Read more about your new president
A very happy 2024 to all of you! I hope that the new year was rung in with a sense of optimism and enthusiasm for the months ahead.
Personally, I am starting the year equally excited and honoured to be representing you as president of CAPE. As we emerge from an election that was both contentious and historic, I truly believe we are beginning our mandate with more momentum than ever. Our new leadership group is drawing in part from the diversity of our membership – led by our first two female vice-presidents Caroline Pageau and Annie Yeo.
Record voter turnout showed that we have momentum – from the grassroots level up – to hit the ground running.
Together, we’re ready to get to work!
Beginning with gratitude
Before looking ahead at what’s to come, let’s recognize the many people who have helped us get where we are today:
To every candidate who ran in the 2023 election, thank you for your dedication to CAPE. An engaged membership is at the heart of what will make us successful, and your enthusiasm has shown that we are ready for that.
To our Members for Change team, thank you for your relentless work and support of a new vision for CAPE – one that is strong, progressive and engaged. We would not be here without you.
To all former members of the National Executive Committee (NEC), thank you for your tireless efforts to make our association stronger. We have a lot of work to do in the months and years to come, but your past leadership has left us a solid foundation to build upon.
And to every local leader, steward, and member of our association, thank you for all the time and energy you give to CAPE. Everything we have and will accomplish begins and ends with you — and we will work to increase the impact of your roles immediately.
Priorities for 2024 and beyond
Our goals have been clear from the start. The power of our union doesn’t come from the executive level – it comes from you. We all must work together so that, collectively, we can shape the union we want and secure the wins that are within our reach.
We promised a more transparent, democratic and inclusive association whose strength begins at the grassroots level, with engaged and mobilized rank-and-file members; where decisions are made from the ground up and not the top down; and where the diversity of our membership is celebrated. That commitment is paramount as we start actioning our priorities for this year:
- The fight for telework will grow stronger. Our members have demonstrated that they can be at their most productive and better able to serve Canadians when they have the freedom to telework. We need to move towards the office of the future, and we are designing a campaign to win. We don’t plan on waiting for bargaining to begin escalating.
- Workplace health and safety is critical, as our interpreters continue to face risks on the job. We will ramp up our mobilization efforts, so the necessary measures to protect interpreters are put in place and respected, with no further delays.
- Fundamentally, we will build a collaborative structure that works in solidarity with other unions and gives more power to the voices of locals and rank-and-file members, so we can truly create the change that we want. We were so inspired by the Front commun in Quebec, and we are taking the lessons of that model of unionism to heart.
We know there will also be new challenges – some we can anticipate and some we can’t – but I know that CAPE is prepared for everything that comes our way.
Moving forward together
Following the 2023 election, some of you may be uncertain about what’s to come. Please be reassured that we are all committed to doing what it takes to make our association more open, collaborative, and representative of our entire membership. The leadership team is here to help bring about the change you want to make happen, but fundamentally this is your union – get organized with your coworkers to build the power we need to win. We are laying the foundation for CAPE to become an organizing union with stronger democratic institutions – but rank and file members must be the fundamental source of our power.
The new executive committee will meet for the first time on Friday, January 26. If you would like to observe the meeting, as all members in good standing are welcome to do, please reach out to us at president@acep-cape.ca before January 24.
Please stay tuned for more from me and the CAPE team as we ramp up our efforts to build an association that is more democratic, equitable, united – and ready to win.
We’re just getting started.
In solidarity,
Nate Prier
CAPE President
