The three day 2009 Western Region Conference held in Winnipeg, Manitoba was attended by Ray
Wade, Andy Dean and Eugene Emmanuel. The theme of this conference was Building Solutions.
Between 180 and 200 delegates from across Western Canada’s CEP Locals attended the conference.
Day 1. Plenary session. After the reading of the Anti-Harassment statement, which is customary at
all conferences and conventions, we had the pleasure of listening to addresses by distinguished guests,
John Loxley (University of Manitoba, Economics) and Julie Guard (University of Manitoba, Labour
Studies). John Loxley discussed Bargaining and Julie Guard discussed Organizing. A panel discussion
followed each speaker’s address.
Premier Gary Doer addressed the members on labour issues.
Gaetan Menard, CEP National Secretary/Treasurer gave an update on the financial state of the
National Union.
Day 2. The two workshops held on Day 2 were Bargaining for the Future and New Developments
in Organizing. Each class accommodated 20 participants. Ray, Andy and Eugene were in different
classes but were all scheduled for the Bargaining workshop. The Bargaining workshop gave us the
opportunity to learn how to increase our collective strength. This workshop focused on how to motivate
our members and how to develop a communication strategy. The goals of this course were to provide
an overview of how to plan a successful membership engagement plan and to provide an opportunity
to demonstrate some of the basic tools to create a plan. Four scenarios were presented to the class and
each scenario was accomplished by groups in first determining what the goal was. Then we were
presented with different methods of how to achieve our goal. The different methods were Organization,
Research, Communication, Timeline and Budget. Only after identifying, expanding and intensifying
each of the different methods were we able to achieve our goal. The workshop was filled with different
ideas from different members of different locals all with the same goal in mind.
Day 3. Plenary session. The conference came to a close with reports from the two different workshops.
There was an address by David Coles, National President followed by addresses by Jim Britton
(Western Region Vice President) and Don Boucher and Wendy Sol (Western Region Administrative
Vice Presidents). A video tribute to recently deceased Joy Hanlon ended the session.