The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) is a Canadian labour organization that brings together national and international unions, provincial and territorial federations of labour and community-based labour councils to represent over 3 million workers. The Labour College of Canada (LCC), a year-long educational curriculum bringing together Canadian labour leaders, is a program offered by the CLC. The complete program has 3 intensive sessions, with the second in-person session of this cohort taking place from February 22-27, 2026, at the Harrison Resort. The hotel is located in the Harrison River Valley region of BC, on the traditional land of the Sts’ ailes, Seabird Island, Sq’ewá:lxw, Cheam, Xax’tsa, Leq’a:mel, Samahquam, Sq’ewlets, and Skatin First Nations.
The week was structured into two classes, which were continuations of online courses that had started in the months prior. Our first class of the week was “Leadership for Movement Building”. In this course, we learned about the power of using personal narratives, the story of me, us and now, to draw people into a movement. This method draws on emotions to remind listeners of shared values, which enables them to join our mission to achieve shared purpose. The goal of this session was to use stories to engage and connect with others rather than using stories to entertain. We also discussed elements of organizing, power, and strategizing to achieve a strategic goal. Finally, for the last section of this class, we discussed leadership and effective teamwork. This included identifying group norms and how to efficiently match team members to a role based on their strengths.
In the second course of the week, Education for Action/Organizing for Change, we took some time to discuss Land Acknowledgments and how to make them more meaningful. This included how to make them more personal and how to better connect to the land you are occupying. This course had a large element of self-study prior to convening, which asked us to review articles on labour education and movement building. A key takeaway from this exercise was that labour education should follow a model that is more participatory in order to leave students feeling more empowered. This course also touched on power mapping to identify stakeholders, allies and opponents in organizing efforts and how to take effective, and identify ineffective, actions in the 4 roles of social activism (citizen, reformer, rebel, and change agent). Finally, we discussed the importance of understanding the people you represent (including from a broader demographic perspective) in order to understand and meet their needs.
On our final full day, we came together to celebrate Cohort 14, who had completed their final session and were graduating from the Labour College. During the graduation dinner, we heard from the graduates on their Independent Learning Project (ILP) topics, which served as inspiration as we in other cohorts refine our own ILP topics. My cohort will be finishing our projects in time for the final session of the Labour College in July 2026.
Overall, LCC Session 2 offered a motivating and memorable experience. It also provided a valuable opportunity to continue growing relationships with counterparts in other labour unions across the country. I look forward to continuing to share the lessons learned with PIPSC colleagues and am looking forward to the final session with some sadness, knowing that this enriching journey is soon coming to an end.
Katie Francis