McGuinty will twist arms, local OPSEU president says

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty works the crowd at Nipissing University Tuesday night. Photo by Evan Novak.
______________________________________________________________

Dalton McGuinty wants to see “what we can do” to make sure there’s a crossover between 35 provincial jobs leaving North Bay and the 29 that are coming here.

And the Ontario premier also pledged to get classification information that could help the people whose jobs are moving transfer into those on the way in.

Short but productive
McGuinty made his pledge Tuesday to Paul Marut, president of the Ontario Public Service Employee Union local 669, while in North Bay to attend a community barbecue at Nipissing University, Marut told BayToday.ca.

Marut was given a few minutes at the barbecue to talk to McGuinty and Nipissing MPP Monique Smith.

“I stressed the importance of getting information on what the classification of those jobs and what types of jobs they are, so we’ll know whether those people affected by the move will have a chance at them,” Marut said.

“And the premier told me he’d be going back to Queen’s Park tomorrow and twist whatever arms he needed or make whatever phone call necessary to get that information.”

Marut said the meeting with McGuinty and Smith was “short” but productive.

“It was cordial in tone. I went in respecting them and they came in respecting me,” Marut said.

“Considering what happened last week when we found out about this, this week is starting to turn out better than I though.”

Marut said he’ll be meeting with Smith Friday for an update.

Lots of crossover
The government’s Shared Services Bureau will be dispersing 320 jobs among six centre of excellence cities—North Bay, Sudbury, Orillia, Peterborough, Thunder Bay and the Greater Toronto Area.

“We’re going from 16 to six communities, and 10 communities are losing all their jobs,” McGuinty told reporters at a news conference held after he spoke to Liberal faithful.

“What I want to do is see what we can do to make sure there’s lots of crossover between the 35 that are going out and the 29 that are coming in so we can minimize the dislocation of families.”

In context
McGuinty said he would urge everybody to allow “cooler heads” to prevail and to look “at the big picture and work with us as we move forward.”

“I’m not trying to sugar-coat this thing because it’s never a good thing to lose six jobs in your community, never a good thing when there’s this kind of relocation about to be imposed on families,” McGuinty said.

The premier said the situation in North Bay had to be looked at “in context.”

“You’ve got 75 new jobs at the ONTC, we’ve been able to hire 16 new teachers here at the English boards alone, six or eight new nurses will be hired at the hospital here, the commitment to build the Children’s Treatment Centre, so if you look at the big picture I think we’re making some real progress,” McGuinty said.

What we can do
Nobody ever likes dislocation and job loss in their community, McGuinty said, “but as a result of this exercise province-wide we’re going to save about $12 million which will serve to hire those teachers, hire those nurses, to help invest in the kind of infrastructure that we want to build here.”

The subject of Sudbury came up, and the fact it was receiving 122 new jobs though there are OPSEU employees in North Bay with the same level of training.

“If there’s any element of truth to that," McGuinty said, "and I sincerely hope there is, let’s see what we can do so that as many of those 35 jobs that are going out can be in fact transferred to the ones that are coming in."

McGuinty also stepped-up to the plate to defend Smith, who has come under attack in some quarters as being more of a party executive than an MPP.

"Those who would make that accusation obviously do not know the Monique smith that I know," McGuinty said.

"I’ve known Monique for a long time and she is a relentless advocate on behalf of her riding and the people who live in her community," McGuinty said.

"I think she’s done some great things for this riding, the investments she’s been able to secure already."