First Nations leaders and organized labour hardened their opposition to Ottawa’s major projects bill within a day of each other this week, both objecting to the same core problem: how much unchecked discretion the legislation hands to federal ministers. Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak warned Prime Minister Mark Carney on Sept. 22 against using his majority government to rush Bill C-39 through Parliament without full debate, while the Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Alberta Federation of Labour accused the government of handing itself sweeping new power to shut down strikes.
Ottawa tabled the Building Canada Strong Act, known as Bill C-39, on Sept. 21, the Liberals’ first day back from summer recess. As this outlet reported that day, the bill pairs a fast-track model for major infrastructure approvals, with a promised one-year review for most projects, with changes to the Canada Labour Code aimed at resolving strikes and lockouts earlier. The government says the bill will “uphold Indigenous rights” and protect the right to strike even as it adds new tools for intervening in labour disputes.
Woodhouse Nepinak said she understands the government’s intent but told reporters the same day that First Nations rights cannot be treated as an afterthought. “I get the government’s intent,” she said. “We all have to work together. But, at the same time, not on our rights.” She warned that if Ottawa limits debate on C-39 the way it did with last year’s major projects law, which cleared Parliament within weeks, the government risks dishonouring the Crown’s duty to consult, and said the bill’s proposed one-year review clock should not be allowed to cut short First Nations’ own consultation timelines.
On the labour side, CLC president Bea Bruske called the bill’s strike provisions “an attack on the workers’ rights to be able to meaningfully get to the bargaining table,” while Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan put it more bluntly: “A right that can never be exercised is not really a right at all.” Their objection centres on Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, the provision Ottawa has already used more than 10 times since 2023 to order an end to disputes at ports, railways and airlines, including last year’s Air Canada flight attendants’ strike. Bill C-39 would let ministers act pre-emptively, before a strike even begins, whenever they judge a dispute touches the “national interest,” a phrase with no established legal definition in labour law.
Asked directly when Ottawa would use that power, Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu declined to give specifics. “It is a high bar to establish a national interest,” she said. “Each strike in each industry is different, so it’s very hard to answer that with a blanket answer.” Employer groups want the bar lower, not higher: the Federally Regulated Employers, Transportation and Communications association said in a Sept. 22 statement that it backs the bill’s new mediation rules but wants government to be able to “take pre-emptive action” even more readily to protect supply chains.
That is the thread connecting two fights that, on the surface, look separate. Both First Nations and unions are telling Ottawa the same thing: a bill that promises to protect their rights leaves the actual decisions about when those rights bend to a minister’s judgment call, with no fixed test either side can point to in advance. For workers in federally regulated industries and for First Nations watching a second major projects law move through Parliament in two years, that ambiguity is the story, not the fine print.
Bill C-39 has not yet reached second reading. The AFN says it will press its case at a First Nations-First Ministers’ Meeting set for Oct. 26 in Ottawa, while the CLC has said it will keep watching the bill “closely” as it moves through the House.
Via BNN Bloomberg, CP24 (The Canadian Press), CBC News and The Tyee. Original reporting: BNN Bloomberg, CP24 and The Tyee.
