Ottawa is preparing to introduce legislation within days that would give the federal labour minister new authority to order binding mediation before some strikes and lockouts can proceed, according to sources cited by The Canadian Press on Sept. 18. The move pushes an already bitter fight over the right to strike into Parliament, and lands on top of two years of government orders that have already made the underlying law, Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, one of the most contested tools in federal labour policy.
Employment Minister Patty Hajdu and Secretary of State for Labour John Zerucelli have been finalizing the bill after months of consultations with unions and employers, the sources said. Section 107 lets the minister refer a labour dispute to the Canada Industrial Relations Board, or direct the board to act, whenever doing so is deemed “expedient or necessary to secure industrial peace.” It has become Ottawa’s default response in federally regulated sectors such as ports, railways and airlines.
Hajdu said the government has no intention of touching the right to strike itself. “We will never interfere with a worker’s right to bargain or to strike, but we do all agree that there are circumstances where better tools are needed,” she said this week, according to a Canadian Press report carried by CP24. Employers who took part in the government’s consultations pushed for Ottawa to be able to step in whenever a dispute threatens what they call the national interest. Unions pushed back the other way, arguing the goal should be fewer interventions, not new legal mechanisms for more of them.
That divide is rooted in how often Section 107 has already been used. Former labour minister Steven MacKinnon invoked it repeatedly in 2024, ending a lockout by Canada’s two main freight railways after a single day, halting port strikes and lockouts in Vancouver, Montreal and Quebec City, and delaying a Canada Post strike into the following spring, according to a National Magazine review of the provision’s recent history. In 2025, Air Canada flight attendants defied a back-to-work order issued under the same section during their contract dispute, a standoff that put Section 107 itself on trial in the court of public opinion. The Canadian Union of Public Employees has since called the provision an unconstitutional attack on bargaining rights protected by the Charter, pointing to the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, which recognized a constitutional right to strike.
Canadian Labour Congress president Bea Bruske said this week that “Canada needs stronger labour laws that protect the right to strike, support free collective bargaining and hold employers accountable.” Unifor national president Lana Payne has raised a similar concern, warning that a new legislated tool could end up shutting down job action before it starts rather than resolving disputes on their merits. Whether the coming bill answers that worry or confirms it will likely turn on one undefined phrase: how Ottawa decides a dispute affects the national interest, a threshold neither the minister’s office nor the draft legislation has spelled out publicly so far.
For workers and employers in the sectors most exposed, the stakes are not abstract. Rail, marine and air transport disruptions in 2023 and 2024 each delayed billions of dollars in cargo and cancelled flights, part of why employer groups pushed hardest for a faster, legislated process rather than the case-by-case ministerial orders Ottawa has relied on until now. Binding mediation, as described by sources to The Canadian Press, is meant to resolve disputes before they reach a strike or lockout, rather than end one already underway. Proponents say that could head off a repeat of last year’s flight attendants standoff. Critics say it risks simply moving the fight over the right to strike earlier on the calendar instead of settling it.
The bill has not been tabled, and key details, including how “national interest” will be defined, remain unclear. Parliament could see it as soon as next week, according to the sources, at which point unions and employers will get their first real look at whether Ottawa split the difference between them or picked a side.
Via BNN Bloomberg and CP24 (The Canadian Press). Original reporting: BNN Bloomberg and CP24.
