Jason Rowe Resigns Amid Carpenters Regional Council Probe
Jason Rowe resigned from his post as executive secretary-treasurer of the Carpenters’ Regional Council amid a carpenters regional council probe triggered by reporting on the union’s $4-million Nobleton house. Stacey Rowe, his wife and a senior union official, and Tom Cardinal, the union’s president and chief of staff, also left their posts.
The union said it has 60,000 members in 30 locals across Ontario and Western Canada, oversees hundreds of millions in pension funds, and has received millions from the federal and Ontario governments for skills-training programs. Those resources sit under the same leadership structure that is now changing.
Nobleton House Purchases
The Globe and Mail reported in April that the union bought a $4-million house in Nobleton, Ontario, that Jason Rowe and Stacey Rowe lived in from 2022 to 2024. It also found that the union bought a second house in the same area in 2024 for $2.5-million.
Property records show the same numbered company purchased both houses. Jason Rowe and Stacey Rowe were listed as directors of that company at the time of the purchases, and Jason Rowe was listed as acting for the company on both transactions.
United Brotherhood Supervision
Earlier this month, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America placed the Carpenters’ Regional Council under its supervision and launched an internal probe. Douglas McCarron, the group’s general president, sent a letter saying his organization would investigate the newspaper’s revelations.
The union later acknowledged that Jason Rowe and Stacey Rowe lived in the Nobleton property from 2022 to 2024, and said it owns both the Carpenters’ Regional Council Building Corp. and the numbered company. The two properties were transferred for $0 to the Building Corp. in 2024, and the second property is now listed for sale.
Rowe and Cardinal
Rowe’s resignation leaves the union without three of the people named in the internal review: its executive secretary-treasurer, its president and chief of staff, and one of the senior officials tied to the property transactions. The transfer records and ownership structure remain the focus of the probe that followed the April reporting.
