Why Carney’s economic overhaul is clashing with Canada’s unions

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Tarifas de Trump atingem os agricultores de laticínios do Canadá enquanto as vendas nos EUA desaceleram.

O mais recente conflito, sobre o direito de greve, ocorre após meses de pressão crescente sobre Ottawa vindos de Washington, DC.

US President Donald Trump, since taking up a second term in office last year, has imposed steep tariffs on Canadian goods and weakened trade agreements – perilous moves as Canada has historically sent close to 80 percent of its exports to its southern neighbour.

Ele tem repetidamente empilhado ameaças tarifárias para fazer do Canadá o 51º estado dos EUA.

Canada has responded with retaliatory tariffs, while a broader movement to “Buy Canadian” has taken hold. The hockey-inspired “elbows up” — meaning a readiness to defend against an opponent — has become a national rallying cry.

With trade talks stalled since August, Carney has moved with urgency to shore up the economy and invite new investments. Last month, he announced Bill C-39, known as the Building Canada Strong Act, promising to bring “speed, certainty and predictability” to investors.

Along with measures to speed up approvals for major projects, the bill would also give Ottawa clearer powers to intervene in legal strikes and lockouts in federally regulated workplaces — a provision that has put Carney on a collision course with unions.

Canada’s largest unions have come together against the changes. The largest, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), had its national executive go as far as voting to defy the bill’s proposed limits on the right to strike if it passes Parliament without amendments.

O presidente nacional do CUPE, Mark Hancock, creditou a forma como Carney lidou com Trump e disse que os 800. 000 membros do sindicato, que trabalham em todos os lugares, desde hospitais até escolas e serviços municipais, querem fazer parte de "Team Canada.

The controversy centres on Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, which already gives the Labour Minister broad powers to step into disputes if needed to maintain “industrial peace”, end work stoppages and force the two sides into a binding arbitration.

Beginning in 2024, Ottawa used the provision eight times to intervene in disputes involving airlines, Canada’s two largest railways, three major ports and Canada Post and again during the Air Canada dispute in 2025 when flight attendants went on strike.

Unions have challenged the use of that law in court and had hoped the proposed C-39 would restrict, if not repeal, that clause while businesses wanted it strengthened.

O projeto de lei não faz isso. Em vez disso, ele introduz duas condições que o governo teria que cumprir primeiro antes de recorrer à Seção 107.

Before stepping in, the government would have to appoint a special mediator, wait for a public report and consider whether a work stoppage is hurting the “national interest”.

Once a strike or lockout is underway, the minister could direct the Canada Industrial Relations Board to get operations running again and impose a binding process, such as arbitration.

The government says those steps put clearer guardrails around a power that already exists, and Carney has said the bill “absolutely reinforces the right to strike”, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Os sindicatos rejeitaram essa defesa, apontando que o significado de “interesse nacional” seria decidido, em última análise, pelo ministro. Eles também argumentam que a perspectiva de intervenção governamental está destinada a mudar o que acontece na mesa de negociação.

Disrupção, disse Savage, é precisamente o que dá poder a uma greve. “Toda greve eficaz é disruptiva,” ele disse.

Unions say they have already seen employers expect Ottawa to intervene.

Teamsters Canada alega que as companhias ferroviárias Canadian National Railway (CN) e Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) estavam contando com Ottawa para intervir quando bloquearam milhares de trabalhadores em 2024.

CUPE said it saw a similar dynamic at Air Canada in August 2025. Hancock said bargaining stalled after more than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants voted overwhelmingly to strike because the airline was “expecting the government of Canada to step in and end the strike” — an account Air Canada disputed.

Less than 12 hours after workers walked out, Ottawa invoked Section 107. Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau later told BNN Bloomberg the airline had expected the provision to be enforced and did not expect a strike.

The fight over the right to strike is also part of a much bigger argument taking shape around Carney’s economic agenda: Who gets a say in how Canada should change, and how quickly, in the name of making itself less vulnerable to the US.

Críticos acusam Carney de usar a ameaça econômica dos EUA para impulsionar mudanças que vão muito além de responder à guerra comercial de Trump.

New Democratic Party leader Avi Lewis has accused him of using the “fear and disorientation around the trade war to push through a series of unpopular measures that he did not run on, has no mandate for and would never get away with under normal circumstances”.

Essa tensão estava em exibição em Toronto, apenas uma semana antes da introdução do C-39. Dentro do primeiro cúpula nacional de investimento do Canadá, centenas de investidores globais se reuniram com autoridades governamentais e executivos enquanto Carney apresentava um país pronto para construir.

Outside, hundreds of protesters marched through downtown towards the summit’s opening gala under the banner “The Many vs The Money”. The rally brought together labour, Indigenous, environmental and migrant-rights groups, with signs and speeches taking aim at everything from fossil fuel and military projects to AI and the use of public money to attract private investment.

For unions, C-39 has sharpened that debate, pitting the government’s promise of greater certainty for investors against workers’ ability to exert pressure through strikes.

But Jim Stanford, an economist and director of the Vancouver-based Centre for Future Work, questions how much of an economic threat strikes actually pose.

While work stoppages can be costly for individual companies, Stanford said, “It is very, very rare that you would see a noticeable and sustained impact on GDP, employment or incomes.”.

A produção e o transporte costumam ser adiados em vez de perdidos permanentemente, acrescentou, com as empresas recuperando o ritmo assim que o trabalho retoma.

Stanford also questioned the idea that strikes are driving away investment, noting that more than 95 percent of collective bargaining ends without a work stoppage and saying there is “no empirical evidence whatsoever” that strikes have reduced investment.

Há também um custo econômico ao enfraquecer o direito de greve, argumentou Stanford. Os trabalhadores precisam de poder de barganha para ganhar salários mais altos, o que pode apoiar o consumo, a produtividade e a retenção de trabalhadores.

Para os líderes sindicais, é aí que a pressão econômica de Carney ultrapassa os limites.

Savage said the government’s “Team Canada” rhetoric risks treating workers’ bargaining power as a national liability.

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