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2024 was a bombshell year for news in Ontario: historic firsts, record strike mandates, not to mention the ever-present shadow of provincial government corruption hanging over Ontarians. While everyday workers struggled to afford food, housing, and other necessities, Doug Ford and his Tories were handing their friends a spot high on the sunshine list.
This last year has highlighted the cost-of-living crisis in the entire country, particularly in Ontario as Canada's most urbanized and populated province. Housing costs considered “affordable” by the province has ballooned up to 70% of the average worker's income, with the remainder largely spent in grocery stores owned by a few monopoly giants. No wonder workers had had enough and were ready to fight.
While current Statistics Canada data shows there being fewer work stoppages in 2024 than 2023—a record-shattering year for strike action—the province nonetheless saw some major strikes this year.
Labour Moves
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) made history with its first ever strike at the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), Ontario's provincially run liquor store chain. Starting on July 5th, the strike brought out over 9000 employees to confront the Crown corporation over outsourcing, sell-offs, and executive enrichment at the cost of workers struggling to get by. These themes are not foreign to those who followed the recent strike at another Crown corporation, Canada Post.
Another parallel between the LCBO and Canada Post strikes was the worker's grievances with cost-cutting, lay-offs, and the mismanagement of Crown resources, spreading fear of privatization of public services.
In both cases, workers said they were mobilizing not only for better wages and benefits, but also to defend their dignity and oppose the neoliberal plans of governments and big business.
In another historic first, warehouse workers in Mississauga unionized the first Walmart warehouse in Canada. Walmart is notorious for its union-busting operations, and it took Unifor organizers nine months to get to the stage of applying for union membership.
Finally, in what was perhaps the biggest victory for Ontario labour in 2024, Doug Ford's notorious Bill 124 was ruled as unconstitutional by the province's highest court. Bill 124 sought to circumvent collective bargaining for public sector employees by limiting their wage increases to one percent annually for three years.
Government Corruption
It was a good year to be friends with Premier Ford: grocery oligarch get to sell beer, wine, and cooler, he slashed red tape for the real estate developers, and gave subsidies to all major political parties with public funds.
Having connections with the Ford government is so lucrative, in fact, that the auditor general and RCMP have taken notice, prompting a criminal corruption investigation into the Greenbelt scandal.
It's not just the Tories who have found ways to make extra money for themselves at Queen's Park: other MPPs are sharing in the wealth as well. As Canadians struggle with skyrocketing housing costs, the majority of Ontario's MPPs are landlords, cashing in on high rents and inflated property values.
If Ford and his cronies have made anything clear in 2024, it's that the cost of living is only a “crisis” for those who don't rub elbows with politicians.
The Housing Crisis
While government officials and their connections cashed in on real estate, the corruption, destitution, and financialization of the housing market was laid bare to Ontarians.
This past year, tenants across the province have mobilized to fight against corporate landlords and financialized real estate trusts
The East Scarborough Tenants Union (ESTU) saw two major victories against MetCap and Starlight Investments; one against the eviction of a single mother that MetCap would not accept payments from, and another against two proposed above-guideline increases (AGIs).
Also in the GTA, Thornecliffe Park residents from three buildings marked one year of a continuous rent strike, also against Starlight Investments. York South-Weston Tenants also took to striking against their landlords, Dream Unlimited and Barney River investments.
In October, tenants in Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge, Guelph, Toronto, Lindsay, and Hamilton connected the dots of a shady and notorious renovicter, Michael Klein. Klein is Ontario's biggest renovicter, connected through different companies to 21 buildings that were subject to no-fault mass evictions.
Rights and freedoms trampled
The decisions of the rich and powerful haven't just had an impact on their employees or tenants over the past year: they're impacting entire communities, though these effects see limited mainstream media coverage.
In April, Aamjiwnaang First Nation declared a state of emergency following the simultaneous poisoning of several residents by benzene contamination from the nearby INEOS Styrolution plant. Instead of adhering to benzene monitoring regulations introduced by the government to protect local communities, INEOS instead opted to permanently close the plant by 2026. Eighty workers were put out of work and 500 contracting jobs were terminated, all while leaving an inactive chemical processing facility looming over local First Nations.
Over the course of the year, many of the problems facing Ontarians have been attributed entirely to immigrants or international students, avoiding an in-depth debate on these issues. In this context, international students in Brampton took to the streets in September to protest changes in laws that could lead to their deportation.
A Year of Struggle
All in all, Ontarians have spent the year battling greedy corporations, a real estate market that continues to benefit the wealthy, and politicians with limited credibility who are selling out the province to benefit themselves and their buddies. Could these historic firsts in Ontario union history be the starting point of an explosive union movement in 2025? Will other tenants follow the example set by the ESTU and the residents of Thornecliffe Park? What is certain is that The North Star will be on the ground in Canada's most populous province to report the news.