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Jerry Dias….My worst nightmare? Not even close

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Tue, 01/28/2020

I read with fascination Erin O’Toole’s recent comments about me in the Hamilton media.

The Conservative Member of Parliament – and as of Monday the latest candidate to lead his party – says he intends to become my “worst nightmare” if he becomes Conservative leader.

Really? I don’t think so. He’s so irrelevant he wouldn’t even register in the top thousand.

O’Toole and I have history. I should state that up front. During the long negotiations to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement, O’Toole was a member of the cabal of Conservative MPs pushing the federal government to go along with whatever Trump wanted and sign a deal as fast as possible.

O’Toole himself called the inclusion of gender, Indigenous and environmental issues during the NAFTA talks nothing more than “virtue signalling” that were somehow separate from economic concerns.

What a dumb way to think about things. Lax laws on the environment, for instance, is one of the things that attracts corporations to such places as Mexico. No wonder I referred to him at the time as Erin O’Fool.

If Canadian negotiators had listened to the likes of O’Toole and his Conservative cronies, there would have been nothing in the deal addressing these issues in the finished USMCA: improved labour rights for Mexican workers, stronger made in North America rules for auto parts, elimination of special investor protections, tools to protect Canada against unfair trade penalties, and more.

I was proud to be part of the team advising Canada’s negotiators on USMCA. If any of us had listened to fools like O’Toole back then, we never would have made these advances.

The new NAFTA, which goes before the House of Commons this week, is still far from representing the bold rethink on trade policy the world needs. But in many key areas it’s better than the old NAFTA, and better by a long shot than anything O’Toole and the rest of the Conservative would’ve had us sign.

If it was up to O’Toole, his naïve approach to negotiations would have seen Canada abandon the need for major changes to Mexican labour laws, free collective bargaining, and trying to rebalance the scales of unfair competition – and willingly giving up market access on supply managed sectors, and caving on drug prices, just as Stephen Harper did in European and Pacific Rim trade deals.

Trade deals by the Conservative Party under Harper undercut Canada’s manufacturing sector, leading to thousands of jobs leaving the country. The deal with Korea, for instance, gave virtually unfettered access to Canada for Korean manufacturing, but offered little in return.

Of course, that doesn’t stop O’Toole from somehow trying to put the blame on me for GM stopping assembly in Oshawa, even though it was his party that undercut manufacturing here and it was his Conservative buddies in Ontario who were willing to throw in the towel with GM at the first bell.

Not Unifor, we took action right away and never let up. We pushed hard, talked to everybody we could and mobilized the community.

In the end, we preserved Oshawa GM as a footprint for the future – far more than any a Conservative ever did for that city, including O’Toole. Even the bailout years ago for the Detroit 3 automakers, made only after intense pressure to do so, could not make up for disastrous Conservative manufacturing policies – their true legacy.

O’Toole might think he can build a political career out of attacking people like me, but he’s wrong.

The fact is, Canadians simply don’t want anti-labour, anti-women, anti-gay, anti- immigrant governments. Andrew Scheer proved that. He proved that the religious right simply does not translate into political success in Canada.

O’Toole should understand that. After all, he was there to witness first hand as the last Conservative election campaign collapsed in the wake of his leader’s homophobic and anti-woman views.

Instead, O’Toole has added the founder of Doug Ford-backing Ontario Proud to his campaign’s team and promised to run to the right of other leadership contenders. Only a fool would think that would help. He makes dog whistle references to his Christianity, a wink to social conservatives to support him as he runs for the leadership of his party. In launching his leadership bid, O’Toole even expressed nostalgia for the Harper years, of all things.

O’Toole might fancy himself as my worst nightmare, but I can assure you I won’t be losing any sleep over it.

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A mom’s $6,000 phone bill in three months

Patrick White

Last summer, a 65-year-old at a Montreal seniors’ home racked up a phone bill of $6,072.12 in just three months. Administrators at the complex were so alarmed they warned her she was being defrauded.

When she reviewed the bill, however, she realized the charges originated from the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, a provincial prison where her son was being held on domestic-abuse allegations. His criminal charges were eventually dropped, but the phone charges remained.

The tenant couldn’t afford the whole bill at once, so she opted for a payment plan: $50 a month for 11 years.

“They’ve got me until I’m 76 years old,” said the tenant, Isabel, whose full name The Globe and Mail is withholding to avoid discrimination against her son. “He was innocent, yet this huge bill came our way. That’s what makes this whole thing more infuriating.”

As it turned out, she was not the victim of fraud, but rather a telephone system in Ontario prisons that critics say divides families, deters rehabilitation and limits access to the justice system by hitting a vulnerable population with exorbitant bills. Bell Canada holds the contract for providing phone service at Ontario prisons. On Wednesday, the 10th anniversary of Bell’s Let’s Talk campaign to eliminate stigma around mental health, advocates for prisoners called on the company and the province to make the phone system free.

