Canada is a country of laws. Or so we keep telling ourselves. Yet this weekend, 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants walked off the job, paralyzing the nation’s largest airline, stranding travellers, and leaving Canadians to wonder whether “the law” is now just a decorative relic in some Ottawa filing cabinet.The Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) did not mince words. The strike was, in their precise and unpoetic phrasing, “unlawful.” Not questionable. Not excessive. Not regrettable. Unlawful. Vice-Chair Jennifer Webster put her name to it. She ordered flight attendants back to work. She ordered the union to stop their “activities.” A ruling, clear as glass.And why? Because, Labour Minister Patty Hajdu had used Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code — the very section designed for emergencies like this — to order the walkout to end. The country cannot afford 700 cancelled flights a day. In Canada, air travel is not a luxury. It is a national artery, binding Halifax to Vancouver, Yellowknife to Toronto. To cut that vein is to bleed the country..Air Canada flight attendants strike ruled ‘unlawful’ by labour board.Yet the union ignored the minister. They treated the law not as law, but as suggestion. What Parliament declares, they defied. And in that defiance lies the larger danger.A government that issues an order but does not enforce it is a government that governs only on paper. What is the penalty for defying a back-to-work law? The Canada Labour Code prescribes heavy fines for unions that orchestrate illegal strikes, sanctions for leaders who encourage them, and even measures against employees who persist in defiance. These are not theoretical tools. They exist precisely for this circumstance.Normally, unions and employers should be left to slug it out at the bargaining table. But Air Canada is no ordinary employer. It is a federally protected monopoly in all but name — subsidized, bailed out, and shielded from full competition. Its unions, too, benefit from privileges ordinary workers do not enjoy. With those privileges come responsibilities. That means accepting federal oversight when the public interest demands it. Instead, the union treated the law like a menu item, to accept or reject at will. And Ottawa let them..So here is the question that matters: will Ottawa wield them? Or will “unlawful” prove to be a word of convenience — stern for the cameras, but soft as putty when put to the test?For if no consequence follows, then every union in Canada will draw the same lesson: Parliament’s decrees are optional. Ignore them long enough and nothing happens. In such a country, the rule of law becomes a theatrical prop, wheeled out for effect, then tucked away again..EDITORIAL: BC nurse's $94,000 fine shows Canada's free speech crisis.Of course, the union has its arguments. Wages have lagged behind inflation. Pre-flight duties deserve pay. These may be legitimate complaints, worthy of negotiation. Air Canada has offered 17.2% over four years, a serious figure by most standards. The union says it is not enough. Perhaps it isn’t. But this is not the question before us.The issue is not whether Air Canada’s offer is rich or poor. The issue is whether the law of Canada, when invoked by Parliament itself, can simply be ignored. If so, then why have laws at all?.It is one thing to bargain hard. It is another to break the law and dare the state to respond. If Ottawa shrinks from this confrontation, it will not merely embolden one union. It will advertise to the entire country that Canada’s laws are porous, its government timid, and its citizens left at the mercy of whichever faction has the muscle to seize the moment.Minister Hajdu has done her part. The CIRB has done its part. The question is whether Ottawa will finish the job. Enforcement is not cruelty; it is necessity. Without it, the law is emptied of meaning, and “unlawful” becomes a synonym for “unpleasant.”.EDITORIAL: Air Canada flight attendants choose greed over country.This is Canada’s test. Will our government show that its authority still carries force? Or will it prove, once more, that in modern Ottawa, a stern press release is the only penalty left?If nothing follows, then nothing will ever follow. And a country that ceases to enforce its laws has already begun to dissolve.
