October 26, 2025
Hello Team 605:
Recently, a team of AMFA representatives travelled to Ottawa to meet with government decision-makers. The following is an update on our progress in government affairs, and highlights some of the key issues that we bring to Ottawa on your behalf. The consists of:
Rob Cush, Director of Government Affairs
Ian Evershed, Region IV Director
Matt Finnamore, Local 605 President
Surinder Jhalli, Local 605 Vice-President
Building on a previous set of meetings held in June of this year, we had five critical meetings while in Ottawa (and subsequently via Teams):
- Hon. Steven MacKinnon, PC, MP, Minister of Transport and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons;
- Leslie Church, MP, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Jobs and Families and the Secretary of State for Labour;
- Ms. Sandra Assan, Deputy Minister of Labour;
- Mr. Craig Johnston, Director, Director of Investigations / Air, Transportation Safety Board of Canada; and
- Ms. Jennifer Little, Director General, Air Policy, Transport Canada.
We additionally attended a reception adjacent to Parliament Hill with a significant number of Members of Parliament, Senators, senior political staffers and media. Meeting those folks in a social setting is critical to building trust and relationships that we will need in the future.
Overall, the team had three objectives in all of our meetings:
- to increase awareness and positive impressions among government officials and decision-makers about AMFA in general,
- to begin working with the Government of Canada on safety issues and cooperation when it comes to incidents in the industry (like AMFA does in the US),
- to start discussions with Labour Canada officials relating to the use of Section 107 – the piece of the Canadian Labour Code that forced back to work orders in both our action with WestJet and CUPE’s with Air Canada – both recently and going forward.
This work is all critical to the work that AMFA does on your behalf. By building these relationships with government now, we ensure they are there in place when we need them. And working with government as a partner – as we are now part of the tear down of the landing gear in Ottawa with the WestJet SXM incident thanks to these meetings – is key to keeping both members and the traveling public safe.
In Solidarity,
Ian Evershed, Region IV Director
Matt Finnamore, Local 605 President
