OTTAWA — The Liberal government is expected to unveil new legislation with major implications for labour relations on Monday. The Building Canada Strong Act will be one of the first pieces of legislation Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government introduces in the new fall sitting of Parliament. In addition to streamlining rules for project reviews across the country, the act is expected to propose changes to the Canada Labour Code. Labour leaders, including the heads of Unifor and the Canadian Labour Congress, have said any measure that restricts workers’ ability to strike would weaken their rights and strip them of bargaining power. They worry the legislation will codify the government’s use of Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code to quash strike actions when a dispute is deemed to threaten the national economic interest. The government has used this contentious section of the code to scuttle strikes at railways and ports and other sectors of the economy in recent years, prompting ongoing court challenges. Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu has vowed that Ottawa won’t interfere with workers’ rights to strike or bargain. On Saturday, Hajdu said the goal of the bill is to “reduce” the number of times the government intervenes in the collective bargaining process. Government House leader Steve MacKinnon said the aim is to make it “easier” to reach a labour agreement. MacKinnon told CBC News there are “too many” lockouts, strikes and threats of job action and that it “harms” investment and employment. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, who was a labour lawyer before entering politics, said she will fight the bill if it does restrict the right to strike. “I don’t like the degree to which government is already interfering in collective bargaining. So I don’t think that demolishing our legal regime around collective bargaining to disadvantage the trade union movement is in the interests of Canada’s economy,” she said Monday. The federal government consulted with employers and unions over the summer about the state of labour relations after a tumultuous few years that saw disruptions at airlines, ports, railways and Canada Post. Employment and Social Development Canada released a report on what it heard from stakeholders during that review. It said unions and employers were divided over the degree of government intervention warranted in collective bargaining. The department reported some mixed reaction to the idea of introducing a new special mediator role to the collective bargaining process that could provide a neutral opinion to government, employers and workers before a dispute escalates. Employers were broadly in favour of such a role, while some unions endorsed the idea with reservations. There were fears on the labour side that the mediator’s report could create the basis for a collective agreement that would hold employers’ back from negotiating in good faith. The federal government has leaned on Section 107 in recent years to end walkouts at Canada Post, the CN and CPKC railways, and at the B.C. and Montreal ports. Air Canada flight attendants defied an attempt to use the measure to end their strike in 2025. While employers were broadly supportive in the review of having a tool like Section 107 available to the government, labour groups strongly opposed it as overreach. Some unions felt the section should be repealed entirely or restricted to apply only to narrow circumstances. The report said employers and labour groups both felt the existing system for collective bargaining functions well in the vast majority of situations and any reforms should be targeted, not sweeping. But participants in the review said that framework is not well suited to handling highly complex disputes that can result in sprawling economic disruptions beyond a particular industry. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 21, 2026. Craig Lord, The Canadian Press
