CUPE, province head back to the table as strike marks 2nd week
CBC
The Higgs government and unionized public-sector workers are talking again about a way to resolve a two-week strike, but one side is more optimistic than the other about a possible resolution.
Premier Blaine Higgs said he met with leaders of the Canadian Union of Public Employees on Thursday afternoon and would talk to them again Friday afternoon.
"We're working on some language together in the agreement that I'm hopeful will get resolved later today," he told reporters. "It remains to be seen. It's not confirmed yet, but I am hopeful we'll find a resolution."
He said the discussions were centred on pensions for two of the CUPE locals, the major sticking point in the dispute.
Higgs said if discussions go well he'd like to see schools reopen Monday.
But CUPE New Brunswick Stephen Drost was less optimistic of a breakthrough.
"The premier's still being extremely inflexible," he said as a large crowd of striking union members gathered again at the legislature.
Drost said Higgs is still insisting that the wage offer he has made to all 20,000 workers in the dispute is only available if the two locals move on the pension issue.
Those two locals were considering Higgs's proposed language, "and they're having a look at it, and if there's a way they can build in some protections for their pension, they may consider it, but there's been nothing agreed to at this time.
"That must be the movement he's referring to."
Thursday's discussions were the first in a week.
A small town northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont., has become the unlikely home for hundreds of foreign workers, but many may have to leave the community they've embraced after the end of a federal program put in place to fill gaps in Canada's labour market.
There's mixed reaction in Waterloo to an injuction allowing police to detain, arrest and charge anyone who is participating in unsanctioned street parties in that city this weekend.
Diabetes Canada is excited about Prince Edward Island's new pharmacare deal with the federal government, but hopes the province will reevaluate copays on diabetes supplies, says a senior manager with the organization.
After 26 years of accommodating guests from across the world, Faith Embleton says she and her husband Ken are ready to sell their bed and breakfast.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.
A recent CBC News analysis found that Nova Scotia is rapidly losing some of its most affordable apartments, but housing experts say there are ways to prevent that.
Premier Susan Holt is defending her decision to not use electricity exports to Maine as leverage against U.S. tariffs, arguing the move might cause long-term pain for New Brunswickers.
Montreal's St. Patrick's Day parade first started on Saint-Paul Street in 1824, and a couple centuries later, this annual tradition is still going strong.
A congregation in Carman, Man., is coming to grips with the loss of their Anglican Lutheran church, a fixture in the community that was ravaged by a fire on Thursday.