Bill C-39 Committee on Oct. 20th, 2026

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Richmond East—Steveston, BC]

The bill would also increase health and safety enforcement capacity and provide additional resources to better protect federally regulated workers. Would you agree that strong workplace protections and effective enforcement are issues unions have consistently fought for and that these provisions would benefit workers across the country? Could you shed some light on that?

[Bea Bruske]

I want to be clear that there are many positives in this bill. We talked about misclassification of workers. We talked about first collective agreements, increased supports to the CIRB and increased health and safety inspectors. All of those things are very good things. None of them, however, can balance out taking away the leverage that workers have at bargaining tables.

For all those good things, and they are things for which we have advocated over many years and decades, this should not take away the ability for workers to have their voice heard.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Richmond East—Steveston, BC]

Mr. Hancock, can you please shed some light on the same question?

[Mark Hancock]

I don't disagree. Of course we're all for healthier work sites. One of the most difficult things I do as a national president is to have conversations with locals that have lost a member in their workplace and to talk to families. That's the last thing any of us ever want to do.

Of course we're supportive of however we can make any workplace safer but, to echo my friend Bea, not at the cost of interfering with our fundamental right to strike. That needs to remain. That needs to be untouched to allow the parties to get collective agreements at a bargaining table without interfering with our right to strike.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Richmond East—Steveston, BC]

For the final minute, maybe I'll stick with you, Mr. Hancock. Can you comment on the monetary penalties that have been added for any employer that's potentially negotiating in bad faith?

[Mark Hancock]

Penalties are one thing. As Bea said, many employers have lots of money. It's part of the cost of doing business to pay fines or to pay costs associated with labour relations and bargaining.

At the end of the day, I'm only interested in my union and other unions being able to get collective agreements at a bargaining table without any intervention. If the government wants to fine employers, then go at it, but at the end of the day, that's not going to impact our right to get a fair collective agreement for workers. As I've said a couple of times, that's not going to interfere with our right to strike.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Mr. Bains.

It's over to you, Mr. Ste-Marie, for two and a half minutes.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Hancock, you are fighting section 107. As you said, there are other lawsuits ongoing. You have also said already that, if the current version of Bill C‑39 is passed, you will challenge its constitutionality as soon as it comes into force. Can you elaborate on that?

[Mark Hancock]

Absolutely. As I said, we're in the courts for the previous use of section 107. We're going to use every tool available to us to fight Bill C-39 if it continues with this section 107 included. We don't have a choice. We feel very strongly about this. We feel that many court decisions over the last number of years have supported workers' right to strike and withdraw their services. We're going to continue on with those previous cases. We will mount whatever court challenges we need to in the future to make sure we have that unfettered right to bargain and to take strike action.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Thank you.

You were talking about the various court decisions. The Supreme Court reminded us that the right to strike must be limited in order to protect people's lives, but that corporate profits were not a reason to limit the right to strike. Moreover, and you talked about this earlier, a week and a half ago, in Quebec, the Tribunal administratif du travail struck down the Quebec law that was based on section 107.

Under Bill C‑39, the government is invoking this power to end a strike when there are economic consequences. As you said, it seems to fly in the face of the Charter and seems to be unconstitutional. Could you clarify that?

[Mark Hancock]

As I said earlier, we use every tool available to us to protect our members' rights and to protect workers' rights, and we've done so many times, whether it is now, with section 107, or in the past with other legal challenges. The problem with utilizing the courts is that it takes many years to get through those court procedures. In the example we talked about earlier, with Air Canada, yes, we could have just relied on the courts, but that would mean workers' going back and having to live with the existing collective agreement language, which didn't allow for pay when they're docked at airports and didn't deal with a lot of the issues they needed to deal with at that point.

That's why I keep going back to this: The only place we can deal with these types of situations is at a bargaining table. We're very good at that, and most employers are very good at that. When two sides sit down, they talk about the issues. Whether it's work-life balance, whether it's wages, whether it's benefits, whether it's scheduling or whatever the case may be, when the two parties sit down and look to find an agreement, we get those deals. It's when we have outside interference that we have real issues.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

It's over to you, Mr. Albas, for five minutes.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Chair, I thank both of our witnesses for being here today and for offering their testimony.

I'll start with Ms. Bruske. Ms. Bruske, earlier in your testimony you cited that you gave the minister suggestions on how to improve things like section 107 over the consultation process, which are not reflected in Bill C-39. Is that the case?

[Bea Bruske]

That's the case. We provided a raft of recommendations.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

None of the raft of recommendations are in here. Would you be of the mind to share that with the committee?

[Bea Bruske]

Sure.

On the specific issue of section 107, as I noted earlier, we believe that any mediator should be independent and bring expert advice to the table—somebody who has that skill.

We called for an independent public interest panel that would determine whether there is an economic emergency, with a roster of things that need to be hit in order to make that recommendation to say, “Yes, this particular labour dispute hits that note. It's not just an inconvenience. It actually hits a note of a national emergency.” Then, the minister could take that recommendation from an expert panel back to Parliament, with a recommendation to say either, “We need to table back-to-work legislation” or “Here's what the expert panel has identified, and we don't need to table legislation.” Then, that debate could happen in the House so that people—workers—could understand how you would come to that rationale and could see how the outcome of that would be voted on.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Can you send that to us in writing, please?

[Bea Bruske]

We will be happy to share that.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Thank you very much.

I'll move over to Mr. Hancock. Mr. Hancock, last night I learned many things from the minister of employment. One of them is that I'm supposed to be able to ask her questions about a document none of us have seen, but I'm sure that you would find other things she said to be equally incredible. One thing she said is that there is no evidence of unpaid work for flight attendants. Would you like to correct the record, please, sir?

[Mark Hancock]

We've made an indent in that with both the Air Canada bargaining and, more recently, WestJet. Absolutely, there was. I know this had been raised in the House of Commons by different folks, including former MP Bonita Zarrillo, when the minister was in there. I can tell you this: Ask any one of 10,000 flight attendants at Air Canada, or any of the other thousands of flight attendants we have, about unpaid time.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

I want to ask both of you this in regard to the current section 107 as it exists, which reads, “The Minister, where the Minister deems it expedient, may do such things as to the Minister”, etc., versus what is going to be in Bill C-39, which is, “may take any measure that, in the Minister's opinion”, etc. That, to me, as a parliamentarian, opens it up because it has to just be the opinion of the minister. That is a big change.

Could you comment on that, please, Ms. Bruske?

[Bea Bruske]

You've hit the nail on the head that it gives unfettered powers to one minister to make a determination based on what they believe in that moment, based on whatever information they have received. It is a significant change, and that's absolutely cause for significant concern.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

No matter what's in the special mediator's report, it's the opinion of the minister. They could ignore it.

[Bea Bruske]

It's the opinion of the minister.