After 9 months, owner of Kanata nuclear facility starts negotiations with striking workers

The owner of a Kanata nuclear facility resumed negotiations with his striking workers this week, more than a year after he offered them a package with a zero per cent pay increase for two years.

Unionized workers of Best Theratronics, which produces radiation therapy medical devices, went on strike last May, following owner Krishnan Suthanthiran's January offer.

Last year the Public Service Alliance of Canada and Unifor lodged unfair labour practice complaints against Suthanthiran, accusing him of flouting the law by failing to negotiate. 

But this week the parties entered negotiations more than 270 days after the workers went on strike, PSAC and Unifor confirmed.

With negotiations ongoing, the unions were unwilling to say more, and Suthanthiran did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CBC.

But outgoing Ottawa Centre NDP MPP Joel Harden said it remained to be seen whether Suthanthiran was serious about negotiating or if he was using it as a delaying tactic. 

"I hope it's serious," Harden said. "The last time he made a wage offer to these employees who are Red Seal certified skilled trades workers, he offered them zero and free hot dog lunches."

Harden, who will be running for the federal seat in Ottawa Centre in the next election, visited the picket line earlier this month alongside federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh.

He called on federal labour minister Steven MacKinnon to enforce binding arbitration on the parties if negotiations did not proceed.

"I think if this is a delay tactic and not serious, this matter needs to be dealt with promptly by the federal Minister of Labour," Harden said.

A 'crown jewel' to be protected

In press releases, Suthanthiran has claimed losses of tens of millions of dollars at Best Theratronics, blamed what he described as the low productivity of Canadian workers, and threatened to close the company. 

Those threats should be taken seriously, Harden said, given Suthanthiran's past business practices. 

In 2011, Suthanthiran acquired a struggling Belgian nuclear medical company, which he renamed Best Medical Belgium. Soon afterward, the company shifted millions in assets to Suthanthiran's companies in Canada, Belgian prosecutors have told CBC. Six months later, Best Medical Belgium declared insolvency.

Suthanthiran walked away and left Belgian authorities with a clean up operation that lasted over a decade and was estimated to have cost 128 million euros (in 2017 euros), the Parliament of Wallonia heard in 2022.

Though Suthanthiran has denied wrongdoing, Belgian prosecutors confirmed a criminal investigation is ongoing in Belgium.

Harden fears a similar scenario could be playing out here.

"What I know from this gentlemen's operations in Belgium in a very similar facility is that he dragged out negotiations with employees there, gradually took critical equipment from the facility and mothballed it and left it in the taxpayers of Belgium to pay the costs of remediation of radioactive materials in that facility," he said.

Best Theratronics is a "crown jewel" of Canadian medical manufacturing, Harden said. "We have to protect it."