British Columbia’s Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) has worsened labour shortages, caused cost overruns, and is deeply unfair to the province’s workers.

The Cardus report, Benefits for Whom? Assessing British Columbia’s Community Benefits Agreement, notes that British Columbia’s CBA only allows contracts for certain government-funded infrastructure projects to go to companies if their employees become members of one of 19 favoured labour unions. This means that companies whose workers exercise their constitutional right to select another union (or none at all) are blocked from working on the projects their taxes pay for. Renze Nauta, Work & Economics Program Director at Cardus, explains both the problem and the fix for it to host Adam Stirling on Victoria, B.C. radio station CFAX 1070.