Sid Ryan

Infobox Person
name = Patrick Cyril "Sid" Ryan


caption =
birth_date = 1952
birth_place = Dublin, Ireland
death_date =
death_place =
other_names =
known_for =
occupation = Labour leader

Patrick Cyril "Sid" Ryan (born 1952, in Dublin, Ireland) is a Canadian labour union leader.

Biography

He was born in Crumlin, a working class area on Dublin's south side where most of his family still lives. His parents Danny and Maureen had ten children.

Ryan emigrated to Canada in 1975 at the age of 22. He was instrumental in helping to unionize his first Canadian employer, Curity Products, for the United Steelworks of America.Fact|date=August 2007

In 1976, he joined Ontario Hydro and began his career in the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). He rose rapidly through the ranks to become the president of Ontario's largest trade union. Ryan has held the presidency since 1992 and is the longest serving president in the union's history.Fact|date=August 2007 Under his leadership CUPE Ontario's membership has grown from 140,000 to 225,000.Fact|date=August 2007

He was a particularly vocal opponent of former Ontario Progresive Conservative Premier Mike Harris during the late 1990s, and helped to coordinate several actions by the labour movement against Harris's government (the Days of Action campaign). In 2002, his union launched a successful legal challenge against the government of Ernie Eves, which helped stop the privatization of Ontario Hydro.Fact|date=August 2007

Media

Ryan has aggressively pursued a media strategy since taking over in 1992. He is a "Toronto Sun" columnist and a panelist on the current affairs TV program The Michael Coren Show. He is also a regular guest on radio and TV talk shows.Fact|date=August 2007

Work with New Democratic Party

In addition to his union activities, Ryan has been involved with the New Democratic Party (NDP) since the 1980s. He has served on the Ontario NDP's provincial council and Environment committee, and is a former president of the Durham Centre riding association.

Ryan's affiliation with the Ontario NDP became tenuous in the early 1990s, when the party moved to the right under Bob Rae's leadership. On one occasion, he referred to the Rae government's "Social Contract" bill as the most anti-labour piece of legislation he had ever seen. He has since re-aligned himself with the provincial party under Howard Hampton's leadership.

Ryan has stood as an NDP candidate in three provincial and two federal election campaigns, but has not to date won election to a legislative body. He contested Scarborough Centre in the 1999 provincial election, and finished third behind Progressive Conservative incumbent Marilyn Mushinski and Liberal Costas Manios. In the 2003 provincial election, he campaigned in Oshawa and came within 1,109 votes of defeating PC incumbent Jerry Ouellette. Ryan moved the NDP's vote from around 5000 to over 18,000 during the course of his campaigns in Oshawa.

Ryan also stood as a candidate for Oshawa in the 2004 federal election, and lost to Conservative Colin Carrie by 463 votes in a very close three-way race. He ran again in the 2006 election, but, despite considerable support from the federal NDP leader Jack Layton and CAW head Buzz Hargrove, lost by 2,802 votes to incumbent Carrie.

During the last few days of the 2006 election campaign, Alan Clarke, a member of the Conservative party, attempted to smear Ryan with connections to an Irish Republican Army terrorist bombing. Carrie's campaign has denied being involved, with manager Andrew Morin suggesting that the leaflet is a product of union squabbling over an endorsement by the Canadian Auto Workers. Morin and Ryan have stated that the two campaigns are otherwise on good terms. Elections Canada has since laid two charges of breaching the Elections Act against Clarke, while Ryan also filed a civil suit. Ryan has alleged that Clarke was working on Carrie's 2006 campaign, which Morin had earlier denied.Cite news|url=http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Blizzard_Christina/2006/01/20/1402416.html|publisher=The Toronto Sun|first=Christina|last=Blizzard|date=20 Jan 2007|title=Dirty tricks target Ryan]

On more than one occasion, Ryan's election losses have been cited as proof of the dangers of tactical votingFact|date=November 2007. During the 2004 campaign, Liberal leader Paul Martin's last minute appeals to potential NDP supporters convinced many to vote Liberal. After the election, a poll in Oshawa found that the number of voters who initially planned to vote for Ryan, but then decided to support the Liberals late in the campaign to prevent a Conservative victory, significantly exceeded the narrow margin of Ryan's loss. Martin's strategic voting was attempting again in 2006, with the full support of CAW leader Buzz Hargrove, and it also similarly hurt Ryan's vote even though he was one of the 40 NDP candidates that Hargrove endorsed.

