Workers across the country held a national day of action Thursday to protect the right to strike as Bill C-39 continues to progress towards becoming law. In Ottawa, workers rallied outside Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office in Nepean on Thursday, October 15.
Workers emphasized the importance of mobilizing against the proposed legislation, noting that every labour right enjoyed by workers today was secured after a fight.
“We are strong because of the work we do,” Siobhan Vipond, executive vice president of the Canadian Labour Congress, told the crowd in Ottawa. “We’re strong because of the power that we have at the bargaining table and in our workplaces. Our power is our labor, and our power to negotiate comes from when we decide we’re not getting a good enough agreement, and we’re pulling our labor.”
Bill C-39, the Building Canada Strong Act, is a federal omnibus bill that proposes multiple regulatory changes to speed up major project approvals and modernize transportation policies. Importantly for workers, the bill also includes changes to the highly controversial section 107 of the Canada Labour Code.
Currently, section 107 gives the labour minister the power to do things that “seem likely to maintain or secure industrial peace” when they deem it expedient. The labour movement has been calling for the federal government to repeal this section after it was invoked to interfere in major strikes eight times between 2024 and 2026. The NDP tabled a bill earlier this year with the same goal.
Rather than repeal section 107, Bill C-39 preserves the labour minister’s power to take action they believe will maintain industrial peace. The bill adds language that explicitly gives the minister the ability to ask the industrial relations board to order the resumption of work during a legal strike if the strike “adversely affects national interest.”
“We are concerned because this is losing a constitutional right that is protected based on a minister’s opinion,” Vipond said in an interview with rabble.ca.
Bill C-39 passed second reading on October 8 and is now before a House of Commons committee.
Vipond highlighted that if Bill C-39 passes, provinces are likely to follow with their own legislation that will further erode labour rights. To her, these conditions do not promote industrial peace, they jeopardize it.
READ MORE: Carney’s Bill C-39 is an employer’s dream and a worker’s nightmare
“Let’s not forget in this whole process that over 95 per cent of negotiations end in an agreement, and only a few go to a labor dispute,” Vipond said. “So they are taking rights away for what is a very small concern. We have labour peace in this country, and we can maintain labour peace, but we will never do that if rights are going to be taken away.”
Speakers at Thursday’s protest noted that workers are prepared to fight for the right to strike, even if it means defying the law. Ruth Lau MacDonald, Regional Executive Vice President for the Public Service Alliance of Canada’s National Capital Region, said Bill C-39 highlights the need for bolder action from the labour movement.
“Are we going to be bold? Or do we want to follow the rules?” MacDonald said in an interview with rabble.ca. “Because if we continue to just follow the rules, we’re going to see governments just come and take and take and take.”
MacDonald said it is important to highlight the sacrifices of militant activists, fighters and the young workers who are willing to spend time in jail in order to confront an unjust system.
“Our rights are not given to us,” she said. “We fight for them if we want to keep them. It is our responsibility to hold on to this.”
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