Protesters oppose province’s minimum wage rollback
As business and political leaders celebrated the repeal of the former Liberal government’s Fair Workplaces Better Jobs Act during the final day of the Ontario Economic Summit on Friday, dozens of Niagara residents gathered to protest the impact the slashed legislation is having on workers.
Carrying Fight for $15 and Fairness picket signs and flags identifying several labour groups, the protesters chanted slogans like “workers united will never be defeated” as the Ontario Chamber of Commerce event drew to a close at the White Oaks conference centre in Niagara-onthe-Lake.
Kyle Hoskin, a member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 1287, said he hastily organized the protest to coincide with a visit from Premier Doug Ford, after the Progressive Conservative government repealed the legislation earlier this week — scrapping the $15 an hour minimum wage that was to come into effect on Jan. 1, while also eliminating other benefits for workers.
Hoskin said the repeal of Bill 148 is the most recent in a series of cuts that have hurt the most vulnerable in the province.
“He (Ford) took away the minimum income project. This was a project that was proving to be turning the tide in the province. It was reducing poverty, getting people to where they truly needed to be. He took away $100 million in school funding for school repairs. Now our kids are sitting in schools that are no longer in shape,” he said. “Is that for the people? Who are they representing?”
Niagara Workers Activist Group chair Lisa Britton listed numerous changes that will adversely impact workers, in addition to the lost wage increase — such as the loss of a minimum of three hours of pay for being on-call, the elimination of 10 emergency leave days, and the loss of a provision that prevented employers from requiring a medical note from sick workers.
Unifor Local 199 president Greg Brady said the cuts “just kicks the low income and middleclass right in the teeth.”
“It’s terrible,” he added.
Kit Andres joined the protesters, speaking for the migrant workers that spend most of the year in Canada, primarily working in local agriculture industry.
Many of them, she said, are paid piecework for their efforts, often resulting in paychecks that fall short of even $14 an hour.
“As part of their contract, piecework is supposed to equal minimum wage if not higher, but we’ve been seeing that often it’s lower. It’s not across the board, but it is happening,” Andres said.
Niagara Centre NDP MPP Jeff Burch, who joined the protest along with NDP MPP Wayne Gates from Niagara Falls, said “people who can barely make ends meet were counting on a little bit of fairness in their wages and a couple of emergency leave days.”
“This government, in addition to all the other things they’ve done like cancelling mental health spending and cancelling the basic income pilot project, to
“I just went up to my hotel room, just laid there and took it in,” he said.
In the same hectic week, he appeared on Rachael Ray, preparing a ‘bologna bowl’ and a broccoli-chicken cheddar curry casserole.
On Dec. 12, he will again be on a major U.S. network late-night show, which he is not obligated at the moment to speak about publicly.
In February, he was a guest on Late Night with Seth Meyers.
His cookbook, an ambitious 80,000-word project across more than 300 pages, is filled with homestyle meals, as well as a lot of the French cuisine he specialized in while working in Toronto.
“Half of the book is straight-up family recipes,” he said, showing respect to the skills of his motherin-law, his parents and grandparents.
There are many references to his life in Fort Erie including photos at the Fort Erie Race Track and one of the Peace Bridge. There are pot roasts, stews, soups, seafood dishes, and a lot more.
Wanting it to be perfect, he often found himself backtracking while putting it together. Plus, he admits to being a bit of a procrastinator, pointing out that his deadline from the publisher had to be slightly extended.
Matty Matheson: A Cookbook is available at major and independent book stores, as well as online.