Bill 3 is a bill designed, according to the government, to make labour unions “more transparent” and “more democratic”. But it’s based on a false premise: unions, including the APTS, already comply with most of the obligations the government wants to impose.

Because:

• APTS financial statements are already subject to a yearly audit and are made available to any member who asks to see them.
• The APTS already presents this information to its designated bodies, i.e., the Monitoring Committee and the General Council.
• Our governance, democratic rules and decision-making bodies are already defined in the APTS Constitution, which is available to the public.

In other words, Bill 3 is “adding” measures… that already exist.

Bill 3 requires unions to present their financial statements “to their members … at a meeting”. At the APTS, financial statements are presented to the General Council, which includes the Provincial Council, local presidents, and delegates elected by members. These are people who have a democratic mandate to receive, analyze and question financial statements on behalf of members.

At the same time, any member may obtain a copy of the financial statements simply by asking for them. Complete transparency is ensured in this way without overloading general meetings that are already very full.

Yes. This is a crucial point: any member can obtain the APTS financial statements, free of charge, by contacting their local executive. This directly meets the requirement set out in Bill 3.

Bill 3 says that the Constitution must be presented to members, approved by a majority of those who vote, and reviewed at least once every five years.

At the APTS, the Constitution is:

• adopted and modified by the Convention, the union’s most representative decision-making body, attended by over one thousand delegates;
• regularly reviewed — it was last updated in November 2025;
• made publicly available.

The point is to introduce “optional dues.” That is the key element of the bill, and optional dues are a weapon that the employer wants to use to undercut our ability to fight back.

Many things would become more difficult, not all of them inconsequential. In fact, any activity that went beyond the simple application of a collective agreement would be funded exclusively by optional dues.

Concretely, the following activities would be jeopardized:

• major legal challenges such as the one that enabled the APTS to gain recognition for the fact that some pay equity rules were discriminatory and unconstitutional;
• public campaigns going beyond the strict confines of labour law such as our campaign describing how Québec’s old people are being abandoned for lack of government funding;
• participation in social movements such as our mobilization against the violence inflicted on women.

In other words, optional dues would weaken:

• our ability to defend ourselves on any issue that goes beyond the bare minimum;
• our ability to act when the government turns on our public system;
• the power dynamic that enables us to challenge the government when it goes off track politically.

Because although this is never explicitly acknowledged, optional dues make it more difficult for us to do the one thing that protects our members in concrete terms: share our resources.

Sharing our resources means that we can:

• defend each member with the same strength;
• support our members in isolated, small or precarious work settings;
• fairly represent members who are subject to pressure, injustice, or discrimination;
• establish a favourable power dynamic when there is a conflict.

In other words, optional dues might save you a few dozen dollars a year, but at the price of reducing your protection, diminishing your union’s defensive capacity, and dangerously weakening its power dynamic.

No. The bill’s chief impact is to create:

• procedures that already exist,
• cumbersome administrative obligations,
• a mechanism (optional dues) that will weaken every member’s protection.

But let’s be clear: we’re not saying that everything is perfect. Like any organization, the APTS can always improve. If you can think of a specific way that we could better represent you, please tell your local executive about it, or get directly involved in union life. Your ideas matter – and they’ll be far more effective than the employer’s intervention in making the APTS a better union.

Because levels of dissatisfaction have now reached 71%, and the government needs a fake problem it can point to as a distraction. “Make unions more transparent”? That sounds good… and maybe it will cause people to forget about the CAQ’s own fiascos: chaotic management, billions lost in bad investments, the housing crisis, the increase in homelessness, public systems on the verge of crashing. As things go wrong, the government is looking for someone to blame. But we’re not fooled.