Metro, Sobeys and Loblaw are now defendants in a proposed class action over maple syrup tests found to be half cane sugar.

An amended application filed Aug. 3 in Quebec Superior Court added the three chains and Groupe Epicia, which runs Val-Mont grocery stores, CTV News reported.

The four are accused of demonstrating “negligence, recklessness, carelessness, or serious indifference” by putting the syrup on their shelves. The suit says the price alone should have prompted them to check it.

A Quebec judge has to authorize a class action before it can proceed, and nothing in the application has been tested in court. The case has moved from the producer to the chains that sold his product.

The proposed class covers anyone in Canada who bought a can produced by 9227-8712 Quebec Inc. since Oct. 5, 2010, which the suit gives as the date Erabliere Steve Bourdeau began selling maple syrup. Hundreds of thousands of people, and possibly millions, could be eligible, CBC News reported.

It seeks a refund of the purchase price, unspecified compensatory damages and $100 in punitive damages for each person in the class.

Radio-Canada’s investigative program Enquete bought five cans of Bourdeau’s syrup at random in April, from different stores and different batches, and had them tested at le centre ACER , the provincial lab responsible for maple syrup quality control in Quebec. Grocers were selling his cans for as low as $4.99.

All five were labelled pure. All five came back with at least 50 per cent cane sugar. Luc Lagace, the lab’s director of research, told Enquete he had never seen falsification of that kind.

Bourdeau told Enquete his syrup sold in hundreds of grocery stores across Quebec and Ontario, naming IGA and Metro in Quebec and Farm Boy in Ontario. IGA and Farm Boy are both Sobeys banners. The Montreal Gazette reported that the producers’ federation alleged the syrup also reached Adonis stores.

The suit cites Quebec agriculture ministry inspection reports and alleges Metro knew of complaints about the syrup as early as 2016, and Epicia as early as 2025, CBC reported.

Loblaw confirmed to National Post that it had been served.

“We can confirm that we have been served with the proposed class action claim and intend to contest authorization. As this is now an active litigation matter, we are unable to provide further information at this time,” Youmna Rab, a Loblaw spokesperson, said in an email.

“As legal proceedings are currently underway, we have no comment at this time,” Catherine Latendresse, a communications manager at Metro, said in an email.

Metro, Sobeys and Epicia had already filed to contest, CBC reported.

Bourdeau denies altering his syrup and blames his suppliers. “Maybe we were sent a bad batch,” he told Enquete. He also acknowledged to the program that he had sold Ontario syrup in cans labelled product of Quebec, which is illegal.

A separate proceeding is running in front of Quebec’s agricultural markets regulator. The Quebec Maple Syrup Producers federation asked it in April to investigate three years of Bourdeau’s operations, suspend his production quota, seize his syrup and impose more than $166,000 in penalties plus unpaid contributions, the Gazette reported.

He admitted buying syrup “on the black market” for years and has acknowledged rule violations going back more than a decade, including settlements covering 2010 to 2022, the filing says. The regulator has not ruled.

The federation had been looking into the company since January and complained to Quebec’s agriculture ministry on Feb. 20, weeks before Enquete aired.

In June, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency recalled all lot codes of 540-millilitre pure maple syrup under the 9227-8712 Quebec Inc. and L’Erabeille brands, sold in Ontario and Quebec. The recall was for container integrity defects and spoilage, not adulteration, and was rated Class 3, the least severe level.

Many grocers offered refunds in the weeks after the broadcast. The suit argues that is not enough, because a class action can also award punitive damages and interest.

Quebec inspects roughly 90 per cent of the syrup it produces in bulk. It does not inspect the cans a producer sells straight to a grocer, which is how Bourdeau sold his.

“We don’t classify maple syrup from a producer who sells directly to a supermarket,” Genevieve Clermont, head of ACER’s inspection division, told Enquete.

Sobeys and Slater Vecchio, the law firm behind the class action, did not respond to National Post’s requests for comment.

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OTTAWA — The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) has issued a lifetime ban against one of its own local presidents just days before he planned to run to keep his job, marking the latest battle between the country’s largest public sector union and one of its own.

In an Aug. 11 letter obtained by National Post, PSAC National President Sharon DeSousa wrote to Theo Lagakos, president of a local that represents more than 1,200 workers at a popular Toronto casino, to say that he had been retroactively banned for life from PSAC due to “a concerning pattern of repeated and targetted behaviour against the complainant.”

The letter doesn’t identify a complainant nor specify the precise accusations against Lagakos, long-time president of Local 533, but quotes from a section of the union’s constitution that includes such infractions as circulating “false reports” among members and disturbing meetings.

