It was a price tag nobody at the bargaining table – much less Canadians — ever agreed to. Disrupted cargo costing $19.2 billion – paid for by Canadian businesses, workers and consumers – when labour disputes shut down most operations at Canada’s West Coast ports for a combined 24 days in 2023-2024.
The damage didn't stop when the picket lines came down. Rail and trucking connected to those ports ground to a halt alongside them, and it took months to work through the backlog. Businesses along the supply chain reliant on the shipping industry were forced to temporarily shut down. Car dealers waited on shipments of vehicles and parts. Exporters lost their window to secure the international contracts that bring investment and jobs to Canada. Canadian commodities were landlocked.
Billions of dollars in goods that should have moved through Vancouver and Prince Rupert were rerouted south through American ports instead, adding cost and delay for Canadian businesses. Some of this traffic has not returned, costing Canadians good-paying, unionized jobs.
When ports shut down, the fallout isn't a regional story. It's a national one, in fact, one with international implications. The government’s own 2024 Industrial Inquiry Commission recommended measures for long-term stability, yet more more than a year later no action has been taken.
The port strikes of 2023 and 2024 were not an isolated one-off. The data shows disputes at Canada's airlines, ports, railways, and other supply chain industries have far-reaching effects that extend far beyond the employers and bargaining unit employees directly involved. And it is against this backdrop that the federal government is reviewing the Canada Labour Code.
Prime Minister Carney has laid out an ambitious agenda to grow Canada's economy and diversify our trade, including doubling our non-U.S. exports. That is the right goal. But it sits uneasily next to Canadian supply chains that can be shut down for weeks at a time by disputes in a small number of critical sectors. We cannot credibly promise new trading partners reliable access in this uncertain environment. Growth and gridlock don't travel well together.
Canada’s collective bargaining system needs more emphasis on mediation throughout the process, greater transparency for the public and the businesses affected, and a path to alternative dispute mechanisms reserved for genuine last resorts, invoked only after every other option has clearly been exhausted. The IIC Report recommended the creation of a special mediator role with expanded powers to keep negotiations alive. But just as important, we need more effective processes that strongly incentivize both sides to reach their own deal well before picket signs are printed, rather than waiting until a stoppage is already underway.
These are surgical adjustments, meant for extraordinary circumstances when bargaining in our critical supply chains has not been successful, not a rewrite of the entire collective bargaining framework. When a dispute threatens the country's economic stability, the government should have better tools to help both sides reach a deal, before the costs start piling up for everyone.
Most labour negotiations in the federally regulated private sector, well over 95 per cent, are resolved without disruption, through the ordinary give and take of collective bargaining. That system works, and it should stay in the hands of the parties who know their workplaces best.
What we are talking about is the subset of disputes within the five per cent of negotiations in a handful of large sectors so critical to Canada's economy that a work stoppage puts the national interest at risk. In the last two years, each of these industries has experienced a consequential work stoppage, some more than one. For these cases, the tools available to the government and to the parties need updating. Currently, the system is built to react after the damage is done rather than to prevent it in the first place.
We want to be clear about what this is not. This is not about changing labour laws to extinguish a union’s right to strike. This is about giving the government more effective tools to avoid costly and damaging impacts to the supply chains all Canadians depend on every day. We need meaningful, responsible change that works for the benefit of all.
As the federal government considers updates to the Canada Labour Code, we strive to be reasonable partners looking for practical solutions, not adversaries looking to tilt the table. Employers want the same outcomes as workers and governments – we want negotiated deals that safeguard jobs, grow our economy and trade relationships, secure greater supply chain reliability, and promote competitiveness on the global stage. We owe it to Canadians to fix this now, not after the next labour dispute has already done the damage.
By: Derrick Hynes, President and CEO, Federally Regulated Employers – Transportation and Communications (FETCO)
The views expressed are those of the author(s). National Newswatch Inc. publishes a range of perspectives and does not necessarily endorse the opinions presented.