Because the Harper government showed a propensity to undermine labour unions. You are right, the Trudeau government provided mere lip service to unions, but it was under Harper that Air Canada pilots were forced into their horrible ten year contract which dragged our entire pilot pay in Canada down. Until then, we were not that far behind American pilot pay, and since then the Americans have leapfrogged us in Canada. The disappointment for how Harper held us back is not unfounded.
Not sure about the details of how the ten year contract came to be. I suspect that people had to vote for it and union leaders had to agree to it.
However, detailed information from you about the specifics would be welcome.
Let's see if we actually get that factual information from SafetyFirst123 or if it turns out to be exaggeration. All I like is harsh truth facts.
You got a couple of good responses above, but have you looked at pay scales? Have you seen how far behind we've gone in that time period compared to American pilots? If you consider these exaggerations you must love falling far behind in the last 15 years.
I would like to get the factual information from Safetyfirst123 that blamed the harper government for the length of the Air Canada contract. It may be true but want to see independent info on how it all came to be.
Meanwhile,,,,,I took the time to go to the AC forum back to 2014 to see what the reaction was to the 10 year agreement. Well, guess what? No one is screaming how bad it is. I see neutral to a bit positive. Yet somehow, now pilots from AC and others scream like it was the worst thing in the world. Amazing how things change. And always the comparison to the US. Well..... Ceo's in the US can make up to a trillion dollars like Musk. And their doctors and nurses make way more and so does just about everyone else. Many people in these categories move there if they can, and figure out how to do so one way or another.
Using airline workers in an example when it comes to pay....In the US, pilots make more, while others like baggage handles make less. Canada is more socialist(as seen by out new majority government voted in last night for the fourth time in a row, likely with your help at some point) and the top paid employees make less while the bottom ones make more.
Here is the AC ten year contract thread and a comment from it(with the most important part underlined).....
The "signing bonus" is not really a signing bonus. It is a codeshare grievance settlement that pays out the members a little less than half of what the grievance amount was. It clean slates that grievance. It was satisfactorily explained by ACPA legal at the roadshow.
It is debatable that the pay increases will outperform COL but the corp does have an aggressive expansion plan and incentive program tied to EBITDAR that makes it palatable.
It is a 10 year deal with the option for limited negotiations every 3 years if certain benchmarks are not reached.
New hire pay is improved. There is talk that massive hiring would be needed to match the growth.
Max MPU increased.
Would I have liked it to be more more aggressive? Yes.
Will it pass? Yes.
Still think that binding arbitration thing might work out better for AC pilots in upcoming negotiations, especially if they can get a situation where AC is unreasonable and the pilots are at the very top end of reasonable(especially for the newer guys).
pelmet wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 1:33 pm
I would like to get the factual information from Safetyfirst123 that blamed the harper government for the length of the Air Canada contract. It may be true but want to see independent info on how it all came to be.
I explained that above... It was freely voted in 2014... Harper government was out of line in 2012 with FOS though.
cdnavater wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2026 7:15 am
Don’t time to research but, I seem to recall final offer binding arbitration not going so well for AC pilots and binding arbitration awarding Swoop 30 fins to WJ. I can’t ever recall a time when arbitration was fair towards the employee group when specifically dealing with airlines.
Don’t have to look to far back to see, the AC FAs got the company’s wage proposal with one exception, a specific year on the scale got an additional 1% or something to that effect.
Then went on strike, were threaback to work with jail time and the arbitration gets them almost exactly what the company proposed!
Your facts are all correct.
cdnavater wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2026 7:15 am
I can’t ever recall a time when arbitration was fair towards the employee group when specifically dealing with airlines.
To play devil's advocate: let's be honest, we're all have biases. And the biases always favour our own interests. Perhaps in the examples that you cited, we, as employee's, had expectations that were inconsistent with what a neutral third party felt was appropriate.
(I should also mention that I've seen many arbitrations go in favour of the employee groups. WRT to the Swoop tails- that was a relatively minor loss, but WJ ALPA secured a single employer with the Swoop pilots.)
Thanks guys. It is nice to finally see some intelligent posts.
I’m sure no procedure is perfect. I suspect that those opposed to binding arbitration tend to be those on both the employee side and management side with unreasonable expectations.
Addition to an earlier post about statements I made earlier and whether it was valid.....
I said "Do they vote liberal or NDP because it is felt at the time that they will be more favourable to union action? Yes.
Are they surprised when they still get ordered back to work anyways by the party they voted for? Yes."
There were plenty of posters on the AC forum denigrating the conservatives for years because they were forced back to work(I believe the minister's name was Lisa Raitt). They went on and on about her. So why not vote for the liberals multiple times and all their destructive policies that have accompanied those votes. And guess what.....the liberals quashed their strike too. So their destructive policy vote(gosh hospital waits are so long these days, food and housing is so expensive, and crime is so much higher these days than 11 years ago) got them nothing in return in terms of strike capability.
Well, there was plenty of reaction to my quoted post above about people voting for the liberals repeatedly in the belief that it would benefit them financially through stronger unions. Now, with our lower standard of living(among other things like higher crime rate and massive hospital waits), it looks like the liberals are possibly going to change the labour rules. How interesting. All for nothing. Don't worry, we will recover some items in a decade or so.
As Canada embarks on a massive plan to expand its infrastructure and exports, unions worry the federal government may be trying to fundamentally alter labour rights.
Ottawa is currently consulting unions and employers on potential changes to the legislation that protects more than a million Canadian workers in federally regulated industries.
"They've basically opened up the entire Canada Labour Code," said Christopher Monette, a spokesperson for Teamsters Canada, the country’s largest transportation union.
"When you look at the consultation documents, there are a lot of things there that have been on corporate Canada's wish list, including new limits on the right to strike."
