TOPGRADUATES Stratford District secondar Crawford (left) was joined bythem Ditty, the Governor General's Bronze Academic Medal recipient; Nathan SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 2024 STRATFORD BEACON HERALD AZ Bean, valedictorian: Georgia Neely, the Ontario Principal for Student Leadership recipient; and Julia Notebomer, tt -Governor'’s Community Volunteer Award recipient — graduation ceremony. Expert calls BILL ATWOOD While the temporary ban on three Stratford resid However, the ban and the re- spectful workplace policy that led to its implementation are “highl “a : ; < week, one experthasjoined thecall forcity staffand council to provide answers on what exactly led to them being barred from municipal property. Like many residents, Peter Wol- stencroft, a political science pro- fessor emeritus at the University of Waterloo, said the actions by the city are “controlling and limiting speech.” “There’s lots of other stuff, but I think that’s what it’s actually fo- cused on, butwe don’t know. That’s what I find troubling about this, and we don’t know any (of the things) the citizens did that would lead to this action by Stratford,” Wolsten- croft said. “You can say ‘you're guilty and this is the punishment,’ but that’s not sufficient. You need to say, in mymind, 'youmadeaccusations or threats, or you did this or that, and that’s not acceptable.’ So that’s the bigissue for me, and I think for the policy procedure,” so it’s not clear the role council played or whether they supported forc litical sphere, Wolstencroft saidhe’s unaware of any prior precedent of citizens beingbanne munici- palbuildings and council meetings. Th 3 ity to reveal what led to banning of residents Prof. Peter Wolstencroft says the decision seems tobe an attempt to control speech y school principal Kim ajor award winners — (from left, Natalie s Council Award 1e Lieutenant during this week's | itruled he violated its code of con- | ductthrough comments and social | media posts supporting Burjoski. | Ramsay’s request for a judicial re- | iew di: ii dlast December. getting violent, aswell as incidents the ban, “I didn’t get a sense of what the actualrole of the council was. Is the council supporting all of this or are i the CAO? politicians yellingat each other, but this ban, he said, is new. “Occasionally, these things hap- pen, but ing li is, not tomy It’s not clear to me who exactly is involved in this decision,” the pro- fessor added. Given the demands for greater transparency, Thursday night's public meeting on the proposed mind,” he said. One similar example that Wol- stencroft could provide occurred in January 2022, when former En- glish teacher Carolyn Burjoski was removed from a Waterloo Region Krug factory devel is an example of how it should work, Wolstencroft noted. “They were going through all kinds of different issues citizens were raising, and the council has to make a decision in light of those comments when the time comes, and do it openly. So, that’s what we understand by transparency. There’s no transparency (in the bans),” he said nies vi The Waterloo school board has | since passed a motion to limit the Workers at IMT in Ingersoll in fourth week on picket line with no progress BRIAN WILLIAMS LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE REPORTER A sit-down between unionized workers at an Ingersoll-based defence industry supplier who walked off thejobnearlyamonth ago and their employer, yielded little progress toward endingthe strike, said a union leader. After 98 per cent of the 208 members of United Steelwork- ers Local 2918 working at IMT efence - a company that man- ufactures projectiles and vehi- cle systems - voted in favour of a strike to do away with the company’s two-tier pay struc- ture, the opposing sides met on Union president Jay McDonnell, said he couldn’t go into too much detail, but said the talks “didn’t go great.” “I can just say we had a talk yesterday and it didn’t really go anywhere,” said McDonnell, a 13-year veteran with the com- pany. “It hasn’t really changed anything.” McDonnell said the union members are strong in their re- solve to eliminate the two-tier pay structure to achieve wage parity for new hires, “We're still committed that we're fighting for wage equali- ty,” said McDonnell. “We want everyone to be making the same wage eventually, so, that’s going to be our goal.” Ina written statement from dressed areas the union “had signaled were critical to the membership.” IMT’s statement said its “en- hanced proposal” included re- placing the two-tier wage system with a wage progression sched- ule, adding “the overwhelming majority” of its workers would receive a 26 per cent wage in- length of time that a delegate can | Aa ga a: A | of thecehedul copy of th meeting. “So that’s a control device, and | I think what they're trying to get | away from is 50 people saying the | same thing,” Wolstencroft said. Even though the ban of Sullivan, Shaughnessy and Woodissettoend | in the near future, litigation - Sul- | h have hired | i erein- appropriate for elementary school children. While Burjoski’s later bid to finish her presentation has been dismissed twice in court, the board was ordered to pay $30,000 inlegal feeswhile her $1.75-million lawsuit is still ongoing. Later in 2022, the Waterloo Re- gion board banned one trustee, Mike Ramsay, from its meetings for three hsi vote after citizens of