Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members, for the opportunity to testify.
I'm not a labour law specialist, and I have not conducted research directly on section 107 of the Canada Labour Code. My perspective comes instead from examining the economic impacts of major work disruptions, including rail and port stoppages. I would like to offer a few economic considerations that I think are relevant to the committee's study.
I think the problem stems from high market concentration for a lot of single operators in this country. It makes the economy vulnerable in that way to work stoppages. Canada is a large, diversified economy, but many key industries remain highly concentrated, with a small number of firms controlling large shares of national capacity. This includes sectors such as transportation—as we've been talking about—telecom, food processing and food retailing, and certain resource-based industries. High concentration in a single operator magnifies the economic impact of any major disruption. When a dominant firm faces a labour stoppage, the effects are no longer between the firm and its employees; the shock spreads across supply chains more broadly.
I'd like to offer that the problem is market power. Canada has a competitiveness problem. We've heard this very much recently around the productivity issues in Canada stemming from two things: the lack of investment—private investment—and a lack of competitiveness. It's a well-known issue in Canada. Where market power is concentrated, work stoppages can lead to immediate and disproportionate spillovers.
The other thing that I think is important is transportation. We've done some work specifically on some of the work stoppages that happened in 2024 around rail and ports, but transportation really deserves special attention. The transportation sector is not just another industry. It is the backbone of how the Canadian economy functions. It's roughly 30% of our GDP, and I will remind folks that GDP is our income earned from economic activity. Therefore, 30% of our income that accrues to workers and to firms is directly tied to exports. This means that a large share of our Canadian production must physically move across borders to reach markets. If we add interprovincial and inter-regional trade, the dependence becomes even greater. Most goods produced in Canada must travel long distances at least once to reach consumers, supply chains or international markets.
The other piece that's important—and this was very apparent during the rail strike in 2024—is the legacy impact on investment attractiveness. Again, I go back to our productivity problem, which is one of attracting private investment to this country. It doesn't showcase very well if we have, essentially, bottlenecks or problems with getting product to market. When labour stoppages disrupt transportation corridors, ports and rail networks, the effect is not just temporary delays; it tells global investors that critical Canadian infrastructure may not be reliable.
Again, in 2024, we saw a lot of movement pre-empting the rail strike to other ports, activity remaining south of the border instead of coming north, and this is a reputation risk that can undermine efforts to attract capital to resource projects, manufacturing, clean tech and others.
I'll stop there. Thank you.