Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemns the Ontario government’s intention to use the notwithstanding clause in a controversial bill that would impose a contract on education workers in the province.
His comments came Tuesday morning as the Ontario Legislative Assembly held a first session called by the Ford government to expedite the passage of the Law on keeping students in class that would contract education workers represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and prevent them from going on strike.
CUPE said it would explore all avenues to fight the bill, but the government said it intended to use the notwithstanding clause to keep the eventual law in force despite any constitutional challenges.
The clause allows the legislature to waive parts of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for a five-year term.
“It’s wrong to use the notwithstanding clause to suspend workers’ rights,” Trudeau said, adding that collective bargaining must be conducted with respect despite any difficulties that arise.
“Suspending peoples’ rights is something you should only do in the most exceptional of circumstances, and I really hope all politicians speak out against the overuse of the notwithstanding clause to suspend peoples’ rights and freedoms. “
Federal Labor Minister Seamus O’Regan called the preventative use of the notwithstanding clause a “travesty”, while federal Justice Minister David Lametti said he was considering how Ottawa could challenge the use of the clause by the province.
Education minister says clause can reduce challenges to bill
Education Minister Stephen Lecce speaking with CBC’s Metro Morning on Tuesday noted that there was a “massive difference” between the two sides in the negotiations.
“It’s not a government’s first option to legislate, but the alternative is to do nothing frankly,” Lecce said.
LISTEN | Ontario Minister of Education on preventing strikes:
Subway morning9:02Why the Ontario government is using the notwithstanding clause to prevent education workers from going on strike
Stephen Lecce is Ontario’s Minister of Education. He joined Metro Morning to explain why his government is introducing new legislation to prevent education workers from striking, in a bid to keep schools open.
When asked how this bill differs from legislation passed by the former provincial Liberal government in 2012, which ended up requiring the province to pay more $100 million in reparations to affected unionsLecce said the bill was crafted with the notwithstanding clause in mind, which can “reduce any downstream litigation or dispute that could create disruption.”
“The purpose of this government legislation is designed to keep children in school,” Lecce said.
“And if we are going to do it, as a lesson learned from the previous government, we are going to do it with all the tools at our disposal to avoid a strike and a disruption and any type of problems that may arise in the weeks or months to come. come.”
In a letter dated Monday and released Tuesday, Ontario Liberals called on the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly to review Lecce’s comments as a breach of parliamentary privilege, citing his alleged passage of the bill on multiple occasions after the bill is introduced.
During Question Period on Tuesday, Premier Doug Ford said the government’s offer was “very fair” and suggested it deal with frontline workers, but not their union leaders.
“We’re not going to flesh out the CUPE leader’s nest,” he said. “We distinguish between labor and union leadership. I think labor needs to find new leadership.”
Ford’s statements are based on a false union trope and distract from the lack of funding and shrinking workforce in Ontario schools, CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn told CBCToronto.
“It’s really unfortunate, and it’s the complete opposite of what we need in a leader,” Hahn said.
Education workers will leave work on Friday
The province’s decision comes after CUPE said its 55,000 education worker members, including early childhood educators, custodians and librarians, would walk off the job on Friday despite the legislation. It is unclear if the walkout would last longer than a day.
The proposed bill provides for a strike ban with fines of up to $4,000 per employee each day and $500,000 for the union, with the union promising to foot the bill for those fines.
CUPE said it was at the table and would make a counter offer. The government said it would also meet if the mediator asked his side to return and wanted to know if CUPE’s new offer was “reasonable”.
Several unions have made statements of solidarity with CUPE, including the Workers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA), which supported Ford’s Progressive Conservatives in the June election.
“Forcibly imposing a contract on workers is not the solution,” Joseph Mancinelli, LiUNA’s international vice president and regional director for central and eastern Canada, wrote in Lecce on Tuesday.
WATCH | Ontario education workers vow to protest as Ford government fast-tracks bill:
Ontario MLAs gathered early in the morning to pass legislation to prevent a strike by education workers. The Progressive Conservative government promises to use the notwithstanding clause to enforce the law.
The government had offered raises of 2% a year for workers earning less than $40,000 and 1.25% for everyone else, but Lecce said the imposed new four-year deal would grant 2.5% raises annual benefits to workers earning less than $43,000. and 1.5% increase for all others.
CUPE said its workers, who earn an average of $39,000 a year, are generally the lowest paid in schools and it is demanding annual wage increases of 11.7%. More than 96 per cent of CUPE education worker members voted in favor of a strike.
Several school boards, including the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), have said they will have to close schools on Friday in response.
About 15,000 TDSB employees — about a third of council staff — are CUPE employees, TDSB spokesman Ryan Bird said Tuesday. He said if they left work it was not possible to keep schools running safely.
If the action continues beyond Friday, he said, the board would notify parents and students as soon as possible so they can make alternative arrangements.
Riaz Ahmed, the father of a first grader and a kindergarten student on the council, said planned school closures complicated his plans for Friday because he and his wife are working parents.
“We are always planning and always trying to find a way,” he said.
Danyaal Raza said he and his partner are still working on childcare plans for his six-year-old, who is attending the first year of a TDSB school, as they seek to adjust work schedules or ask grandparents for help.
Raza, a family doctor, said the walkout was “undoubtedly going to cause short-term disruption and short-term frustration”, but he said he supported the right of education workers to do strike and negotiate an agreement.
“I was quite shocked to see that not only was this not going to happen, but the provincial government was using the notwithstanding clause to override that right,” Raza said.
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