TORONTO – The union representing workers at Ontario’s main liquor retailer says talks have broken down ahead of a strike deadline and it’s not hopeful that a deal can be reached.

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union has set a strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. Friday for its approximately 10,000 workers at the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.

Earlier Thursday, a union spokesperson said they were committed to bargaining a good deal for workers.

The LCBO has said that if a strike takes place, all locations will close for 14 days and, after that point, if the strike continues, the Crown corporation will open 30 stores three days a week – Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays – with limited hours.

The LCBO will also continue operating its online retail services, it said in a statement, though what customers can purchase may also be limited.

“Recognizing the impact of a strike on distribution and operations, the LCBO will need to institute reasonable caps on products in store and online,” the LCBO wrote in its strike plan.

A strike wouldn’t affect LCBO convenience outlets in smaller communities, and sales would also continue at grocery stores, private winery, brewery and distillery outlets, as well as bars, restaurants and The Beer Store.

The workers are seeking wage increases and more full-time jobs, saying part-time roles have become 70 per cent of their workforce.

The union is also fearful of job losses after Premier Doug Ford’s government announced plans to open up the alcohol market to allow convenience stores and all grocery stores to sell beer, wine and ready-to-drink cocktails.

Some of those changes are set to take effect this summer.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 4, 2024.

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MONTREAL – Canadians Lynn Kaak and her husband have been doing what they can to provide relief to the Caribbean island nation of Grenada, after hurricane Beryl left part of the country “absolutely hammered.”

As a volunteer warden with the Canadian High Commission in Barbados, which offers consular assistance to Canadians in Grenada, Kaak has been kept busy purchasing bottled water for storm victims, a precious resource she says is running out in the country. On Thursday, she was collecting coffee bags from a nearby roaster — items that will help locals store their belongings.

The Grenadian islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique have been ravaged, Kaak said, with some of her friends’ homes destroyed or badly damaged, including the home of a fellow Canadian. Beryl hit the country earlier this week as a Category 4 hurricane — the strongest storm to form in the Atlantic this early in the hurricane season.

“They’re still trying to clear the roads to get through,” said Kaak, who first sailed to Grenada in 2010 with her husband, and relocated from Toronto to the island nation eight years later. She described Carriacou as “absolutely hammered.”

Downgraded to a Category 2 storm Thursday as it headed toward Mexico’s Caribbean coast, Beryl has claimed at least nine lives, including three in Grenada, and destroyed 95 per cent of homes on a pair of islands in neighbouring St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

“It is just heartbreaking right now,” Kaak said.

“After all of these storms one of the toughest things is communications. Yesterday they finally got cellphone coverage up in Carriacou again. However, now the big problem is how the hell do you charge your cellphone with no power?”

In Montreal, Gemma Raeburn-Baynes said Beryl tore the roof off the furniture business in Grenada belonging to her uncle and cousin, but it spared their home.

“The place where (they) live in Saint Patrick, it got hit with the Hurricane Beryl much worse than people living in the south of the island,” said Raeburn-Baynes, who is president of Playmas Montreal, an organization that promotes Caribbean culture, and works for Spice Island Cultural Festival, an annual celebration of Grenadian culture in Montreal.

“The communities have come out and (are) trying to do some clean up. Grenadians are very resilient, so I expect that they will survive this,” she said.

In 1955, when she was four years old, a hurricane took the lives of 14 family members — all sheltering under one roof.

Although Raeburn-Baynes said she is heartbroken by the damage Beryl has caused, she finds cause for optimism in Canada’s Grenadian community rallying to raise funds for those affected by the hurricane. Spice Island Cultural Festival, scheduled to kick off next week, will provide an even greater platform to raise money, she said.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, locals are bracing for Beryl’s arrival.

For the past five years Canadian Anne Glennie Ruttan has lived in a house on the Yucatan coast, which is in the path of the storm. Despite feeling safe, she said she still prepared her property for what is to come.

“We’re taking this one seriously,” Glennie Ruttan said, adding that she stocked up on drinking water, tied down the patio furniture and emptied the roof drains.

In Playa del Carmen, most businesses were closed Thursday and some were boarding up windows as tourists jogged by and some locals walked their dogs under sunny skies. In Tulum, Mexico’s navy patrolled the streets telling tourists in Spanish and English to prepare for the storm’s arrival. Everything was scheduled to shut down by midday.

The head of Mexico’s civil defence agency, Laura Velázquez, said Thursday that Beryl is expected to be a Category 1 hurricane when it hits a relatively unpopulated stretch of Mexico’s Caribbean coast south of Tulum early Friday.

On X, International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen said Wednesday the Canadian government will be providing $1 million in critical aid to storm victims.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 4, 2024.

— With files from The Associated Press

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador’s Liberal premier has once again penned a letter to the federal government opposing one of its decisions — this time about the reopening of the province’s commercial northern cod fishery.

In a letter Wednesday to federal Fisheries Minister Diane Lebouthillier, Premier Andrew Furey said foreign offshore vessels have no place in the province’s fishery. The federal Fisheries Department’s decision to allow these boats to catch cod in the reinstated fishery is “an affront” to Newfoundland and Labrador’s fishers and processors, and the work they’ve done to help the cod stock grow, Furey wrote.

Newfoundland and Labrador, and its small coastal communities, “deserve to be the sole beneficiary” of the northern cod fishery, he said.

“These decisions should not have been taken without consultations with stakeholders in Newfoundland and Labrador,” Furey wrote, adding: “The time has come for the province to have a direct say over our resources.”

Lebouthillier announced last week that she was ending a 32-year moratorium on the commercial northern cod fishery, calling the decision “a historic milestone for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.” The moratorium was imposed on July 2, 1992, after cod stocks off the province’s east cost collapsed.

The Fisheries Department said last week that Canadian vessels would be allowed to catch 18,000 tonnes in the 2024 season, which represents 95 per cent of the total allowable catch. The rest — roughly 950 tonnes — will go to foreign vessels according to a previous agreement with the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, the department said.

Many have opposed the decision. George Rose, a marine scientist who studied Newfoundland cod for decades, said that by lifting the moratorium, the Fisheries Department is “rolling the dice on this important fishery.” The northern cod stock off the province’s east coast hasn’t grown significantly since 2015-16, he added.

The union representing inshore fishers and processing plant workers has called on Ottawa to reinstate the moratorium. The 14,000-member Fish, Food and Allied Workers union said Tuesday that Canadian offshore vessels, which it calls “draggers,” should not be given part of the catch, nor should foreign fleets.

Union president Greg Pretty has said the offshore ships are “environmentally destructive” and do not contribute to the long-term sustainability of the province’s coastal communities.

Inshore fishers operate smaller boats — typically shorter than 20 metres — and they fish closer to shore than the offshore vessels, which are longer than 30 metres, according to the Fisheries Department.

A closely monitored “stewardship” cod fishery began in 2006. Its catch limit was 13,000 tonnes in 2023, and it was open exclusively to inshore fishers in Newfoundland and Labrador.

In his letter Wednesday, Furey said he has raised his objections with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He also demanded “an immediate discussion on how our respective governments can structure a joint management approach to the provincial fishery.”

Furey, the only Liberal provincial premier in the country, has previously taken aim at the federal Liberals over carbon pricing.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 4, 2024.

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