OPSECAAT meets with Liberal candidates and Minister of Health Smitherman

August 1 - OPSECAAT activists today took their van to an event outside of Belleville where they met with Minister of Health and Long-Term Care and Deputy Premier George Smitherman.

Roger Couvrette, President of OPSECAAT, Jennifer Bryan, a member of the Executive, and Sabrina De Girolamo, also met with Liberal candidates in the provincial election Ian Wilson (Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington) and Sean Kelly (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke).

The response from all three was positive. Smitherman was very aware of the Supreme Court decision in June with regard to health care workers which ruled that the "procedural right" to bargain collectively was included in the freedom of association provision of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and agreed to discuss the implications of the ruling for part-time college workers at the cabinet table. Ian Wilson, who is facing Conservative candidate Randy Hillier in the Oct. 10 provincial election, was an employee at St. Lawrence College for 36 years, as both faculty and in management. He said that, as Dean of the School of Business, "I had no choice but to hire part-time workers. I had to do it. It was a matter of balancing the budget." He said that he fully understood the plight of part-time college workers and that OPSECAAT had his total support.