Jerry Dias, Unifor President, is once again in the media as Premier Doug Ford has named Dias the chair of the Premierâs Council on U.S. Trade and Industry Competitiveness. Toronto Star columnist Martin Regg Cohn's puff piece describes Dias as a leader of the labour movement. But, as guest Tony Leah points out, Dias was not picked by the labour movement â he was picked by Doug Ford. The Ontario Federation of Labour, representing a million workers, played no part and is not mentioned by Dias.
Leah, Political Action Committee chair of Unifor Local 222, critiques Jerry Diasâs tripartite approach of collaboration with corporations and Liberal and Conservative governments. Dias played a similar role of being Chrystia Freelandâs âlabour leaderâ during the USMCA negotiations. His first pick to be on Doug Ford's Premierâs Council is Steve Verheul, a career bureaucrat who was involved in the negotiation of every trade deal signed by Canada back to the original NAFTA in 1994 â every one of which was denounced by the Canadian labour movement. Describing the USMCA talks, Jerry Dias said of Verheul, âHe was mainly the guy who was loading the gun. I was ï¬ring the bullets.â
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Interview with Tony Leah
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