peaceful assembly. Workers can pursue opportunity wherever they want in Canada thanks to freedom of mobility. And you can believe what you want thanks to freedom of conscience and religion.

In a civil and stable society, freedoms are accompanied by laws that set out the rules of engagement for citizens to live by. In democratic countries, we elect leaders who are responsible for making, maintaining, and enforcing such laws. The corresponding responsibility of citizens is to comply with them—or suffer the consequences of breaking them.

The balance between the freedoms we enjoy and the laws that we must comply with is a delicate one, and one that cannot be taken for granted by either side of this balance equation. Yes, compliance to the law is a reasonable expectation in a civil society. But wise leaders also understand that compliance is best achieved when the governing authority takes a minimalist approach to law-making, with a bias for maximizing the preservation of freedom. I see way too many examples of governments at all levels in Canada rejecting this minimalist approach and seeking to intervene in matters rightly left to the freedom of citizens.

Want some examples? The restrictive tendering practices of the BC government is a great example, where a law is used to grant exclusive access to publicly funded construction projects to the government’s preferred unions—which also happen to be the unions that support them with money and volunteers. Or the federal government using vast subsidy programs, taxes, and new laws to manipulate consumer choice and free markets in pursuit of politicians’ ideological interests.

The consequences of government overreach as it relates to various forms of freedom range from economic hardship—hello over-taxation and inflation!—to civil unrest—remember the Freedom Convoy?

I believe the minimalist approach to governance is true for unions as well. The traditional union movement has a long history of using its authority to obstruct the freedom of its members, fining members for simply performing work outside their own union. They also compel union membership and direct members how to vote in matters of personal conscience unrelated to the workplace.

At CLAC, we understand the necessary balance between freedom and compliance. We passionately and vigorously pursue justice and fairness for workers, with a bias for maximizing members’ freedoms. I believe this is the right approach to leadership. I wish more union and political leaders agreed.

Balancing Freedom and Compliance

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