The ban means that, as a non-member of the union, Lagakos is no longer eligible to run in union elections this Friday to keep his job. That could open the door for someone more in line with PSAC’s executive team to get the local’s top job.

Lagakos said the ban came a year after his local was put into trusteeship by the parent union, effectively shutting down the local’s power and ability to serve its members. He said he doesn’t know what he’s been accused of, but that both disciplinary measures against he and his local follow their decision to consider presenting members with the option of aligning with the Union of National Employees (UNE), a component group within PSAC, instead of directly under PSAC.

If members had voted to be under UNE, it would have meant that PSAC would have had to share union dues with the component union, an annual loss to PSAC of an estimated $200,000. It also could have tilted the balance of political power within PSAC away from its current executive team.

The trusteeship issue is now before the Ontario Labour Relations Board. Lagakos and his local, which represents employees at The Great Canadian Toronto Resort, formerly known as Casino Woodbine, provided testimony last week. PSAC officials will offer testimony in September.

Lagakos said his dispute with PSAC is about principle as much as anything else. “This is a battle for transparency,” he said. “This is a battle for real democracy.”

In many cases, there’s also a financial incentive for union executives — both within the parent organization and the components — to keep their jobs. The high-ranking union jobs often pay up to two or three times more than the government or private sector positions that the executives used to have.

The battle between PSAC and Local 533 marks the latest dispute between PSAC, which represents nearly 240,000 workers across Canada and in other countries, and one of its own component units or locals.

Harun Jasarevic, a PSAC spokesperson, said the union doesn’t generally comment on internal matters. PSAC has also declined to comment about other cases between the union and its components.

Those other cases, as many as a handful, also involve accusations that PSAC has been trying to sideline or punish those who lead locals or one of its 15 component unions if they challenge PSAC leadership.

In one case, Alisha Kang, who was UNE president until being effectively stripped of her role last fall, said in court documents that that she was set to expose “significant financial irregularities” and other union problems before being suspended.

Those irregularities, according to Kang’s claims, included a scheme involving union staff making “spurious or artificially substantiated” classification grievances, which were then settled informally by granting “general damages for human rights.”

In two other cases involving sidelined component executives, the tension can be traced back to the union’s negotiations with the federal government in 2023. At that time, some component executives initially decided to support a campaign to vote against a tentative deal because they wanted stronger provisions for members to work from home.

PSAC responded to the ”no” campaign by suspending the component union bosses. The ensuing punishment in that case also included suspensions of their PSAC memberships, which meant that they could no longer do their union jobs.

Larry Savage, a labour studies specialist at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont. , said tension within a large union is not unusual, especially one that represents diverse interests such as PSAC.

Larger unions have the advantage of more power, Prof. Savage said, but also have the greater challenge of trying to democratically manage a range of interests.

“Solidarity doesn’t mean that every member has identical priorities.”

PSAC members work for the federal government, universities, casinos, community services agencies, Aboriginal communities, airports, and the security sector among others. According to PSAC’s 2024 audited financial statements, the union had a total budget that year of 172.8-million, the vast majority of which ($164.4-million) was derived from membership dues.

National Post

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Ontario’s top court has upheld a house arrest sentence for a man who grabbed a gun from armed intruders who shot his son and fired it at them from his porch while they fled.

The Crown tried to appeal Jason Munroe’s conditional sentence from the Ontario Court of Justice. But the province’s Appeal Court dismissed the case.

“Given the exceptional circumstances of the offence and the significant mitigating factors, we see no error in principle in this case. Nor do we find that the sentence was manifestly unfit,” the three-judge panel said in an Aug. 19 decision.

Justice Nathan Baker of the Ontario Court of Justice sentenced Munroe last August to two years less a day of house arrest and three years of probation.

According to the appeal decision, armed intruders entered Munroe’s home in Whitby, Ont., forcing him and his family into the basement.

“There was an altercation during which Mr. Munroe’s son was shot. Mr. Munroe wrestled a handgun from one of the intruders and shot one of them. The intruders fled the house. Mr. Munroe chased them. He then stood on his porch and shot at them approximately three times as they were fleeing in their car.”

Munroe’s shots didn’t hit anyone.

“When the police first interviewed Mr. Munroe, he lied and said that he did not have or use a gun. He subsequently told the police that he used the gun he wrestled from the intruders to shoot at them, saying that he tried to kill them and that, if given the chance, he would have killed them all,” said the appeal decision.

Baker found Munroe “not guilty of any charges related to what occurred in the house while the intruders were still there,” said the appeal decision.

“The trial judge was satisfied that Mr. Munroe was acting in self-defence.”

