Had To Know This Was Coming, Same Old Union B.S.

Postal union to fight back-to-work legislation in court

 

 

BY TERESA SMITH, POSTMEDIA NEWS JUNE 29, 2011 10:38 AM

 

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The 15-member national executive board of CUPW has decided to take the federal government to court over last week's back-to-work legislation.

Photograph by: Aaron Lynett, National Post

OTTAWA — Letters and bills may returning to your mailbox, but the union representing Canada's postal workers says this fight is far from over.

The 15-member national executive board of CUPW has decided to take the federal government to court over last week's back-to-work legislation.

Nearly 50,000 locked-out Canada Post workers were forced back to their jobs this week under settlement terms arranged by government.

Gerry Deveau, national director for the Ontario region of the CUPW, says Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms contains the right to belong to a union and Canada's labour code protects the right to collective bargaining.

It's on those grounds, the union wants to file a legal challenge, he said.

"The government intervention here is stripping us of those rights," Deveau said.

He said the union will consult with legal counsel Wednesday and for the rest of this week. He said he anticipates launching the challenge by next week.

Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton said Wednesday morning he hadn't heard anything about the possible court case.

"We're focused on delivering the mail and serving Canadians," he said.

The court case will target one of the main sticking points over the bill — the wage settlements.

The government legislated a wage increase of 1.57 per cent, which is lower than the 1.9 per cent that Canada Post had put on the table earlier this month in negotiations with its workers.

"We want to challenge the government legislating us back to work at less than what the corporation offered at a time when the cost of living is far greater than what the government has imposed upon us," Deveau said.

Canada Post locked out its employees on June 14, after the Canadian Union of Postal Workers conducted 12 days of rotating strikes.

Labour Minister Lisa Raitt then introduced the back-to-work legislation.

Opposition MPs condemned the bill as a whole, saying it undermined workers' rights to collective bargaining.

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Liberal cost control plan too optimistic, Ontario auditor says

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Auditor General of Ontario, Jim McCarter, pictured in this file photo, says the Liberal government’s plan to keep costs in line is far too “optimistic” given its past spending habits.

TARA WALTON/TORONTO STAR

Rob FergusonQueen’s Park Bureau

The watchdog who keeps an eye on Ontario’s books warned Tuesday the Liberal government’s plan to keep costs in line is far too “optimistic” given its past spending habits.

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan responded to the cautionary pre-election report from Auditor General James McCarter by acknowledging his plan is “aggressive” and maintained he can still balance the budget by 2018.

But McCarter told reporters the government’s plan should be taken with “a moderately big grain of salt” by citizens.

The auditor’s report is certain to spur debate as all parties at Queen’s Park jockey for advantage as the Oct. 6 vote approaches, with the plain-talking McCarter raising an eyebrow over Duncan’s predictions, taking aim at mixed results from a voluntary public sector wage freeze and rising health care costs due to an aging population.

“The government says it will spend an average of just 1.8 per cent more in each of the next three years, even though its annual spending growth over the past eight years, after adjusting for large one-time expenses, averaged almost 7 per cent,” he said.

“That’s a pretty big decrease.”

Ontario law requires assumptions be made on a “cautious” basis, McCarter added, noting many arbitrators have ignored Duncan’s push for two years of wage freezes in the public sector.

Most arbitrators have ignored the Liberals’ call for a two-year wage freeze for the broader public sector because there is no legislation to back it up, awarding wage increases to union members.

“We believe it is optimistic to assume that there will be no net compensation increases in the public sector and broader public sector in the next two years,” McCarter wrote in the 37-page report.

And with health care eating up 42 per cent of the government’s spending on programs, he casts doubt on the Liberals’ prediction that costs will rise at half the previous rate despite an aging population.

“Given that many of the assumptions underlying the expense projections are optimistic rather than cautious, there is a heightened risk that actual expenses will be higher than estimated,” McCarter wrote, adding that the government was cautious in estimating its revenues.

He did not pass judgment on the Progressive Conservative spending plans — which include more rosy revenue estimates than the Liberal ones, along with promises to match Liberal spending increases on health care and education while making cuts elsewhere.

Tory MPP Lisa MacLeod said the government’s financial plan has been “indicted” by the auditor’s red flags but her party will go “full steam ahead” on its platform, called Changebook.

McCarter said voters will have to make their own decisions given that some of the Tory numbers are based on “underlying assumptions” in the Liberal financial plan.

New Democrats have not yet released a full platform or a financial costing of their promises.

The auditor’s report was prepared under a law passed by the Liberals requiring the auditor to verify provincial finances before elections, and was spurred by the Liberal discovery of a $5.6 billion deficit when they took power from the Progressive Conservatives in 2003.

Ontario Poised For Conservative Government

It looks as though the conservatives are set to take Ontario.  All polls lately suggest a Changing of the Guard, which makes this conservative a very happy man!  For too long Ontario has put liberals and NDP in power and all we have to do is look to their track record to see it hasn't worked out too well for them.

