With Sears Canada in court today applying to scrap its pension, Ontario\u2019s New Democrats are calling on the Wynne Liberals to finally take action protect Ontario workers and pensioners during bankruptcy proceedings.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe Sears pensioners are getting the rug pulled out from under them and Kathleen Wynne\u2019s Liberal government is looking the other way,\u201d said Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath. \u201cLiberal and Conservative governments in Ontario have ignored and mistreated workers and pensioners so investors, creditors and bankscould\u00a0pocket even more money.\u201d<\/p>\n
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In 2016,\u00a0Jennifer French, then NDP Pensions critic, introduced a motion in the legislature calling on the government to amend bankruptcy legislation so that \u201cbenefits owed to pensioners [would] be given top priority in the event that a company files for bankruptcy.\u201d The motion passed with government support. Currently, creditors like banks and big corporations get paid first, and people who worked for the company are pushed to the back of the line.<\/p>\n
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Since supporting the 2016 motion, Wynne has done nothing — letting down\u00a0workers\u00a0whose pensions\u00a0are\u00a0in jeopardy, like\u00a0Sears Canada staff and former staff, and Stelco employees in Hamilton.<\/p>\n
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Today, Sears Canada is filing a petition to terminate its vastly underfunded pension plan, leaving thousands at risk of losing their pensions.\u00a0Earlier this year, Sears Canada filed for creditor protection and began the process of closing stores and liquidating assets. So far 59 locations have been closed and nearly 3,000 jobs have been lost.<\/p>\n
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\u201cLast year, Wynne and her Liberals supported my motion to protect pensioners by prioritizing them during bankruptcy proceedings. Now she saying \u2018there isn\u2019t a role for government\u2019,\u201d said French. \u201cHardworking Ontarians deserve to know why the premier thinks pensioners should be left to fend for themselves after spending\u00a0their\u00a0whole working lives earning those pensions.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cNo worker in Ontario should be forced to wonder whether their pension will be there when they retire. Executives, big corporations and foreign creditors can wait \u2013 Ontario workers should get every penny of what is owed to them,\u201d said Horwath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With Sears Canada in court today applying to scrap its pension, Ontario\u2019s New Democrats are calling on the Wynne Liberals to finally take action protect Ontario workers and pensioners during bankruptcy proceedings. \u201cThe Sears pensioners are getting the rug pulled out from under them and Kathleen Wynne\u2019s Liberal government is looking the other way,\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":6313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[593],"class_list":["post-6311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-provincial","tag-sears-canada-closing"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-30 05:30:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6312,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6311\/revisions\/6312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}