Thunder Bay labour rally warns Bill C-39 still lets Ottawa end strikes

About 50 labour activists rallied outside Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu’s Thunder Bay constituency office on Friday, arguing that Bill C-39 would still let Ottawa send striking workers back to the job under a refurbished Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code.

The Thunder Bay and District Labour Council and local Unifor and CUPE branches told CBC News the Building Canada Strong Act’s labour chapter creates a short special-mediation step, then hands the minister “unprecedented” authority to deem a stoppage against the “national interest” and direct the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order a return to work, extend a collective agreement or impose binding dispute resolution. Council president Carlos Santander-Maturana said that prospect can discourage employers from bargaining in good faith because government intervention remains available as a backstop.

Hajdu’s office rejected that reading. Press secretary Jennifer Kozelj said the bill “would not give the minister any new intervention powers” and instead adds requirements: consider a special mediator’s public report and assess that a live strike or lockout adversely affects, or may affect, the national interest, including economic impact, serious social disruption and freedom of association. Legal summaries from Stewart McKelvey and Fasken map the same two-condition structure and note that Section 107 was already used in high-profile 2024–25 disputes, including rail and Air Canada, that unions are challenging in court.

Earlier CBC reporting flagged that Charter challenges to Section 107 may continue even if the government argues some case-specific fights are moot once the statute is rewritten. Unifor’s own summary calls the national-interest criteria vague and warns the amendments formalise ministerial power to end stoppages without a parliamentary vote. Unifor Local 1075 vice-president David Lennox, whose Alstom plant is set to build Via Rail cars under a recent federal award, said the local cannot support the Section 107 rewrite even while welcoming the manufacturing work.

Bill C-39 was tabled Sept. 21 as an omnibus package that also fast-tracks major projects. For federally regulated workplaces from railways to airlines and telecom, the live political fight is whether “guardrails” make strike-ending orders rarer — or simply clearer paperwork before they land.

Sources: CBC Thunder Bay; CBC Politics; Stewart McKelvey; Fasken; Unifor.