You’re encouraged to participate in Action Week

Last year, 300 union leaders and concerned citizens from across Canada lobbied on Parliament Hill to call on the federal government to act on various issues during Action Week, organized annually by the Ottawa-based Canadian Labour Congress.

Due to this year’s COVID public gathering restrictions, the Canadian Labour Congress, the Sault Ste. Marie Labour Council and their allies are inviting union officials and “thousands of people” to set up virtual meetings with their Members of Parliament for the 2020 Action Week, which runs from Nov. 2 to 6.

The Sault Ste. Marie Labour Council is urging union representatives, as well as individual constituents, to contact Sault MP Terry Sheehan’s office and ask for a link for a virtual meeting with the MP through Zoom, Microsoft Teams or another, similar virtual meeting system.

As of late Thursday afternoon, Sheehan’s office had not set up a time for a virtual meeting for Action Week, said Michele McCleave-Kennedy, Sault Ste. Marie Labour Council president, speaking to SooToday.

McCleave-Kennedy said she is hoping to arrange a virtual  meeting with Sheehan alongside Tara Maszczakiewicz, OPSEU Region 6 regional vice-president, and Cody Alexander, Sault Ste. Marie Labour Council 1st vice president and United Steelworkers Local 9548 president.

A meeting with Sheehan is needed, said McCleave-Kennedy, stating there is much to discuss.

“All the labour councils across Canada will be talking about issues that are important to the COVID recovery,” she said.

“Our main ask is going to be a plan for the EI and training program to help people get back to work, along with an affordable child care program.”

McCleave-Kennedy said more affordable apprenticeship programs need to be put in place.

“It needs to be more targeted toward immigrants, Indigenous people and women, and you shouldn’t have to move away from home (to an out of town college to undertake an apprenticeship program).”

“We need (improved) childcare because it’s (usually) women who are being disadvantaged the most...and, some of the daycares are on reduced numbers. If the childcare program was more universal and affordable, that wouldn’t disadvantage those workers (women who would like to leave their homes to go to work),” McCleave-Kennedy said.

The gap between the rich and poor needs to be reduced, she said.

“St. Vincent Place and the Soup Kitchen are both seeing more people on ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Program). We saw on Tuesday how the steelworkers (United Steelworkers Local 2251) donated $12,500 to the Algoma District School Board for students (for the board’s Student Nutrition Program).

You wouldn’t think we would have to have a breakfast program across the city, but then again those are the gaps we’re seeing. I mean, Helping Hands is posting on a regular basis that this homeless person and that homeless person needs a sleeping bag and a pillow. How are we even seeing that?”

“And then, our (strictly local) ask, that’s not part of the Canadian Labour Congress ask, is for (more) mental health services here, and we need them here now. We needed them five years ago (when the federal Liberals first came to power under Justin Trudeau) but we need them here now,” McCleave-Kennedy said.

“Myself, personally, I would love to see us get some funding for a mental health facility here in Sault Ste. Marie. We need that service. The opioid crisis is still a huge crisis here, and I know it’s not all federal funding, but if we could get some federal and provincial funding, it would go a long way.”

She said she would like to see a Level III Withdrawal Management Services facility established to address the opioid problem in Sault Ste. Marie.

Level I and II withdrawal management involves a supportive environment such as residential withdrawal, whereas Level III also involves medical withdrawal management.

There is a need for more conventional mental health services as well, McCleave-Kennedy said.

“COVID is giving people a whole different case of mental health problems. We’re seeing that in our schools and in the work environments. People are overwhelmed by the changes in their work environments. People weren’t expecting this.”

Even though such gargantuan socio-economic issues exist in the community, McCleave-Kennedy remains optimistic.

“I think this COVID crisis is going to cause us to rethink how we do things. We’ve laid so many people off, we’ve changed so many people’s job prospects, I think in order for the community to recover, we’re going to have to think about a whole different way of doing things and that’s what we want to talk to Terry about...we’re hoping with EI reforms and the apprenticeship programs we can start getting our young people back into the community, back into jobs.”