THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, November 19, 2025
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met with videoconference this day at 6:45 p.m. [ET] to examine and report on maintenance of activities or essential services in the federally regulated rail and marine sectors in the case of labour disruptions.
Senator Larry W. Smith (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: My name is Larry Smith. I’m a senator from Quebec and chair of the committee. I would like to ask my colleagues to introduce themselves, starting on my left.
Senator Simons: Senator Paula Simons, Alberta, and I come from Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Wilson: Senator Duncan Wilson, British Columbia.
Senator Mohamed: Farah Mohamed, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: René Cormier from New Brunswick.
Senator Arnold: Dawn Arnold from New Brunswick.
Senator Quinn: Jim Quinn from New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Lewis: Todd Lewis, Saskatchewan.
[Translation]
Senator Aucoin: Réjean Aucoin from Nova Scotia.
[English]
Senator Dasko: Donna Dasko, Ontario.
The Chair: Thank you, colleagues. I would like to welcome everyone with us today as well as those listening to us online on the Senate’s website, sencanada.ca. We are meeting today to continue our study on the maintenance of transport services in the case of labour disruptions.
I would like to now introduce our first panel. From the Canadian Fuels Association, we welcome David Schick, Vice‑President for Western Canada, Innovation and Regulatory Affairs. And from the Canadian Propane Association, we welcome live, online, Katie Kachur, Vice-President, Government Relations, West. Thank you both for joining us today.
Witnesses will provide opening remarks of approximately five minutes, which will be followed by a question-and-answer session with senators. I will now invite Mr. Schick to give his opening remarks.
David Schick, Vice-President, Western Canada, Innovation and Regulatory Affairs, Canadian Fuels Association: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members of the committee and fellow panellists, thank you for the opportunity to speak today on behalf of the refiners and fuel suppliers who have a direct stake in Canada’s rail and port operations.
Canada’s transportation-fuel system depends on an integrated logistics network. Our sector employs approximately 115,000 Canadians, producing about 110 billion litres a year of refined products and more than 5 billion litres a year of biofuels. It also operates around 80 distribution terminals and supplies over 11,500 retail and commercial sites nationwide.
Canadian Fuels Association members account for virtually all petroleum products and nearly 80% of biofuels produced in Canada, operating 16 refineries and 13 facilities that produce biofuels. These fuels are distributed through a mix of pipelines, marine, road and, crucially, rail transport. Our fuels support every sector of our economy from agriculture and mining to tourism and emergency services. Further, our transportation fuel mix is evolving, using more lower-carbon fuels. Producing, distributing and blending these products put even greater strain and demands on our rail and port systems.
When rail and ports operate reliably, refineries receive chemicals, renewable fuels, feedstocks and other inputs on schedule, and finished fuels reach regional terminals and retail sites on time. When reliability degrades, the impacts are immediate and tangible: higher operating costs, inventory shortfalls, regional price pressures and elevated risks to energy security.
Recent stakeholder submissions make three interrelated points that merit the panel’s attention. First, rail is a strategic complement to pipelines. Where pipeline routes are constrained or market signals shift, rail provides essential flexibility for moving crude and refined products between production, refining and consuming regions. Maintaining and improving that rail capability is not optional. It is a strategic necessity for a resilient fuel supply.
Second, port and terminal fluidity matters. Evidence submitted by rail and port stakeholders indicates that port dwell times and terminal congestion have increased in recent years, directly reducing throughput, increasing costs and affecting the reliability of logistics for shippers and suppliers. These delays can translate into localized supply disruptions at a time when consumers and critical services cannot afford interruptions. Bottlenecks at ports limit the reliable transportation of goods critical to our sector and the Canadian economy. Addressing congestion at marine gateways is critical to preserving national supply chain competitiveness.
Third, investment, transparency and coordination are levers that work. Shippers consistently call for targeted capital investments in rail-to-terminal connections and port handling capacity, better data sharing on capacity and congestion metrics and regulatory clarity to ensure interoperability and safety.
In addition, stakeholders ask that any government action be tied to outcomes, demonstrable improvements in throughput, safety performance, emissions reductions and resilience to labour or extreme-weather events.
I respectfully recommend the panel consider the following actions:
Accelerate targeted infrastructure funding for choke points: short-line connectors, terminal expansions and berth/yard upgrades that demonstrably raise throughput.
Mandate and support real-time data sharing among ports, rail carriers, refiners and major shippers so that all parties and regulators can anticipate congestion and reallocate flows proactively.
Incentivize safety and decarbonization upgrades, for example, support for interoperable and enhanced train control as well as for investments that reduce emissions per tonne-kilometre.
Embed contingency planning and labour-management frameworks in port and rail modernization efforts to reduce the risk of disruptive stoppages and ensure continuity of essential fuel flows.
Delivering on these actions will protect Canadians’ access to safe, affordable fuel, preserve jobs and strengthen Canada’s position in global energy and trade networks.
In closing, reliable rail and port operations are not a niche industry concern; they are a national, economic and public-safety priority. These submissions before you make a clear, unified case. Supply security, economic competitiveness and environmental and safety objectives are all best achieved through targeted investments, better coordination and transparent measure of outcomes.
Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Schick.
I will now invite Ms. Kachur to give her opening remarks.
Katie Kachur, Vice-President, Government Relations, West, Canadian Propane Association: Good afternoon, honourable senators. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.
The Canadian Propane Association, or CPA, represents more than 400 companies operating across Canada’s propane value chain, from production to distribution, transportation and equipment manufacturing. Our members work within a supply chain system that depends on uninterrupted and efficient transportation. When that system is disrupted, Canadians feel it immediately.
Propane is a vital energy source for millions of Canadians, powering homes, farms, businesses and fleets nationwide. About 300,000 Canadians rely on propane as their primary energy source to heat their homes. It is used every day in hospitals, long-term care facilities, food-processing plants, greenhouses, manufacturing sites and emergency services.
In rural and remote regions — where natural gas is not available — propane is not optional. It is the primary source of affordable, reliable heat and power. During the winter, losing access to propane is not simply inconvenient; it can become a health and safety crisis within days.
Propane is a made-in-Canada energy that is reliable, versatile and portable. It has low impacts on water, air and land. With the introduction of renewable propane, the industry continues to reduce the carbon intensity of this fuel.
About 75% of all propane produced in Canada is transported by rail. Rail is the backbone of the propane supply chain and, for many regions, the only option. A single propane unit train would require more than 300 trucks to replace, which is not feasible from a safety, cost, labour, logistics or emissions standpoint.
This reliance is especially critical in Eastern Canada, where more than 80% of propane shipments arrive by rail. Nearly half a million Canadians across Quebec and Atlantic Canada depend directly on propane for home heating, hot water and essential daily living.
Marine export terminals on the West Coast also depend entirely on the rail service to access global markets. If rail slows or stops, these exports do too.
Rail disruptions matter year-round, but the fall season is especially critical for agriculture. Farmers require a consistent supply of propane for grain drying, greenhouse production and heating and cooling barns. Interrupted supply at harvest can cause crop losses, food-processing delays and major financial harm to producers.
In the winter, the stakes rise even higher. Propane shortages can put seniors in long-term care at risk, jeopardize hospital operations and compromise the ability of emergency services to respond. These are situations where energy insecurity becomes an immediate and serious danger to public health and safety.
Just-in-time inventories — essential for efficiency — mean even brief disruptions cause shortages.
According to the recent report from the Western Canadian Shippers’ Coalition, between 2023 and 2025, transportation sector work stoppages caused more than $54 billion in losses. A single rail shutdown can cost the economy $1 billion per day, and full recovery can take weeks.
Repeated disruptions signal to the international customers that Canada is not a reliable supplier. In global energy markets, reliability is currency, and Canada is losing trust.
Our members have taken every possible step to mitigate impacts from repeated disruptions. CPA members have maximized inventories wherever possible to minimize impacts on customers, a difficult task when storage capacity is limited and when much of Canada relies on continuous rail movement to replenish supply. But no amount of preparation can fully compensate for prolonged or repeated transportation stoppages. The system simply was not designed to function without rail.
Essential goods, including propane, must continue to move during labour disruptions on transportation networks. Countries around the world have established minimum service levels for critical energy commodities. Canada must do the same.
The repeated disruption of Canada’s supply chain underscores a simple truth: Rail must be recognized as an essential service in a country as vast and climate-challenging as Canada. Propane must be recognized as an essential resource.
