Virtual Info Session: Bill 60

The following correspondence was received this week from CUPE Ontario: 

Hi Cheryl,

Ontario’s public water services, and the municipal workers who keep them running, are facing a serious threat.

Join CUPE Ontario’s Municipal Workers for an urgent Virtual Information Session on Bill 60, Municipal Service Corporations, and the Future of Public Water Services.

📅 : December 9, 2025
⏰ : 6:30PM to 8PM
📍: Online via Zoom, https://us02web.zoom.us/s/83356146475?pwd=4iQEL1GPMtFYaawdILNBTLL4KU3dk1.1

The Ford government’s push toward municipal service corporations puts public water, wastewater operations, and core municipal services at risk. Bill 60 opens the door to privatization, weakened public oversight, higher costs for residents, and major impacts on Region and municipal workers across the province.

This session will break down what you need to know, and how we can organize together to protect public services.

We’ll cover:

  • What Bill 60 actually does, including the connection to the dissolution of Peel and why it threatens public water, wastewater systems, and municipal operations.
  • How municipal service corporations pave the way for privatization, reduced accountability, and cost increases for residents.
  • Real impacts for Region workers and water/wastewater staff: job security, training standards, health and safety, workforce planning, and collective bargaining.
  • What CUPE Ontario is doing to fight back, including political education, advocacy, and province-wide mobilization.
  • Concrete ways for locals and members to get involved, take action, and organize in your municipality.
Municipal workers know better than anyone:
💧 Public water is essential.
💧 Frontline workers are the first line of protection for public health.Your voice, experience, and leadership are critical in this moment. Together, we can push back against legislation that threatens our jobs, our communities, and the future of public water in Ontario.

Join us on December 9 at 6:30PM and be part of the fight to protect public services.

In solidarity,
CUPE Ontario

Bill 68 OMERS Update

The following correspondence was received this week from CUPE Ontario: 

Dear OMERS member,

The recommendations that came out of the OMERS governance review were, by and large, good for union plan members and for OMERS as a whole. The proposed changes would have restored the sponsors at OMERS as a true bargaining board and ensured that plan members retained their voice and vote share in a jointly sponsored plan.

But when the Conservative government buried governance changes to OMERS in its omnibus Bill 68, it cherry-picked which recommendations to implement. Specifically, it chose to re-impose on the members of the new Sponsors Council a fiduciary duty to members and employers – the very thing the review rightly identifies as the problem.

The Conservatives also ignore other important recommendations and suggest further changes would be made by regulation. This could put more of OMERS’ governance under direct government control.

Every union represented in the plan agrees: these parts of Bill 68 won’t be good for plan members or for OMERS itself.

Click to send a message to Rob Flack, the minister responsible for OMERS, and demand that he implement the recommendations of the review to protect the plan and the voices of its members.

In solidarity,
Fred Hahn, President, CUPE Ontario

JOIN US: Public Health Day of Action at Queens Park

The following correspondence was received this week from CUPE Ontario: 

The CUPE Ontario Public Health Workers Committee is heading back to Queen’s Park on November 26, 2025 to deliver a message to our Ontario MPPs that we are important to the communities we serve, and we need to be funded properly to provide the wide array of services Public Health is know, or not known for!

We are holding media interviews in the morning to raise awareness about Public Health hot topics including the resurgence of measles, alarming sexual health trends, and water safety of non-municipal drinking water systems in rural Ontario.

In the afternoon, we will be meeting with MPPs for a round table discussion.

How can you help?

This year we are asking you, our fellow Public Health Workers, to send a message to your local MPP asking them, as a someone living in their riding, to attend this meeting.

Use the link here find your MPP.

Communication guide is included on how to send them an email with your message and how a follow up phone call to their office is the icing on the cake.

We want our voices heard and this is a way to make it happen.  If you have followed the progress of this group, you know that we are not going to stop advocating for the rejuvenation of our public health system.

Nov 26 Public Health Day of Action is just the beginning! We are preparing an action to engage all 5000 CUPE public health workers to organize and collectively advocate for our profession. We are deeply concerned that if we leave Public Health in the hands of the politicians, there won’t be much of Public Health left!

We are asking you to join your voice to ours… please, reach out to your MPP and encourage them to join us at the table at Queen’s Park.

In solidarity,
Merima Kostecki
Chair – CUPE Ontario Public Health Committee