Striking Air Canada workers walk the picket line at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on Saturday.PETER POWER/AFP/Getty Images
Trevor McFadyen is an instructor of human resource management at Capilano University School of Business in North Vancouver.
Another strike. Another government intervention. Another binding arbitration order.
If it feels familiar, that’s because it is. The federal government’s decision to order Air Canada flight attendants into arbitration is not unusual. It is increasingly the way Ottawa deals with labour disputes in key sectors: not by letting them play out, but by cutting them off.
Nine times in 15 years: That’s how often the federal government has imposed either back-to-work legislation or binding arbitration. Canada Post in 2011. CP Rail in 2012. Canada Post again in 2018. The Port of Montreal in 2021. Rail, post and dockworkers again in 2024. WestJet in the spring of 2025. And now Air Canada.
Air Canada flight attendants will keep striking despite labour board declaring work stoppage illegal
It has happened under both Conservative and Liberal governments. Different parties, same reflex.
You can almost set your watch by it: if the strike is in a federally regulated sector – airlines, rail, mail, ports – the odds of Ottawa intervening approach certainty.
Governments tell themselves it’s about the economy – that strikes are too disruptive, and goods must move, flights must fly, letters must be delivered. And of course, it is always sold as temporary, pragmatic, unavoidable.
But the effect is not temporary. It is corrosive.
Collective bargaining is supposed to be just that: bargaining. It is supposed to be hard. Workers threaten to strike; employers face pressure to settle; and eventually, a deal is reached.
Unless, that is, Ottawa intervenes, because the federal government has decided that the process has gone on long enough, or that the inconvenience is too great, or that political pressure is too high. In which case, Ottawa calls a halt. A third party takes over, and the parties who were supposed to negotiate no longer have to.
Air Canada workers picket at the Vancouver International Airport on Sunday.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
This is not collective bargaining. It is collective-bargaining theatre – a ritual in which everyone goes through the motions until the government swoops in with the deus ex machina of binding arbitration.
And the precedent is obvious. If you are an employer in one of these industries, what is your incentive for negotiating in good faith or compromising? Just wait long enough, and Ottawa will rescue you. If you are a worker, what’s the point of threatening a strike, if the strike will be nullified before it has any impact?
It is not just bad practice. It is legally dubious. The Supreme Court has ruled that Section 2(d) of the Charter – the guarantee of freedom of association – includes the right to meaningful collective bargaining. Meaningful – not performative nor truncated by political expediency.
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Governments of every stripe justify these interventions on the grounds of necessity. Yet the list of sectors that seem to qualify as “too important to strike” keeps expanding. Post. Rail. Ports. Airlines. At this rate, the right to strike in federally regulated industries will soon exist only on paper.
One might ask: if every strike is intolerable, why permit strikes at all? Why not simply legislate every contract by fiat? At least then the charade would be over.
The irony is that binding arbitration doesn’t even resolve disputes. It postpones them. It freezes resentment. Workers feel robbed. Employers learn the wrong lesson. Governments set another precedent. And the cycle repeats.
The Air Canada case is a perfect illustration. Flight attendants facing complex schedules, low wages and long hours attempted to use the only leverage available to them, but Ottawa – unwilling to tolerate a strike for even a few hours – pulled the plug. Order was restored, except that in this latest escalation, flight attendants and their union are refusing to comply, and the labour board has declared their strike illegal. Escalation breeds escalation: this is not negotiation in good faith. It’s a zero-sum game that backs unions into a corner.
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We can pretend that this is reflective of stability, but in fact, it reveals our fragility. A system in which rights exist only until they are inconvenient is not a system that commands respect; rather, it is a system that breeds cynicism – among workers, employers and the public alike.
If the government truly believes the Charter-protected right to strike cannot be reconciled with economic stability, it should say so. It should change the law forthrightly, and admit that collective bargaining in key sectors is a fiction. That would at least be honest.
Until then, the pretense continues: the rhetoric of free bargaining, but the reality of government arbitration. And each time Ottawa intervenes, the space for genuine negotiation shrinks further.
This is not pragmatism. It is addiction. And like all addictions, it will end badly.
Are you affected by the Air Canada flight attendant strike?
The union representing around 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants has been on strike since Aug. 16 after negotiations between the two sides reached an impasse, and the company has cancelled flights. Our reporters want to hear from passengers that have had their plans affected by the strike. Have you had to switch your flights or change your travel schedule? Share your story in the box below.