Kelly McParland: Ontario sets the stage for Tory trifecta

Pat McGrath / Postmedia files

Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak

Kelly McParland  Jun 27, 2011 – 9:50 AM ET | Last Updated: Jun 27, 2011 10:23 AM ET

Unless something changes soon, it’s going to be difficult for Tories across Canada to poke fun at Ontario as a hopeless bastion of liberal sentiment any longer, ruining hours of good-natured hilarity at the expense of the country’s biggest province.

After electing a Conservative mayor in its biggest city, and giving 73 of its 106 seats to the Tories in the federal election, the province appears ready to replace Dalton McGuinty’s eight-year-old Liberal government with Tim Hudak’s Progressive-Conservatives, completing a trifecta that hasn’t happened since before the Toronto Maple Leafs last won a Stanley Cup.

A poll released on the weekend suggests Hudak isn’t just going to win, but win big. It found 41 per cent of voters planned to pick the Tories in October, against just 26 per cent for the Liberals and  22 per cent for the NDP. That would mean an easy majority for Hudak and turn the province into a bastion of Toryism, an unaccustomed position for a province that has long made a fetish out of being middle of the road.

The last time Tories held all three positions — Toronto mayor, Ontario premier and Prime Minister — was in 1962, when John Diefenbaker was on his last legs in Ottawa, Nathan Phillips was in his last year as mayor, and John Robarts was premier, the latest in a 43-year-dynasty of Conservative provincial premiers that wouldn’t end until the party finally ran out of steam in 1985. Before Dief,  you have to go all the way back to 1934, when the federal and provincial Conservatives had been foolish enough to come to power during the Depression, and you weren’t allowed to be mayor unless you were a card-carrying member of the Orange Lodge.

What’s interesting is that both those earlier instances took place before demographic changes that produced major changes in the character of the province. In the 1930s Ontario was a staid, disapproving, God-fearing outpost of Empire, in which “immigrants” meant Irish and “religious strife” meant Catholic against Protestant. Everything closed on Sunday and fun wasn’t officially outlawed, but was largely frowned upon. By 1962 that old order was on the point of being overwhelmed by a combination of immigration and the baby boom; when Phillips lost in 1962 and Diefenbaker followed the next year it was like someone had sealed the door on the crypt.

Fifty years later the province, and the city of Toronto especially, may be the most multicultural community on the planet, yet looks likely to  give all three of its top political positions to Conservatives. Somehow you get the feeling that wasn’t what Pierre Trudeau expected when he started the whole thing.

National Post

Ontario Turning Blue?

Hudak widens lead on McGuinty: poll

Mike Carroccetto/Postmedia News

Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty trails Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak in most parts of the province, a new poll found.

Postmedia News  Jun 12, 2011 – 5:31 PM ET

By Bradley Bouzane

OTTAWA — Ontario appears poised for a changing of the guard when the next provincial election takes place, with a new poll suggesting the Progressive Conservatives have expanded their lead to unseat Premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals.

According to the exclusive Ipsos Reid poll, the PCs — led by Tim Hudak — have the support of 40% of decided voters, up two points from the start of the year. The Liberals, meanwhile have dropped one point in that time and currently have the support of 34% of decided Ontarians.

Nelson Wiseman, a University of Toronto political scientist, said Sunday that while he expects similar findings in the all polls leading up to the Oct. 6 vote, he stresses the importance of the campaign itself and said that like last month’s federal elections, anything can happen, noting the NDP’s surge to become Official opposition.

“Surprises do happen and campaigns do matter,” Mr. Wiseman said. “Going into this election, you’d have to bet on the Conservatives and I’m confident they’ll continue to the lead the polls. During the campaign, I still think they’ve got the benefit, but if they shoot themselves in the foot, they’ll drop from first . . . It’s their election to lose.”

Although Mr. Hudak’s support trumps Mr. McGuinty’s in most regions of the province, the Greater Toronto Area remains very much up in the air four months before the provincial vote.

Some 38% of respondents from the GTA voiced support for Mr. Hudak, while 39% sided with Mr. McGuinty, who has served as premier since 2003.

The third-place party — the Andrea Horwath-led NDP — were favoured by 18% of those polled in the GTA and 20% of all voters surveyed in the province.

Mr. Wiseman said it’s likely many of the survey respondents are not fully aware of who Mr. McGuinty is up against in the upcoming election and said that with four months to go, marking a provincial ballot is not top of mind for most people in Ontario.

Once things kick into full gear, however, he said all regions are up for grabs, and a similar NDP surge on a provincial level could also happen.

“People right now are not focused on the provincial election,” he said. “Hudak’s visibility and profile will raise dramatically as the election comes. That will probably be to his benefit, although it could also hurt. It just depends on how the election unfolds” he added.

“I think, just as people don’t know Hudak, they also don’t know Andrea Horwath. When the election debates come, they’ll have two leaders who are fresh faces, who are going to be on an equal platform with the premier, who is not a fresh face. The thing to look for is . . . don’t be surprised if the NDP picks up in the election and we may have a minority.”

Mr. Hudak’s highest levels of support were found in eastern Ontario at 47% of decided voters compared to 31% for the Liberals.

Mr. McGuinty’s largest pocket of support was found in northern Ontario, with 37% support.

