A view of the second house in Nobleton, Ont., purchased by the Carpenters’ Regional Council for $2.5-million. The property is now listed for sale.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
One of Canada’s largest construction unions, which is facing an internal probe after The Globe and Mail revealed it had bought a $4-million house north of Toronto for the use of its top official, also purchased a second home, for $2.5-million, just minutes away.
The Carpenters’ Regional Council (CRC) was placed under the supervision of its U.S.-based parent union earlier this month after The Globe reported that its executive secretary-treasurer, Jason Rowe, had lived in the $4-million home for two years along with his wife, Stacey Rowe, who was also a senior union official.
Property records show that the same numbered company that purchased the first home in Nobleton, Ont., in November, 2022, also purchased another nearby house for $2.489-million, in January, 2024. 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.
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 union leader, the numbered company and the $4-million house
A spokesman for the CRC did not respond to e-mails this week asking questions about the second house – including who lived in the second property, which 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.
Mr. Rowe could not be reached Friday.
The CRC, which is based in Vaughan, Ont., and 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. Under Mr. Rowe’s leadership, it endorsed Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives for the first time, just before the 2025 election.
Earlier this month, The Globe reported that the executive board of the CRC had voted to place itself under the supervision of its U.S. parent union, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.
In a letter to union leaders obtained by The Globe, the U.S. parent union’s general president, Douglas McCarron, said the organization would conduct an internal probe into the newspaper’s revelations about the Ontario-based branch’s purchase of the $4-million home. Mr. McCarron could not be reached Friday.
The union has acknowledged that Mr. Rowe and his wife lived in the $4-million property from 2022 to 2024. It was later rented out.
The Globe reported last month that the union’s executive board was not told about the 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.
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 Ontario-based 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, the 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.
With research from Stephanie Chambers