The\u00a0Trillium<\/a>, a new Village Media website devoted to covering provincial politics at Queen\u2019s Park.<\/p>\nOntario is beefing up funding for job retraining and employment services as U.S. trade aggression\u00a0threatens the job market.<\/p>\n
Premier Doug Ford announced $70 million in funding at a United Steelworkers local in Hamilton, flanked by union representatives.<\/p>\n
“I want to thank all the great workers and the union members here today \u2014 we’ll always have your backs, and I want to promise you our government will be there for you when you need the help,” the premier said.<\/p>\n
Most of the funding, $50 million, is going to Better Jobs Ontario (BJO) to\u00a0provide Ontarians with\u00a0skills training for in-demand jobs and financial support for costs such as tuition, transportation and child care during training.<\/p>\n
Another $20 million is going to\u00a0Protect Ontario Workers Employment Response Centres \u2014 or POWER Centres \u2014 which is a rebranding of the “action centres” the province previously established to offer temporary transition assistance for workers after\u00a0mass layoffs. The province announced it will be able to launch these centres proactively going forward.<\/p>\n
The announcement was welcomed by\u00a0Kevon Stewart, director of District 6 of the United Steelworkers union, which runs three job action centres.<\/p>\n
Stewart spoke about 1,000 jobs the union expects to be lost because of the transition to electric arc furnaces at Algoma in Sault Ste. Marie and 130 of his members who are losing their jobs in Hamilton with the closure of ArcelorMittal’s wire-drawing facility.<\/p>\n
“We all know losing your job or seeing your plant close\u00a0is traumatic,” he said. “When you are faced with that kind of trauma, the kind of trauma that you experience when you can’t pay your mortgage, you can’t pay for dinner, and it is hard to just trust anyone, getting help from someone who truly understands what you’re going through makes all the difference.”<\/p>\n
But the biggest threat, he said, is the U.S. tariffs.<\/p>\n
“Canadian and American manufacturers have an integrated supply chain, and these tariffs cost jobs on both sides of the border,” said\u00a0Stewart.<\/p>\n
Ford railed against U.S. President Donald Trump\u00a0and his tariffs, and said Ontario was unprepared for the economic attack from its closest ally.<\/p>\n
“No one in a million years would think the guy named President Trump would come along and start an economic war with his closest friend and ally, not to mention, you know, with the rest of the world,” he said.\u00a0“And then\u00a0the rest of the world goes back and kisses his a\u2014\u00a0behind all the time. We aren’t going to do that. We’re going to fight like we’ve never fought before.”<\/p>\n
The other target of the premier’s rage was Cleveland-Cliffs, the U.S.-based\u00a0parent company of Stelco, which has expressed open support for Trump’s tariffs.<\/p>\n
“I love the workers, but their owner \u2014\u00a0I got a problem with that guy,” he began, adding that CEO Lourenco Goncalves “doesn’t give two hoots about his workers at Stelco.”<\/p>\n
“So maybe they should find a new owner for Stelco,” he added.\u00a0“Maybe we should just buy him. Why doesn’t he just stay in the U.S.? Because I’m done with this guy.”<\/p>\n
Cleveland-Cliffs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Asked if his retraining announcement was an\u00a0acknowledgement that more steelworkers are going to lose their jobs, Ford said steelworkers should try to\u00a0stay positive.<\/p>\n
“There’s more opportunities,” he said.\u00a0“We’re going to do everything we can to protect you. We’re going to protect your companies and we’ll protect your jobs to the best of our ability.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Doug Ford went on a tear and mused about nationalizing Stelco over its parent company’s support for Trump’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[45,49,48,124],"class_list":{"0":"post-86197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-jobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}