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Advocacy group launches campaign against using union dues for political action

The Public Service Alliance of Canada called the protests a National Day of Action to raise community awareness of government cuts.

'Stephen Harper is under attack' — so says the National Citizens Coalition.

The NCC — a right leaning non-profit group that once employed Stephen Harper — has recently launched a campaign to stop union dues from being used for political action campaigns.

Ourdues.ca includes a website, a petition and a YouTube Video:

The video references the Public Service Alliance of Canada's support of the separatist Parti Québécois during the last Quebec election.

At the time, the pseudo-endorsement raised the ire of Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre who told the Ottawa Citizen that he may lobby his Conservative colleagues for new laws that will allow public servants to opt out of paying union dues.

Canada's unions have been at war with the Harper government since they earned their majority government in 2011.

Last May, PSAC — which is Canada's largest public sector union — added a 26 cent a month 'tax' to members' union dues to boost the union's war chest for political action campaigns.

Also in May, the union marched down Parliament Hill with "Stephen Harper hates me" t-shirts and buttons.

In September, they commissioned an airplane to fly over Parliament Hill with a banner that read "Stephen Harper nous déteste.ca" (translated as "Stephen Harper hates us.ca").

And more recently, they've started producing a series of videos highlighting services that will be nixed as a result of government budget and job cuts.

[ Related: Public sector union launches an all-out attack against the Harper government ]

The NCC says "it's time to stop forcing workers to pay for the extreme views of the union bosses."

"We're going to use the petition to call on MPs to write legislation to support opting out of political dues if a union abuses the trust of union workers by spending their dues on radical non-work-related causes," Stephen Taylor of the NCC told Yahoo! Canada News in an email exchange.

[ Related: PSAC backs NDP motion to save Slots at Racetracks Program ]

To date the petition has 751 names.

If you are a unionized worker, a family member or friend of one, you can sign it here.

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