Poilievre pivots to pro-union tack
Vows to not pass right-to-work legislation
OTTAWA • Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is pledging not to introduce the kind of union-opposed legislation he previously championed as a member of Parliament if he becomes prime minister.
The pledge is part of what he calls an evolution in his thinking on labour unions.
And it comes as Air Canada is prepared to start shutting down its operations Sunday if the Air Line Pilots Association issues a 72-hour strike notice. Business groups across the country have pressed for the federal government to intervene and prevent the strike.
In 2012, Poilievre and the rest of former prime minister Stephen Harper’s government brought in backto-work legislation for those same pilots before they even took to picket lines. He said this week that the pilots are negotiating for better wages and argued nothing should stand in the way of that.
In a statement to National Post, Poilievre said he is now pro-union and wouldn’t introduce those bills again.
“Hundreds of visits to workshops, factories, union halls and training centres have taught me a lot and helped me evolve my thinking,” he said. “A Common Sense Conservative Government will not introduce or pass bills C-377, C-525 or right-to-work laws. Period. This commitment will be written in my election platform.”
Poilievre was largely silent on the threat of a work stoppage at Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City that the Liberals sent to binding arbitration after a one-day strike last month.
Poilievre heaped blame on the Liberals and NDP for driving up the cost of living over the past nine years and said there is clearly a need for unions.
“Billionaires and multinationals have gained power and wealth from the money-printing inflation that balloons their assets while robbing buying power from workers after nine years of the Ndp-liberals,” he said. “It will take strong unions to reverse these losses and to fight for wage and pension gains, and better working conditions.”
Poilievre also pointed to private member’s bills his MPS have championed including one requiring pensions take precedence in any bankruptcy, a bill requiring airlines to pay flight attendants for work before the plane takes off and his call for tariffs on Chinese-made steel.
“I don’t understand why it is that Canadian pilots are paid so much worse than American pilots,” he said this week. “I would call on Air Canada to negotiate in good faith with the pilots. We’re not going to support pre-empting those negotiations.”
While they were in government, the Harper Conservatives also brought in legislation that was denounced by labour groups. Bill C-377 required unions to publicly disclose their finances and Bill C-525, which changed the voting process for joining a union, requiring a secret ballot and a higher threshold for success.
Those bills both passed as private member’s legislation while the Conservatives were in power, but were repealed in 2016 after the Liberals came into office. Poilievre spoke out against the repeal, arguing the government was forcing people into unions by taking away the secret ballot.
“The government’s problem is with the outcome. The government might not be happy that when workers are given the choice through a democratic vote, they opt not to unionize. However, that is the choice of the workers, not the choice of the government,” he said in Parliament in 2016.
The Conservatives’ most recent policy book, amended at last year’s convention, includes commitments to those policies, but Poilievre says a Conservative government he leads won’t introduce them.
He also pointed out that his party recently voted for the government’s anti-replacement worker legislation — commonly referred to as an “anti-scab” bill.
Siobhán Vipond, executive vice-president with the Canadian Labour Congress, said it’s hard to take Poilievre at his word on this issue, because he has such a long record of anti-union behaviour.
“We’re very wary about this idea of words that are empty if you don’t fundamentally understand the role that unions and workers have in a country right now,” she said. “It’s just really hard to trust that, knowing when you actually had the power, what you did with it.”
Vipond said even just a month ago Poilievre was silent when the government sent railworkers to binding arbitration after a one-day lockout.
“We’re not talking historical. It was a month ago, the railworkers weren’t worth speaking up for a month ago,” she said. “If that is what he’s going to do, we’re going to need to see more than one opportunistic statement in the media.”
Vipond said when employers believe the government is prepared to legislate back to work, they are much less likely to negotiate.
Dan Robertson, a former chief strategist for the Conservative party, said unions were considered an adversary to the party and not worth pursuing previously but that changed over time.
“Five or six years ago, there was just a ‘unions are bad’ opinion that was pervasive in the Conservative movement and party, and it was very, very difficult to overcome,” he said.
Robertson said that changed when Conservatives looked closer and realized whatever the views of union leadership, blue-collar union workers shared many of the same values as party members.
“Conservatives recognize that communities need strong institutions and among them are labour unions. They provide workers with power. They afford solidarity, mutual aid and representation all of which benefits workers and their communities,” he said.
In the 2022 election, multiple private sector unions endorsed Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative party, Robertson said that was proof this approach could also benefit Conservatives electorally.
He said there are still Conservatives upset at the party’s outreach to labour, but they can’t argue with the results.
“They’re frustrated, and I don’t think they like it, but when you’re winning by 20 points, everybody goes along with everything,” he said.