Are the number of Quebec strikes taking the province hostage?

Since 2023, the number of work stoppages has spiked in Quebec and that number is on the rise.

A policy think tank in Montreal says unions are taking Quebecers hostage after an explosion of strikes in recent years.

A Montreal Economic Institute report shows that work stoppages (90 per cent of which are strikes) went from under 100 per year between 2017 and 2020 to 691 in 2023 and 759 in 2024.

“We can really see the explosion and Statistics Canada allow us to go back to 1946, so just after the Second World War,” said the report’s author Gabriel Giguère. “I’ve analysed all of those data from today, and there’s no place from 1946 to 2022 that has, I would say, half of what we had in 2024 and so we really saw an explosion in terms of strike.”

McGill University professor Barry Eidlin disputes the report.

“It is far from unprecedented,” said Eidlin. “I thought the report betrayed a elementary lack of historical perspective in terms of using terms like ‘unprecedented’ because the numbers that we’re seeing now pale in comparison to the level of strikes we saw in the 1970s or the 1940s for example.”

Eidlin says the spike in numbers recently can be explained by stagnating wages, benefits and pensions going away, hours getting cut and more reliance on part-time workers.

“This has been a long standing trend that has been sort of eating away at Canadian standard of living,” he said, adding that the COVID-19 pandemic crystalized the trend.

The tightened labour market post-pandemic, Eidlin said, gave workers more power, and that they saw other workers striking and saw it as an option to improve their conditions.

“When it becomes more common, workers understand that this is actually something that they can do, and that it can actually reap benefits from them,” he said.

Giguère argues, on the other hand, that even during the financial crises in 2008, 1987 or other times of economic turmoil and consequent austerity measures from governments, there has never been as much strike actions as there is currently in Quebec.

“Now that is a problem because this is showing an abusive approach of the unions where they try to normalize strikes,” said Giguère, who noted that Quebec makes up 22 per cent of the Canadian population, but the province accounts for 91 per cent of the strike mandates.

Eidlin contests that strikes are the “go-to” option, saying that strikes are preceded by months or even years of negotiations.

“There are many steps, both in terms of negotiating, but also just in terms of government safeguards on preventing strikes, essentially that make it very hard for workers to just decide to go on strike, not to mention the fact that even when workers did go on strike, this is a sacrifice that they make,” he said.

Rhetoric and aggression

In addition to the high numbers of strikes, Giguère noted other issues in the labour movement, including the “rhetoric” and aggressive actions in response to Bill 89 (An Act to give greater consideration to the needs of the population in the event of a strike or a lock-out), which would ensure minimum services are maintained in schools and municipalities during strikes.

Last week, Social Solidarity Minister Chantal Rouleau’s office was vandalized and plastered with anti-Bill 89 stickers.

Labour Minister Jean Boulet cancelled a speech at the Montreal Chamber of Commerce in March when over 1,000 union workers showed up to protest the bill. A hotel window was smashed, and a Montreal police (SPVM) officer was assaulted, according to police.

Giguère said the strike issue began before Bill 89 was introduced and that it attempted to correct the problem. He admitted that there are issues with the bill, but that the hostility is out of hand.

“The Quebec government is by no mean hostile to unions,” he said. “It’s unions that have been hostile to Quebec population by going directly into strikes whenever they want to have something, and now we are feeling it.”

‘Fundemental violation’ of rights

Eidlin called Bill 89 a “fundamental violation of Canadians’ constitutional rights.

“The Canadian Supreme Court was very clear on this in 2015 that the right to engage in collective bargaining, the right to join a union, the right to go on strike, are part of Canadians rights to freedom of assembly that are protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” he said.

“With Bill 89 we have essentially an effort to turn back the clock on workers constitutional right to strike. Now this would be in keeping with, like I said, what has become kind of a Canadian tradition of governments ordering workers back to work instead of encouraging collective bargaining and negotiating at the bargaining table.”

The MEI report suggests the bill is needed due to the damage strikes do in the population. In particular, Giguère writes that the education and health and social services were responsible for 89 per cent of the work stoppages in 2023.

“Quebec children felt it in 2023 when they were not able to go to school for many, many days,” said Giguère. “There’s clear impact for financial for the finance of family, but also for the economy of Quebec, and so the Bill 89 is, is not an option. It’s a must right now.”

“There’s a real shift in the union, not only in the number, but that, but as I was saying a bit earlier, also in the rhetoric, and that is very problematic.”