The review comes as Prime Minister Mark Carney pursues an agenda of national infrastructure construction and has promised to double Canada's non-U.S. exports by 2035.
Some of the possible labour changes could see Ottawa redefine who is allowed to go on strike by expanding what is considered an essential service; alter timelines for bargaining and strike notices; and create a new special mediator to investigate when unions and employers are unable to reach a deal.
Canada has seen a significant uptick in labour action following the COVID-19 pandemic, including major strikes and lockouts that have completely shut down national mail, ports, rail, and airlines.
But Monette notes more than 95 per cent of contracts in Canada are reached without labour action.
"The government seems to have bought into the idea that the rare couple of strikes … are now a threat to Canada's new trade diversification strategy and a threat to our supposed reputation of being a reliable trading partner. We don't share that view," Monette said.
The government is also looking for feedback on its use of Section 107 of the Labour Code, which gives the minister sweeping powers to intervene in labour disputes to maintain "industrial peace."
The federal Liberals have increasingly used the once-obscure piece of legislation to force picketing workers back on the job — a move unions are fighting in court because they say it violates their Charter right to strike.
Mark Hancock, the national president of CUPE, said he’s worried the Liberals will use their new majority in the House of Commons to push through major changes to the Labour Code.
His union, Canada's largest, which represents Air Canada flight attendants among others, defied the government’s order to return to work when the attendants went on strike last summer.
"I respect and I support the prime minister in building Canadian, in building these big projects … But you can't do it at the sake of workers," Hancock said.
The consultations, which were opened on April 17 and run until May 25, were quietly launched on the government’s website and first noted by the Toronto Star.
Unions say the short timeline for the consultation — 38 days — could be a signal the government has already made up its mind on how it wants to reshape the Labour Code.
Labour Code needs modernizing, minister says
But Canada’s Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu said her government doesn’t have preconceived ideas about what the changes will be. Instead, the aim is to modernize the labour legislation that hasn’t "kept up with the times."
"It's no secret that the country is under immense stress," Hajdu told CBC News on Thursday, pointing to the economic threats Canadian industries face from the U.S. trade war and other global events. "And there's an urgency to making sure that we have the most modern tools available."
Hajdu said the prime minister has an "ambitious agenda" to protect Canadian jobs and grow the economy, so the consultations will look at how the law can "support healthy, safe and fair workplaces."
"There could be important ways, not just for employers and unions to work together, but for the government to be a better partner," she said.
Hajdu said while the consultations are wide ranging, they are focused on one thing: how to improve relationships between workers and employers to actually prevent strikes in the first place and the need for Ottawa to intervene in them.
"What we're hearing overseas is that they need to have that degree of certainty from Canadians. They need to know that our ports aren't just going to shut down two years in a row seemingly at random," said Pascal Chan, the chamber's vice-president of strategy policy and supply chains.
"If other countries don't believe that Canada can reliably deliver the goods because we have consistent labour disruptions, that's going to be a significant problem for the economy."
Chan said the goal of the review is to tackle the spike in labour disruptions so they don’t have extensive and detrimental effects on the country.
"We're not talking about a small strike somewhere. We're not talking about all labour across the country. We're talking about a choke point that effectively has an outsized impact on the rest of the economy," he said.
Labour critics question consultation process
Conservative labour critic Kyle Seeback said he believes the government is trying to find other ways to maintain labour peace before more collective agreements come up for negotiation in "critical" supply chain areas.
"I'm concerned with how they're going to try and do it," Seebak said. "There's actually not a lot of consultation going on. They've already made up their mind."
Seeback said the Liberals' repeated use of Section 107 has "poisoned" labour negotiations, as employers have come to rely on the minister to intervene when workers go on strike.
"We've seen the most labour disruptions in 30 years under this government because they've so poorly managed labour relations in this country," he said.
The NDP has a private members bill in the House of Commons to remove Section 107 from the Labour Code entirely.
"It's almost like the Liberals only allow the right to strike if the impact of that strike is low," NDP labour critic Don Davies said.
"If the result of workers withdrawing their services is that it does have an economic impact, then that should be a signal to the market that their labour should be valued more."
Davies said the consultations propose "extremely, profoundly serious changes to the way collective bargaining works in Canada."
"Canada's collective bargaining regime has been in place for decades and decades and decades," Davies said. "Any government that's serious about reforming or modernizing labour law doesn't pull a quick consultation … without even really announcing it to people."
The consultations also propose measures that could improve working conditions.
The federal government is looking to boost workplace health and safety, especially in high risk jobs; speed up the grievance process to deal with backlogs; and examine training for workers affected by automation and artificial intelligence.
Monette from the Teamsters said unions are open to updating the Labour Code if it helps improve the bargaining process and working conditions.
But he said he worries that's not what's happening.
"I cannot stress enough how much the alarm bells should be going off right now for Canadian workers," he said.
Liberals are labour’s friend when they want your vote. Then they behave like Conservatives using whatever questionable justification serves their political agenda.
Labour needs to learn how to play the game better.
Such weak arguments. The non us export markets Canada is considering (eg Europe) already have a much more protected labor force with a multitude of strikes happening. They won't blow up deals because harbor employees might go on strike once every 5 years.
This is the point where all Canadian unions should go on strike indefinitely until these reforms are off the table.
---------- ADS -----------
As an AvCanada discussion grows longer:
-the probability of 'entitlement' being mentioned, approaches 1
-one will be accused of using bad airmanship
Daniel Cooper wrote: ↑Sun May 24, 2026 9:15 pm
This will probably end with European style violence. Make sure you cash out your bank accounts before negotiations.
Didn’t you jump out of an airplane with a pile of cash? Why do you need to take it out of a bank account?
