Article content continued

What might be even more farcical is Regina Police Chief Evan Bray meeting with Unifor national president Jerry Dias after Dias’s arrest to discuss/mediate/negotiate anything. In what world does someone charged with a criminal offence meet with the chief of police afterwards — especially when that person and his organization seem to be alleging the police are guilty of misconduct?

The absurd reality is both the law and the enforcement thereof are now seen as just tactical elements in Saskatchewan labour disputes. Surely, both should mean much more than that.

But given the province’s 50-year history of tweaking labour law to suit the vested interests of those supporting the party that’s in power, it’s pretty much come to that.

To be clear, this still doesn’t mean anyone gets to break the law, and moronic notions on social media that what we are witnessing is something akin to Rosa Parks-like defiance of an unjust law is nonsensical.

That said, among the first acts of this Saskatchewan Party government was to hamper unions’ ability to certify and then to restrict the right of individuals to strike through its draconian essential services legislation (a fight the government badly lost in the Supreme Court of Canada). This pretty much set the tone and we have had further labour law changes restricting picketing on sidewalks. It’s not right, but one can see why some union at some point was going to at least attempt to push the boundaries of the law.