Opinion | Mark Carney says he’s protecting Canadian workers. It’s Orwellian doublespeak - Toronto Star

The right to strike may now be up to ministerial review.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s suggestion that Bill C-39 will safeguard the right to strike is pure doublespeak, write Colleen Bauman and Mark Rowlinson.

Mark Rowlinson and Colleen Bauman are labour lawyers and partners at Goldblatt Partners LLP. They also are counsel to the Canadian Labour Congress with respect to Bill C-39 and ongoing constitutional challenges to the federal government's previous use of s. 107 to end strikes.

In George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” the Ministry of Peace conducts war and the Ministry of Plenty manages shortages. Prime Minister Carney says the changes to section 107 of the Canada Labour Code in Bill C-39 (the Building Canada Strong Act) are built “in solidarity with workers,” that they “absolutely reinforce the right to strike,” and that they come “with real guardrails” for “strategic sectors.” Each of those claims deserves the Orwell test: what does the text actually do?

For 40 years, no one thought the existing section 107 of the Canada Labour Code could be used to override lawful and constitutionally protected strikes. Then, in 2024, the government decided to use it for what had always previously required an Act of Parliament: order rail workers, port workers, postal workers and flight attendants back to their jobs and hand their contracts to an arbitrator. Eight times in the last three years the Liberals have used section 107 in this manner.

The unions went to court, arguing that section 107 did not permit overriding the constitutionally protected right to strike or the Code’s detailed rules on when a strike is lawful, and did not quietly replace the parliamentary vote that back-to-work legislation has always required. Those cases are undecided.

But rather than protecting the right to strike by repealing s. 107, the government is proposing to spell out for the first time in explicit terms that where a lawful strike has occurred, the minister may direct the Board end the strike.

Yet, the government describes this as reinforcing the right to strike. The Ministry of Plenty would recognize the technique.

Now to the so-called “real guardrails.” First, the minister must be “of the opinion” that the strike “adversely affects or may adversely affect the national interest,” based on whatever the minister finds relevant, including “significant impact on the Canadian economy” and “serious social disruption.”

While the act preserves the right to strike, it removes leverage federally regulated workers gain from walking the picket lines, experts say.