By now, many people in the province are very familiar with ‘The Big Reset’ – the plan put forward by the Premier’s Economic Recovery Team (PERT) meant to stimulate the economy, create jobs and attract young people to the province.

If the government thinks that the PERT plan will accomplish this goal it is sorely mistaken and workers will pay the price.

As Unifor marks National Indigenous Peoples Day and we come together to celebrate the heritage and history of the first peoples of this land, our thoughts turn to the continuing barriers that Indigenous people face in Canada due to structural racism and the violent and ongoing legacies of settler colonialism.

Federal legislation on the use of scabs includes a big escape clause that effectively renders any supposed ban in federal law useless.

Canada’s social safety net - including Employment Insurance – has been dismantled bit by bit as part of a deliberate restructuring of our economy to suit the needs of business, not workers.

It was a failed experiment, and needs to be reversed.

There was a philosophical and ideological shift over a generation that put individualism first and foremost - a belief in working strictly for wages, rather than passion or principle, and shamed anything that looked like getting something for nothing.