An investigation by The Globe and Mail found that the owner of a numbered company that bought this $4-million property in Nobleton, Ont., was the Carpenters’ Regional Council.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
The head of the Carpenters’ Regional Council, one of Canada’s largest construction unions, has resigned amid an internal probe prompted by a Globe and Mail investigation that revealed the organization had bought a $4-million house that he and his wife lived in for two years.
According to staff e-mails seen by The Globe, the union’s top official, executive secretary-treasurer Jason Rowe, and his wife, Stacey Rowe, also a senior union official, have left their posts. Tom Cardinal, the union’s president and chief of staff, also resigned.
A spokesman for the CRC, which is headquartered in Vaughan, Ont., north of Toronto, did not respond to requests for comment. Mr. Rowe did not respond to messages asking for comment and Ms. Rowe and Mr. Cardinal could not be reached.
The CRC, which says it has 60,000 members in 30 locals across Ontario and Western Canada, oversees hundreds of millions in pension funds and has received millions from the federal and Ontario governments for skills-training programs.
The union leader, the numbered company and the $4-million house
Earlier this month, The Globe reported that the CRC was placed under the supervision of its U.S.-based parent union, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, which launched an internal probe.
The move followed a Globe investigation, published in April, that revealed the union’s purchase of the house, which Mr. Rowe and his wife lived in from 2022 to 2024.
The staff e-mails obtained by The Globe say this investigation has not been completed.
The 2022 purchase of the $4-million home in Nobleton, Ont., not far from the union’s Vaughan headquarters, wasn’t the only real estate transaction that has raised questions.
The Globe has also found that the union bought a second house in the same area in 2024, for $2.5-million. The CRC did not respond to questions about why the second house was purchased or whether any senior union officials had lived in it.
Property records show that the same numbered company that purchased the first home also purchased the second. Mr. Rowe and his wife were both listed as directors of the numbered company at the time, and Mr. Rowe was listed as acting for the company on both transactions.
A view of the second house, purchased by the Carpenters’ Regional Council for $2.5-million.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
The two properties were transferred for $0 to the Carpenters’ Regional Council Building Corp. that year. The union has said it owns both that corporation and the numbered company but has not explained the reason behind the transfers or the use of the numbered company.
The second property is now listed for sale. According to the real estate listing, it has four bedrooms, five bathrooms and a family room with a 20-foot ceiling.
Earlier this month, the U.S. parent union’s general president, Douglas McCarron, sent a letter to union leaders, obtained by The Globe, saying that his organization would investigate the newspaper’s revelations about the Ontario-based branch’s purchase of the $4-million home.
Mr. McCarron did not respond to a request for comment.
The union has acknowledged that Mr. Rowe and his wife lived in the property from 2022 to 2024. It was later rented out.
The Globe reported that the union’s executive board was not told about the first house and its intended purpose and did not vote on the purchase, citing a source familiar with the union’s decision-making. The Globe did not name the source because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the union’s internal matters.
Construction union facing probe bought second house for $2.5-million
After first telling The Globe that the $4-million home “was not purchased for the use of any one person,” the CRC later said the house was needed, on a short-term basis, for Mr. Rowe, who lived in Manitoba before being brought in to lead a restructuring of the organization.
The CRC said the decision to purchase the first house “was disclosed to members of our executive board” and “approved through our established governance processes, including oversight under the organization’s bylaws.”
But the union did not directly answer questions on whether the executive board had voted on the purchase or provide details of what it says was disclosed.
At the time of the purchase of this first house, the CRC was also under a form of supervision known as a trusteeship, imposed by its U.S. parent. This allowed for Mr. Rowe to be installed as executive secretary-treasurer and left control of the CRC with him and a handful of appointed trustees.
Neither the CRC nor its U.S. parent have answered questions about this previous trusteeship. According to a disclosure document filed with the U.S. Department of Labor in April, 2022, it was imposed to “correct corruption or financial malpractice.” But the document provides no details of any allegations or what was done to address them at the time.
Under Mr. Rowe’s leadership, the CRC endorsed Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives for the first time, just before the 2025 election – after the union had received $27-million from the province’s Skills Development Fund.
In pictures posted on the Premier’s Facebook page from a February, 2025, campaign event marking the endorsement, Mr. Ford can be seen shaking Mr. Rowe’s hand and applauding as he speaks to union members.
The CRC also endorsed Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals before the federal election that year.
With research from Stephanie Chambers