Members of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference picket at the CPKC Kinnear Yard in Hamilton, Ont., in August, 2024.Peter Power/The Canadian Press
Major employers are lobbying Ottawa to introduce legislation that would make it more difficult for workers in federally regulated industries to go on strike, arguing that recurring work stoppages in ports, airlines and railways are causing long-term damage to Canada’s credibility as a trading partner.
Over the past month, Canadian National Railway Co., the Railway Association of Canada and other industry groups have been on several calls with policy makers within Employment and Social Development Canada to push for changes to sections of the Canada Labour Code related to strikes and lockouts.
These calls have taken place as part of a tripartite consultation with the federal government and unions to reassess the current collective bargaining process in Canada and potentially make changes to the code.
On April 17, ESDC released a consultation document on its website that laid out details of the plan, and it has sought feedback from employers and unions. The consultation period ends May 25.
But even prior to the consultation, employers and industry lobby groups pushed the government over months to make specific changes to the CLC, a set of labour rules that apply only to workers in federally regulated industries.
In December, the Railway Association of Canada made a public submission to the government openly calling for the code to be “modernized” to “reduce the likelihood of work stoppages.” In particular, according to one of the submission documents, the association is calling for Ottawa to appoint a special mediator for unions and employers caught in a bargaining dispute, and to suspend the right to lock out or strike during the mediation process.
A wave of strikes in 2024 and 2025 among federally regulated employees mainly in transportation sectors – at ports, railways and airlines – sparked the ire of employers and prompted the federal government to repeatedly intervene to force workers back to their jobs. Federal lobbying records show that starting in late 2025, there was a keen push by industry groups representing federally regulated employers to get Ottawa to make changes to the CLC that would create a new special mediator role and require unions to give more notice of strikes.
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Derrick Hynes, the head of industry group FETCO – Federally Regulated Employers for Transportation and Communications – described the tenor of consultation calls with the government as “encouraging.”
“We’re on this tripartite team with our friends in labour and employers to discuss how we can achieve greater balance in our labour relations system,” he told The Globe and Mail.
FETCO is specifically calling for language in the CLC that would allow for some sort of government intervention or alternative dispute mechanism that can end strikes if they shut down critical supply chains and cause widespread economic damage. FETCO is also calling for the appointment of a special mediator to intervene in labour disputes early on and work with both parties toward a negotiated settlement, and for strikes and lockouts to be put on hold.
“To be clear, we are not calling for wholesale change to the code, nor are we calling for the right to strike to be trampled on,” he added.
But labour leaders have long sounded the alarm on these potential legislative changes. In an address to delegates at the Canadian Labour Congress annual convention at the beginning of May, Congress president Bea Bruske warned that employers were gunning for changes that would fundamentally undermine the “constitutional right to strike.”
“My main concern is, what is the emergency? Why are we rushing to make major changes to the Canada Labour Code which is already a very balanced code?” said Francois Laporte, national president of Teamsters Canada, which represents approximately 16,000 Canadian rail workers. “These changes were built up by employers and now the government is jumping in.”
Christopher Monette, the director of public affairs for Teamsters Canada, said that railway employers in Canada appear to want to “Americanize” the labour relations framework, by being focused on reducing strike activity as much as possible, as opposed to ensuring a good faith bargaining process with unions.
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A Dec. 15 document submitted by the Railway Association of Canada refers to the United States Railway Labor Act (USRLA), which decrees that a mediator be appointed in labour disputes to keep parties at the bargaining table, and strikes not be allowed in that period. “The U.S. freight rail industry has not experienced a work stoppage arising out of national bargaining under the USRLA in more than 30 years,” the RAC document states.
Mr. Monette noted that in the U.S., the mediation process is indefinite. Effectively, that can prevent employees from being allowed to strike.
In a statement to The Globe, CN Rail spokesperson Ashley Michnowski said that the company is “participating in the same process and at the same table as the Teamsters.”
The Railway Association of Canada told The Globe that it has participated in consultations with Ottawa and that the government needs “more effective tools to protect the national interest and avoid damaging disruptions to supply chains.”
In a statement, ESDC spokesperson Jennifer Koselj said that the consultations launched last month were expressly designed to “receive feedback from unions and other stakeholders about measures to strengthen worker protections, the collective bargaining process and the labour framework as a whole.”
She added that the Canadian government will always protect the rights of Canadian workers, including the right to strike.