Air Canada flight attendants said on Sunday they will remain on strike and challenge a return-to-work order they called unconstitutional, defying a government decision to force them back to their duties by 2 p.m. ET (1800 GMT).

Air Canada had said it planned to resume flights on Sunday evening, a day after the Canadian government issued a directive to end a cabin crew strike that caused the suspension of around 700 daily flights, stranding more than 100,000 passengers.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees said in a statement that members would remain on strike and invited Air Canada back to the table to "negotiate a fair deal."

“Now, when we’re at the bargaining table with an obstinate employer, the Liberals are violating our Charter rights to take job action and give Air Canada exactly what they want — hours and hours of unpaid labour from underpaid flight attendants, while the company pulls in sky-high profits and extraordinary executive compensation.”

CUPE came to the table with data-driven and reasonable proposals for a fair cost-of-living wage increase and an end to forced unpaid labour. Air Canada responded by sandbagging the negotiations. The Liberal government is rewarding Air Canada’s refusal to negotiate fairly by giving them exactly what they wanted.

This sets a terrible precedent. Contrary to the Minister’s remarks, this will not ensure labour peace at Air Canada. This will only ensure that the unresolved issues will continue to worsen by kicking them down the road. Nor will it ensure labour peace in this industry — because unpaid work is an unfair practice that pervades nearly the entire airline sector, and will continue to arise in negotiations between flight attendants and other carriers.

As a shocking move (not) the liberal government side with AirCanada patrons and forced the flight attendants union to go in legal arbitration (right word ?)

If you liked spammed your social with photo of Patricia Hadjy and PM Carney with the #UnpaidWorkWontfly

Love & Rage

I wish there was serious discussion of a wealth tax here in Canada. It sounds like it can work:

Ortega is poised to receive a record dividend of €3.1bn (£2.7bn) this year from his shares in Zara’s parent group, Inditex. He is reportedly racing to spend the windfall, which would otherwise be subject to wealth taxes. Sources close to Pontegadea told the Guardian it was not investing to avoid tax, but following its mandate “to create wealth from the original assets, maintain it, make it grow, and consolidate it over generations”.

...

What is clear is that, two years on, a predicted exodus of the rich, trumpeted in endless alarmist headlines, has not materialised. Forbes counted 26 Spanish billionaires in 2021. This year, it lists 34, with a combined net worth comfortably over $200bn.

...

So far, there is no sign that it has affected growth. Spain was the world’s fastest-expanding major advanced economy last year, outpacing even the US, with GDP up 3.2%. By contrast, growth in the UK and France last year barely scraped above 1%. On the balconies of the Planeta building, and in the country at large, the green shoots are alive and well.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/34535067

To prevent this waste of money, I’d travel back in time to the beginning of the streaming era and write a persuasive column arguing that the technology was now possible for CBC/Radio-Canada to create a single online TV service – one with a bilingual interface that offers the choice of viewing its French content with subtitles in English and vice-versa (or with dubbing should that be more politically palatable).

I’d write: “Believe it or not, in a few short years, some of the most popular international TV shows in Canada will be Scandinavian noirs and Korean gorefests – and a significant chunk of the audience will even watch shows in their own language with the subtitles on. For a small cost, CBC/Radio-Canada could vastly expand the reach and value of its content to Canadians.”

In the actual past, however, the two sides of the Crown corporation launched Gem and TOU.TV separately, years apart, and did so with each operating on different technology supported by separate engineering teams.

That costly error took a costly multiyear harmonization project to fix. But even now that the back ends are in sync, CBC/Radio-Canada still does not automatically secure the rights to subtitle or dub their own shows in the other official language.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/article-cbc-plan-b-french-english-subtitles-netflix/

On September 12-13, Halifax is scheduled to host a Davis Cup international tennis match between Team Canada and Israel at Scotiabank Centre. This event offers Israel the opportunity to sportswash its genocide in Gaza—to use sports to launder its reputation and distract from its human rights atrocities.

It’s significant that this match is scheduled to take place at Scotiabank Centre. Scotiabank is among the top five shareholders of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer. Elbit supplies 85 percent of Israel’s drones and up to 85 percent of its land-based equipment. This match is serving up Palestinian blood, masked as friendly international competition.

OTTAWA - Canadian officials negotiating a global treaty on plastic pollution at the United Nations say they didn't push other countries to adopt a cap on plastic production.

The sixth round of talks wrapped up in Geneva today without consensus on a legally-binding international treaty.

The negotiations started in 2022 and Canada has been instrumental in bringing countries to the table, having hosted the fourth round of talks in 2024.

In a technical briefing today, Environment Canada officials said they know that many countries are opposed to a production cap — so Canada didn't press the issue.

Reuters reported last week that the United States was circulating a memo to other countries urging them to reject any treaty which imposes limits on plastic production and plastic chemical additives.

Canadian officials said Friday that they saw no such memo.

Brennan Day, who serves in British Columbia’s Legislative Assembly as a member of the Conservative Party, said he received Martin’s letter and was not sure how many other officials received it.

“Honestly, I couldn’t believe it’s legitimate, but we reached out to [Martin’s] office,” Day told a Vancouver radio station. “It is a legitimate memo.”

Martin, who served his first term in the Maine Senate this year and is retired from a career in the international mineral extraction industry, did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Day posted Aug. 6 to Facebook an open response to Martin’s letter that said it “reads like a recruitment brochure for a political ideology,” and Day told Martin “you are operating well outside of your lane sir, so allow me to operate well outside of mine.”

