Striking Back for Striking Workers: Hundreds of CUPE Ontario Members to Rally Thursday for Fellow Workers
Marit Stiles, leader of the Ontario New Democrats, and Laura Walton, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, will also attend the rally to demand a fair deal for the workers.
The striking workers are all employees of vastly different employers, but all find themselves facing similar battles with hostile, short-sighted, and ill-intentioned employers who have forced workers into strike action by refusing to bargain meaningfully with their union.
CUPE 2073: More than 200 members at Canadian Hearing Services (CHS) have been on strike since April 28, fighting back against low wages that impact the quality and depth of services that Deaf, deafblind, and hard of hearing Ontarians receive. Meanwhile, the salary of CHS president and CEO Julia Dumanian topped $340,000 last year.
CUPE 1750: In the first-ever strike in their local's history, some 3600 workers at the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) are demanding their employer take steps to reduce the dangerously high workloads that are driving up rates of depression and anxiety among them. WSIB has given rebates of $4 billion to employers this year but won't invest any of the remaining billions of dollars of surplus to improve working conditions for staff.
CUPE 5525: A local of 25 personal care assistants at Villa Colombo Homes for the Aged are the most recent to take strike action. This small but dedicated group of twenty-five workers has been fighting for a first collective agreement since 2022. Rather than bargain a fair deal, Villa Colombo has put continuity of care for elderly residents at risk by paying scab labour more than it pays its existing staff.
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Hamilton Spectator
4 days ago
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Province to appeal after Ontario court finds bike lane removal law unconstitutional
TORONTO - The Ontario government says it will appeal a court decision that found a new law to remove three Toronto bike lanes unconstitutional, after a judge ruled the lane removals would put people at an 'increased risk of harm and death.' Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Schabas found the province's plan to remove bike lanes along Bloor Street, Yonge Street and University Avenue violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The challenge was brought by the advocacy group Cycle Toronto and two individual cyclists — a university student who relies on the Bloor Street bike lane to get to school and a bike delivery driver who uses the lanes daily. They asked the court to strike down parts of the law that empowered the province to remove 19 kilometres of protected bike lanes on the three roads. 'The applicants have established that removal of the target bike lanes will put people at increased risk of harm and death which engages the right to life and security of the person,' Schabas wrote in his decision. 'The evidence is clear that restoring a lane of motor vehicle traffic, where it will involve the removal of the protected, or separated, nature of the target bike lanes, will create greater risk to cyclists and to other users of the roads.' Dakota Brasier, a transportation ministry spokesperson, said the province plans to appeal the ruling. 'We were elected by the people of Ontario with a clear mandate to restore lanes of traffic and get drivers moving by moving bike lanes off of major roads to secondary roads,' Brasier said in an email. 'To deliver on that mandate, we will be appealing the court's decision.' Six cyclists were killed in Toronto last year, all on roads that did not have protected bike lanes, court heard. As part of the same law, Ontario inked in a requirement that municipalities get provincial approval if they want to remove a lane of vehicle traffic in order to install a bicycle lane. Michael Longfield, executive director of Cycle Toronto, called the judge's ruling 'a full win.' 'We won on the facts and on the law. The court accepted our argument that the government's actions increased the risk of harm to Ontarians, and that doing so without justification breaches our most basic constitutional rights,' Longfield said in a statement. Ford has blamed the Bloor Street, Yonge Street and University Avenue bike lanes for contributing to increased traffic in Toronto and vowed to get the city moving again. He also made removing the bike lanes a campaign issue during the snap election he called and won in February. Ford and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow had been negotiating a compromise for months, with the mayor conveying that she believed there was a solution that would keep the bike lanes and add an extra lane of traffic in each direction on the three roads. A spokesperson for Chow said Wednesday the city is reviewing the court decision and the impact on its discussions with the province. 