Ministry of Transportation

OPSEU/SEFPO Local 428 President Jody Pringle and 1st Vice President Lee MacLaren, both full-time Ministry of Transportation (MTO) ferry workers, brought a petition to Queen’s Park at the end of March on behalf of Wolfe Island and Glenora ferry workers, and area residents. The 1,000-signature petition, presented by NDP MPP and Labour Critic Jamie West,...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 27, 2023 TORONTO – 1,000 Kingston and Prince Edward County area residents have signed a petition demanding that the Ministry of Transportation stop the service disruptions to the Wolfe Island and Glenora ferries by hiring more ferry workers and retaining them with fair, competitive wages. The petitions will be presented at...

The Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) is paying temporary staffing agencies two to three times more than it would cost to hire permanent ferry workers to staff the Wolfe Island Ferry in Kingston. This was recently confirmed by their local MPP, Ted Hsu, who received disclosure from the Ministry on the exact figures, and released...

Last week Jennifer French, MPP for Oshawa and NDP critic for transportation and infrastructure, presented a petition with over 900 signatures supporting the Ministry of Transportation workers on the Glenora and Wolfe Island ferries, members of OPSEU/SEFPO Local 428.      The Wolfe Island ferry has been cancelled for up to 12 hours at a...

Following an information picket and leafleting event at the Glenora Ferry on October 14, OPSEU/SEFPO Local 428 President Jody Pringle explained to 99.3 County FM (CJPE) how the reduction in ferry schedules is caused by low wages and understaffing. Click here to read the article and listen to the interview. Quotes from Local 428 President...

The Wolfe Island Ferry was shut down for several hours on Sunday, October 16 due to staff shortages – two days after ferry workers from Glenora and Wolfe Island ferries leafletted passengers at both Glenora Ferry docks about the staffing crisis. CTV News interviewed OPSEU/SEFPO Local 428 Vice President Lee MacLaren, who explained why there...

Wolfe Island and Glenora ferry workers from OPSEU/SEFPO Local 428 got lots of support from Kingston and Wolfe Island residents as they picketed and handed out leaflets about the ferry staffing crisis at the Wolfe Island ferry dock on Friday, Oct. 7. The information picket was covered by both The Kingston Whig Standard and The...

Transportation enforcement officers (TEOs) are front-line peace officers who protect Ontarians by inspecting commercial vehicles, pulling unsafe trucks off the roads, and enforcing provincial and federal laws and regulations. They are significantly underpaid in comparison to many other enforcement positions in the Ontario Public Service. This has created a retention and hiring crisis in the...

Thunder Bay’s TBnewswatch.com is reporting on OPSEU’s demand that the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) do more to protect its enforcement officers who pull over drivers for inspections. The call comes on the heels of an incident earlier this month when officers received the all-clear following a stop only to learn later that a...

Toronto – OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas is demanding more be done to protect Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) enforcement officers as they prepare to approach pulled over drivers. The officers are increasingly losing confidence in the third-party information they get from the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) when they request background checks, says...

Toronto – OPSEU is demanding the government significantly increase the number of vehicle safety inspectors in the wake of a damning report from Ontario’s Auditor General. Bonnie Lysyk says the province had higher commercial vehicle fatality and injury rates than Canada as a whole and the U.S. for most of 2008 to 2017. “The Auditor...

The financial collapse of the UK privatization giant Carillion continues to make headlines around the world and is generating a lot of angry discussion on social media. A We Own It blog post about the scandal, which features OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas, has been widely shared on social media, and has been reprinted verbatim...