The union representing West Coast longshore workers has come out against the Liberals’ omnibus economic legislation.

In a statement, members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 500 called Bill C-39 the “most aggressive federal assault on collective bargaining and the right to strike we’ve witnessed in decades.”

Members took issue with Ottawa’s proposed national interest test for determining when to use s. 107 of the Canada Labour Code to order an end to a strike or lockout. The union said that it essentially means the labour minister can invoke s. 107 if they feel there’s an economic impact to a strike, which is a given when longshore workers walk off the job.

“The membership of ILWU Local 500 moves billions of dollars in goods every year,” read the statement, noting that everything from grain to oil to potash moves through the West Coast ports.

“We keep this country moving, but we will not do so at the expense of our constitutional liberties.”

Marco Vigliotti has more. 

Ontario Conservative MP Scott Aitchison has announced he will resign his seat of Parry Sound-Muskoka at the end of the current fall parliamentary sitting.

In a letter released to constituents today, Aitchison said after 30 years of public life, he plans to explore other opportunities.

Aitchison ran for the party leadership in 2022 and has served as the opposition’s housing critic. He was a municipal councillor and then mayor of Huntsville, Ont., for 25 years before running for the Conservatives federally in 2019.

He is set to become the 12th MP to resign since January and the eighth Conservative to leave the caucus in the last 11 months.

The Canadian Press reports. 

International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu is expected to speak with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer during the G20 trade ministers’ meeting in Wisconsin this week.

Sidhu’s spokesperson says a specific time and format for that conversation have not been set.

Sidhu also has bilateral meetings scheduled for today with the trade ministers for France, Australia and Turkey, and is meeting with India’s representative on Thursday.

The two-day meeting of trade ministers from the world’s biggest economies is being held in Milwaukee amid a global trade disruption caused in large part by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade agenda.

CP’s got this one too. 

In Other Headlines

Internationally

A startup whose founder has vowed to “make nuclear great again” is planning to place hundreds of reactors on federal land in Utah, according to documents reviewed exclusively by NPR.

Valar Atomics is planning what it calls “Project Beehive” on over 9,000 acres of land held under the Bureau of Land Management near Price, Utah. The facility would include data centers and some 456 small nuclear reactors, along with a facility to produce nuclear fuel and others for storing nuclear waste, according to a proposal from the company to federal regulators.

In aggregate, the reactors would produce around 9.6 gigawatts of power for the data centers and even more thermal heat for other industrial applications. Currently, the entire state of Utah produces only around 4 gigawatts of electricity on average (though its peak capacity in summer can reach around 10 gigawatts).

The project’s timeline calls for nonnuclear construction to begin as soon as the end of this year, with the first reactors coming online sometime in 2028.

NPR has more. 

Burundi has agreed to join a clutch of ⁠other African nations in receiving migrants from other countries deported from the U.S. under ⁠Donald Trump’s hardline ⁠immigration ​policy.

However, Burundi will only accept those not accused of crime or terrorism links, said ⁠Nancy Ninette Mutoni, a spokesperson for the country’s president, Évariste Ndayishimiye. Tuesday’s announcement gave no details of numbers, timing or financial ⁠details.

Washington has sent so-called “third-country deportees” to about half ​a dozen African nations ‌as well as many other countries, often where they have no ties, have never been and find themselves detained indefinitely, under opaque deals ‌that Senate Democrats say have cost tens of millions of ‌dollars.

In many cases, deportees had secured legal protections from immigration courts in the US against repatriation. But rights groups say the third-country deals allow the US to circumvent those protections.

Read more from the Guardian. 

In Other International Headline

The Kicker

Canadian Astronaut Joshua Kutryk is set to blast off for the International Space Station on Thursday, as Canada looks to take up more space… in outer space.

Kutryk is one of the four people assigned to NASA SpaceX Crew 13 mission, which will take off from Kennedy Space Center.

The mission will focus on taking care of the space station facility, and take part in a number of experiments. It will last for six months.

Read more here.