In fact, Saskatchewan Federation of Labour president Larry Hubich got away with one on Wednesday when he used such hyperbole without even bothering to present a serious analysis of bills that he'd had all of five minutes to exam. And he didn't provide any meaningful comparison to illustrate how Saskatchewan's legislation is worse than anything he's seen in Alberta, British Columbia or, for that matter, New Democratic Manitoba.

That said, if Hubich was trying to make the point that we shouldn't be blindly accepting the Saskatchewan Party government's assertion that the Trade Union Act amendments and essential service legislation are designed to benefit everyone, he might have an excuse for the rhetoric.

Whether this is the worst labour legislation in Canada is debatable. However, what it isn't -- at least what it isn't designed to be -- is legislation that creates "a fair and balanced work environment."

When it comes to the amendments to the Trade Union Act, it especially seems this purported "fair and balanced" legislation benefits private-sector employers more than anyone else. Make no mistake that this is a bone thrown by a right-wing government to the only people demanding the change -- its friends and donors in the business community who patiently waited 16 years for the labour pendulum to swing back in their favour.

It's the case that any change to some of the most labour-friendly labour laws in Canada were bound to meet strong resistance from unions. So, Hubich's over-the-top-language and a SFL press release that claimed the essential services bill signifies that Premier Brad Wall's government had "launched an attack on workers' constitutional and human rights" isn't surprising.

But it shouldn't be taken at face value.

Hubich keeps citing a Supreme Court ruling that found the Campbell government effectively had cancelled collective agreements in B.C. By contrast, Wall's new essential services legislation requires unions and employers to negotiate in their collective agreement an agreed-upon standard for essential services during strikes -- a far cry from what happened in B.C. and a move that hardly constitutes the worst labour laws in Canada.

It's worth repeating that Saskatchewan is the last jurisdiction in the country without an essential services law. It's also worth noting that public sector unions bear some responsibility for having this legislation thrust upon them.

Despite the disingenuous assertions from labour and Lorne Calvert's NDP, the system wasn't working. As we saw in the SGEU strike a year ago, labour had started to use the withdrawal of key workers such as snowplow operators or the threat of it as leverage to back unfair wage demands.

But if labour and the NDP are being disingenuous, so too is the Saskatchewan Party, whose MLAs told us in October that essential services legislation wouldn't be needed. Two months later, we see a stiff essential services law that deems court clerks as essential to preserve life and limb. We will also have a Saskatchewan Party-appointed Labour Relations Board that potentially will be stacked with business cronies as the final arbiter.

And while Wall and company were considerably more forthright during the campaign about the proposed changes to union certification in the Trade Union Act, it still comes down to the fact that the only ones demanding this were self-interested businesses.

There's a simple adage in labour relations that a business gets the union it deserves and that workers don't unionize unless they have a good reason.

There's no doubt the new laws will make it harder to unionize, potentially hurting workers who most need union protection. While the government and the right-wing have slyly framed the issue around the notion that certification votes are more democratic, there may be little that can be done now to prevent the rare bad employer from subtly bullying and intimidating workers during certification drives.

No, these aren't the worst labour laws in Canada, but don't kid yourself that they are really about being fair and balanced, either.