Human Resources Committee on Dec. 9th, 2025

[David Neufeld]

I'll turn it over to Mr. Leblanc for the response.

[David-Alexandre Leblanc, Assistant Director, Negotiations Section, Public Service Alliance of Canada, Union of Safety and Justice Employees]

Our presentation today will focus primarily on the use of section 107.

With regard to the definition of the term “work”, I believe that, for several years now, the Canada Labour Code has been interpreted in the context of collective bargaining. If I am not mistaken, when he appeared before this committee earlier, Minister Zerucelli said that 97% of labour disputes are resolved without a strike.

For our part, given the bargaining situations we find ourselves in at the Public Service Alliance of Canada, we do not see the need to include a definition of the term “work” in the Canada Labour Code.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

Okay. I must have misunderstood earlier, because you mentioned flight attendants. Perhaps you were referring to negotiations in which, if a definition of the term “work” had existed, flight attendants might not have experienced the difficulties they did.

Am I mistaken?

[David-Alexandre Leblanc]

We do not represent flight attendants.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

That's fine. I took the liberty of bringing up the subject because you mentioned it. It's part of the second phase of the study.

Mr. Chan, Mr. Safayeni or Mr. Pigott, would you like to comment?

[Pascal Chan]

I will give my speaking time to Mr. Safayeni, because there is not much discussion about this topic in our network.

[Daniel Safayeni]

I'm going to turn it over to Chris, but I want to make two points.

It keeps being asserted that employers are not there bargaining in good faith and trying to reach a deal. I would like to understand where the evidence for that is coming from—that negotiations are not being done in good faith by employers. That is not my understanding of how it's been working in these disputes.

On the flight attendant pay issue—Chris is going to speak to greater detail about the definition of “work”—the government is undertaking an inquiry into this right now, in which FETCO and Pascal's members have participated. I look forward to hearing about what the truth of that matter is because that is not my understanding of the compensation formula for flight attendants.

[Christopher Pigott]

One of the challenges with the federally regulated industries that are subject to both part I and part III of the code is that it's quite unusual, actually, particularly in the transportation industry, for employees to be paid on a standard hourly wage or a salary model. Instead, you often have very complex systems of credits and non-time-based compensation schemes that determine how much someone is paid.

Flight attendants present a great example. Flight attendants are not paid solely based on time. They're paid based on a very complicated system of credits and guarantees that apply to their compensation.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

I hate to interrupt, but I don't have much speaking time. However, if you would like to supplement your answer in writing, the entire committee and I would be delighted to receive it.

I know that the definition of the term “work” is not your main focus at the moment, but I am asking you the same question I asked the other witnesses.

In your opinion, could the inclusion of such a definition in the Canada Labour Code have changed anything in the flight attendants' negotiations, for example?

[Christopher Pigott]

It would be very difficult to define work in a way that makes sense across the federally regulated industries. I would be very worried about the unintended consequences of trying to create a one-size-fits-all definition of “work” that then needs to be overlaid on collective agreements and compensation schemes that are decades old. I do worry about unintended consequences.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

This is, in fact, the difficulty faced by various legislators.

Thank you for your answer.

Mr. Chair, I will not have time to discuss section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, as I only have 20 seconds left. We can come back to that later.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mrs. Gill.

We will now go to Ms. Goodridge for five minutes.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

I want to thank all the witnesses for being with us today. This is such an important topic. You guys have all brought a variety of different perspectives on such a wide space.

Mr. Safayeni, you explained that the use of section 107 is complicated. There are other workers that get hit in those supply chains when work stoppages happen in certain spaces and places.

Do you believe that one potential solution to increase transparency and accountability would be that every time section 107 was used, it would have to come to Parliament to be debated and explained why it was required?

[Daniel Safayeni]

It's a good question. The provision has recently been used in a way—and this is important to mention here—that's being actively tested in the courts. FETCO is participating as an intervenor, representing the employer perspective in those cases.

I do think it's premature right now for Parliament to simply remove section 107, as has been asserted here and by—

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

I didn't ask about the removal. What I'm specifically asking is, if it were to continue as is, to create some accountability, would we make it so that every time the government were to use it, it would have to bring it to Parliament to have a debate on it?

[Daniel Safayeni]

Where I was getting to with my answer is that the judiciary system is right now clarifying its proper scope and limits. I do think it's a little premature to front-run that process because they're going to be taking a look at this and making a determination on its usage and whether there should be those types of additional constraints added to it.

Let me just say this: We are very open to a discussion—I don't think this is something that should just come from labour or management and business—and to having an exploration of alternative tools and modernizing the framework in a way that works for all sides and all parties and gets us where we need to go. I'm not here to suggest this should be a fully baked solution.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you.

