Savants of political history will remember a time when the Ontario PCs treated organized labour like a sparring partner — with former leaders campaigning on wage freezes, right‑to‑work laws, and “union boss” rhetoric that kept picket lines firmly in the opposition camp.

In 2018, Doug Ford flipped that script: instead of swinging at unions, he pulled up a chair, invested in their training programs, and racked up endorsements from construction locals to firefighters. In the span of a decade, the party moved from “fighting labour” to “building with labour,” turning yesterday’s adversaries into today’s partners.

That strategy reached a watershed in the 2025 election when the Progressive Conservatives secured endorsements from 21 unions. The raw number raised eyebrows, but the real story lay in the mix. For the first time, public‑sector unions joined construction locals in backing a conservative government — something few Queen’s Park veterans thought possible.

Critics dismissed the endorsements as transactional. Yet over the past month we have seen these types of relationships deliver concrete results that matter to workers well beyond hard hats and steel‑toed boots.

Recently, SEIU Healthcare in a public news release welcomed a $260‑million top‑up to the Skills Development Fund, part of a program that has already........

© iPolitics