The federal government is moving to impose more control over labour relations at Canadian ports, saying repeated disruptions threaten workers, families, and the nation’s supply chain.Blacklock's Reporter says Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon told the Commons transport committee that cabinet wants to “bring more order and predictability” to port labour negotiations after a series of legal strikes were quashed.“Hundreds of thousands of union jobs across the country are at risk, even in my own riding at a newsprint mill, when labour disruptions are threatened or actually executed,” MacKinnon said. “Neither unions nor employers like this late stage bargaining, this 11th hour pressure. It disrupts families. It disrupts other unionized environments across the country.”Since 2023, cabinet has repeatedly invoked Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code to settle disputes at the Port of Vancouver columbia"], Port of Montréal and Port of Québec. The provision allows the labour minister to take measures “likely to maintain or secure industrial peace.”When asked by Conservative MP Dan Albas how Ottawa plans to end the cycle of port disruptions while respecting collective bargaining, MacKinnon said the government is actively seeking a solution..“It is true that reliability around the Canada Labour Code and labour disputes in Canada is something where Canada has suffered,” he said. “You can literally see when a labour dispute happens or is even threatened, marine traffic turn around on the ocean, head to another port and never come back. Canada must urgently solve this in the interests of our workers and in the interest of our nation’s supply chain security and prosperity.”A Labour Department briefing note from Oct. 29 acknowledged that cabinet had used executive orders to quash legal strikes 10 times in the past two years, noting that decisions to invoke Section 107 are “considered on a case by case basis under exceptional circumstances.” The note also recognized that unions have filed judicial reviews challenging the referrals.MacKinnon, who served as labour minister in 2024, described labour disputes that threaten economic stability as “self-destructive” and said intervention is sometimes necessary to protect Canadians..“There is a limit to the economic self-destruction Canadians are willing to accept,” he said.“The best deals are always those that are negotiated, but when agreements are delayed or never arrive in the presence of economic self-destruction, there is a duty to intervene. As Minister of Labour this responsibility falls to me.”