But Baker found that Munroe “was no longer acting in self-defence when he shot at the intruders from his porch,” said the appeal decision.

“The trial judge found Mr. Munroe guilty of reckless discharge of a restricted or prohibited firearm. He also found him guilty of obstruction of a peace officer for lying in his initial statement to the police.”

Baker found that the five-year mandatory minimum sentence for reckless discharge of a restricted or prohibited firearm “was unconstitutional if applied to the circumstances of this case,” and sentenced him to 729 days of house arrest, said the appeal decision.

The Crown unsuccessfully appealed the length of that sentence, “arguing that the trial judge erred by failing to give proper effect to the principles of denunciation and deterrence and that the sentence is demonstrably unfit.”

The Appeal Court did not agree.

“There is no doubt that weapons offences are very serious and that they should generally carry a significant custodial sentence, especially in circumstances where an accused discharges a firearm in a public place,” said the panel.

“In his reasons, the trial judge recognized that denunciation and deterrence are generally the primary objectives when sentencing an individual for discharging a weapon in a public place.”

But Baker “also found that the circumstances of the offence in this case are exceptional,” said the panel.

“When Mr. Munroe shot at the intruders from his porch, he was no longer acting in self-defence but he was still acting in the heat of the moment after seeing his family under threat and his son shot. In addition, Mr. Munroe used a handgun he had wrestled from the intruders to protect his family; this was not a handgun he acquired unlawfully and brought to the scene.”

There were other “significant mitigating factors, such as Mr. Munroe’s demonstrated remorse and extensive rehabilitative efforts, and that he had overcome a turbulent youth to become a dedicated father and a skilled worker with a stable job and income,” said the appeal decision.

The panel also pointed out that Munroe “is not going unpunished for his convictions. The two years less a day conditional sentence carries onerous conditions, including house arrest (except for going to work) and GPS monitoring,” said the appeal decision.

“The conditional sentence is to be followed by three years’ probation. This is essentially the maximum available conditional sentence short of a custodial sentence.”

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An Ontario judge has discounted the sentence for an Ecuadorian man convicted of violently sexually assaulting a woman because he’s likely going to be deported when he gets out of prison.

Sergio Reyes Loor was convicted of sexual assault causing bodily harm earlier this year in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. A ban has been placed on the publication of information that would identify the victim. The Crown argued that a five-year prison sentence was in order for Reyes Loor, who is a permanent resident of Canada.

“Defence counsel agreed that a five-year sentence would be fit and appropriate were the facts as I found them,” Justice Gillian Roberts wrote in her sentencing decision.

“However, he announced that the factual findings were unsafe. He declined to make submissions on sentence and instead used his time to gaslight me and embark on a shockingly sexist and misogynistic attack on the complainant. I will not dignify his submissions with a summary.”

The judge said she doesn’t hold the defence lawyer’s “offensive submissions” against Reyes Loor.

“I add that I stand by my factual findings. I made them after careful consideration of the entire record and the submissions of both counsel,” Roberts said.

Under Canadian immigration law, permanent residents sentenced to more than six months behind bars are inadmissible to Canada on grounds of serious criminality and face deportation.

While she said, “five years is a fit and appropriate sentence in the circumstances,” that’s not what the judge gave him.

“The conviction will have devastating immigration consequences, making any punishment I impose more severe than it otherwise would be. As a result, I decrease the sentence to four years,” Roberts said.

The court heard that on the evening of April 6, 2023, the woman went out with a friend for an evening of drinking and dancing in Toronto.

They “went to a series of nightclubs before ending the evening at Mr. Reyes Loor’s apartment, around 5:30 a.m. on April 7, 2023,” said the sentencing decision.

Reyes Loor worked in the Toronto club scene and knew the woman’s friend.

Reyes Loor let the pair into the nightclub Early Mercy without waiting in the lineup or paying the cover charge around 1 a.m. on Aug. 7, 2023, said the decision, which notes Reyes Loor provided them with vodka shots.

The pair moved on to other clubs, “but returned to Early Mercy at closing time, around 4 a.m.,” said the decision.

They accompanied Reyes Loor to a party, then came home with him to his apartment, it said. “Surveillance video from his lobby shows the trio arriving around 5:30 a.m.,” and the woman leaving with her friend around 9 a.m.

The woman “became extremely intoxicated over the course of the night,” said the decision. “Apart from a few flashes of memory, she does not remember anything after around 2 a.m. until the following morning, around 9 a.m. One of the flashes of memory she has is about 10 seconds at Mr. Reyes Loor’s apartment. He is on top of her, beginning to penetrate her vagina with his penis. She did not want him to penetrate her but was so drunk that she could not move or speak.”

