Ontario government moves to extend 5.7 cent gas tax cut to June 2025

MONTREAL – Dockworkers at the Port of Montreal walked off the job early Sunday for a one-day strike aimed at putting pressure on their employer amid difficult contract talks.

The union representing nearly 1,200 longshore workers at the country’s second biggest port served notice Thursday for a complete work stoppage from 7 a.m. Sunday until Monday morning.

The move comes on top of an ongoing strike on overtime shifts and a three-day strike at two container terminals that ended earlier this month.

The Maritime Employers Association says the work stoppage includes the Montreal port and the Contrecoeur terminal, but activities related to grain vessels and the supply of Newfoundland and Labrador will be maintained in line with a July decision of the Canadian Industrial Relations Board.

“The MEA hopes that upcoming discussions with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service will be fruitful and will lead to a return to the negotiation table to quickly reach a negotiated collective agreement,” the company wrote in a news release on Saturday. It said last week that the parties remain at an impasse after 35 mediation meetings over 15 months.

A spokesperson for the union said the striking workers were holding a special general assembly Sunday morning but did not release details of the agenda and did not make anyone available for an interview.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses said in a statement that the union’s actions are affecting small and medium-sized businesses, especially ahead of the busy holiday shopping season.

“It’s time the federal government made ports an essential service, so that they remain operational at all times,” wrote Jasmin Guenette, the federation’s national affairs vice-president.

The workers have been without a collective agreement since December 31, 2023.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 27, 2024.

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NEW YORK (AP) — President Joe Biden slammed Elon Musk for hypocrisy on immigration after a published report that the Tesla CEO once worked illegally in the United States. The South Africa-born Musk denies the allegation.

“That wealthiest man in the world turned out to be an illegal worker here. No, I’m serious. He was supposed to be in school when he came on a student visa. He wasn’t in school. He was violating the law. And he’s talking about all these illegals coming our way?” Biden said while campaigning on Saturday in Pittsburgh at a union hall.

The Washington Post reported that Musk worked illegally in the country while on a student visa. The newspaper, citing company documents, former business associates and court documents, said Musk arrived in Palo Alto, California in 1995 for a graduate program at Stanford University “but never enrolled in courses, working instead on his startup. ”

Musk wrote on X in reply to a video post of Biden’s comments: “I was in fact allowed to work in the US.” Musk added, “The Biden puppet is lying.”

Investors in Musk’s company, Zip2, were concerned about the possibility of their founder being deported, according to the report, and gave him a deadline for obtaining a work visa. The newspaper also cited a 2005 email from Musk to his Tesla co-founders acknowledging that he did not have authorization to be in the U.S. when he started Zip2.

According to the account, that email was submitted as evidence in a now-closed California defamation lawsuit and said that Musk had apllied to Stanford so he could stay in the country legally.

Musk is today the world’s richest man. He has committed more than $70 million to help Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and other GOP candidates win on Nov. 5, and is one of the party’s biggest donors this campaign season. He has been headlining events in the White House race’s final stretch, often echoing Trump’s dark rhetoric against immigration.

Trump has pledged to give Musk a role in his administration if he wins next month.

There was no immediate response to messages left with X and Tesla seeking Musk’s comment.

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Hallmark Media executive vice president of programming Lisa Hamilton Daly instructed a former employee not to cast “old people” for Hallmark roles, saying that “our leading ladies are aging out,” according to a lawsuit filed against the network this month and obtained by The Associated Press.

Penny Perry, a 79-year-old casting director who filed the lawsuit Oct. 9 in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that she was wrongfully fired from the network known for its feel-good movies because of her age, and despite stellar performance reviews. “Hallmark’s happy endings are stories made for TV only,” the complaint says. “In Ms. Perry’s case, there was no happy ending, and no feel-good episode to wrap up her career with Hallmark. Instead, her finale episode was marred by ageist and ableist harassment, and a callous termination which robbed her of her illustrious career, her pride, and her well-being.”

In a statement, Hallmark denied the allegations, adding: “Hallmark continues to consistently cast and maintain positive, productive relationships with talented actors representing a broad spectrum of diversity, including actors who span many age groups and cross generations.”

According to the lawsuit, Hamilton Daly told Perry that they needed to “replace” the “old talent” including 42-year-old actress Lacey Chabert, who has starred in dozens of Hallmark movies, many of them Christmas-themed, and portrayed Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls (2004), saying Chabert is “getting older and we have to find someone like her to replace her as she gets older.”

The lawsuit adds that Hamilton Daly said of the 60-year-old actress and “Our Christmas Journey” star Holly Robinson Peete: “No one wants her because she’s too expensive and getting too old. She can’t play leading roles anymore.”

Hallmark countered: “Lacey and Holly have a home at Hallmark. We do not generally comment on pending litigation. And while we deny these outrageous allegations, we are not going to discuss an employment relationship in the media,” a company representative told AP in an emailed statement.

Chabert stars in a new Hallmark movie, The Christmas Quest, slated for release Dec. 1, and hosts the reality series “Celebrations with Lacey Chabert,” according to Hallmark’s website. Representatives for Chabert and Robinson Peete did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Perry herself endured ageist and ableist harassment at the company, and Hamilton Daly — who apparently repeatedly made reference to age as a negative attribute that did not fit the network’s image — “told Ms. Perry she was too ‘long in the tooth’ to keep her job at Hallmark,” the lawsuit says. It also alleges that senior vice president of programming and development Randy Pope ridiculed Perry for her relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis by mocking her when she mispronounced words or names — a symptom of the condition.

“Unfortunately, Hallmark treated a venerable Hollywood veteran this way and we hope this action will lead to change in Hollywood and all work environments,” said a statement from Perry’s attorneys, Lisa Sherman and Josh Schein.

The allegations arrive amid a period of turmoil for Hollywood, punctuated by historic labor strikes, the pandemic, and the streaming revolution.

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