Three senior officials from the Carpenters’ Regional Council, or CRC, one of Canada’s largest construction unions, have resigned amid an internal probe sparked by a Globe investigation into questionable real estate transactions.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
Union leaders have a big problem on their hands – and it is one of their own making.
A series of union scandals, including one involving the Carpenters’ Regional Council, is eroding public confidence in organized labour. That’s because union bosses are serving up a surplus of arrogance and a shortage of accountability.
The real tragedy, of course, is that these ethical failures amount to a dereliction of duty. The affected unions’ dues-paying members deserve reliable representation to safeguard their rights at this critical moment for Canada’s economy.
I offer this opinion as a member of a union (Unifor represents some employees of The Globe and Mail), but also as a business journalist who regularly writes about corruption and governance lapses on Bay Street and beyond. Unions, in my view, ought to be subject to the same scrutiny on matters of misconduct.
Take, for instance, the controversy currently engulfing the Carpenters’ Regional Council, or CRC, one of Canada’s largest construction unions.
Construction union boss quits amid probe over $4-million home
Earlier this week, my colleague Jeff Gray reported that three of the union’s senior officials resigned amid an internal probe sparked by a Globe investigation into questionable real estate transactions, including one in 2022 that involved a $4-million home used by the union’s top boss and his wife. More on that in a minute.
The resignations included executive secretary-treasurer Jason Rowe, his spouse, Stacey Rowe, who was also a senior union official, and Tom Cardinal, the union’s president and chief of staff, according to staff e-mails reviewed by The Globe.
Neither the former executives nor a CRC spokesman provided comment before the story’s publication on Sunday. Nor did the union announce the resignations on its website, leaving the bulk of its 60,000 members in the dark.
That’s shocking because earlier this month, the CRC was placed under the supervision of its U.S.-based parent union, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.
The U.S. parent launched an internal probe of CRC after The Globe published a story in April that revealed both the purchase of the luxury home in Nobleton, Ont., and that it was occupied by Mr. Rowe and his wife from 2022 to 2024.
After that probe began, The Globe published a subsequent story that revealed the purchase of a second home for $2.5-million in 2024.
Both homes were bought by a numbered company (Mr. Rowe and his wife both served as directors at the time), and the homes were later transferred to the Carpenters’ Regional Council Building Corp. for free.
In other words, the resignations and the questionable real-estate transactions both came to light thanks to Mr. Gray’s dogged reporting – and not because of transparency from the union.
These are matters of public interest because the CRC has previously received millions of dollars from the federal and provincial governments for its worker-training centres.
Other unions have also become embroiled in controversies.
In 2023, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, or OPSEU, accused three of its former executives, including its former long-time president, Warren (Smokey) Thomas, of improperly taking $5.75-million of union funds.
The allegations, which were contained in a lawsuit, have not been proven in court. Not only are the allegations contested, Mr. Thomas later launched a countersuit and denied any wrongdoing.
Mr. Thomas has also previously said that OPSEU’s current leadership, headed by JP Hornick, is waging a “nasty, political campaign” against him and that he will be vindicated in court.
His comments about infighting are reminiscent of those made by Unifor’s former leader, Jerry Dias, who previously faced allegations of bribery from his union back in 2022.
Toronto Police decided not to charge Mr. Dias for allegedly accepting $50,000 in cash from an unnamed company and he later reached an undisclosed settlement with Unifor.
“I am a lot of things but crooked is not one of them,” he told The Globe in 2023, later adding: “I never took a dime.”
Mr. Dias also blamed internal politics at Unifor for the fiasco.
So, what the heck is happening inside Canada’s biggest unions?
At a time when Canadians are facing an affordability crisis, artificial intelligence is threatening to destroy jobs and the U.S. trade war is taking an economic toll, workers deserve better.
It’s time to subject unions to rigorous public disclosures regarding their finances, executive salaries and perks.
Some 30.6 per cent of Canadian workers were covered by a collective bargaining agreement in 2025, but union membership has been declining since the 1980s.
New members have long complained that union leadership is comprised of an old guard that is out of touch with young people, women and visible minorities.
Financial controversies will only fuel the discontent.
Canadians are losing trust in the labour movement. Union leaders only have themselves to blame.