In many regions, rail is the only way essential goods and energy reach people. Allowing this critical mode of transportation to continually threaten public security and undermine our international reputation is irresponsible and unsustainable.
As Canada faces geopolitical risks, rising global energy demand and the need to build and modernize our infrastructure, we must strengthen the systems that keep our country functioning. Ensuring reliable access to essential fuels like propane is key to protecting our sovereignty, securing our supply chains, supporting industry and jobs and positioning Canada as a global leader capable of delivering energy with certainty and speed.
Honourable senators, propane is more than a fuel; it is a lifeline for millions of Canadians. It keeps homes warm, secures our food supply, powers essential services and supports Canada’s global competitiveness. Ensuring its reliable transportation is not just an economic issue; it is a matter of public safety, national resilience and international credibility.
Thank you for your attention. I would be pleased to answer any questions.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Kachur.
I wish to advise senators you will each have five minutes for this round. Please let us know by giving us your name if you would like to ask questions.
Senator Dasko: Thank you, witnesses, for being with us today.
In the course of our study, we have been hearing about the importance of the impact of labour descriptions on various industries. We’ve heard about the importance of rail and labour disruptions in rail. To drill down, following the remarks you’ve both made, Ms. Kachur, you have talked in depth about the impact of rail disruptions. What do you think the solutions to this are?
We’ve been studying the Labour Code, in particular section 87.4 with respect to essential services, how those are outlined in the code, and also section 107, the section that permits the government to step in and end the labour disruptions through various mechanisms. We’ve also discussed other aspects of the Labour Code.
I’d like to drill down on the remarks you made and ask you if you are looking to make any changes in these aspects of the Labour Code or any other changes in regulations or legislation you might be looking for to deal with labour disruptions.
Ms. Kachur: From the perspective of the propane sector, our priority is simple: We must continue to receive energy, including home heating fuels, during any labour disruption. Our position is that mechanism is a decision for Parliament, but the outcome of this discussion and future decisions must ensure reliability.
Senator Dasko: Would you recommend to the government that it change any specific aspect of the code or —
Ms. Kachur: We don’t want to weigh in on that. We wanted to talk to you about energy and propane as an essential service and to underscore the impacts of any transportation disruption, which we’ve seen quite a bit of over the last couple years, as I said in my remarks.
Senator Dasko: When you use the term “essential service,” that’s the language of this part of the legislation.
Ms. Kachur: We’d like to see propane classified as an essential service, an essential good. That would be our ask to the committee.
Mr. Schick: We would also see our products and their movement as an essential service for Canadians. I think it’s even more important today, with the trade diversification opportunities and energy security concerns that we have. However, I worked in a refinery for most of my career, and I have a deep respect for the collective bargaining process. We need to find a framework that allows us to respect those rights but not have those rights be unlimited in the context of making sure that our economy stays strong through reliable supply of our energy products.
Senator Dasko: The way the Labour Code is now structured, do you think that you can work within the status quo of regulations and legislation, or would you want to suggest some changes?
Mr. Schick: I’m not an expert on the details of the code, so I can’t speak to the details of that. I would say that it appears that the government having options to act more quickly in times when it’s necessary would be an improvement.
Senator Dasko: Thank you.
Senator Lewis: Thank you for your comments and for appearing before the committee.
We’ve heard from previous witnesses about how during a strike or lockout, there is a period before the actual event occurs where there’s a significant slowdown of products. How does that affect your product specifically? Is it one of the ones that are stopped first or one of the last ones to be affected with the threat of a labour stoppage?
Mr. Schick: We use the rail system in many different ways. We bring in catalysts and other feedstocks. We bring in renewable fuels to be blended. When we hear something is going to happen, there is a quick effort to try to improve inventory to be able to work through the changes or the potential strikes.
We work by committee in our organization, so we garner information from all of our members to try to determine their current status so we can identify where specific problems might occur, and those efforts continue on, looking for alternatives to try to make sure that the fuel supply is not disrupted.
I don’t know that anybody else has spoken to this, but it is actually very stressful on the sector and the industries when strikes occur for all types of shippers and suppliers who feel a real, deep dedication to providing whatever their products are to their customers. The threat of or the implementation of strikes and the concern about the potential of their happening have meaningful impacts to the sector in that regard as well.
Ms. Kachur: I would agree. For the propane sector, the entire system is set up to flow from west to east, from production to distribution. Our inventories run between 7 and 14 days, depending on where the storages are and what the seasonality is. We do our best to keep the inventory levels where we need them to be, depending on the seasonality. For example, right before the August 2025 labour disruption, our members worked hard to make sure inventories were as high as they could be in preparation for a strike.
The one thing I would add to Mr. Schick’s comment is the reputational harm that comes along with this. For example, when propane customers don’t receive their deliveries, they may not be aware of the transportation challenges and the delays that are system-wide. They just know they are not getting their propane deliveries when they need them and when it’s expected. That reputational risk is both domestic and international. We’ve heard from our international customers. They want more Canadian propane. We export a significant amount of propane off the West Coast of B.C. to Asian customers. They want to ensure that we are a reliable supplier, and I don’t know if we have answered that question at this point.
Senator Lewis: With your members, is there much export done?
Mr. Schick: Not really. We export some finished fuels into the American market, but it’s not a primary thing for us. However, when the fuel supply is disrupted, our products are being used to move things around, so the truck system becomes affected. Products are not moving in and out. The railways, obviously, use our fuels as well, so we’re impacted across the supply chain. Our fuels go into the marine vessels as well when there are port disruptions. For us, our fuels are used across the system that is in disruption, and that creates inventory problems and challenges for us in that regard as well.
Senator Lewis: Thank you.
Senator Wilson: In terms of essential services, one of the things that we heard from the railways was that we can’t cherry‑pick cargoes because the network operates as a system, which makes sense to me. I understand that from my previous port experience.
At the same time, it may be a bridge too far for us to say that we’re going to make the entire supply chain an essential service, because that does undermine collective bargaining, and that is something that has been protected by the Supreme Court, with some limitations.
One of the things I’m interested in finding is a creative solution that prevents the disruptions and the reputational damage while still protecting the right to bargain.
After the West Coast ports dispute in 2023, a commission was appointed by Vince Ready and Amanda Rogers, and the Rogers-Ready commission recommended, among other things, that a special mediator be appointed earlier on in the process to participate in the process and help parties come to resolution. This would also give the government a window into the negotiation process.
Currently, my understanding from most folks is there’s a real lack of visibility into what’s actually happening at the table and shedding some light on that might also help to bring these disputes to a conclusion. I’m curious, first, about a recommendation for a special mediator — in terms of both rail and ports, not just ports — and, second, providing a mechanism for greater visibility for industry and the public to see into these negotiations at a certain point in time.
If I can have feedback from both of you on that, that would be great.
Mr. Schick: It makes a lot of sense to me that we respect the individual positions of the different organizations and entities that are involved but that we have a process to bring some clarity and understanding for what those positions are through a mediation process. When the public understands that, I think it can, perhaps, lessen anxiety, because they have a better understanding of what the situation is.
Ms. Kachur: We would agree. I recognize the proposal you brought forward, and I think that makes a lot of sense too. I think transparency is a component that’s missing, as well as speed. Speed in resolving these critical issues is something that has been lacking over the last several disputes.
While, as I hear from Mr. Schick, alongside myself, we’re reluctant to wade into specific labour mechanisms, your proposal, senator, seems to make sense and touches on the key components we were talking about, which is trying to maintain a secure, durable and reliable supply chain with limited or, ideally, no interruptions, with a dispute-resolution mechanism that allows for timely resolution so that the impacts to Canadians are far less than what we have seen.
Senator Wilson: Based on your response, Ms. Kachur, this question is probably more for you. In terms of that time sensitivity, I’m wondering if maybe parties can negotiate freely, as they typically do, for a set period of time, at which point, if they haven’t come to resolution, then somebody like a special mediator is appointed and that visibility into the process kicks in. What would you think of a proposal like that? We’ll say 60 days, just to pick something off the shelf.
Ms. Kachur: Certainty, a timeline that people are aware of and knowing there is going to be a resolution on a final date or timing make a lot of sense and would give the market a lot more certainty, so without understanding further details of that, I think we would support that proposal.
