BREAKING Another suspect arrested in Toronto Pearson airport gold heist: police
Another suspect is in custody in connection with the gold heist at Toronto Pearson International Airport last year, police say.
The union representing Bombardier and De Havilland aerospace workers in Toronto are threatening a strike this week unless negotiations can guarantee Dash 8 turboprop jobs remain in the GTA.
After a three-week cooling-off period, separate talks were set to resume Sunday ahead of a Tuesday strike deadline.
Unifor national president Jerry Dias said the negotiations are about "protecting the kind of highly skilled advanced manufacturing jobs we need now more than ever."
About 2,200 members of Unifor Local 112 and Local 673 at Toronto's Downsview plant manufacture Bombardier's Global business aircraft and until recently the Dash 8 turboprops for De Havilland Canada.
The labour negotiations come at a time when the aviation sector is taking baby steps to recover from government-forced shutdowns of international commercial travel because of COVID-19.
With the COVID-19 pandemic taking a bite out of aircraft sales, hundreds of aerospace employees are on layoff as production winds down on the Dash 8.
The regional aircraft is used by airlines including WestJet, Porter and Jazz.
The union wants De Havilland, whose parent company is Longview Aviation Capital Corp., to commit to making the Dash 8 somewhere in Greater Toronto when production resumes.
"When they say to me we don't have any sales on the horizon, I believe them. But the bottom line is, if they're going to build that plane our members are building it," said Dias, who began his career working at the Downsview plant in the 1970s.
Longview bought the turboprop program from Bombardier for $300 million in June 2019 and formed a holding company called De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Ltd.
The company announced earlier this year that it would no longer produce new Q400 aircraft at the facility beyond currently confirmed orders. De Havilland indicated two years ago that work will end at Downsview once lease agreements for the land expire.
Dias fears De Havilland plans to move production to its facilities in Alberta.
He said the company refused to bargain any sort of scope clauses that would limit production to somewhere in the GTA, including Pearson International Airport where Bombardier has broken ground on a new facility for its Global business jets.
"Their silence on the matter is very troublesome," he said in an interview. "The bottom line is we've got a lot of people have worked there for a lot of years and have worked on this program and they deserve the right to continue to build the program."
De Havilland said it believes the Dash 8 has a future despite the challenges faced by the industry because of the pandemic.
"However, the company cannot and will not rush to a decision on future production location, nor negotiate a site plan in public," it said in an email.
"We are eager to work in partnership with the union as we chart a sustainable long-term future for aircraft manufacturing. But that future relies on a concerted effort to transform the business to the circumstances we are facing."
De Havilland said the union must agree to "a fair and reasonable" collective agreement that is fundamental to the company's future investment in the aircraft.
Unifor is negotiating separately with Bombardier, with the two sides battling over a variety of items including wages and working conditions.
However, Dias said a strike would affect operations of both companies because of their shared driveway, entrance and exit.
"The bottom line is, if we have a strike with either of the two, the entire facilities are down," he said, adding that there's a lot of solidarity among members because many worked side-by-side for 25 to 30 years.
Unifor negotiated a contract with Bombardier in 2018 that expired in June. They committed not to sell the Dash 8 program and then did just that.
"So the mess we're in now by and large they created. So if they end up being caught in the crossfire, well then too bad for them. They created a mess in the first place." Dias said.
Bombardier said talks are progressing "constructively" after both sides agreed to a brief pause but the company declined to comment on "hypothetical scenarios."
"Bombardier negotiations with Downsview employees have a history of positive outcomes -- we've concluded agreements for nearly two decades,' it said in a statement.
"Right now, Bombardier is focused on reaching an equitable agreement that helps preserve jobs and positions Bombardier and Unifor members for success as the business aviation industry rebounds."
Workers in Toronto have built Dash-series aircraft since 1946, including the Dash 8 series for more than 30 years.
The federal and Quebec governments recently announced a $700-million injection into the aerospace industry, including nearly $70 million for aircraft engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney to develop the first sustainable hybrid-electric prototype propulsion system with various partners, including DHC and the Dash 8.
Bombardier sold Downsview, a 148-hectare tract of land that used to be a military airport, to Canadian pension manager Public Sector Pension Investment Board in June 2018 for US$635 million or net proceeds of US$550 million after costs.
Unifor wants the federal and Ontario governments to press De Havilland to maintain jobs in the province especially after approval of severing the land in Downsview was approved on the premise that jobs would be protected, said Dias.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 25, 2021.
Another suspect is in custody in connection with the gold heist at Toronto Pearson International Airport last year, police say.
A Conservative government led by Pierre Poilievre would not legislate on, nor use the notwithstanding clause, on abortion, his office says, as anti-abortion protesters gather on Parliament Hill.
For some immigrants, their dreams of permanently settling in Canada have taken an unexpected twist.
A southwestern Ontario woman has received an $8,400 bill from a hospital in Windsor, Ont., after she refused to put her mother in a nursing home she hated -- and she says she has no intention of paying it.
Studies have shown that ultraprocessed foods can have a detrimental impact on health. But 30 years of research show they don’t all have the same impact.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
Miss Teen USA resigned Wednesday, sending further shock waves through the pageant community just days after Miss USA said she would relinquish her crown.
A video circulating on social media of a young girl being hit by a bike has some calling for better safety and more caution when designing bike lanes in the city. The video shows a four-year-old girl crossing Jeanne-Mance Street in Montreal's Plateau neighbourhood to get on a school bus stopped on the opposite side of the street
Ontario Provincial Police say six people have suffered severe injuries in a single-vehicle crash in Sharbot Lake, Ont, including two in life-threatening condition.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.