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Oct 27, 2025 | by Barry Weisleder On Sunday, October 26 defenders of the right of a people to resist occupation by any means necessary gathered outside Toronto’s Union Station.   They protested Ottawa’s complicity with Donald Trump’s fraudulent ‘peace plan’…

Read More Palestine rally on October 26 in Toronto

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On Thursday, Ontario Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Rob Flack introduced Bill 60, the “Fighting Delays, Building Faster” Act. The bill contains sweeping reforms that remove tenants' legal protections. The Tories’ claim this legislation, like their other housing bills, is intended to build more homes by cutting red tape.  “Delays and backlogs at the LTB [Landlord and Tenant Board] are hurting both tenants and landlords,” said the Tories in their technical briefing. “It is important for the government to take action to stop bad actors and improve speed, fairness, and accessibility at the LTB to help resolve disputes faster with the goal of eliminating the backlog.”  Effectively, Queen’s Park intends to clear the LTB’s backlog by streamlining away any tools tenants had to defend themselves or seek accountability at an LTB hearing. The bill effectively nullifies Section 82 of the Residential Tenancies Act, which allows tenants to raise issues of poor maintenance, harassment, and illegal rent collection at a hearing where the landlord makes claims against the tenant for non-payment.  The government is seeking to impose measures including but not limited to: In the middle of a national housing crisis, Ontario’s landlords, with strong representation in the provincial government, are being given an opportunity to charge greater rents.  By abolishing security of tenure, landlords now will be given free rein to remove a tenant at the end of a lease and charge higher rent on the same unit.  According to a report released in January of this year by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, almost 640,000 Ontarian households, or 12.1% of all Ontario households were considered in core housing need, meaning that housing is unaffordable, inadequate, or unsuitable, with no other local options available.

L’article Ontario PCs Seek Abolition of Tenant Protections est apparu en premier sur The North Star.

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Alberta teachers, 51,000 strong, have been on strike across the province since October 6. On Monday, the provincial government is expected to table legislation to order them back to work.  Some 740,000 students in all public, Catholic, and francophone schools are affected. The issues are salary and the consequences of the UCP Government’s underfunding of public education: workload, class sizes, school resources, and the need for more teachers.  Jason Schilling, President of the Alberta Teachers Association (ATA) commented that back-to-work legislation would be “undemocratic and deeply disrespectful to teachers, to students and to the collective bargaining process itself.” The latest mediated offer included a 12% increase over four years and 3,000 more teachers. But teacher’s salaries have fallen drastically with inflation, and the new teachers would be soaked up by the Government’s promised 250 new schools and a 33,000 increase in student numbers every year.  Teachers soundly rejected the latest offer, with 89.5% voting no at the end of September. Talks resumed October 14, but no change is expected in the employer’s position.  The employer school boards bargain jointly through a board representing all 65 boards. The employers have their purse strings held tight by the Government. ATA members voted 95% to strike in June. The government did no meaningful bargaining all summer.  If the government’s goal was to turn the public against the teachers, it failed. On October 4, two days before the strike was set to begin, massive pro-teacher rallies took place in the province. Crowds were estimated to be as high as 18,000 in Edmonton and 5,000 in Calgary.  One online poll by Angus Reid pegs support for the teachers at almost 60%, with only 21% backing the UCP.  After the strike started, the government announced 30-dollar-per-day payments to parents of students 12 and under students. It has also announced computer-based home learning programs, which include American content.  The UCP has been cutting public school funding since taking power in 2019. Alberta’s per-student funding in public schools has plummeted to the lowest in Canada, while its public funding for private schools has risen to the highest in the country.  It seems that the UCP’s goal is to weaken all aspects of public education so that parents will look elsewhere to private schooling options or even home schooling. Premier Danielle Smith said in 2018 that a way must be found to “break” the public school system’s “monopoly” on education.  At their last party convention, the UCP resolved to break up the Alberta Teachers Association by moving its regulatory and discipline function to another body and making ATA membership optional.  Update on teachers strike

L’article Alberta teachers strike province-wide under threat of back-to-work legislation est apparu en premier sur The North Star.

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