Do you remember this controversy over the absence of strike funds from certain unions and the importance of having financial statements to see things clearly?
Posted at 1:25 a.m.
Updated at 6:30 a.m.
And more broadly, on the difficulties of access to financial statements by paying members?
Well, the matter didn’t stop there. A teacher from the southern suburbs of Montreal tried by all means to gain access to the precious financial report. And faced with the procrastination of her union, she had to file a complaint with the Administrative Labor Court. The cause concerns the Champlain Union, affiliated with the Federation of Education Unions (FSE-CSQ).
This is because, you see, the transmission of financial statements is not optional for unions. THE Labor Code of Quebec even makes it mandatory to provide financial statements to members who request them.
More specifically, section 47.1 of the Code specifies that the union “must disclose its financial statements to its members each year. [Il] must also provide, free of charge, a copy of these financial statements to the member who requests it.”
This article leaves little room for interpretation. Normally, a simple email should do the job: “Hello, I would like to have a complete copy of your financial statements, thank you.”
But the Champlain Union and its president, Jean-François Guilbault, did not see it that way.
Let’s see the sequence of events. Shortly after the end-of-year conflict, the union member sought to understand why the union organization did not have a strike fund (she asked me to keep her name quiet to avoid problems). She therefore requested a copy of the financial statements by telephone from Jean-François Guilbault.
Result ? She is told that this is not possible, that she must go to the union office to see them. Access would therefore be for a limited time, during working hours, and without the possibility of making copies or photos.
After some research, she found that the union is required to give her a copy under the law. She therefore made a formal request by email on February 20.
On March 13, he was told that his request must be submitted “to the union’s political coordination committee”, which will look into its practices in this regard.
Faced with this apparent blockage, the union member – also a union representative at her school – filed a complaint with the Administrative Labor Tribunal on March 14.
“I don’t want to go to war with the union. I want to allow union members to have easy access to what is owed to them, namely the financial statements, and to question themselves. And who knows, maybe help make things happen,” she explains to me.
On April 9, the debate moved to a union meeting. He was told that the union only presents the financial statements on PowerPoint during a specific meeting or makes them admissible to the office upon request.
Why such secrecy, such apparent circumvention of the law?
To understand, I called the president of the union, Jean-François Guilbault, on Friday May 3.
He answers me that the publication of financial statements is an issue for the organization. “It makes us vulnerable to raiding [des autres syndicats] and in front of the employer in a negotiation,” he told me.
He adds that the union representative should receive, in the coming days, a summary of the financial statements certified by an independent accounting firm.
Less than two hours after my call, the union member finally told me that she had received the summary in question… Hey!
But the debate does not end there. Section 47.1 of the Code clearly specifies that the union must submit a copy of its financial statements, not a summary.
However, in accounting, there are not two or three distinct sets of financial statements, depending on the wishes of the organization. The objective of accounting is precisely to have standards applied by all and therefore comparable so that we can have confidence in the data presented.
Parts 2 and 3 of the Chartered Accountants of Canada manual specify that the financial statements of a non-profit organization must include the balance sheet, the statement of income and expenses, the cash flow statement and the opinion of the independent auditor.
Above all, the notes to the financial statements, which provide details on the figures, are an integral part of the financial statements, tells me the expert Michel Magnan, professor of accounting at Concordia University.
“There is no ambiguity about this. Otherwise, it could be anything,” he told me.
On this subject, Jean-François Guilbault, from the Champlain Union, tells me that his summary is consistent with what is prescribed by case law, in particular decisions rendered in 2016 and 2017.1. Very good.
Except that you should know that few decisions have contributed to the case law on what constitute financial statements. Furthermore, these decisions are based on the Canada Labor Codelack of judgments under the Labor Code of Quebec.
However, the Canadian code gives some latitude as to what constitutes financial statements, defining them as “a statement of finances sufficiently detailed to give a fair and faithful image of the state of the finances and financial operations of the union”.
In Quebec, the Code does not provide this generosity. It specifies that the union must disclose ITS financial statements and provide a copy of THESE financial statements to members. It is difficult to understand that there are various forms of financial statements.
The plaintiff in this case plans to maintain her complaint in court, given the state of the situation.
What do I think of it ? That it is unacceptable that members who obligatorily pay several hundred dollars per year to an organization cannot easily have an accurate picture of its finances. And this portrait is the audited financial statements, as defined in the professional accountants’ handbook.
1. Consult a decision rendered in 2016
1. Consult a decision rendered in 2017
