CUPE Ontario Delegates Unanimously Call for Ford’s Bill 5 to Be Scrapped

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nearly a thousand voting delegates at CUPE Ontario’s annual convention last week unanimously adopted an emergency resolution to oppose and defeat the Ford Conservatives’ Bill 5, currently being rushed through the legislature and into law.

Bill 5 will give Doug Ford and his cabinet the power to create, with the stroke of a pen, no-law “Special Economic Zones” anywhere in the province.

CUPE Ontario convention delegates specifically condemned Schedule 9 of this overreaching and antidemocratic omnibus bill as posing grave threats to workers’ rights, Indigenous sovereignty, environmental protections, and public accountability.

Delegates to the convention came from thousands of workplaces across the province: municipal services, hospitals, long-term care and health care, schools, universities and libraries, as well as a wide variety in social services, including child care, child protection agencies, community supports for persons with developmental disabilities, services for the Deaf, deafblind, and hard of hearing, supportive housing, and injured workers’ compensation.

“Just three months ago, a minority of eligible Ontarians – only 45 percent – showed up to vote in the provincial election, and it was the votes of merely one in five people that gave Doug Ford’s Conservatives a majority of seats in our provincial legislature,” observed Fred Hahn, developmental services worker and president of CUPE Ontario. “If this isn’t a weak mandate, I don’t know what is.

“Nothing that Premier Ford told you or me during the election campaign gives him license to consolidate more power for himself and his cabinet ministers – and especially not to eliminate environmental protections, disrespect First Nations, and suspend workers’ basic rights. But that’s what Bill 5 will do. It’s a Trump-style power grab by Doug Ford, who said he’d protect us from the anti-Canadian authoritarian in the White House.

“With Doug Ford’s Greenbelt corruption scandal still under active police investigation and his wage-suppressing Bill 124 overturned by the courts at significant expense to the public, we encourage Conservative MPPs to urge their colleagues in cabinet to scrap Bill 5 now.”

CUPE Ontario unites 290,000 frontline public sector workers throughout Canada’s largest province whose labour underpins every cent of economic growth here. Their 61st annual CUPE Ontario convention began on Wednesday in Toronto and wrapped up Saturday morning.

The full text of CUPE Ontario’s resolution to oppose Bill 5:

CUPE Ontario’s Resolution to Oppose and Defeat Bill 5
CUPE Ontario will launch a comprehensive, province-wide campaign—uniting all parts of our union with community and labour allies—to vigorously oppose and defeat Bill 5. This campaign will include:

• Educating Ontarians about the serious threats posed by the bill’s Special Economic Zone (SEZ) provisions, which give Cabinet unchecked power to suspend or amend any law, directly undermining vital labour protections such as the Employment Standards Act, Labour Relations Act, and Occupational Health and Safety Act.
• Mobilizing our members to raise public awareness about the dangers of a two-tier system that would erode working conditions for all.
• Building the broadest possible coalition to demand the immediate and full withdrawal of this dangerous legislation.

Because:

• Introduced on April 17, 2025, Bill 5’s SEZs pose grave threats to workers’ rights, Indigenous sovereignty, environmental protections, and public accountability—amounting to a fundamental attack on democratic processes.
• We cannot claim to be “Elbows Up” to “Protect Ontario Workers” while adopting the worst anti-democratic measures being introduced south of the border.
• Defeating this draconian bill demands the united strength and collective action of our entire union, the broader labour movement, and all Ontarians committed to fairness and justice.