Day took offense to several parts of Martin’s letter, including the Maine senator’s reference to “Canadian political baggage” and how the provinces becoming states would feature no “British monarchism, no bilingual federal documents [and] no imported bureaucracies.”

If the provinces became U.S. states, Martin also wrote that for “millions of people currently frustrated by central authority, moral decay, and bureaucratic suffocation, that reward is liberty.”

Day told Martin he holds “deep respect” for the U.S. and its citizens, but the Canadian lawmaker said the letter “lands more as a manifesto of arrogance.”

“Your letter is a perfect example of what many Canadians find so deeply troubling about the American worldview — assuming that what works for you must be the solution for everyone else,” Day added.

July 31, 2025

Most Canadians have no idea what the Business Council of Canada is or who it represents. But in Ottawa, the organization and its lobbyists are recognized power players, enjoying more influence and access than ever. Business Council CEO Goldy Hyder scored a face-to-face meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney just days after he was elected, and the group’s lobbyists have been in constant contact with Carney and his top officials ever since.

Through the Business Council, corporate Canada has laid out its wishlist in no uncertain terms: fast-tracking resource extraction, slashing taxes for Big Tech and the wealthy, gutting public services, and pouring money into the arms industry.

Perhaps most controversially, after an election framed around standing up to the United States, the Business Council has pushed for closer ties with the Trump regime—despite overwhelming evidence that it is an unreliable and erratic partner.

On every major file, Carney has delivered. His Liberal government has quickly aligned itself with the Council’s priorities, leaving many Liberal supporters disoriented. Yet in many ways, this marks a return to form in the longstanding alliance between Canada’s political class and its corporate elite.

Carney’s election has sparked something of a renaissance for the Business Council, which had felt sidelined in recent years. Once a dominant force in shaping economic policy throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the Council—which was known for a time as the Canadian Council of Chief Executives—saw its influence wane under the Trudeau government.

Now, with Carney at the helm, Ottawa has undergone what Politico describes as a major “vibe shift.” Gone are Trudeau’s tearful apologies and drawn-out consultations. Instead, Carney’s Liberals, in lockstep with the Conservatives, have rushed through contentious bills like C-2 (Strong Borders Act) and C-5 (Building Canada Act), while rapidly reorienting federal priorities toward corporate interests and military expansion.

• Invidious
• Youtube

Dude was getting lonely not being able to micromanage the lives of government employees.

Text of the article at the time of posting:

Ontario ordering public servants back into office full time

Current mandate of 3 days a week has been provincial government policy since April 2022

Mike Crawley · CBC News · Posted: Aug 14, 2025 7:17 AM PDT | Last Updated: 1 hour ago

Premier Doug Ford's government is ordering Ontario public servants to work from the office four days a week starting this fall and then full-time in January.

It's a change from a policy that has been in place since April 2022, when provincial government employees were mandated to be in their offices at least three days per week.

Employees of the Ontario Public Service, provincial agencies, boards and commissions must "increase their attendance to four days per week" starting Oct. 20 and transition to full-time hours in-office effective Jan. 5, 2026, said Treasury Board President Caroline Mulroney in an announcement Thursday. 

Ford says he believes government employees are more productive when they are in the office. 

"How do you mentor someone over a phone? You can't. You've got to look at them eye to eye," Ford said during an unrelated news conference Thursday in Pickering.

Ford also suggested having provincial workers return to the office is better for the economy, pointing out that many small businesses that rely on foot traffic from office workers have suffered due to remote work policies. 

"There's hard-working entrepreneurs that their business has basically just died when they weren't seeing the flow of traffic."

The news follows on the heels of announcements by four of Canada's big banks — RBC, Scotiabank, BMO and TD — that staff at their Toronto headquarters must spend at least four days a week in the office, effective this fall. 

'Everyone needs to go back to work,' says Ford

Ford said his government wasn't influenced by the bank mandates, but said business leaders he'd spoken with agree "everyone needs to go back to work." 

"We look forward to having everyone back; we're very grateful for the work they do. We have the best public service in Canada and I appreciate the work they do every day," he said.

Ontario's top bureaucrat, Secretary of Cabinet Michelle DiEmanuele, said in a memo obtained by CBC News that the decision "is in line with an increasing number of organizations across the public and private sectors."

The province's move comes just two weeks after it reached a new collective agreement with AMAPCEO, which represents some 14,000 professional, administrative and supervisory employees in the Ontario Public Service. 

The province was "hellbent on removing" employees' options for remote work during those negotiations, says AMAPCEO president Dave Bulmer. 

"I am incensed by this morning's announcement," said Bulmer in a message to union members. "We have shown that we can, and should, be treated as the capable, trustworthy professionals we are — professionals capable of working for Ontario from anywhere." 

Bulmer says there should be no changes for provincial employees who have a formal, signed agreement allowing them to work remotely, and says AMAPCEO members who want to work remotely should make an official request now.

Officials from OPSEU, the union that represents roughly half of the Ontario Public Service workforce, said they will issue a statement in response to the changes later on Thursday. 

The provincial government's single-largest office space in Toronto, the Macdonald Block complex, is undergoing a $1.5 billion renovation and has been shut down for six years. 

Staff of several provincial ministries have since been working from rented office space scattered around the city's downtown. 

Federal government employees are currently subject to a three-days-per-week minimum in the workplace, imposed last September. There's been some evidence since that the policy is not being strictly enforced. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Crawley

Senior reporter

Mike Crawley has covered Ontario politics for CBC News since 2009. He began his career as a newspaper reporter in B.C., spent six years as a freelance journalist in various parts of Africa, then joined the CBC in 2005. Mike was born and raised in Saint John, N.B.

With files from Sarah Petz