Mr. Schick: I think it’s helpful to have the expectation set in a system, as you were describing, as well, because it may help focus attention to make sure you get to resolution quickly. Because they understand that there are parameters around the timelines, and that could be an effective option for all parties involved.
Senator Simons: Mr. Schick, I was really impressed with what you said in your opening comments about the need to create more capacity and better resiliency within the supply chain. As I was listening to you, I was thinking about all the other things that have affected Canada’s capacity to deliver exports and, indeed, to bring in imports.
We have had rail shut down by fire. We’ve had rail and highway systems shut down by flooding. We’ve had rail systems shut down by political protest. We’ve had shocks to our system caused by the COVID pandemic and by the oscillating tariffs of the Trump regime, which have made it really difficult for people who are exporting to North America to figure out where to send their goods.
I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about — “fragility” is not the right word for it, but our rail system has a lot of inherent reliability problems that go well beyond labour disputes. What would you like to see to make our rail system more resilient so that it could withstand all different kinds of shocks?
Mr. Schick: I think labour disruptions are one piece of the problem. We are highly reliant on rail in Canada for movement of all of our goods. We are a very large country, and there is no other way to move things around in the quantities we need to move them.
I would reflect on the British Columbia floods in 2021, where it was part of the scramble to try to make sure we kept fuel supplied, and what sorts of things we could do there to mitigate that happening in the future. One of the discussions was that the Port of Prince Rupert is unlikely to have the same sort of challenges in any natural disaster as the Port of Vancouver. It is a different rail line across the top. So there would be a targeted investment to be able to have fuel capacity in that market to help support marine transport down into the south coast, for instance.
Looking toward building resilience is also reflecting on the need for us to be clear that our fuel supplies are changing. What we ran into in the B.C. floods is we didn’t run out of gasoline, but we ran out of ethanol, and we had trouble getting that to the market.
Senator Simons: That’s interesting.
Mr. Schick: Then we needed ethanol to have nitrogen on top of it, which moves by rail, to keep that safe.
We are rightfully decarbonizing our economy and doing new things, but we have to be cognizant that there is increased complexity associated with that.
Targeted investments to make sure that there are communications and contingency plans to be able to manage that, I think, are really important because in our sector we were affected by the forest fires in Jasper. It’s the same sort of thing. I must give credit to the National Supply Chain Office, who came out of that B.C. situation, but I think leveraging and understanding the perspectives of others so we can prioritize and make good decisions would be helpful as well.
It is a big topic. I’m sorry.
Senator Simons: We don’t think about this. I had a meeting with the people who run the Port of Prince Rupert a couple of weeks ago, and because I’m from Edmonton, the Port of Prince Rupert is incredibly important to the supply chains back and forth out of northern Alberta. They explained to me that they have a problem in Prince Rupert that the plumbing in the town is so deficient that they cannot bring in more people to live there, because they don’t have the infrastructure to build out the size of the community to do the kind of port expansion they would like to do. They don’t have places for people to live and to flush.
The vulnerability of our supply chains is based on things that sometimes we just never consider, so I really want to thank you for bringing that to the table to talk about the fact that it isn’t just a question of having better labour relations. It is a question of making sure that every part of the supply chain is able to function at capacity so that we don’t lose an international reputation for reliability.
Mr. Schick: I wholeheartedly agree. I think that we have to be very careful to ensure that our energy is moving around well, because it fuels everything that we do — pardon the pun — but it is also critical that our infrastructure is maintained, recognizing the vulnerabilities and making sure we are adapting and spending money appropriately to make the supply chains resilient to all sorts of different types of challenges. This may not be just reflective in something — as you’ve described — like a labour disruption. It could be anything else that disrupts the supply chains.
What are we going to do as a country to make sure that we are spending the money that we need to spend, because we don’t have unlimited funds, to make sure that our key energy supplies are met? There are other things that are, obviously, just as important as well. I think that it is fundamental to the success of our economy that we start spending more time and making sure that we are smart about that.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much.
Ms. Kachur: Just to amplify, senator, what you just said, the Port of Prince Rupert is where the two Canadian propane export terminals are located, so it is an incredibly important port from a propane perspective.
To echo the comments about creating a durable and reliable supply chain, it is all modes in all directions. To your point, Canadians are incredibly vulnerable to impacts from any of those pieces, so appropriate investment is really to the benefit of both our sectors and the country.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Senator Aucoin: The discussion and your answers are very interesting. You say that the supply chain is important from one end to the other, we need to make sure the infrastructure is up to par and we need to make the appropriate investments. I liked Senator Wilson’s questions. I have questions about sections 87.4 and 87.7. If I understand correctly, you don’t want to hold discussions or intervene when it comes to changing the law. When there is a strike, are you consulted as to whether your fuels and propane are an essential good or energy, like grain, for example? Under the law, only the union and the employer can hold discussions. There is no obligation to consult you.
[English]
Mr. Schick: It is an important comment. I think we, in the case of our business, try to keep Natural Resources Canada up to speed on where there are vulnerabilities when there is a disruption. We work with the bureaucracy to try to make sure that there is an understanding of where there are vulnerabilities in the market and where there are shortages of supplies because inventories have been drawn down, and I think it would be the same for others. We are not involved in those conversations, but we try to share with government where we see challenges that could occur. It’s important for that communication to occur to understand where the ramifications may be on the consumer and on our economy.
The Chair: Ms. Kachur, a comment?
Ms. Kachur: I would agree. We have seen propane classified as an essential good by both Ontario and Quebec in the early days of COVID. The provinces declared that the production, procurement, transmission and distribution of energy, inclusive, were essential activities.
If and when we do see potential disruptions — predictable disruptions — to the supply chain, I think what Mr. Schick and I are asking for is to classify energy as an essential good, as you said, the same way grain is. Because at this point, there is no mechanism for us to do so, and current discussions have not proceeded in the way we had hoped with the Class I carriers.
[Translation]
Senator Aucoin: You answered my second question about section 87.7, under which grain is an essential good, since the wording of the Canada Labour Code says that health and safety must be ensured. However, if I understand your argument, if propane is identified as an essential energy like other fuels, then the supply chain can move forward. Do you have any comments about that, Mr. Schick?
[English]
Mr. Schick: I’m not familiar with the particular code numbers, but we would agree that now, with all the changes in our economy — climate change implications, forest fires, all of these things — our products are essential. I should also mention that we work closely with the Canadian Propane Association, and we understand each other’s perspectives. We agree about propane’s importance as well. Any energy that Canadians use on a daily basis in support of their daily lives is an essential service to which we can’t have substantial disruptions, because we don’t have an unlimited capacity to adapt.
Senator Aucoin: Thank you.
Senator Arnold: Thank you both for being with us here tonight. We have heard that this is stressful. I don’t know if anyone says, “I feel the stress of some of the labour negotiations that are coming up,” but we have heard from almost every witness that what they provide is essential, that there are no alternatives and that there are national-level consequences.
What we are trying to determine is how we can come up with solutions for this. Senator Duncan was talking about the special mediator; that’s one thing. I was having a conversation with Senator Robinson today, and she was talking about propane and its impact on chickens. It heats and cools the barns. If they don’t have the propane for a certain number of hours, a lot of chickens will die.
Everyone can make these cases, but we need to find a way to come up with some solutions that still respect the fact there is a constitutional right to collective bargaining and that sort of thing.
Mr. Schick, at the very beginning, you talked about some actions that you would like to see. You were talking about supply security and better coordination of outcomes. Communications keeps coming up over and over in the context of this. People are not talking to each other to tell the story of what the gross implications of these things are in our communities. My question to you is this: Of those things you would like to see in the future, would any of them help with labour relations? Are there things that would make labour relations better?
Mr. Schick: I would reflect on the B.C. floods situation. I made the comment that energy is the most important thing because if we don’t have energy, we cannot move anything around. Then I began to learn from other parties about products that I had never considered that are equally or more important than energy. One is chlorine for drinking water. Somebody mentioned animal feed for cattle. If that’s not available within a few days, you will have tremendous problems.
I’m reinforcing your comment that communication and transparency are where the challenges lie. I was surprised by those conversations facilitated by the government at Transport Canada how much respect there was for people’s positions once they understood how things were impacting them when everybody thinks their products are the most important.
I appreciate the challenges you have in trying to come up with solutions when everybody says that their issues are the most important thing for them. That gets to a framework that allows governments at some point — I’m not going to comment on when that is — to take action quickly so that we don’t get into situations where we are having long-lasting impacts on the economy.
