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Lise Vaugeois

OPP MTO inspection Oct 2024 - OPP photo adjusted

NDP continues to push for northern highway improvements

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The provincial NDP continues to lobby for measures that improve road safety in northern Ontario.

A Private Member’s Bill was voted down at Queen’s Park earlier this year.

MPPs informed the legislature on Thursday that highways in northwestern Ontario have been shut down more than 550 times this year.

Many of the closures have been related to collisions involving transports.

Timiskaming MPP John Vathof dismisses the government’s explanation.

“The minister yesterday said that’s because the police closed them, the OPP closed them,” says Vanthof.

“The OPP doesn’t just close them for fun. They close them because of accidents, because of people getting run off the roads by badly-trained cross-country truck drivers.”

The Private Member’s Bill had proposed increased enforcement by Ministry of Transportation inspectors and that truck inspection stations stay open longer.

Thunder Bay-Superior North MPP Lise Vaugeois says an inspection station near Thunder Bay is rarely open.

“The Minister of Transportation has said that inspection stations should be staffed 24/7. Yet our brand new $30 million inspection station in Shuniah is almost never open,” says Vaugeois.

Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sakaria says they have more than doubled the number of MTO enforcement officers working in the north from 19 to 50.

He adds they conducted over 90,000 inspections since January, a 35% increase over last year.

Lise Vaugeois Nov 3 205

Thunder Bay MPP says WSIB outsourcing jobs to American company

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A northwestern Ontario MPP says the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board has handed work over to an American firm.

Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Lise Vaugeois told the Ontario Legislature that it has led to job loss.

“Twenty-six people working for the WSIB in document management, WSIB is an organization under your control, have lost their unionized jobs that have now been handed over to the American company, Iron Mountain,” says Vaugeois.

Similar claims were made by the Ontario Compensation Employees Union during this summer’s strike.

The union cited an internal message that indicated a trial program, allowing contracted healthcare providers to contact employers to discuss an injured worker’s case.

“WSIB management is notorious for repressing claims at the expense of injured workers, for spending millions of dollars on training junkets in the US, and now for sending Canadian work to an American corporation,” says Vaugeois

“How can you say you are protecting jobs when organizations under your direct control are farming out good jobs to American corporations?” she asked of the Labour Minister David Piccini.

Piccini did not address the allegations at WSIB, but insists the government is standing up to protect jobs in Ontario.

“We included in our procurement by Ontario provisions. We included provisions that support Ontario workers. When it came to ensuring that we create jobs here on this side, we created a low-tax environment that encouraged investment that actually gets men and women to work,” says Piccini.

The Labour Minister adds that they are creating the climate to attract world-class manufacturing investments that help get people to work.