Mr. Speaker, we are living through a moment of enormous change. Global markets are shifting, our trading relationships are changing and Canada has to be ready to meet the moment. That means focusing on what we can control and building here at home. We can make Canada a place where businesses want to invest, where projects actually get built, where Canadian goods can reach new markets and where those investments create good jobs for Canadian workers.
That is what the building Canada strong act is about. It would bring greater speed, certainty and predictability to major project reviews. It would strengthen the trade corridors and ports that connect Canadian businesses to the world, and it would create the conditions to attract investment, put Canadian capital to work and build a more resilient and independent economy, because certainty matters. Certainty means investment. Investment means building. Building means jobs. All of that makes our economy stronger and more resilient in a world that is becoming less predictable.
However, we cannot do any of that without a strong labour relations framework. The people who will build these projects, operate our ports and railways, move our goods and keep our economy running are Canadian workers. The strongest workplaces are workplaces where workers are treated fairly, where employers and unions have productive relationships and where people can sit down together and solve problems.
That is why the labour measures in Bill C-39 matter. Free and fair collective bargaining is at the heart of our labour relations system. Let me be very clear: We are absolutely committed to workers' constitutional right to strike. The best deal is the deal reached by parties themselves at the table. In fact, our system works remarkably well. Approximately 95% of federally regulated labour disputes supported by the federal mediation and conciliation service are resolved without a work stoppage, but we also know that some of the bargaining relationships become difficult long before anyone reaches a picket line.
This bill is about getting in earlier. It would provide greater support for first collective agreements, including bringing in the federal mediation and conciliation service from the beginning. It would provide earlier support in difficult bargaining relationships and relationship building after a dispute, because anyone who has worked in a workplace knows that a bitter dispute does not magically disappear when a collective agreement is signed. It would also invest in the institutions that make collective bargaining work, including the Canada Industrial Relations Board and the federal mediation and conciliation service, so that problems can be addressed earlier and workers are not left waiting because of backlogs.
I also want to address section 107 directly, because I know that we have heard concern about it here in this House. Section 107 has existed in the Canada Labour Code for nearly 50 years. This bill does not create a new power. What it does is put new restrictions, guardrails and transparency around how that power can be used.
Before a minister could direct the Canada Industrial Relations Board to end or suspend an ongoing work stoppage and impose a binding dispute resolution, two new conditions would have to be met. First, a special mediator would work intensively with the parties and provide a report to the minister that would be made public, a key factor for ensuring accountability for both parties and for ensuring that both parties are bargaining in good faith. The appointment of that mediator would not take away the right to strike or lock out. Their job would be to help the parties do what we want them to do in the first place, which is to reach an agreement themselves. Second, there would have to be a national impact assessment examining whether the dispute is or may be adversely affecting the national interest, including the consideration of free collective bargaining and the protected right to strike.
These are real guardrails, and the principle behind them is straightforward: Collective bargaining remains the primary way labour disputes should be resolved. We have heard that recognition from labour. Canada's Building Trades Unions has been clear that it wants strong guardrails around government intervention and wants the right to strike protected, but the CBTU has also recognized the value of improving the process between bargaining and government intervention.
As Sean Strickland has put it, “you've gone through some really substantive steps here to try to get parties to make a deal”. That is exactly the objective, to have more opportunity to negotiate, more opportunity to mediate and more opportunity for parties themselves to find the way forward.
That is only one part of the labour reforms in this bill. Bill C-39 would strengthen protections for the workers we are asking to help build this country. It would crack down on wage theft and worker misclassification. It would strengthen workplace health and safety, including through more inspections and a greater focus on workers' health and safety, and it would protect workers in air transportation when contracts change hands, so they can keep their union representation and collective agreement.
These things matter. A worker should get the wages they earned. They should be safe when they go to work and safe when they come home. When something does go wrong, they should have a labour system capable of responding quickly and fairly.
I want to recognize what the Building Trades of Alberta has said about this bill. There are 19 unions in Alberta. I visited them only last week. These are ironworkers, carpenters, machinists and bricklayers. They have said that they welcome the Canadian government's Bill C-39, which will expedite project approvals and help our job-ready workforce build Canada strong.
I want to finish where I started. We are living in a more uncertain world, but we can control what we build here at home. We can build the projects this country needs. We can move Canadian goods to markets. We can attract investment, create good jobs and make sure Canadian workers share in the prosperity that they create, and we can do it with a labour relations system that protects workers, respects collective bargaining and gives employers and unions the tools to solve problems together, because this moment demands more than resilience from Canada; it demands ambition.
Canadians want to build. We want to invest in ourselves. We want to compete, and we want to give ourselves more of what no country, no trade dispute and no decision made beyond our borders can take away, which is the capacity to build for ourselves, the confidence to bet on ourselves and the ability to determine our own economic future.
That is what this bill would help Canada to do, and it is why I call on all members of the House to support the legislation. Let us get to work, and let us build Canada.