Perfect weather and the prospect of a good barbecue and free entertainment helped draw more than 200 people to the Sunshine Coast Labour Council’s (SCLC) annual Labour Day Picnic in Gibsons.
Keynote speaker Ray Haynes, a labour movement veteran, reflected on his time with the BC Federation of Labour in the 1950s and ’60s.
“I’ve been around the province all my life, and I’ve been in demonstrations around the province and I have never seen a labour council that is so active,” Haynes said. “I was also surprised about the people on the Coast… Nowhere have I seen the citizens and the community support strikers and workers like they do on the Coast.”
But even with an election fast approaching, the politics were low-key compared to the 2015 event, which was held a month into one of the longest campaign periods in Canadian history.
Green candidate Dana Taylor attended this year’s event, circulating in the crowd and taking questions at his party’s booth, as did outgoing Liberal MP Pam Goldsmith-Jones.
Goldsmith-Jones, however, wasn’t able to address the crowd as she’s done other years because of the proximity to the expected start of the campaign period.
Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons, of the NDP, was the only politician who spoke at the event. He touted his party’s work as the provincial government, but steered clear of comments on the coming federal campaign.
While the politics were low-key locally, the Canadian Labour Congress used Labour Day to launch a call to “make fairness a ballot box question in the October federal election” with a Fair Canada for Everyone campaign.
“Low wages, precarious work and underemployment continue to hurt too many Canadians; fear and insecurity are fuelling racism and intolerance, and climate change threatens the survival of our planet,” Labour Congress president Hassan Yussuff said in a press release “We will do our part to mobilize Canadians to choose candidates who will make Canada more fair for workers and their families.”
Earlier in the day, Unifor Local 1119, which is no longer affiliated with the Canadian Labour Congress, held its second annual kids fishing derby, which drew about 50 young anglers and their families to Friendship Park in Sechelt.
