The Public Sector Wage Arbitration Deferral Act (Bill 9) is a bill, informally known as the "bargaining rights bill", introduced by the Province of Alberta's United Conservative Party (UCP) government under Premier Jason Kenney, during the 30th Alberta Legislature, constituted after the general election on April 16, 2019. Bill 9 was passed on June 20, 2019. According to Alberta Finance Minister Travis Toews, Bill 9 suspends and delays hearings related to wage arbitration for public sector workers until October 31, 2019 in order to allow time for the provincial government to study the August 2019 finance report of the MacKinnon panel. Bill 9 affects 180,000 public service employees in Alberta that are represented by unions in 24 collective agreements. The Alberta government set a goal of balancing the budget by 2022–2023. History Travis Toews, Minister of Finance and president of the Treasury Board, introduced Bill 9 on June 13, 2019 and its 1st reading was on the same day. Its 2nd reading was from June 17 to June 18. On June 18, Jason Nixon, who was named as Government house leader and Minister of Environment and Parks on April 30. The 3rd reading was from June 19 to June 20. A closure of the third reading of the bill was forced by the provincial government in the early hours of June 20 and the bill was passed at 7:00 AM in the provincial legislature in Edmonton, Alberta. During the all-night session of third reading, at 11:30 PM on June 19, Kenney began distributing "bright pink earplugs" to his caucus to muffle the speech of MLAs who opposed the bill as it stood, including Edmonton-North West NDP MLA David Eggen who "spoke in favour of an NDP amendment to the bill." Eggen said to the legislature, "I would beg an answer from the members opposite, although I can see that many of them are wearing bright pink earplugs that their premier is handing out to all of them right now. Probably many of them can't hear what I'm saying right now." In her June 20 written statement Christine Myatt, Kenney's press secretary, said that it "was a harmless and light-hearted attempt to boost government caucus morale after being forced to listen to the NDP's insults, lies and over-the-top rhetoric for hours on end." Government position On May 7, 2019, Kenney announced the formation of the MacKinnon panel with Janice MacKinnon as