The judge was “satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Reyes Loor knew that (the woman) was too intoxicated to consent to sexual intercourse at the time.”

Roberts was also “satisfied that Mr. Reyes Loor caused” the woman injuries during the non-consensual sexual activity.

“She was bruised all over, and the skin of her genitals torn. It was painful and mentally disturbing to go to the bathroom. It was also difficult to do many of the movements she was required to do at work. In addition, the medications she was prescribed had side effects on her gastrointestinal system,” said the judge.

“More significantly, she is no longer the confident, trusting, innocent person she once was.”

The victim told the court her “perception of bonding through trust has been affected in ways that are hard to articulate,” said the decision.

“Social spaces that once felt natural are now fragile.”

She told the court that the “psychological and emotional impact continues to affect” how she lives, loves and experiences the world.

“It feels every day is a process of navigating grief, anxiety, vulnerability and inner peace while regaining my sense of normalcy, routine and control,” she said.

Reyes Loor, 31, “initially came to Canada in 2015 to study English and returned later to study business,” said the decision.

“He graduated from George Brown in 2018.”

His common-law partner testified that she was “shocked by the charges and believed them to be out of character.”

Reyes Loor “maintains his innocence,” said the judge. “When I asked him whether he had anything to say before he was sentenced, he noted simply that his mind was at peace and his conscience clear.”

Assuming the conviction is upheld, Reyes Loor’s lawyer was “unequivocal that he will lose his status and be deported,” said the decision.

Reyes Loor took advantage of the woman’s “condition to violently sexually assault her,” said the judge.

“He did not wear a condom. The offence involved gratuitous violence. He bit her. He tore her genitals.”

The victim was injured both physically and psychologically, Roberts said.

Reyes Loor “has no criminal record or any history of involvement in the criminal justice system,” said the judge. “He is a good son, partner, and employee.”

According to Roberts, “the sentence must be as short as possible to achieve general deterrence and denunciation.”

The judge noted that “collateral consequences can never reduce a sentence to the point where it becomes disproportionate to the gravity of the offence, or the moral blameworthiness of the offender.”

But given Reyes Loor’s “immigration situation,” Roberts said, his conviction will “nearly certainly result in him being deported, making whatever punishment I impose more severe.”

She reduced his sentence to four years “in light of the serious collateral consequences that the conviction will likely have on Mr. Reyes Loor. The circumstances of this case are far too serious to impose a sentence that will not have immigration consequences…. Nonetheless I believe the near certain immigration consequences still factor into the sentence in so far as they will make the sentence harsher than it otherwise would be. I believe it is important to take this into account in order to ensure the sentence is proportionate.”

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Prime Minister Mark Carney has asked Canadian provinces to end their bans on U.S. alcohol sales as part of a deal struck with American trade negotiators, Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said on Wednesday night.

Donald Trump announced a “pause” on planned tariffs against a variety of Canadian goods that were scheduled to go into effect on Wednesday pending the completion of an agreement that is now working toward a Friday deadline.

As part of that deal, Houston told reporters after a call with Carney, provinces that have kept products from Kentucky bourbon to California wine off of store shelves since the U.S. President’s trade war began last year were requested to make them available for sale again.

Houston told reporters that he was willing to end Nova Scotia’s ban, pending a resolved deal.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has generally been in favour of strong trade action against the United States and has repeatedly complained about Trump’s behaviour toward a close ally, said last week that he would be willing to end his province’s ban as part of “a fair deal.”

That was a change from his long-held stance that he would only allow the LCBO to sell U.S. products once the Trump administration removed the tariffs that it imposed last year.

A spokesperson from the Premier’s Office did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

In a statement Wednesday, Carney congratulated Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer for their significant progress in negotiations.

“Canada entered these discussions with the best overall trade terms,” said Carney, in a post on X.

“We are now moving towards an agreement that reinforces that Canadian advantage, including by securing the best terms in each of Canada’s most important strategic sectors and providing greater certainty about our future trading relationship,” the prime minister added.

No terms of the tentative deal have been officially released, but reports on Wednesday said Canada would receive reduced, but not eliminated, tariff rates on steel, aluminum and auto parts that were imposed at the beginning of Trump’s trade war.

Trump has indicated that U.S. farmers would be “thrilled” with the deal as proposed, suggesting a possible end to Canada’s supply-management dairy system, but LeBlanc subsequently said on Wednesday that the Canadian approach would remain “entirely intact.”

The U.S. President has often announced deals or agreements on social media that turn out to be significantly different than his original statement.

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