Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Education Minister Stephen Lecce are set to discuss renewed contract negotiations with education workers Tuesday, as students across the province return to in-person learning after a walkout by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) forced many schools to close for two days.
You can watch the news conference live in this story starting at 9 a.m. ET.
Some 55,000 education workers represented by CUPE ended their protest just hours after Ford promised to repeal a bill that used the notwithstanding clause to impose a multi-year contract and banned the workers from striking.
Bill 28 was met with fierce resistance from CUPE and other labour unions.
On Monday, shortly before CUPE was set to hold a news conference with more than a dozen public and private-sector unions in a show of solidarity, Ford announced that he would revoke the law if CUPE cancelled its walkout.
The Ministry of Education said the law would be repealed when the legislature sits again next week.
CUPE says it is technically still in a legal strike position, but will now instead focus on a renewed bargaining effort and its workers are heading back to schools in a show of “good faith.”