International labour federation urges Mark Carney to abandon strike-law changes - Toronto Star

The International Trade Union Confederation urged Carney to show 'leadership' and back down on proposed labour law changes.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is shown on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Sept. 21, 2026. 

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney could undermine the values extolled in his highly praised Davos speech with his attempt to make sweeping changes to Canada’s labour laws, warns the world’s largest federation of trade unions.

In a blunt letter Thursday, the roughly 200-million-member International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) urged Carney to show “leadership” and abandon proposed labour-law changes it says would put Canadians’ right to strike and their leverage in collective bargaining at risk.

The reforms are included in Bill C-39, omnibus legislation tabled by the Carney government last week that is intended to remove barriers to its major project development agenda but has drawn intense scrutiny from labour and environmental groups.

In an escalation of that domestic criticism, ITUC general secretary Luc Triangle said the prime minister’s agenda risks increasing political intervention in strikes, “undermining the ability of workers to use this right as an effective instrument to defend their interests.”

“We are seriously concerned with the breadth of the circumstances in which such intervention may be justified and the extent to which the exercise of these powers could impair the effective enjoyment of a fundamental right,” he wrote. That was a reference to changes to the Canada Labour Code giving the labour minister authority to order the Canada Industrial Relations Board to end a strike or lockout with binding arbitration if the labour action has been deemed to have the potential to harm the vaguely defined “national interest.”

Those reforms are “highly likely” to violate international labour standards signed off on by Canada, Triangle said, and represents a disconnect from the prime minister’s internationally acclaimed defence of a democratic, rules-based global order.

“A rules-based international order cannot be sustained without strong institutional safeguards and effective systems of checks and balances,” including “respect for fundamental human rights” like the right to strike, Triangle wrote.

“Prime Minister, these matters we raise with you are particularly important at a time of heightened global tensions, when accusations of hypocrisy and selective scrutiny of international human rights and labour standards are increasingly weaponized by authoritarian and dictatorial regimes to justify their own attacks on the multilateral system and the exercise of workers rights and civil liberties, including the right to strike.”

The Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Labour Minister Patty Hajdu has insisted the changes maintain workers’ right to strike and include several guardrails, including a special mediator who will evaluate negotiations and provide a public report that must be considered before the use of the sweeping powers.

Those protections are not enough because the legislation still weakens the leverage of workers in labour negotiations, said Canadian Labour Congress executive vice-president Siobhán Vipond.

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A legal challenge is “one option,” Vipond said, but that is a “long road and could delay justice.”

The congress, an affiliate of the ITUC, said the warning in the letter is a sign the Liberal government’s policies could undermine Canada’s reputation on the world stage.

Thursday’s rebuke is not the first criticism of the Carney government’s domestic agenda from an international organization, but it comes as the prime minister’s opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump has earned him significant international attention, including speculation in online prediction markets about a potential Nobel Peace Prize.

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Mark Ramzy is a federal politics reporter in the Toronto Star’s Parliament Hill Bureau. Reach him via email: mramzy@thestar.ca