'Mayor Chow maintains that the City of Toronto and its elected council should be the ones making decisions about municipal infrastructure,' press secretary Zeus Eden said in an emailed statement, noting the city is working to reduce congestion by hiring more traffic agents, speeding up construction and improving public transit. The provincial government had argued before the court that cycling is a choice, and risk is assumed voluntarily by cyclists while there are alternative forms of transit available, Schabas wrote, concluding that submission 'has no merit.' 'The evidence establishes that cycling in Toronto is often driven by reasons of reliability and affordability. For many, such as couriers, their livelihood depends on using bicycles,' Schabas wrote. Schabas also noted that the government had received advice from experts, reports from Toronto officials and evidence from the city and elsewhere that removing bike lanes 'will not achieve the asserted goal' of the law to reduce traffic. 'The evidence shows that restoring lanes for cars will not result in less congestion, as it will induce more people to use cars and therefore any reduction in driving time will be shortlived, if at all, and will lead to more congestion,' Schabas wrote. 'This makes the law arbitrary.' The judge also noted that expert evidence provided by the government did not address whether restoring a vehicle lane will alleviate congestion. 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6 days ago
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Air Canada flight attendants start voting on strike mandate
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Hamilton Spectator
27-07-2025
- Hamilton Spectator
Why Doug Ford's controversial law to fast-track development is focused on the Ring of Fire
The story In the beginning, when it was still called Kawana 'bi 'kag, no one imagined that the 5,000 square kilometres near James Bay might one day save Canada from economic warfare launched by an American president named Donald Trump. There's nothing like an existential crisis, it seems, to focus a country's attention on unearthing billions of dollars worth of critical minerals. Amid First Nations protests and legal challenges, Premier Doug Ford passed Bill 5, creating sweeping new powers to fast-track development and in the north, that means brushing past years of delay on the land now known as the Ring of Fire. It holds what the world craves: nickel, chromite (for chromium), cobalt and more, all needed for global security or green energy. And all often in short supply, threatening economic devastation from supply chain disruption. Ford wants jobs for Ontarians. Prime Minister Mark Carney needs economic prosperity independent of America and its mercurial president. Now, nearly 20 years after the minerals were first discovered, the Ring of Fire may be entering its prime time. Although, as First Nations leaders recently observed, Trump will be out of office long before the mining roads are built, so why the 'unconstitutional' rush? Here is an explainer on the remote north, a place of conundrums. The earth You may ask, what makes these minerals critical? In short, the digital and green economies of the future — including massive new infrastructure needed to support artificial intelligence — will not exist without them. 'There is no energy transition without critical minerals: no batteries, no electric cars, no wind turbines and no solar panels,' a federal minerals strategy once said. Depending on market fluctuations, minerals hold immense value. The Democratic Republic of Congo provides 70 per cent of the world's cobalt. Indonesia supplies 40 per cent of nickel. And China is the largest processor of minerals, a dominance that has, on occasion, led to disruptive trade practices and price swings, according to a recent Public Policy Forum report. Deposits locked under the Ring of Fire include: Nickel: It is used in the production of stainless steel and is increasingly valued in advanced technologies, particularly in batteries for electric vehicles. Cobalt: Considered essential for the production of military equipment, it is used to produce superalloys used to make jet engines, missiles and submarines. Copper: Used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar power panels, and battery energy storage systems, it is also considered essential for the creation of data centres that will support artificial intelligence. Chromite: This is the ore from which chromium is extracted. Chromium is essential to the manufacture of stainless steel. Platinum: A metal that plays a vital role in autocatalysts, which reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle tailpipes. Palladium: A 'platinum group element,' it is used in electronics and in vehicle emission reductions. The timeline As modern mining lore has it, speculators in the