The Chair: Ms. Kachur?
Ms. Kachur: I would agree with what Mr. Schick just said. We both have provided a potential solution or option for the group to consider. The current language in the Canada Labour Code focuses on threats to public health and safety and security, but does not consider the economic impacts. Our comments today are intended to reflect that economic impacts are just as essential and should be considered alongside public health, safety and security considerations under the Labour Code language.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Quinn: Thank you, witnesses, for being here. Ms. Kachur, thank you for your last comment. Both of you said that you were not going to get into the regulations, but you are doing just that now. From what I heard, you would support adding to “. . . the safety or health of the public” a clause such as “. . . or the economic security of Canada and Canadians . . .” or something like that. That’s what I thought I heard you say, but I need to hear whether you agree with that or not — for the record.
Ms. Kachur: Yes. I apologize if I didn’t make that clearer earlier. We don’t have a purview to talk about negotiations, unions, the right to representation and strike. But to answer the question directly, yes, we think the economic criteria should be considered in the Labour Code language, specifically for the energy sector.
Senator Quinn: Thank you. Mr. Schick, would you agree with that as well?
Mr. Schick: I would. When it comes to energy — and specifically, that’s what we know — I would argue that health and public safety are necessary to make sure that we have the energy getting to the places that need transportation fuel.
Senator Quinn: Should economic considerations feed in?
Mr. Schick: The economic considerations lead to public and health safety.
Senator Quinn: I just want to keep moving. Would either of you suggest that if there is a railway strike, trucks are an option for moving your products around the country in a way that would keep the supply at the levels required?
Mr. Schick: No, not on the scale we need them to be.
Ms. Kachur: I agree. We don’t have enough trucks or enough drivers.
Senator Quinn: The reason I ask that is because we have some cases that one can review in which the Canada Industrial Relations Board, or CIRB, made commentary that an alternative option during strike situations is trucks. That leads me to think that what we need to suggest is that the CIRB should consult experts so that the CIRB clearly understands the implications of some of the commentary they may put forward for alternate methods for moving things through the supply chain.
As a supply chain guy myself, some of the things that I’ve read about, decisions coming from CIRB don’t make sense. Do you think that having expertise at the CIRB so that they can query in areas in which they may not have the expertise would help guide them to a better conclusion?
Ms. Kachur: I can quote the President of the Canadian Trucking Alliance during the last strike. He publicly said that there are not enough trucks or enough drivers to make a dent in what we need to do to make up for the rail service disruption.
Senator Quinn: Would the CIRB benefit from having experts from the industry provide input so they could make better-informed decisions?
Ms. Kachur: Absolutely.
Senator Quinn: Being from Atlantic Canada, I’m interested in propane and the supply chain that brings propane to the Maritimes. My understanding is that it originates in Sarnia, and it arrives in the Maritimes, but there is a limited storage capacity, and that capacity is used up very quickly, and there is no propane.
Ms. Kachur: That is correct.
Senator Quinn: Is that an accurate understanding?
Ms. Kachur: Yes. That’s the correct classification.
Senator Quinn: So that brings me back to section 87.4 of the Labour Code. I know you said you don’t want to touch that, but I’m going to pursue it. It says here, “. . . to prevent an immediate and serious danger to the safety or health of the public.” Should the word “immediate” be dropped to give the CIRB greater flexibility in understanding that it may not be right now, within the next hour. I ask because that seems to be inhibiting their flexibility to see what is essential and what it means to be a “danger to the safety or health of the public,” as well as to the economy, as we have talked about. Do you think the word “immediate” should be dropped from that particular section 87.4, which I’m sure you are familiar with?
Ms. Kachur: You raise an important point because “immediate” means different things to different products, as Mr. Schick just pointed out. As I have learned, along the supply chain, some products cannot sit in the tanks or in the rail storage for an extended period of time the way that other products can.
Senator Quinn: Do you agree with dropping the word “immediate”?
Ms. Kachur: Yes, that is an interesting consideration.
Mr. Schick: I do.
Senator Mohamed: My issue is around the same time. If you think about all the things we have to balance, it is a delicate balance between the right to strike, the need to keep the economy moving, protecting our international reputation more now than ever before, ministerial discretion and the conversation we’ve had over the last few weeks, which was the safeguarding of the goods because of the impact of goods sitting there and what happens to them.
I find myself thinking about this in terms of the fact that you have the pre-strike period, and then you have the period all the way through to a resolution. At some point, different things are going to be used. It might be ministerial discretion; it may be a back-to-work order. But the issue of time here is one that we hear almost from every person who has appeared.
I’m just curious, from your point of view, what is the ideal time to make sure you’ve balanced all of those interests? I don’t know if you can answer that, but I’m new to this committee, new to this issue. And the issue of immediacy, if you dropped that, you still have to worry about time. How long is too long, and how little is too little to make sure you balance that?
Is there a threshold that it can’t go above this amount of cost? Is it a threshold of “We can’t go past X number of days”? How do we set the system up so that everyone understands this is the period of time we’re going to work within to try and resolve this? It doesn’t take away the right to strike. It doesn’t take away the concern over the economy. I wonder if both of you can be as specific as possible in trying to help me understand that part of the dynamic.
Mr. Schick: I would say that is product-specific almost and what the inventories are and those sorts of things. So it’s difficult to lay out a time frame. For some products, a week is a long time. In some of our refinery inventory situations, a week or two is about as long as we can go, so I can reflect on that. For others it may be even shorter. I understood from previous experience that chlorine in some cases only has three or four days of supply, so we need to have that there. So it’s difficult to come up with a temporal sort of generality, in my view.
I do think that one of the problems is our labour approaches around brinkmanship, right? It always pushes it right to the end, and that is a problematic viewpoint because you’re always working to just before a crisis.
I don’t know that anybody can come up with a solution that doesn’t help with that. As both sides try to gain the optimal solution, they’re working to the end. That’s problematic in terms of the challenges that we’re hearing. A framework that established a time around how much there is before there is an expected action to take place makes sense to me.
Ms. Kachur: To add to what Mr. Schick was saying, I agree. It’s difficult to wrap your head around. That report I referenced earlier from the Western Canadian Shippers’ Coalition, they tried to address this from an economic-indicators-of-threshold level. The three ideas they came up with that you can wrap your head around a little bit is the percentage of GDP impacted if you amalgamate all the goods impacted, the value of goods impacted in terms of a dollar figure and the number of dependent industries affected. Those are three indicators that we’ve talked about as a commodity group in the last little while, to answer your question, because we’ve been talking about the same thing. How do you indicate the emergent threshold? How do you measure the urgency? I hope that is helpful.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: Since the beginning of our study, some things have kept coming up: the need for a balance between businesses and workers, the need to determine what essential services are and the need to determine when the government will intervene. There’s also a question as to when the appropriate time is to bring in a mediator. How do we determine when it is necessary to bring in an arbitrator?
I’ll give you a scenario. You’re both contractors and we’re employees. You want the company to work as well as possible and you want to avoid labour disputes as far as possible, since we all agree that this is important for all Canadians. What will you tell your employees at the outset? What values will you articulate? What bases for the working relationship will you articulate?
This may be a philosophical question, but we’re trying to understand the source that leads to a labour dispute. I’m not sure that this will lead us to change the Canada Labour Code, but it may help us better understand. Could you give me three values or three priorities that you would pass on to your employees right off the bat?
[English]
Mr. Schick: When we are speaking to employees, it is clear to make them understand the broader picture around what the implications are of a strike to take place is something that I would do. It comes from having a good relationship with your employees in the first place. If it’s confrontational as a baseline, it becomes difficult to do that because there is no trust between the two.
As an employer, where you express the criticality and why their jobs are tied to the success of this over time and how the country’s success is reliant on them, and emphasize the recognition of their importance in those roles in supporting the country — I don’t know that necessarily labour conversations start with that, and I don’t know how much it would help — it’s really working toward building trust that would be a necessary conversation to avoid the level of conflict that we sometimes see.
Ms. Kachur: Mr. Schick raises good points. In my assessment of the potential challenges between an employer and employee, it often comes down to three points: balancing workers’ rights with the economic necessity, ensuring fair compensation and preventing the abuse of the essential service designation. To me, those would be the three talking points between the employee and the employer, and it’s a balance of all three of those points, isn’t it? Because we have a duopoly in terms of the rail system here in Canada. So what impacts one, impacts the other. I’ve had both CPKC and CN say to me that what happens to one railway affects the other because there are only two.
