The head of the local paramedics union shop said she is outraged at a government attempt at passing back-to-work legislation on striking paramedics across the province.

"They've silenced our voices. They have not let due process take its course. They're imposing a contract which is really just this B.C. dictatorship ramping up another notch," said Antoinette Halberstadt, the shop steward for the local paramedics. "It's trampling on human rights and they're doing so by stealth, under cover of the public's fear of H1N1."

Back-to-work legislation to end the strike by the province's 3,600 paramedics was introduced by health minister Kevin Falcon on Monday.

"With the H1N1 pandemic impacting the acute care system and winter and the holiday season fast approaching, the public needs certainty that they'll have the care they need in an emergency," Falcon said in a press release. "The decision to introduce this legislation was a difficult one and certainly not one that we take lightly. But it was clear that after seven months of failed attempts to reach an agreement and with no hope for a negotiated settlement in sight, we had to act."

The legislation, if passed, will provide for a three per cent raise on a short-term contract that expires Mar. 31, 2010.

Canadian Union of Public Employees local 873, which represents the paramedics, has been on strike since Apr. 1. An essential services order has kept them on the job throughout the strike.

Columbia River-Revelstoke MLA Norm Macdonald spoke out against the bill in the legislature this week.

“I know that the Opposition will continue to fight on this issue, that we will do what we need to do to get the BC Ambulance Service so that it works not only in rural British Columbia but in all parts of the province,” said Macdonald. “I want to say again to paramedics just how much respect I have for the work that paramedics have done. I think this piece of legislation treats paramedics with a manner of contempt that most British Columbians find offensive.”

Falcon said there were 150 ambulances out of service each month because of the strike, compared to 12 before the strike.

"With the rest of our health care system already operating at full capacity to manage the impact of H1N1, we can't afford to have the ambulance service operating at less than peak effectiveness," he said.

Halberstadt said the reason the paramedics are on strike is to put more paramedics on the street.

"The system is broken," she said. "The fact that there's not enough paramedics on the street is because our contract does not attract and retain ambulance paramedics."

On Tuesday, the government announced an Industrial Inquiry Commission to look into the collective bargaining process between the union and the BC Ambulance Service.

"The collective bargaining system for the provincial ambulance service is clearly broken and has stood in the way of the parties achieving a negotiated collective agreement," Coell said in press release. "It is our hope that, through this commission, we can achieve a better model that will ensure British Columbia maintains an ambulance service that meets the needs of paramedics and patients alike."

Halberstadt said the union has not figured out what the government means by looking into the collective bargaining process.

"We think it means breaking up the union. We think it means privatizing us so we're a whole bunch of little separate groups of paramedics here there and everywhere," she said. "That would be a fundamental change to the bargaining process."

The commission is expected to prepare a report with options for repairing the system by Dec. 15, 2009.