Canada’s Secretary of State (Labour) John Zerucelli was the latest high-profile visitor to tour our new regional office and training centre in Oro-Medonte, where he was hosted by Business Manager Mike Gallagher, OETIO Executive Director Rick Kerr, Director of Training and Apprenticeship Jeff Hewitt and Toronto Area Supervisor Justin O’Neill.
As well as talking to training staff and apprentices and trying his hand on the state-of-the-art simulator, Zerucelli and Business Manager Gallagher discussed a range of topics of interest to our members, including gaining government support for the building of new training facilities in Sarnia, Sudbury and Hamilton and for the redevelopment of the industrial property at 2285 Speers Road.
Other topics on the agenda included:
- Nunavut – the need for the federal government to support our members at the Baffinland mine and ensure the Steensby railroad is built by union contractors.
- Jobsite safety – our hope that the committee looking into the use of rotating telehandlers in crane mode determines that they do meet the definition of a crane under current CSA standards.
- Pipelines – that the government supports the construction of a proposed pipeline from Alberta to Sarnia as a project of national interest.
- Investing in Canada – to develop more favourable conditions to encourage Canadian union pension funds to invest in Canadian projects of national interest.
Business Manager Gallagher said, “The secretary of state was impressed by what we have created here in Oro-Medonte and I told him that with enough government support we could get those new training facilities built in two years instead of five!
“We agreed to keep communicating on those issues and also touched on the proposed Bill C-39. He said there is a misunderstanding out there about what is in the bill and made it clear that nobody in government is trying to remove the right to strike from unions. He urged us to put a brief into Minister for Jobs and Families Patty Hajdu laying out our concerns and what we feel could be improved in the bill – so that was very reassuring.”