As Mr. Schick said, it is really a balancing of that conversation in the broader national context. It’s not an easy question to answer. That’s why we’re here today. But those are the three sticking points or the three points that have come up in negotiations over the last couple of years. I think there needs to be better clarity and communication on it, as was pointed out earlier.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: Thank you.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: The Government of Quebec has passed new legislation on essential services by adding the well‑being of the population criterion. We didn’t go as far in what concerns us here, that is to say the issue of economic hardship, which is what some would like us to include in our legislation. However, we talked about the well-being of the population. For Quebec, which has always had unions and has the highest number of strikes in Canada, this is a small revolution, and it changes the balance of power in conflicts like the public transit dispute we just saw. However, it’s essentially a balance of power that goes beyond values. Rail and port employees have an extraordinary balance of power, because they don’t hurt their employer the most, they hurt all the businesses that depend on that system.
I’m trying to get some clarity, because we’ve had several witnesses come to us and say that they consider what they provide to be an essential service, but by definition, if they all consider themselves essential services, then that won’t mean anything. So that’s not necessarily the way to go to find a solution. There’s potash, grain, meat and fuel. I understand that all of those are important, so I don’t see how we can find a solution. Therefore, I come back to this idea of compulsory arbitration, which is a much more radical solution. However, I don’t know if that’s what you’re thinking.
I have one last point. When you talked about shedding light on and creating visibility around negotiations, that totally flies in the face of everything the parties always say about negotiations, which is that everything has to remain 100% confidential, because otherwise it won’t work, and all the leaks will be used to undermine negotiations. Now, I’m not saying that you’re not right, but I think it’s quite a novel proposal.
Therefore, I’d like to hear what you have to say about this idea of essential services. You all talk about it, but it seems to me that it’s very difficult to distinguish between what is essential and what isn’t. If all trains are filled with services that are only essential, there won’t be a strike.
It was a long question, I agree.
[English]
Mr. Schick: Without an easy answer. I do think it is a valid point. Not everything is an essential service.
I do appreciate the comment about well-being because I would argue that economic harm does affect the well-being of the population in a significant way. Well-being is a broad but important conversation because when people don’t have the products that they need, then their well-being is affected. It is not an immediate harm, but their well-being is being undermined, and economic harm would have that basis.
Not everything is an essential service all the time, but when you run out of propane in the North because of a labour disruption, that is an essential service, in my view.
I understand the grain folks can’t have things sitting in yards because it spoils, and then that becomes a significant economic harm.
It becomes very situational, and I think that, unfortunately, is always going to be the case with this. Having a broad essential service classification is problematic, but understanding when things become an essential service needs to have more depth to it, understanding that for different things.
Ms. Kachur: To pick up on Mr. Schick’s point, I agree with what you said. We need that economic consideration alongside the public health, safety and security language that’s already in the code.
The last piece I would emphasize is that the transportation options in Canada — I can speak specifically for fuels, but I can garner a guess for others — are very limited. To the earlier question, if there are rail disruptions, there are not enough trucks to transport what we need to go where. The same can be said for pipelines and ships.
The overall piece is our supply chain is so fragile that any interruption has an immediate consequence. To your point, everything is essential because everything stops moving. There are no other alternatives.
I’m underscoring the point that we need uninterrupted service. When you only have two rail carriers, to use rail as an example, any downtime, any interruptions cause immediate harm.
How do you get around that question? My answer is that any interruption causes immediate harm, so interruptions cannot continue to be a part of the Canadian landscape on any transportation mode in any direction.
The Chair: We have come to the end of our first panel. I’d like to thank you for your participation with us. Your points were very informative, and we thank you.
If there is anything that you want to put in writing on any of the issues that were brought up in terms of the supply chain, in terms of relationships with the unions and the employers, if you could send it by December 3, we would appreciate that. All the topics are important and urgent, but if you could send us something back, any form of a summary, we would appreciate it.
[Translation]
Now, let me introduce our next witness. From the Canada Industrial Relations Board, we have Chairperson Maryse Tremblay.
[English]
Thank you for joining us today. Ms. Tremblay is here to speak about the work of the tribunal but has indicated in a letter that we sent out to all committee members that she will only be able to provide general information on CIRB procedures and case inventory. Senators should be aware of that and keep it in mind in terms of their questions.
Ms. Tremblay will provide opening remarks of five minutes, which will be followed by a question-and-answer session with senators.
[Translation]
I’d now like to invite Ms. Tremblay to deliver her opening remarks.
[English]
Maryse Tremblay, Chairperson, Canada Industrial Relations Board: Good evening and thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable senators, for the invitation to appear before this committee in respect of your study on the maintenance of activities in the federally regulated rail and marine sectors in the case of labour disruptions.
As we indicated in our letter to the committee clerk of November 10, which was mentioned by Mr. Chair, the Canada Industrial Relations Board — the board — is an independent, quasi-judicial tribunal. The board’s adjudicative mandate is to interpret and apply the Canada Labour Code. We also have under our jurisdiction the Status of the Artist Act and the Wage Earner Protection Program Act.
The board is commonly referred to as the federal labour tribunal.
In respect of all disputes that come before the board, mediation assistance is offered through the board’s mediators to help parties attempt to reach a settlement. When disputes cannot be resolved through mediation or negotiation, the board’s decision makers — we often refer to them as administrative judges — are responsible for adjudicating disputes. The board is composed of me, eight full-time and two part-time vice-chairs, as well as four full-time and two part-time representative members.
The panels assigned to hear and decide cases are made up of a vice-chair or the chair and two members, so that’s a panel of three, or a vice-chair or the chair sitting alone. Members do not sit alone to decide disputes.
The code comprises four distinct statutory regimes. We have Part I, which I believe you’re familiar with, which governs labour relations; Part II, which deals with occupational health and safety; Part III, which concerns minimum labour standards; and Part IV, which deals with administrative monetary penalties.
Bill C-58, which came into force on June 20, 2025, modified the procedure under Part I of the code for the determination of the services that need to be maintained in the event of a lawful strike or lockout. These are commonly referred to, as you know, as essential services. The changes to the maintenance of activities regime did not modify the legislative criteria used to determine what constitutes an essential service. Bill C-58 also introduced, as you know, a prohibition against the use of replacement workers.
It’s important to understand that the board interprets and applies to the code in the context of a specific application or specific complaints submitted to it. Given its nature as an independent, quasi-judicial tribunal, the board must exercise its powers free from any external influence and cannot provide opinions on matters or issues that can be raised in the context of applications or complaints before it.
Therefore, as alluded to, my comments before this committee will be limited and respectful of the reality of the board’s adjudicative role and the neutrality associated with that role. I will, therefore, refrain from providing views on the substantive issues that are the subject of the committee’s important study under its order of reference, as those topics fall within the scope of matters that have been, are or can be in the future the subject of adjudicative matters before the board.
[Translation]
The role of the board is to apply and interpret its enabling legislation, as passed by Parliament. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on policy issues raised in discussions before this committee, such as whether the criterion on maintaining operations in the code should be amended or expanded, or whether changes to the current legal framework for resolving labour disputes should be adopted for certain industries.
For the same reasons, my remarks will also not address policy considerations underlying the code.
The order of reference refers to the use of section 107 of the code. The use of section 107 has resulted in the Minister giving directions to the board several times over the past two years. For the same reasons, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the Minister’s use of the powers under this provision.
That said, to help the committee, we have found some information that might be useful to you. We have prepared tables and provided you with a document. One of the tables includes a list of the board’s decisions in the past two years, 2024 and 2025, in relation to Minister’s directions issued to the board under section 107 of the code. You will find references there. We hope that the list will be useful to you, at least as a quick reference guide to the board’s decisions.
Similarly, with respect to the interpretation and application of section 87.4 of the code, which you have referred to several times this evening, to facilitate consultation, we’ve prepared a table that includes a list of decisions made by the board since the provision was adopted in 1999.
As discussed at previous meetings of this committee, the criterion under the code for determining whether an activity is essential under subsection 87.4(1) is whether the supply of services, operation of facilities or production of goods is necessary “to prevent an immediate and serious danger to the safety or health of the public.” In the decisions, the board concluded that this criterion was restrictive and did not include economic hardship or inconvenience to the public. That general observation is clear from the board’s decisions. I won’t go beyond that, but that’s a very clear finding and it comes from the board’s decisions.
