Conservative MPP Billy Denault would have us believe that the Ontario government has no business getting involved in the labour dispute between Community Living Renfrew County South and OPSEU Local 472.

Well he’s wrong.

As you know, the province foots the bill for Community Living and its operations, and since nothing can be done without them, it’s a little bit rich for he and them to claim non-involvement.  That’s without even mentioning the extraordinary amount of wasted money being shovelled at replacement workers, security guards, private investigators, and all their related costs and expenses.

This response from our MPP is simply not acceptable.

I’m afraid I don’t know Jennifer Lavallee personally, nor have I ever met her.  If she’s ever willing to change that, I’m available for coffee and baked treats on my dime should she ever be tempted by such a generous offer.  Then, of course, I could get a look at this nasty labour dispute through her eyes.  In the interest of fairness and all of that.

All I know of Renfrew’s Executive-Director for Community Living Renfrew County South is what I’ve heard from others with experience with her, but that’s all second-hand stuff and not the best hook to be hanging my hat on.

But I do feel I know one thing about her, in that it appears she has a really bad public relations problem with the community at large.

What an interesting contrast in tone and tenor.

I’m talking about Sandra Summers, the Executive-Director of BACLA — Brockville and Area Community Living Association — and a media release that she put out this month as an update to her community on the current labour dispute between her agency and her workers represented by OPSEU Local 441.

Now, before I get all gushy here, let me preface my remarks by stating that Ms. Summers is an Executive-Director herself, meaning she’s management, which means she likely swims using the same practiced strokes her peers in the industry employ. So that said, nobody is saying here that she’s willing to roll over and accede to every request or demand tossed her way by the union.

But Lord-liftin’, her tone is decidedly different than the one on offer right here in Renfrew Town.  And maybe those with legitimate suspicions might call bullshit, and maybe there’s an element of that in play, but if that’s the case, this bull-shit, in both degree and in smell, is much preferable to what we’ve been served up here in our own community.

“CLRCS remains committed to bargaining in good faith with the goal of reaching a fair and reasonable agreement for all parties. Our priority continues to be the wellbeing of the people we support, their families, and our staff.”

CLRCS Executive-Director Jennifer Lavallee

A person can make all the commitments they want, and say all that they want to say in the hopes of encouraging their prospective audience, but saying you’re going to talk while seemingly having no intention of talking is, well, sort of like talking out of both sides of your mouth.

The introductory quote comes from an email sent out by the Executive-Director to her, as she puts it, families and supporters.  In it she falls over backwards to ensure that her audience is fully aware of the great lengths she’s prepared to go to in order to get to the bargaining table and hammer out a collective agreement with OPSEU Local 472 that brings warmth and happiness to all parties of the dispute.  Hell, she even assures them of her “good faith” in pursuing these lofty goals.

Honestly, I don’t know what to make of that.

Mass mediation is something OPSEU has proposed as a means and manner of finding a solution to the labour dispute still underway after eight weeks of disruption.  What it amounts to is an intensive, and comprehensive effort at mediation that takes place at several tables with mandates on specific issues, rather than a single table that negotiates all issues at once.

As a means of bringing parties together to hammer out agreements, it sits between the two other big ones, those being conciliation and arbitration.  As such, it may well represent the best way to get to the bottom of all this, and so credit must be given to the union for proposing what appears to be a fair-minded middle ground in the dispute resolution process.

I’ll have to admit to being a little bummed out Monday morning.

Full disclosure, I had written a full week’s worth of articles, all of them dependant upon my assumption that Executive-Director Jennifer Lavallee of Community Living Renfrew County South would not respond to OPSEU Local 472’s invitation to resume bargaining.

There was a noon Friday deadline to RSVP the invitation, but despite me following various sources quite closely for any news, I had not heard anything by the time that deadline came and went.  So I assumed that my initial prediction was correct, and being a rather industrious sort of fellow, proceeded to write a series of scathing articles slamming CLRCS for not showing up to talk.  

But then late Sunday, from a surprising source, I got an indication that she, Jennifer Lavallee, had in fact responded, and had done so on the Thursday evening before the deadline.

Way to go Jenn.  Way to wreck everything.

And they were good articles too, each one increasingly more brilliant than the last.  And now they’re all shot to hell, because the premise behind them was no longer in play.

I hate when that happens.

I’m not privy to the internal communications or deliberations of either party involved in the labour dispute between Community Living Renfrew County South and OPSEU Local 472, but feel I have a credible inkling of how the union’s invitation to talk late last week was received by the agency’s leadership.

My information is that Executive-Director Jennifer Lavallee did respond to the invitation.

If I’m correct, she indicated a willingness to return to the bargaining table, and even suggested that she’d do so even if representation from the funder, specifically identified by her as the Ministry of Children, Community, and Social Services, was not available or unwilling to attend.

I view this as a positive step.  To do otherwise would have been a significant political error.

I hope for the best, but regrettably, I also feel a certain fear for the worst.

Cynicism will do that to a person.

Today at noon marks the deadline for a potential CLRCS response to OPSEU 472’s invitation to join them in mediated bargaining talks beginning this coming Monday.

The hope comes from the fact that I view the union’s invitation to be a legitimate and positive step towards moving this labour dispute along the road to possible resolution and reconciliation.  It’s an attempt to break the impasse.

The fear comes from an acquired cynicism that I’ve developed over the years towards managerial tactics in collective bargaining situations.  There’s also a deeply-held and legitimately-earned suspicion of government intentions around this whole issue.

It may be a sign of something, perhaps even a sign of something good, maybe even encouraging.  Or depending on the response to the initiative, it may turn out to be just another part of the journey, a journey that’s been tough for almost all concerned.

OPSEU Local 441 in Brockville and Local 472 here in Renfrew/Arnprior have called for for all parties to their current labour dispute with LLGAMH — Lanark, Leeds and Grenville Addictions and Mental Health — and CLRCS — Community Living Renfrew County South — to return to the bargaining table on July 13, 2026. 

For OPSEU, the reference to meeting in Toronto may mean some involvement of the union’s provincial executive.  On the management side, well, that’s where it gets interesting.

Because as far as the government and LLGAMH, and by extension our very ownCLRCS are officially concerned, the government has nothing to do with any of this, and it’s the arm’s-length agencies that are solely responsible for bargaining.  If that’s true, then how do you kick this can upstairs on the management side when, by their accounting, there’s no upstairs to kick it to.

But there is.

It’s called the Ontario provincial government.

CLRCS Executive-Director Jennifer Lavallee has indicated in an email blast that she has informed both OP{SEU 472 and the ministry-appointed conciliation officer of her intent to return to the bargaining table, that is if she was ever truly at it in the first place.

But who is this conciliation officer and where are they?  And what exactly, if anything, do they actually do to advance the state of negotiations between the two parties of the dispute?

It’s important to note that management’s assertion notwithstanding, the parties actually returning to the table depends on both sides agreeing to resume negotiations and on whether they believe meaningful bargaining can occur. Public statements like this expressing a willingness to bargain do not, by themselves, establish that either side is bargaining in good faith. That depends on the parties’ conduct at the table and the proposals they are prepared to discuss.  But to establish that, we need to see them at the table.