In the 2007 Ontario provincial election, Ryan challenged Ouellette for the second time, losing by over 2500 votes, a larger margin than in 2003.

OMERS and Bill 206

For more than 10 years Ryan waged a battle with the provincial government to change the governance of the OMERS pension plan. Ryan wanted the government to allow the stakeholders to have control over investments and day to day governance of the plan. Pension surpluses were not being used to raise pensions for some plan members. [cite news|url=http://torontosun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Ryan_Sid/2005/11/18/1311803.html|title=Pension double-talk|last=Ryan|first=Sid|publisher=Toronto Sun|date=18 Nov 2005]

In 2006, Ryan threatened a political strike after Premier Dalton McGuinty brought in Bill 206, which would change the administration of OMERS but would not fully address CUPE's concerns. However, this met with resistance from a small number of CUPE locals. The employer organization AMO (Association of Municipalities Ontario), together with OMERS administrators fought, to stop Ryan's campaign. McGuinty agreed to make some changes to address CUPE's concerns but refused to withdraw the bill. [cite news|url=http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2006/02/21/to_cupe20060221.html|publisher=CBC News Online|date=21 Feb 2006|title=CUPE strike set for Thursday]

Foreign Policy

Israel

In 2006, under Sid Ryan's leadership, CUPE Ontario voted to endorse a global campaign of boycott and divestment against the State of Israel's "apartheid-like policies" towards the Palestinians. [cite news|url=http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=8ab8ed08-42c0-4150-99db-14df1dff31b1&k=61344|publisher=National Post|title=CUPE joins boycott of Israel|date=29 May 2006|first=Melissa|last=Leong] The resolution received support from organizations around the world including an open letter of support from Willie Madisha, President of the Congress of South African Trade Unions and apartheid opponent. [cite web|url=http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/cosatu070606.html|last=Madisha|first=Willie|title=COSATU Open Letter in Support of CUPE Resolution on Israel|publisher=MR Zine|date=7 Jun 2007]

Ireland

Sid Ryan has a long-standing involvement with the Irish peace process, including acting as three-time International Peace Observer to the process between the Protestant Democratic Unionist Party and the Catholic Sinn Féin.

During the 2004 federal election campaign, in which he ran as an NDP candidate, a Conservative Party member produced a leaflet featured a picture of Mr. Ryan shaking hands with Alec Maskey, former Lord Mayor of Belfast. The leaflet was thought to imply that the photo was taken at a Friends of Sinn Féin fundraiser. In response, Ryan's campaign team released a press release emphasising that the photo was taken at a fundraiser for the Ireland Fund of Canada, a non profit and non partisan chartible organization. [Cite web|publisher=CUPE.ca|url=http://cupe.ca/ontario/Sid_Ryan_confronts_a|title=Sid Ryan confronts and condemns those calling for his murder and calling him a terrorist]

In 2007, Sid Ryan introduced Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams on the [Toronto stop] of Adams' speaking tour of North America. [cite web|url=http://torontoist.com/2007/07/laytons_good_fr.php|title=Layton's Good Friday|publisher=Torontoist|14 July 2007] Adams was in Toronto to thank those that contributed to the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Awards

Sid Ryan was awarded the Canadian Arab Federation's Social Justice Award at their 40th anniversary dinner held in Toronto on June 16th, 2006. Ryan was recognised for his work as an International Peace Observer in Northern Ireland and his championing of Palestinian rights. [cite web|publisher=CUPE.ca|url=http://cupe.on.ca/doc.php?document_id=58&lang=en|title=Ryan Wins Social Justice Award|date=1 Jun 2007]

Notes