Ottawa should squash some strikes before they start, employer group suggests

Employers are urging Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government to allow the labour minister to preemptively limit strike action in sectors such as airlines, railroads and ports if the minister believes it threatens the national public interest — a move unions fiercely oppose.

Carney’s government is preparing reforms to the federal labour code with the aim of preventing work stoppages in the country’s critical transportation networks. But the changes could prove contentious as unions fight to protect the bargaining power of their employees.

The country has just experienced another high-profile transportation work stoppage after flight attendants at WestJet Airlines walked off the job on Sunday, cancelling hundreds of flights. Operations resumed after a tentative deal was reached the next day.

It’s the second consecutive summer with a labour disruption at a major Canadian airline, with Air Canada flight attendants having gone on strike in August 2025. The government attempted to order them back to work, but the union refused, arguing it was unconstitutional. The two sides reached a deal soon afterward, but it left a lingering uncertainty over the government’s legal power to end strikes.

That followed another dramatic labour fight in 2024, when the government intervened to cut short a simultaneous strike at both of Canada’s major railroads that would have had a drastic effect on the country’s economy.

Carney, as part of his larger effort to boost Canada’s economic productivity, announced consultations this spring on a package of regulatory reforms, including on the labour code. His government initially planned to introduce legislation in June, but delayed that timetable to allow for more feedback over the summer.

Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu is now holding another round of consultations focused on the section of the labour code that allows the government to end a work stoppage by sending both parties to binding arbitration.

Derrick Hynes, head of the Federally Regulated Employers — Transportation and Communications, said employers are concerned about the “disturbing pattern” of work stoppages over the past few years, and the government needs “proactive tools” to avoid the shutdowns before they occur.

“The prime minister is speaking of greater economic development and job promotion, increased east-west trade, less reliance on the U.S., increased investment where capital is mobile,” Hynes told Bloomberg in an interview. “All of these things are impeded if we continue to have labour instability in some of these key critical supply chain industries.”

He said there should be a “national public interest test” for situations where the effect of a work stoppage would be far-reaching on the economy. In such cases, the labour minister should have the power to refer a dispute to binding arbitration preemptively, Hynes said. This would avoid scenarios where “the strikes have already started, impacts have already been felt, and making up for the impacts just takes a lot of time.”

But Unifor President Lana Payne, whose union represents 70,000 federally regulated employees, argued the industry is trying to take advantage of trade tensions with the U.S. to chip away at workers’ rights.

“It’s seen by employers as an opportunity to use that instability to further their agenda to erode workers’ rights, and that’s what they’re trying to do right now,” Payne said in an interview.

“It’s opportunistic of the employers to be pushing for sure to have these rights erode at a time when we’re trying to do everything we can to hang on to the industrial economy of Canada.”

The government has been tight-lipped about the changes it intends to make following the review. Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon, who previously served as labour minister, told Bloomberg in June that labour fights at transportation hubs “tend to induce a lot of anxiety, and tend to have a very broad effect on our economy and on our international reputation.”

“So we want to help unions and employers get settlements more quickly, more predictably,” he said.

One proposal that might garner some consensus between employers and unions is the idea of appointing a special mediator to help the two parties get to an agreement.

Hynes said such a mediator should have some powers to get parties to negotiate and could deliver a report to the minister with recommended next steps. Payne said her union wouldn’t oppose a special mediator, but said it would depend on their scope.

“Does it mean you’re giving the special mediator powers that override the rights of workers? Then you’re probably going to have some pushback on that,” she said.