But Hudak is on his heels at 36% of support.

Mr. McGuinty’s lowest support levels were found in rural areas — with just 17% of those polled indicating the premier would get their vote — while Mr. Hudak boasts 45% of support in the same regions. Mr. Horwath placed second in rural areas, with 25% of voters swaying toward the NDP.

By age demographic, Mr. Hudak’s support climbed along with the respondents’ age group. His largest centre of support came from voters aged 55 and over — at 48%.

By contrast, Mr. McGuinty’s support had the opposite effect, with younger voters more likely to stay the same course with the current premier when the vote takes place on Oct. 6. As the age demographic increased, support for Mr. McGuinty dropped.

The Green party, led by Mike Schreiner, placed fourth according to the poll, accounting for about six% of voter support.

The telephone poll — conducted exclusively for Postmedia News, Global Television and NewsTalk 1010 — surveyed 802 eligible Ontario voters between May 17 and June 9. The results are considered accurate within 3.5%, 19 times out of 20.

Tories New Ground?

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June 9: Letters to the editor

Toronto, immigrants and natives now embrace Tories, Kenney says

STEVEN CHASE

OTTAWA— Globe and Mail Update

Published Thursday, Jun. 09, 2011 9:36PM EDT

Last updated Friday, Jun. 10, 2011 11:32AM EDT

One of the key architects of Stephen Harper’s majority victory says Conservatives have usurped the Liberal mantle as the party of Toronto, immigrants and aboriginal Canadians.

In a analysis of the May 2 federal ballot delivered to a Tory convention in Ottawa Thursday, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney argued that the Tories accomplished this by tapping into the inherent conservatism of Canadians.

VIDEO

Tories respond to Auditor-General's G8 findings

INFOGRAPHIC

Demographic breakdown of voters in the 2011 federal election

PRESTON MANNING

Is Canada becoming more conservative?

And he urged Conservative Party rank and file to make sure the Tory government sticks to its conservative convictions during the next four years.

“This is a special responsibility for you, the grassroots of our party, to ensure that sure our government does not waiver and that we stay true to our conservative principles,” Mr. Kenney told the crowd at the Ottawa convention centre.

More than 2,200 Conservatives have gathered for three days in the nation’s capital to toast their majority government win, talk shop and debate policy.

They’re grappling with a question that all ruling parties face: how to prevent ministers and MPs, busy with their elected duties, from losing touch with the grassroots party members they will need to fight the next election in four years.

Mr. Kenney, the party’s ethnic outreach czar, said the most important development May 2 was the Conservative breakthrough with immigrant Canadians. This helped the Tories clinch a 166-seat majority even though they lost ground in Quebec, traditionally a key ingredient in winning control of the Commons.

“Polls indicate that we won at least 42 per cent of the votes of immigrants to Canada – higher than our support within the general population [and] giving us a 20 per cent lead over the Liberals among new Canadians,” Mr. Kenney said.

“From a 60-point deficit to a 20-point lead – one of the great achievements of Stephen Harper’s leadership.”

He said the election that saw the Conservatives make inroads among immigrants and Torontonians has created a “new, durable and diverse Conservative electorate” the party can rely on if it doesn’t lose touch with the priorities of its voters.

“Canadians of all backgrounds are drawn to our party, not in spite of our values – like the media think – but because of our values,” Mr. Kenney said.

“We don’t depend on the bloated bureaucracies of the nanny state; we thrive on our freedom and are upheld by the law,” he said.

“We don’t assume that history began in the Summer of Love; we honour a tradition reaching back to the Magna Carta.”

The convention gives grassroots Conservatives a chance to send blunt messages to the Harper government, such as a proposal Tories are calling the “Omar Khadr” resolution.

It proposes to make it Conservative Party policy to support stripping Canadians of their citizenship should they take up arms against this country or its allies. It’s an apparent reference to Mr. Khadr, who was caught fighting U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and is currently imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay.

It’s unlikely the Harper government would ever contemplate such a law, which critics say would violate the Charter of Rights.

The resolution, from Mr. Kenney’s Calgary-Southeast riding association, sends the message that while critics might feel the Harper government should have done more to help Mr. Khadr, there are Conservatives who believe Ottawa was too lenient with him.

Mr. Kenney said the Liberals failed because they devoted too much time focusing on what he called marginal issues such as the treatment of Afghan prisoners captured by Canadian soldiers.

“Our adversaries were focused on the obsessions of the chattering classes – like Taliban prisoners – rather than the practical bread-and-butter concerns of hard-working families.”

“The country comes first,” Mr. Kenney said. “And as we’ve seen, any presumed natural governing party that forgets this reality is in trouble.”

The Tories aren’t letting their incumbent MPs rest on their laurels.

Tory Members of Parliament will be forced to fight off rivals in their party for the right to carry the Tory banner as a candidate in the next election, party sources say.

Special protections that effectively sheltered incumbent Tory MPs from nomination fights are no longer in place. These protections, introduced in the latter years of minority government rule, grandfathered existing Conservative MPs as candidates for the next election unless two-thirds of their local riding association membership voted to hold a nomination battle.