I have a very limited amount of time. I'm sorry to cut you off.

Mr. Neufeld, it's the same question.

Do you think making it so that Parliament needs to have a conversation on the use of section 107 after the fact would be a compromise, in some way?

[David Neufeld]

As pointed out, many collective agreements are currently done without having to go to section 107. I think the question you're asking is this: Is there a perception that bringing it to Parliament for a vote creates additional oversight? The perception may be that there might be a better way to do things.

Again, our position has been very clear: Remove section 107 from the Canada Labour Code and allow the unions to negotiate a fair collective agreement with their employers outside of that.

I'm going to turn it over to David-Alexandre.

[David-Alexandre Leblanc]

If you will allow me, our position is also informed by this: The Canada Labour Code already contains provisions for the minister. There are various things the minister can do in the context of a labour dispute. They can appoint a commission, as we saw in the recent Canada Post strike. They can name a mediator to help the parties come to a resolution. They can also force an employee vote on the employer's last offer. It's not as if there are no other resources in the Canada Labour Code for the government right now, in terms of helping the parties get to an agreement.

We see the recent use of section 107 as a bit of an overreach.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

You pointed out something very important. This has existed in the Labour Code since 1984, for over 40 years. It was used very sparingly in the first 38 years or so. In the last two years, it's been out of control. I think part of the reason it has been out of control is that wages have not been able to keep up with inflation, and inflation is directly caused by our government's out-of-control spending.

If we could get inflation under control, would that help ease some of the concerns around labour unrest in this country?

That's to you or Mr. Neufeld.

[David Neufeld]

What I can say, again, is this: Our members are not impacted by section 107.

To your point, are Canadians more generally concerned about the cost of living and making ends meet? Our union members feel the same way about making ends meet. We have many people in our public sector who make wages that.... They, too, have to work multiple jobs.

As long as employers are not coming to the bargaining table to negotiate in good faith and are dragging this out—expecting the government to bail them out and bring workers back to work—a very tenuous situation is created for union workers across this country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Goodridge.

Ms. Koutrakis, you have five minutes.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today for this important study and for their important testimony.

I will begin my questioning with Mr. Safayeni.

You said, in your opening remarks, that labour instability threatens Canada's reputation and that employers believe in collective agreements. You said that mediation is a “last resort”, that employers believe in good-faith bargaining and that we need to make sure we protect our economy.

In your experience, what kinds of practices help maintain stable and constructive labour relations and prevent disputes from escalating, if our government believes the best deals are made at the bargaining table? Could you share a little about your experience—what you've seen and heard?

[Daniel Safayeni]

In my experience, dialogue is important here. Speaking of your government, I applaud Minister Hajdu's announcement just recently around forming an official tripartite table that brings together labour, business and government in the same room to discuss these issues. Over the last 10 years, that has not necessarily been the case. There have been a number of ad hoc changes to the Canada Labour Code that were not really done in full consultation with the business perspective there. The result of this is a system that is less agile and is not modern. It also doesn't account for the fact that the Canada Labour Code was largely built in a post-war era. It did not contemplate an integrated and globalized supply chain. That's why, when Pascal speaks of the enormous economic impacts, the system is not really designed to handle that and deal with that in a fair and balanced way.

Again, I do have to call this out. We keep hearing that employers are not showing up in good faith, and that inflation and wages are not fair to the worker. Okay, well, a pilot strike is about to be under way at Air Transat. Negotiations on that have been ongoing since January of last year. It's been nearly 12 months. Pilots have been offered a 60% increase in wages over five years, the majority of that happening within one year, and 90% of the CBA has been agreed upon. There's no other side right now to negotiate with, so I'm wondering just where that notion is coming from.

I mention that because the relationships to your question here are important in terms of having a dialogue and having a space in which we can examine, in an evidence-based way, what aspects of the code are working and what aspects of the code need to be modernized. That way we can avoid the type of dispute that starts in one corner of the country but very quickly cascades, has enormous ripple effects and ends up holding the entire economy hostage.

There was a question earlier: How much economic damage is enough economic damage? We didn't get an answer to that.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you for that.

This is why it was so important, when we heard through the Air Canada flight attendant work stoppage about the alleged unpaid work, that the first thing the minister did was to order a probe. We are anxiously awaiting to see that probe report, which is imminent. I look forward, as I'm sure all of us on the committee do, to that evidence, because it's important to know. Every Canadian who works should get paid for the work they do. I think that was an important position taken by the minister. She acted quickly. I think it's important information that will help every Canadian.

My last question is for Mr. Chan.

In your testimony, you said that the members of your organization feel that the government is not doing enough to protect trading. Could you talk to us a little bit more about why they feel that way? What can the government be doing differently?