Member Perspectives September 1, 2026

Canada needs a better way to resolve national labour disputes

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Canada has become trapped in a false choice. At a time when governments across the country are working to attract investment, strengthen supply chains and position Canada as one of the world’s most reliable places to do business, every major labour disruption sends the opposite message.

In our resource-rich Canadian West, we know investors value certainty as much as opportunity, and reliability has become a competitive advantage in its own right.

Yet every time a major labour dispute threatens the economy, governments are told they have only two options: stand aside while Canadians bear the consequences, or legislate workers back to work. Neither is a good answer.

There is a better one.

A new and improved legislative framework is being considered that would establish a structured process that encourages earlier, more meaningful bargaining while preserving collective bargaining as the primary means of reaching agreement. Only when every reasonable opportunity has been exhausted—and when a dispute threatens the national interest—would the government have the authority to require final and binding arbitration.

Unfortunately, organized labour has wrongfully characterized proposals like this as an attack on the constitutional right to strike.

The right to strike is protected because it is an essential component of meaningful collective bargaining. But constitutional protection does not mean constitutional absolute right above all. Like other rights, the right to strike is subject to reasonable limits where government can demonstrate they are justified in a free and democratic society.

The objective here is to make strikes less necessary and less damaging, not eliminate them.

The current federal bargaining process often allows parties to become entrenched long before meaningful intervention occurs. By the time a conciliator is appointed as per the existing process, positions have hardened, public rhetoric has intensified, and bargaining has become performative rather than productive. The parties are no longer negotiating to reach agreement; they are negotiating for leverage.

That is precisely why the Code should provide for the appointment of a Special Mediator much earlier in the bargaining process.

Unlike traditional conciliation, the Special Mediator’s mandate would be proactive. The parties would be required to exchange meaningful proposals, identify the real issues in dispute, meet regularly under professional supervision, and demonstrate that they are bargaining in good faith. The mediator would help strip away posturing and force both sides to confront realistic solutions before a dispute reaches crisis. Simply put, this would be akin to having a referee join the game before the disputes happen, not after.

This approach strengthens collective bargaining rather than weakening it.

If, after this enhanced process, the parties remain unable to reach agreement, it is often because they never will. At that point, continuing the dispute rarely changes minds. Instead, it imposes growing costs on the public, businesses, workers themselves and, increasingly, Canada’s economy.

When a work stoppage threatens Canada’s national interest—whether through disruptions to transportation, ports, telecommunications, banking or other federally regulated sectors—the government should not be forced into the recurring cycle of emergency back-to-work legislation. Every time a labour disruption heads into this dynamic, Canada’s reputation as a reliable trade partner suffers. Every intervention signals to investors and trading partners that our labour relations system has failed to resolve disputes before they became national economic crises.

These disruptions also cause significant impacts across the economy, increasing uncertainty and costs for farmers and consumers and making it harder for Canadian businesses to compete at home and abroad. They can leave businesses and exporters that have no role in the dispute unable to move goods or reach international markets. These impacts last months or years beyond the resumption of work.

This matters now more than ever. The federal government has made attracting investment, diversifying trade and strengthening Canada’s economic competitiveness central priorities. Those efforts require more than good policy and strong infrastructure; they require confidence that Canada’s federally regulated sectors, including, ports, freight and passenger transportation as well as supply chain networks are dependable.

If repeated labour disruptions become part of Canada’s international reputation, businesses will increasingly look elsewhere to invest, alternative supply chains will be developed, and Canada will lose ground. There is never a good time to become less competitive. In today’s global economy, it is particularly costly.

Critics argue that this would tilt bargaining in favour of employers by removing the ultimate economic leverage in labour’s toolbox. That concern deserves consideration, but it overlooks an important reality.

Employers face uncertainty under arbitration as well. Neither side controls the outcome. Both lose the opportunity to secure all of their bargaining objectives. Properly designed arbitration creates incentives for reasonable bargaining because both parties risk receiving less than they might have negotiated themselves.

Indeed, the prospect of arbitration often encourages settlement rather than discourages it.

Canada’s labour relations system depends upon maintaining confidence in collective bargaining. The objective is a system that produces agreements fairly, efficiently and with minimum disruption to the public. Strikes are one means to that end—they should not become the end itself.

Canada’s experience also suggests that our current approach is producing poorer outcomes than those of many comparable economies. Historically, OECD comparisons have placed Canada among the higher-ranked OECD countries for working days lost due to labour disputes. Parliament’s own experience tells a similar story. Since 2016, the federal government has intervened at least 15 times through back-to-work legislation or other mechanisms to end work stoppages in federally regulated industries. More than half of those interventions occurred in the last two years.

The question is not whether government should intervene. It is when and how. The answer to “when” should be: when the alternative threatens the Canadian economy and, with it, the interests of every Canadian. The answer to “how” should be: only after every reasonable opportunity to reach a negotiated agreement has been exhausted. The changes proposed here are designed to maximize those opportunities before a labour disruption occurs, striking a better balance between workers’ rights and the national interest.

Rather than treating every national labour dispute as a constitutional crisis, we should build a process that maximizes the chances of voluntary agreement while recognizing that, in rare cases, the public interest must prevail.

The objective of governments to strengthen our economy can only succeed if we give ourselves the means to deliver on that ambition. At the foundation of that effort is labour certainty across our supply chains. Without it, investments in infrastructure, trade diversification and economic growth cannot deliver their full value. If we fail to address persistent labour instability, we risk undermining the very economic objectives we are working so hard to achieve.

Canada does not have to choose between protecting collective bargaining and protecting its economic competitiveness. We can—and should—do both.

Collective bargaining must remain the rule, national paralysis should not.

Co-signatories to this letter are:

Murad Al-Katib, President and CEO and Board member, AGT Food and Ingredients,

Don Chapman, President and CEO, G3 Canada Limited

John Heimbecker, CEO, Parrish & Heimbecker

Kyle Jeworski, Head, Bunge Canada

Troy Lupul, President and CEO , PlasCred

Joel MacLeod, Executive Chairman, Highwood Asset Management

Jon McKenzie, President and CEO, Cenovus Energy

Gord McKenzie, President and CEO, Canpotex

Tracy Robinson, President and CEO, CN