As Ontario is expected to pass its controversial Bill 5 through its third and final reading on Wednesday, representatives of organized labour say their fight is only beginning. 

Members of the Ontario Federation of Labour intend to fill the gallery at 1:30 when the government is expected to pass the Protect Ontario By Unleashing Our Economy Act, a proposal First Nations leaders say will trample their treaty rights to free, prior, and informed consent on major project development.

“I think this is a watershed moment where people will recognize who is fighting for workers and Indigenous peoples: it was us. We are the heroes we’ve been waiting for,” says OFL president Laura Walton. “And it’s time we actually embrace that and connect with our power and move forward and we can do this – every single one of us.”

As members of five more northern First Nations fly to Toronto to rally for Premier Doug Ford to withdraw the bill, Walton is calling for a broad movement to oppose the bill’s implementation, including united labour, that will be led by First Nations.

Bill 5, the Protect Ontario By Unleashing Our Economy Act, would introduce “special economic zones,” inside of which the province can exempt certain “trusted” developers from environmental and labour laws while overriding any municipal bylaws. Ford has committed to making mining development in the Ring of Fire deposit into the first such zone, despite insistence from First Nations in the area that commitments to proper consultation and restoring basic infrastructure be a precursor to discussions.

Walton says the OFL stands with First Nations who demonstrated at Queen’s Park on Monday and she sees common ground in the struggle to come. She worries this bill could erase workplace occupational health and safety, regulations in the Skilled Trades Act, and provisions for injured workers under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

The Progressive Conservative majority government has moved this bill so quickly through the legislative process that the labour movement has been caught off guard. Walton says even developers with whom she has met are unaware of its sweeping power, and that broad worker education and mobilization efforts will be necessary to confront the two-tiered environment for labour laws the bill will introduce.

“This government only reacts to intense and continuous pressure,” she says. “All of us want development. No one is here to say ‘we don’t want to be developed, we don’t want to be economically prosperous.’ Nobody is saying that. What we’re saying is, ‘you don’t have to supersede treaty rights in order to achieve that. You don’t have to strip away the rights of workers to achieve that.’ 

“This is simply a power grab, and you’re rushing it through because you know damn well it’s a power grab and we’re going to be on the other side of it as well.”

Representatives of 290,000 Ontario public sector workers voted unanimously to call on the government to scrap the bill at the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ annual general meeting in May. Their resolution commits to educate and to mobilize to form, “the broadest possible coalition to demand the immediate and full withdrawal of this dangerous legislation.”

CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn says that before coming to the AGM, the vast majority of his local representatives had never heard of Bill 5. He describes it as “a fundamental shift in the way we govern in our country” that gives the Premier’s office “unlimited executive power,” pointing out the speed of its passage adds to the shock and confusion the public is experiencing around its implications.

“The government wants us to believe that once they pass a bill, that’s the end – it’s not,” Hahn says. “We can monitor what they do, we can resist what they do, we can overturn legislation. There can be court challenges to overturn it. These things have happened in recent history in our province.”

Hahn foresees a broad movement forming to confront the implementation of the legislation in which workers will join First Nations out of mutual interest and solidarity.

“It’s enormously important that labour and Indigenous leaders are starting to come together. We need to keep going because legislation like this should not stay on the books, period. It’s a long game so sure, they have a majority and they can ram through legislation that’s fundamentally undemocratic. That’s not the end, it is the beginning.”

Inside Queen’s Park, NDP deputy leader Sol Mamakwa was asked to leave the legislature during Question Period after refusing to withdraw a statement he made regarding Doug Ford. Mamakwa made the statement while arguing that First Nations in Ontario do not want Bill 5, contrary to what Ford has been saying. “We know the premier is telling untruths to First Nations,” Mamakwa said during his speech. “Our rights are not being respected,” Mamakwa said after being warned by the Speaker.

When asked to withdraw his statement, Mamakwa refused, and said his comment on the premier is “the truth.” He was then asked to leave. 

Marit Stiles, NDP Leader and leader of the Official Opposition, walked out with him. She later called Mamakwa’s removal from the legislature “shameful” in a post on social media.

Jon Thompson is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter based in Thunder Bay. Contact him with tips and story ideas at editor@ricochet.media.