RECOMMENDATION #1
Protecting Canadian Jobs; Building a Resilient Economy
I therefore recommend that the Prairie Regional Council:
- Fully participate in Unifor’s Protect Canadian Jobs campaign by encouraging all members to take the ‘Unifor Made’ pledge and identify the goods and services they provide to Canadians so the National Union can promote widely.
- Advocate for government to use a range of strong and strategic countermeasures, including retaliatory tariffs, to defend workplaces, eliminate incentives for business to relocate out of Canada, and penalize firms should they choose to do so.
- Coordinate discussions among local unions, industry councils, and with government officials and key stakeholders to promote Unifor’s call for big, bold economy-building ideas in the face of U.S. aggression, and to consider other sector-specific ideas as part of comprehensive industrial strategies that deliver a more self-sustaining, inclusive and resilient economy for all.
- Commit to closely monitoring tariff-related workplaces impacts in every regional Unifor-represented workplace, share that information with the National Union and prepare to respond, by any means necessary, to prevent the relocation of production or permanent loss of jobs.
RECOMMENDATION NO. 2
Gender Based Violence & Intimate Partner Violence is an Epidemic
I therefore recommend that the Prairie Regional Council:
- Continue to advocate for all prairie provinces to declare Gender Based Violence and Intimate Partner Violence an Epidemic.
- Actively continue its ongoing lobbying of the governments in the prairies to introduce and implement legislation making the same declaration and following the government in Nova Scotia.
- Continue to organize coalition partners around this issue so we can work with like-minded organizations that share our objectives.
- Continue to encourage local unions to support these lobbying and advocacy efforts.
RECOMMENDATION NO. 3
Defeating the Stigma Surrounding Mental Health
I therefore recommend that the Prairie Regional Council:
- Protects our members from the stigma surrounding mental health issues by ensuring that our members have confidential access and referrals to Employee and Family Assistance programs and benefits.
- Reduces the stigma surrounding mental health by supporting demands to negotiate mental health recognition, protection and benefits into all collective agreements.
- Continues supporting and engaging with community partners to offer accessible resources to combat the barriers of mental health.
- Prioritize education by providing mental health matters training whenever possible to keep the conversation progressing on breaking down the barriers surrounding mental health and ensuring that mental health at work is also a health and safety issue.
- Continues to provide a platform for members to share their lived experiences, successes, and recovery.
Recommendation #4
Defend and Transform Canada’s Forestry Sector
I recommend that Unifor Prairie Regional Council:
- Call on all relevant Ministers in the new federal government, and all Prairie Region provincial governments to coordinate a “Team Canada” strategy to support the forestry sector and its workers, beginning with immediate income supports for those facing curtailments and layoffs, and emergency financial assistance to keep mills operating through the tariff crisis;
- Support the development of a national industrial strategy for forestry that reduces Canada’s historic dependence on exports, prioritizes domestic processing and value-added production, that includes campaigning for a Made-in-Canada housing policy strategy to leverage Canadian wood to develop affordable wood-based housing and component construction; and
- Commit to defending and grow our forestry sector by working in solidarity with Indigenous partners, industry stakeholders, and governments at all levels to ensure a more sustainable, innovative, and inclusive future—one that puts Canadian wood to work for Canadians and ends our vulnerability to foreign economic aggression.