In preparing the table regarding decisions made under section 87.4 a few days ago or at the end of last week, we noticed that a new decision had been issued by the board in recent days. I’ll talk about it quickly. It’s not on the list, in case you want to consult it. It will be published very shortly, but it has been shared with the parties. It’s the decision on AltaGas’s LNG operations on Ridley Island. It’s case number 2025 CIRB 1210 and it’s dated November 17. To make things easier, I’d be happy to share a copy of the decision with the committee, if you wish.
Finally, if it may also assist the committee, we have prepared a graph on the volume of cases before the board that relate to section 87.4 of the code. This is the third part of the document. The graph provides an overview of the number of decisions that have fallen under section 87.4 of the code over the past five fiscal years and the current fiscal year, from April 1 of this year until last week. These records also include agreements filed by the parties with the board under subsection 87.4(3), which is now a requirement since the amendments were made last June. This also includes applications filed where there was no agreement between the parties, applications filed by the parties under subsection 87.4(4) and referrals made by the Minister under subsection 87.4(5) of the code.
[English]
On that, thank you kindly for your invitation. I will be pleased to answer questions from the committee within the bounds attached to the board’s quasi-judicial role.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Tremblay. We will start with Senator Dasko, the deputy chair.
Senator Dasko: Thank you, Ms. Tremblay, for being here today. We understand from your letter that you cannot speak about everything, but we still wanted to speak with you, so here we are. We’ll see what we can learn, shall we say.
Maybe I can start with a high-level question. Witnesses have been telling us about their great concerns about labour disruptions, how often this sector has been affected and the economic impacts of the labour disruptions. They have had various solutions to try to deal with it.
You are at the heart of dealing with labour relations. Where do you think we should look for solutions? These disruptions are not good for anybody involved — the companies, the unions and the country. Where do you think we can find solutions to this?
Ms. Tremblay: This is something that goes to the heart of what I will not be able to comment on. However, I can say that I consider the work of the committee to be very important. In terms of the design of the solution — I know you are looking, potentially, at the definition of the concept of “essential services”; you’re looking at the framework for collective bargaining — as much as I can personally have some ideas, in the role that I’m in, it is not something I can comment on. At the end of the day, once Parliament and the Senate approve new legislation, we will be tasked with interpreting it and applying it, so we have to refrain from making comments on the design of it.
Senator Dasko: Do you think anything in the system is working really well that you could comment on? I don’t mean that facetiously.
Ms. Tremblay: When there are improvements possible, we are always tempted to make comments. It is tempting for me to comment, but I will refrain from commenting.
Senator Dasko: On what you think is working?
Ms. Tremblay: Yes, on what is working and what is not. It is part of the analysis for the definition of a potential new design or changes you might be looking at.
At the end of the day, we have to consider that the board is a tribunal, and we speak in our decisions in terms of the substance of what we are seized with. We have to just remain free from any prejudgment, for example, and we decide on the basis of specific cases that are in front of us, based upon specific circumstances in front of us.
Senator Dasko: I’ll try one more question.
From the notes we have been studying, as well as the background material, it appears there have been some concerns about the length of time that the board takes to make decisions. Do you have any comments about the time?
Ms. Tremblay: If I can ask you a question, is it specific to a particular type of cases, or is it a general comment that you are making?
Senator Dasko: We had some notes that suggest that the time lag has been long in some cases.
Ms. Tremblay: It is hard for me to comment without knowing specifically what is being referred to, but as a general comment, I can say that we have limited resources, like many government institutions. That’s when we have time lags, or however people interpret the time that it takes to render decisions — it could be for various reasons. Sometimes, the evidence that needs to be looked at is highly complex. We have a limited number of decision makers and we have a limited number of staff to assist the decision makers, as well.
We do our best to issue the decisions as quickly as we can, with the resources we have, but we do recognize that with more resources, obviously, we would be able to act a little more quickly.
I can also say that in terms of the different types of cases we deal with, we have cases we treat as a priority. For example, if we have an unlawful strike application being filed, an interim relief request made or a section 107 ministerial referral, we have a list of different priority files that we put at the top, and we have to put aside other things we are doing. That’s why I’m asking what kinds of cases are being talked about here. But regardless of what we do in terms of other regular work, if an urgent matter comes up, we have to jump in, just put everything aside and work on the urgent matter that is in front of us.
Senator Dasko: I understand. Thank you.
Senator Wilson: I’m going to go to a process question because I think we’ll be able to get a more in-depth answer.
Just before I get to my process question, I should know the answer to this but I forget: I will not ask for your opinion on the Ready-Rogers report, but one of the recommendations was the appointment of a special mediator. I cannot remember who appoints that special mediator in the recommendation. Was it the CIRB?
Ms. Tremblay: My recollection from the report is that the parties would be engaged in attempting to reach an agreement as to who that person would be. If they were not able to agree, it would be the minister. That’s my recollection. I stand to be corrected, but that’s my recollection.
Senator Wilson: Okay, thank you.
I think it would be a useful exercise for committee members and a refresher for me if you could walk us through the process from the point that a collective agreement expires or negotiations break down. How does the CIRB get involved? How do you get pulled in? What are the steps to the process? What kinds of time frames are involved in that process? Could you walk us through that?
Ms. Tremblay: The CIRB does not get involved in collective bargaining. It’s the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service within the Department of Employment and Social Development Canada, or ESDC, that gets involved.
I’ll explain the process and the bargaining cycle after, but in terms of the division of the types of work, our mediators at the board are responsible to assist the parties in reaching a settlement to the labour disputes that are in front of us. If there is an unfair labour practice complaint, for example, or an unlawful strike application — any kind of proceeding that comes before us — if the parties can resolve those with the assistance of our mediators, it is our mediators who get involved.
In terms of the bargaining cycle to negotiate a collective agreement or the renewal of one, the process starts with the notice to bargain. The parties have the obligation to negotiate, and negotiate in good faith. At any point in time in the process, either party can send a notice of dispute to the Minister of Labour. It is within the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service that I just mentioned. They will appoint a conciliator to assist the parties, but that person is not someone from the CIRB; it is someone from Employment and Social Development Canada.
They will attempt to reach a settlement with the assistance of the conciliator. If that does not work and the conciliator reports that it is at an impasse and the parties have not been able to reach a settlement, then it goes to a cooling-off period of 21 days. After that cooling-off period, the parties can send a strike notice or a lockout notice.
In terms of how essential services fit into this, if the parties actually do have an application for determination of essential services before the board that is pending, then they cannot go on strike or lockout until the matter dealing with essential services has been disposed of by the board.
That’s really, in a nutshell, how the process works. If the parties have not solicited the board’s assistance to determine essential services, the minister can also refer to us the issue of essential services. At times, even if the parties have not called upon us to make that determination, the minister will send us a referral, and we will make a determination. A good example of that is the latest decision I just referred to in AltaGas. That was a ministerial referral under subsection 87.4(5) of the code.
Senator Wilson: With the exception of those situations where you are asked to make a ruling in terms of essential service or some other provision, the other things you listed, basically, the CIRB only gets pulled in after the dispute has materialized, typically, yes?
Ms. Tremblay: Yes. And it also happens that when we are dealing with matters of essential services or other matters related to collective bargaining, our mediators will help the parties reach a collective agreement because they are now in front of us and they have gone through the bargaining cycle. The conciliator’s mandate is completed, and they are before us because of X, Y, Z reason — sometimes an unlawful strike or whatnot — and we will help them try to reach a collective agreement at that point. But it is not part of the regular bargaining cycle that we get pulled in.
Senator Wilson: Thank you.
Senator Lewis: Thank you for your appearance here, and I know you are limited. When you look at the volumes of matters by fiscal year, when is the end of the fiscal year? Is it June to June?
Ms. Tremblay: It’s April 1 to March 30.
Senator Lewis: When we look at 2025-26, the volume has increased significantly.
Ms. Tremblay: That’s right. These are, obviously, only section 87.4 matters. I can explain a little bit to give you an idea of why there is that spike in 2025-26.