Read full article here….

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Bell Canada to invest $400M in Hamilton’s digital infrastructure

Bell Canada says it’s investing $400 million to bring Hamilton the fastest internet speeds in the country.

Over the next five years, Bell will be bringing direct fibre network connections to more than 200 000 homes and businesses in urban and rural areas of Hamilton, with no cost to taxpayers.

Mayor Fred Eisenberger requested that broadband speeds be enhanced for all of urban Hamilton, business parks and major commercial areas, and rural areas in the community.

Eisenberger says this can also help attract businesses, “they’ve already done a significant part of Ancaster as a pilot test site and they’re going to broaden it out from there. We can now advertise to companies out there that are looking for high speed broadband connectivity that’s arriving here in Hamilton and they can take advantage of that.”

https://www.chch.com/bell-canada-to-invest-400m-in-hamiltons-digital-infrastructure/

https://www.flamboroughreview.com/news-story/9819165-bell-canada-to-invest-400m-in-hamilton-over-five-years-for-digital-upgrades/

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Unifor urges City of Toronto to improve transit, save jobs in Thunder Bay

Unifor delivered a strong deputation to the City of Toronto’s Budget committee to warn that excessive delays in the purchase of at least 60 new streetcars is putting the Thunder Bay Bombardier plant where they are manufactured in jeopardy.

“The Ford conservatives are refusing to act while good manufacturing jobs in Northern Ontario are disappearing,” said Jerry Dias, Unifor National President. “All levels of government must work together instead of punishing Northern Ontario for decisions made in Toronto.”

The union has been calling on the City of Toronto and the federal and provincial governments to take responsibility for the worst transit congestion in Canada and protect good paying manufacturing jobs in Ontario by completing the necessary Bombardier streetcar order.

“Jobs are on the line – the Bombardier plant is at risk of closing, there simply isn’t enough work to keep the facility open into 2021,” said Dominic Pasqualino Unifor Local 1075 President. “We can’t wait any longer – trained workers are going to move on and they, and these jobs, will never return.”

The Thunder Bay Bombardier plant is the largest private sector employer in the region. It has a more than 100-year history of providing good jobs that has enriched the lives of Ontarians through fair wages and supply-chain demand.

“Canadian content in government purchases play an important role in Ontario’s economy,” says Kaylie Tiessen, Economist and Unifor National Research Representative. “Jobs at the Bombardier facility support an additional 1.5 to 2.8 job in Ontario, with many in the greater Toronto area. If the plant closes, it is workers across the province who will bear the burden.”

The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) states that new streetcars constitute an urgent and unfunded need in its recent capital budget.

“The city is putting riders and workers through the ultimate stress test,” continued Pasqualino. “If our elected leaders keep shirking responsibility, workers will be out of a job and we’ll have lost one of Canada’s exclusive manufacturers for our city’s streetcars and subway systems.”

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Unifor shuts down the Co-op Refinery

January 20, 2020 – 12:00 AM

REGINA− Unifor announced an escalation of job action and turned the tables on Federated Co-operatives Ltd. (FCL) by effectively shutting down the refinery as hundreds of union activists surrounded the 544 acre facility.

“Co-op executives locked our members out six weeks ago and today we are locking them out. No fuel will be leaving this refinery,” said Jerry Dias, Unifor National President at a rally in Regina. “This tremendous display of solidarity is sending a message to this greedy multi-billion dollar conglomerate to get back to the table and bargain a fair deal.”

Several hundred Unifor members from coast to coast to coast have come to Regina to support refinery workers locked out since December 5, 2019.

“We are so grateful to all the members who dropped everything to come and help us fight to protect our pensions,” said Kevin Bittman, Unifor Local 594 President. “This kind of solidarity is truly inspirational.”

“Until FCL returns to the bargaining table with a fair offer for our highly skilled refinery workers, we’re not going anywhere,” added Dias.

For the past 46 days, FCL has relied on the use of scabs and management to run the refinery.

Unifor will also continue to encourage the public to boycott Co-op gas, retail, and home supplies outlets across Western Canada. For more information about Unifor’s Boycott Co-op campaign visit BoycottCoop.ca.

Today’s announcement was streamed live on Unifor’s Facebook Page. Photos from the rally will also be available on Facebook. Facts about the dispute can be found at http://unifor594.com.

Unifor is Canada’s largest union in the private sector, representing 315,000 workers in every major area of the economy. The union advocates for all working people and their rights, fights for equality and social justice in Canada and abroad, and strives to create progressive change for a better future.