Stratford,” tl added. Speaking to the Beacon Herald earlier this week, Mayor Martin Ritsma said he was unable to spec- ify the exact actions or comments made by the residents ~ Mike Sul- Stratford’s chief administrative officer (CAO) rather than council. KRUG FROM Al Aikman is not opposed to the development but asked the city to “keep it reasonable within the existing rules.” Despite the importance of the meeting, four members of council - Lesley Biehn, Jo-Dee Burbach, Mark Hunter and Larry McCabe — were not in attendance, Aikman was clearly frustrated with those They were going through all kinds of different issues citizens were raising, and the council has to make a decision in light of those comments when the time comes, and doit openly. PETER WOLSTENCROFT livan and lawyer David Donnelly - is still ongoing. Regardless of the length | of the ban, Wolstencroft said it re- mains a serious matter that staff and council should be challenged n. “They would want to make a point. It may happen again...soI guess that’s also a measure of how seriously they take this, andI would takeitvery seriously,” the professor explained Despite this tension between res- identsand council, the ban may not be factor in the municipal election that's set for October 2026, Wol- stencroft said “So what do people think is im- portant to Stratford? The conduct of city council meetings for most people is not something that they think about or worry about. They should,” he said. Sullivan opts to leave meeting who were not there. “This is our first chance to havea discussion and we're missing half our city council,” he said in an in- terview. Banned resident attends, but meeting still goes ahead Mike Sullivan, one of three residents banned from all municipal build- ings until next week under the city’s respectful workplace poli- cy, also made a brief appearance butleft before the meeting started after a brief exchange with Mayor Martin Ritsma. pastes pete Instead, he gave his statement to Sharon Collingwood, a fellow member of Get Concerned Strat- ford, who read it to council. he declined to leave and the ses- sions were abruptly adjourned, Sullivan left because he did not want the public meetingto getshut down a second time. “That's not fair to most people, and I don’t want to be seen as the cause of that even though I’m not the cause — it’s the mayor,” he told the Beacon Herald. Former Magna boss sued daughter, grandchildren STRONACH FROM Al Stronach, who was born in Austria, became one of Canada’s Group, a company that special- izes in horse racing, and founded Stronach International in 2018, a wealthiest ‘Mag- na in his garage in 1957 and build- ingit into one of the world's largest suppliers of auto parts. He also founded The Stronach % pany and “micro-electric mobility.” Stronach resigned as Magna’s chairman in 201] and founded his own political party in his native Austria the following year. He is the father of former Cana- dian politician Belinda Stronach, who served as a Member of Parlia- ment for the Conservative Party before famously crossing the floor of the House of Commons to join the Liberals. 4 “The worst of all these people that came to the meeting to not have a meeting,” Sullivan said. There were also two Stratford police officers in attendance who declined to say if their presence was due to the potential appear- nace of Sullivan or the other banned residents. In 2018, Frank Stronach sued his daughter, two grandchildren anda former business associate for more than $500 million in Ontario Supe- rior Court, alleging they misman- aged the family’s assets and con- spired lofthem. The But McDonnell said the 26 per cent increase was during 10 years, didn’t apply to all em- ployees, the wage starting point was too low and the timeframe for wage parity was too long, as well as a four-year wage freeze for senior employees. Also, the union wasn’t looking for a “ten- ure progression,” and made a counteroffer, which was confi- dential, before talks concluded, McDonnell said. Another point of contention was the contract’s eight-year term, which McDonnell called “anheard of.” “We're not NBA players or NHL players,” McDonnell said. “Eight years is a long time to go without having the possibility of a labour talk.” IMT’s statement said union leadership “walked away from the table almost immediately,” anassertion McDonnell denied. “We were there for almost eight hours yesterday, and in those eight hours, seven of those hours was waiting for the com- pany’s response on anything,” McDonnell said. McDonnell said replacement workers are driven tothe facility five or six times daily on buses that fit about 10 people to fill jobs of union members on the picket line. Initially picketers would hold the buses up lon- ger, but a strike protocol only allows union members to stall the vehicles for a maximum ot 15 minutes. McDonnell said morale is still high among the striking union members who are picketing around the clock, "even this weekend with the big Canada Day.” With little headway made at Wednesday’s meeting, McDon- nell said further talks haven’t been scheduled as the strike drags into Week 4. The last time IMT workers walked off the job was in 2005 when the strike lasted 13 weeks. lawsuit was settled in 2020 with a deal that split the family fortune across two factions. The Canadian Press @BrianWatL FPress The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of