As of April 1, what happened, first of all, is with the new legislation and a new mechanism under 87.4, we now have paragraph 87.4(3) that requires parties to file their maintenance of activities agreement with us, which was not the case before. This increases the number of files simply because — and they have to send it to the Minister of Labour as well. They send it to the Minister of Labour and the CIRB, and then we take note of it. The legislation says that once it is filed with the board, it is deemed to be an order of the board at that point. Later on in the process, there is a provision that says that if they go on strike, et cetera, and it needs to be revisited, the board can take a look at it and it could be potentially modified. That’s why there is an increase there. That is part of the reason. There are about 17 of those that we are getting. They are being handled and disposed of pretty quickly because it is just noticing that the agreement was made by the parties.
But the rest of the increase is in the airport world. In Western Canada, there is Paladin, and in Eastern Canada there is Garda. Their collective agreements expired at about the same time. So there are multiple airports in the East and multiple airports in the West that have each individually filed for the determination of the essential services. These cases are being processed, and some of them are being put in abeyance at the request of the parties just because they are in the process of negotiating, and their preference is to focus on bargaining as opposed to essential services. This is the spike. So there are 17, more or less, for Paladin and 19, more or less, for Garda. It gives you an idea of why it is a bit high on that side.
Senator Lewis: You spoke earlier to capacity. Have you been given any more resources to deal with this increase? Is it a big time requirement?
Ms. Tremblay: The answer is yes, in terms of vice-chairs. We have had two new vice-chair positions being created as a result of Bill C-58, and the appointments were all made with replacements in October. We have had four new vice-chairs as of October. We are a total of eight. Before that, we were about six. And we have two part-time vice-chairs as well. So on that front, yes.
But we also have the staff who support us, which is the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada, or ATSSC. It is not part of the CIRB, but it is part of the administrative tribunals support group. Like with any government institution, there are reductions, and there are limitations. This is our challenge. We have to deal with that.
Senator Lewis: Thank you.
Senator Quinn: Thank you for being here tonight. I know you are in a difficult spot and you cannot answer questions that touch cases and things like that, so I don’t want to go near that. But I would like to understand better, when it comes to the question of essential services, who gives you the input. Is it employers and employees?
Ms. Tremblay: I can speak to that.
Senator Quinn: Who gives the advice of, “We believe this is an essential service”? Who does that for you?
Ms. Tremblay: When we receive an application for essential services, whether it be an application or a referral from the minister’s office, the first thing that the board does is to solicit the parties’ representations. As with any case that is actually before the board, we decide cases on the basis of evidence and submissions being presented to us by the parties. In the case of essential services, obviously, the burden is on the parties, but you will see sometimes intervenors who will be different kinds of parties who feel affected by the matter who will be seeking intervenor status before the board. So that happens. That is treated under our regulation and the way we deal with intervenors — obviously there are different criteria that I will not get into. But, yes, we have, in the case of essential services, the parties themselves, mainly, plus sometimes intervenors.
Senator Quinn: And the intervenors are third-party people?
Ms. Tremblay: Yes. In the case of, for example, ministerial referrals, it has happened in the past that parties had agreed that no services were essential. So they didn’t bring it up in front of the board, but the minister has tasked us to look at it and see if it is actually essential. Because the parties themselves had taken the position there were no essential services, the board solicited other — whoever was interested in actually making comments and observations on whether these services are essential and affect them, according to the criteria that we have in the legislation.
Senator Quinn: A couple of my colleagues have said, and you referred to it yourself that you wish you had more resources. I don’t think that’s the first time we have heard that. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, for example, talked about the same thing. But you have limited resources. Do you consult others, like supply chain experts, who are people who have been involved with government-led task forces and things like that? Do you actively seek out that expertise to come and give you input above and beyond that which has been from the participants?
Ms. Tremblay: The board’s role is not to do an inquisition. The board’s role is to receive the submissions from the parties and from whoever, as an intervenor, seeks intervenor status —
Senator Quinn: That’s why I’m asking this question. During these proceedings — and I have read the backgrounds of an impressive board. I say that because there is a lot of law, a lot of conciliators, a lot of mediators, union representatives and people who have worked in union fields. I don’t see a lot of people who have worked in supply chain type of functions. So wouldn’t it be beneficial to have these experts come and provide input to the decision makers so that they have a better-informed decision-making process?
Ms. Tremblay: I’m not sure whom you are referring to in terms of who you would be suggesting be part of the board. I’m not sure I understand your question.
Senator Quinn: I’m not suggesting anything about the makeup of the board. That’s not my decision. I am suggesting that the board may not have all of the expertise. I say that on the basis that, for example, we have heard some thoughts that trucks can replace trains. And those in the supply chain would say that is not even feasibly practical.
Ms. Tremblay: But that’s up to the parties. I don’t get into the decisions. In terms of the procedure that is followed for this kind of tribunal, we are actually deciding on the basis of what the parties are presenting to us. It is not uncommon for a party to bring an expert witness before the board.
Senator Quinn: Let me ask you this, because I used to run a port, and for the makeup of the board, there were different criteria that had to be met for board appointments and whatnot to run a port authority. Some of the criteria ensured that we had a diverse background of people who had some understanding of ports and transportation, on-the-ground type of experience. Should the government consider the mix of skill sets that are on the CIRB board?
Ms. Tremblay: So you are talking about the profile of the decision makers on the board.
Senator Quinn: Right.
Ms. Tremblay: In terms of just a raw answer to that, if you look at our code, there is a provision that sets out that we have to have the labour relations expertise and experience.
Senator Quinn: Could you have a broader mix? Because you have a number of members part-time, full-time. Should there be a broader mix of representation?
Ms. Tremblay: Our members are representatives of unions and representatives of employers, so these are our members.
Senator Quinn: I understand that. There is nobody representing supply chains, for example, in terms of background experience.
Ms. Tremblay: There is no specific requirement in the legislation to represent a particular industry, for example.
Senator Quinn: I’m not saying represent but having had experience so they make better-informed decisions.
Ms. Tremblay: There is no requirement in the legislation for experience in the supply chain, if that’s the question.
Senator Quinn: That helps me better understand some of the decisions that have been made. I have no other questions.
The Chair: You did a good job.
Senator Mohamed: Thank you very much for taking the time to explain the process. It really helps us understand how it works. I have two questions; one you may be able to answer and maybe you will not. The first one is this: Should the board be involved in the process earlier? That’s my process question to you.
Ms. Tremblay: The board is not involved in the bargaining cycle. We are involved if the party alleges the other has bargained in bad faith, for example. Then we will get a complaint that one party has bargained in bad faith, and then we will step in. At that point, sometimes we also assist the parties in resolving their collective agreement. But in terms of whether we should or should not, according to a change in the legislation as it is currently set up, I will refrain from commenting.
Senator Mohamed: I tried to give it a shot.
Second, I’m not that familiar with the language as of yet, but I found this document very helpful. On page 11, there is a chart. It says there are a total of 74: 10 were granted; 7 were dismissed; and 57 were withdrawn. Can you help me understand what falls into the category of withdrawn?
Ms. Tremblay: Sure. Just to explain the overall page — maybe it is going to be more informative — in the left column, these are the applications filed by the parties. On the right side are the referrals from the minister. If you look at the applications on the left side, the withdrawn are all the applications withdrawn by the party that filed the application.
Senator Mohamed: Voluntarily.
Ms. Tremblay: It happens when they have negotiated their collective agreement, they are happy, and they don’t want to spend time dealing with essential services, because it is moot, essentially. That’s when they’re withdrawn. The bulk of them are withdrawn because parties end up negotiating their collective agreement.
On the referral side, it is not indicated “withdrawn”; it is indicated “closed” because a party cannot withdraw a ministerial referral. But it is closed when the parties reach a collective agreement and it is no longer necessary at that point to determine the referral that has been made to us. So the vast majority don’t need to be decided because the parties end up negotiating their collective agreement.
Senator Mohamed: Just out of curiosity — you may not have this data — is there an average number of days it takes for them to find their own way? Are you seeing any trends around that?
Ms. Tremblay: I don’t have that by heart. What we track is the processing time of our applications. But the processing time is sometimes not telling us much in the sense that parties will be asking us to just leave these applications in abeyance. They just want to have it filed — then it actually suspends the right to strike or lockout, for one thing — and they want to have it in abeyance until they want to focus on collective bargaining as opposed to spending days in front of us explaining what is essential and what is not.
We do have the processing time of our applications, but it’s not indicative necessarily of how fast we deal with these matters just because it is not depending on our own control. The parties are sometimes just asking us to leave them alone for a while.
