In the news today: Complaint over Canada Post layoffs resolved

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed…

Settlement reached in complaint over Canada Post layoffs as strike hits four weeks

The union representing Canada Post workers says an unfair labour practice complaint over the company’s layoffs has been resolved. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers filed the complaint with the Canada Industrial Relations Board on Nov. 29 after hundreds of striking postal workers received temporary layoff notices while on strike. The union said in a statement issued Wednesday night that a mediated settlement has been reached that requires Canada Post to notify affected employees that they are not on a temporary layoff. The strike by more than 55,000 postal workers has hit the four-week mark.

Read More:

• Tensions rising between Canada Post, union as strike nears four-week mark
• Postal strike delaying delivery of medicine, necessities to remote areas: AFN chief
• ‘Infuriating’: Wait times grow amid Canada Post strike as backlogs, frustration mount

Canada seeks third ‘lost Canadians’ extension

The federal government is asking an Ontario Superior Court for more time to pass citizenship legislation for the “lost Canadians,” saying that without an extension an “unknowable” number of people would automatically become citizens next week. The so-called lost Canadians are people who were born outside of the country to Canadian parents who were also born in another country. In 2009, former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper’s government changed the law so that people who were born abroad could not pass down their citizenship unless their child was born in Canada. Last year, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that the law is unconstitutional. The Liberals introduced a law to grant citizenship to those lost Canadians, but has asked the court for next week’s deadline to be delayed three months and pushed into next March.

Here’s what else we’re watching…

Smith to announce Alberta’s border security plan

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is set to announce today steps the province plans to take to shore up security at the Canada-United States border. It comes after incoming U.S. president Donald Trump pledged to impose 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian and Mexican imports on his first day back in office in January. Trump has said the tariffs would remain in place until the countries put an end to illegal immigration and drug trafficking at their borders. Smith said earlier this week that Alberta has been thinking about sending provincial sheriffs, helicopters and drones to the part of the border the province shares with Montana.

Creditors to vote on proposed $32.5B tobacco deal

Creditors are expected to vote today on a proposed settlement that would see three major tobacco manufacturers pay out billions to provinces and territories, as well as smokers across Canada. The proposed $32.5-billion global settlement between the companies — JTI-Macdonald Corp., Rothmans, Benson & Hedges and Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd. — and their creditors was announced in October after more than five years of negotiations. The proposed deal includes $24 billion for provinces and territories, $4 billion for tens of thousands of Quebec smokers and their heirs, and more than $2.5 billion for smokers in other provinces and territories.

Quebec and N.L. announcing energy deal

The premiers of Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador are set to announce a resolution today to an energy issue that has driven a wedge between the provinces for decades. Quebec Premier François Legault is in St. John’s, N.L., for an announcement about the Churchill Falls power plant alongside his Newfoundland and Labrador counterpart Andrew Furey. Under a contract signed in 1969, Quebec can purchase 85 per cent of the electricity from the Labrador plant at less than half a cent per kilowatt hour — a price Furey has said is “essentially free.” In Newfoundland and Labrador, the arrangement is seen as unjust, and the province has unsuccessfully challenged it in court.

Russian woman in B.C. fights bank for frozen funds

A Russian woman living in B.C. for the last eight years is taking Scotiabank and the federal government to court, claiming the bank wrongfully withheld a $90,000 wire transfer from a sanctioned bank in Russia. Daria Zubashchenko filed two applications in Federal Court in Vancouver last month, one against the Bank of Nova Scotia, and the other against Global Affairs Canada and the Attorney General of Canada. She says she wired about US$90,000 in 2022 to her Scotiabank account from her account at Sberbank, a Russian bank sanctioned by Canada after the invasion of Ukraine. Her applications say she wanted to use the money for tuition for graduate studies in B.C., but the bank is wrongfully holding the cash, then it told her to get a permit from Global Affairs.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 12, 2024.

The Canadian Press