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If you happen to be a construction worker in British Columbia, odds are you’ve been left out of the NDP’s new labour deal for public infrastructure projects.

On July 16, Premier John Horgan announced that the B.C. government reached an agreement with the newly created Allied Infrastructure and Related Construction Council, a conglomerate of some of the International Building Trade Unions (BTU), to effectively cut those who are not members of the BTU out of public construction projects.

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This is no small group the premier has decided to alienate — roughly 85 per cent of construction workers will be left out in the cold with this deal.

The BTU and NDP have been touting the potential upside of community benefit agreements (CBAs), which, when properly executed, could present tangible dividends for local communities.

Unfortunately the government has saddled the deal with a restrictive labour model.