Hudson Bay lowlands discovered its chromite in 2007. Depending on the loquaciousness of the storyteller, one or several prospectors were Johnny Cash fans and so inspired, quickly named the lands around their discovery the Ring of Fire, launching years of environmental assessments, ownership changes and new mining claims. The Ring of Fire was included in Ontario's 2010 speech from the throne and in the ensuing years, premiers Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne raved over its potential, although Sudbury already mines critical minerals. And in 2018, along came Doug Ford. Running for the premier's job, he promised to build roads to the untouched minerals, which were in a distant region of the province accessible only by airplanes or (melting) ice highways. 'If I have to hop on a bulldozer myself, we're going to start building roads to the Ring of Fire,' Ford tweeted. This did not impress the First Nations who make Kawana 'bi 'kag their home. Today, seven years and two elections later, with no roads built, Trump's antics inspired new laws rushed through the Ontario legislature and the House of Commons: Ford's Bill 5, the 'Protect Ontario by Unleashing the Economy Act' and Carney's Bill C-5, the 'One Canadian Economy Act.' Before Carney met with First Nations leaders on July 17, he promised 'Indigenous equity and full participation' in Canada's new economy. When the meeting ended, the chiefs' were not convinced. The constitutionality of both laws faces a legal challenge by nine First Nations chiefs, who called Ontario's law a massive overreach that gives the government unlimited development powers across the province. As one said, Ontarians should be worried. The request for an injunction, the chiefs' lawyer said, will likely be heard within a year. The miners In the world of prospecting, ownership is known to change hands. Australia-based Wyloo acquired Noront in 2022 and with it, the Ring of Fire's 'Eagle's Nest' project. While Juno Corp. appears to have the most mining claims in the region, Wyloo says its development progress is the most advanced, in terms of passing government hurdles. Wyloo's footprint, its corporate documents say, will cover just one square kilometre. Instead of an open pit, Eagle's Nest will be vertical, plunging 1,600 metres into the ground, with below-surface space to store tailings, the leftover materials. The company's current projections say it will annually produce 15,000 tonnes of nickel, 6,000 tonnes of copper, 70,000 ounces of palladium, 22,000 ounces of platinum and 340 tonnes of cobalt. And as for the fragile peatlands across the region? Wyloo's mine, its document says, will mainly be built on 'uplands' and not the low-lying peatlands. But there is a different threat: road construction. The ecosystem The Ring of Fire is rich with watery peatlands, a fragile, living entity of decaying plant matter that traps carbon equal to many decades of greenhouse gas emissions. And yet the earth here also holds minerals needed to build the energy-saving solar panels and electric cars of the future. This is an environmental predicament. If new mining roads disturb the peatlands by as little as three per cent, Wildlands League's Anna Baggio says data shows that the equivalent of 62 million tonnes of carbon dioxide would be released. Climate change is already threatening peatlands, from nearby wildfires to melting permafrost. So it was not surprising to see 'peatland' cited 113 times in a 2025 draft environmental assessment for a proposal by Marten Falls First Nations to build and maintain an all-season access road. Marten Falls chief says the road would connect the remote community to health supports and economic opportunities. A separate proposal would link a series of new roads to the Ring of Fire mines. Last week, Marten Falls First Nation said it held a joint ceremony with Webequie First Nation, (which is has filed a proposal to build another road) and together, took down a ceremonial teepee erected last year. It symbolized, the Marten Falls news release said, the 'joint and mutually respectful process required between the First Nations and development proponents.' First Nation communities on the Treaty 9 land have expressed concern about environmental risk, noting the age-old relationship between peatlands, water systems and wildlife. But much like Marten Falls, many also say they want development — and a seat at the decision-makers' table. Ford's Bill 5, some say, killed the opportunity for government discussions, forcing protests or legal action. Eabametoong Chief Solomon Atlookan leads one of many First Nations communities in the region. In June, Atlookan wrote a letter to Ford and Carney, warning their new laws could leave governments tied up in court challenges or worse, create dangerous confrontations on the land. 'Cranking up the legislative bulldozer,' Atlookan wrote, 'will not yield positive outcomes.'