Senator Mohamed: Is it possible to get an idea of the time that it takes? I am trying to figure out how far people will go before they say, “We have to withdraw this, and we’ll figure it out ourselves.” Is it possible to give a breakdown of the number of days it takes so we can see if there is a trend there?
Ms. Tremblay: We can certainly provide statistics. I would have to look to ensure that we have that, but I can see that we would have, in the list of withdrawn applications, for example, the 57, how long it took between the time the application was filed and the date of the withdrawal. We do have that information. How we can compile it, I can find out and submit that to the committee.
Senator Mohamed: That would be great. Thank you.
Senator Simons: This has been tremendously helpful. We have looked at the bar graphs for the different processes. I want to go back to the section 107 chart at the beginning.
There has been a tremendous number of referrals under section 107 in the last year and a bit, and you have provided them from June of 2024 to August of 2025. Before June of 2024, would you get one a year, one every couple of years?
Ms. Tremblay: You will have complete information on that in one of the board’s decisions where we actually describe the history of section 107 in terms of its legislative history and also the use of section 107 over the years. If you have the list of CIRB decisions related to the ministerial referrals, it is page 3. The second box, I guess, CNR and TCRC, do you see in the reasons for decisions, the fourth column?
Senator Simons: Yes.
Ms. Tremblay: The second decision, which is dated October 22, 2024, the reference is “2024 CIRB 1162.”
Senator Simons: I see it.
Ms. Tremblay: At paragraphs 22 to 42 of that decision, there is a summary of the history of section 107: how it came to Parliament, how it was adopted, what it looked like originally. You will see, for example, in 1984, in that provision, the minister was given the power to direct the board to do things and to send referrals to the board. Prior to 1984, the section was there, but the part about the referral to the board did not exist. Those referrals to the board started in 1984, not before. That’s the starting point.
In the same decision, paragraphs 43 to 53, you will see the use of section 107 over the years before 2024. The list that we have provided, pages 3 and 4, gives you the list of decisions in the last two years. But from 1984 to 2024, you will find those referrals all explained and described in that decision.
Senator Simons: But there are not nearly as many, is my point.
Ms. Tremblay: No. There are about 10 of them.
Senator Simons: So 10 in the course of 30 years, and then more than 10 in a year. Obviously, it has picked up the pace.
You have also provided us with a chart showing which ones have sought an application for a judicial review at the Federal Court of Appeal, and you have provided us very nicely with the appeal numbers. Can you tell us which of these, if any, have been heard? How many of them were successfully appealed, or were any of them?
Ms. Tremblay: None of them have been decided yet, so they are all pending before the court. You will have, before the Federal Court of Appeal, the challenges to the board’s decisions that have been implementing the ministerial referrals. Also before the federal court — we have not listed them — there is a series of proceedings challenging the ministerial referrals themselves.
Senator Simons: So it’s a very involved process. In the olden days, people had to go to Parliament, and legislation was passed to order people back to work. Did that also result in a CIRB referral when there were legislated back-to-work orders?
Ms. Tremblay: The CIRB is not typically mentioned in the back-to-work legislation. What we see in back-to-work legislation is the ceasing of the strike plus the imposition of a binding arbitration process. It will set out the mandatory binding arbitration process, but the board is not typically involved.
Senator Simons: But the reliance on section 107 has greatly increased your caseload as well.
Ms. Tremblay: It has increased the workload.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: My questions are somewhat along the same lines as my colleague, namely the issue of time, but in a broader sense. Do you have any data? I imagine you do an analysis after conflicts have been resolved or cases have been dealt with. Do you do an analysis of those cases to more clearly identify and understand the challenges or elements that keep coming back? Do you have any data? We’re trying to better understand the process that leads an employer and employees to enter a labour dispute. Do you have any data on that? Do you not have that kind of analysis?
Ms. Tremblay: No. That’s really not part of our mandate. We’re there to render a decision on the cases submitted to us and to settle the disputes before us, whether through mediation or adjudication. However, the motives or reasons why the parties are at an impasse or in a particular situation are not things that we analyze.
I don’t know what kind of analysis Employment and Social Development Canada does in that area. However, we don’t do that.
Senator Cormier: I’m going to take the liberty of asking a question that’s off topic, because I know you also deal with the Status of the Artist Act. It’s a subject of considerable interest. Do you receive a lot of complaints related to that?
Ms. Tremblay: Very few.
Senator Cormier: Very few cases? How do you explain that?
Ms. Tremblay: I couldn’t tell you, except that I dare to assume that there is a stability that means they don’t need to visit us very often. We have a few cases in progress, but it’s still really rare.
Senator Cormier: Thank you.
Senator Aucoin: Thank you for appearing before the committee, Ms. Tremblay.
I was a part-time member of the Parole Board of Canada for three years. I understand exactly what your role is and why you need to think about your comments before you make them.
I have a question for you. I’ll try to be brief. I’m on page 9 of your document. Of the decisions that have already been made, do you have the number of decisions that have been made in favour of employers as opposed to employees? For example, in 2023 and 2024, there were 22 and 26 cases. Do you have any statistics on this?
Ms. Tremblay: Would you like to know who submitted the applications?
Senator Aucoin: No, rather who won, more or less. In how many cases was the appeal allowed?
Ms. Tremblay: Okay. We haven’t broken down the amount annually, but if you look on the left side of the last page, you will see that 10 of the 74 applications over the past five years have been allowed.
Senator Aucoin: Does that represent the last five years?
Ms. Tremblay: Yes. The last five years and the current year.
Senator Aucoin: How many came from the employer as opposed to the employees?
Ms. Tremblay: We could certainly provide that to the committee. We would just need to go through each application to see who had initially submitted it, but this is information that’s available to us, and we could provide it to the committee if it would be useful to you.
Senator Aucoin: Thank you.
I have a second question. You mentioned that in some cases, you could help the group. Am I correct in saying that when determining whether a service is essential, there is already a strike or lockout in place?
Ms. Tremblay: No. That would be done at the beginning of the process, basically. There are two systems. Most of the cases here were processed under the old system, before the changes on June 20, but there are delays in filing applications. Without going into too much detail, under the old system they were required to send a notice within 15 days of the notice of dispute. After that, they had 15 days to submit their application. So it was done at the beginning of the process. Sometimes collective bargaining had begun, sometimes not quite, but it was at the beginning of the bargaining cycle.
Senator Aucoin: What would be the earliest point in bargaining when you could intervene following a request from the employer, employees, or union?
Ms. Tremblay: Under the current legislation, if the parties cannot reach an agreement, they may submit an application to the board. This is set out in subsection 87.4(4) of the Canada Labour Code. It simply states that if the parties haven’t reached an agreement, the board may decide on an application submitted by the parties. There is no prescribed time limit for that.
Senator Aucoin: When subsection 87.4(4) applies, it may already be late in the bargaining process between the union and the employer. Is that correct?
Ms. Tremblay: Typically, this is done relatively early on, but yes, there are parties who occasionally do not do so. That’s why we receive referrals from the minister asking us to decide on an issue, because the parties have not appealed to the board.
Senator Aucoin: Thank you.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: You’ve piqued my curiosity. Are they referees who work for you? I don’t know what you call them, but I’m talking about the ones who are called upon to make decisions.
Ms. Tremblay: In fact, I’m the chairperson, we have vice-chairs and members. The members are representatives of the union and the employer.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: All right. On that subject, when you have a case, do you ensure that there is a fair and equal representation of members from both the union and employer sides?
Ms. Tremblay: Always. Under the legislation, I have the power and duty to assign cases. We work with benches. They’re called board benches. The board may consist of the chair or vice‑chairs sitting alone, or it can be a panel of three. When there is a three-person bench, it will be either a vice-chair or the chair sitting with two members, or one member from the union side and another from the employer side.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Are members expected to take sides with the union side or the employer so clearly, or is it rather their past that brings them there? In fact, it’s the Canada Labour Code that must be interpreted. How do you see that?
Ms. Tremblay: They are recognized as representing either the employer or the union. When they decide on cases, they do so on the basis of the facts, evidence and arguments presented to them. The response will be based on legislation, our legal constraints and the evidence. Whether they represent the union or the employer, most of the time the response is shaped by legal constraints and the law that must be applied.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Ultimately, is it the vice-chair who makes the decision, or is it someone else?
Ms. Tremblay: All three. All three have the same weight, the same vote, so if one member disagrees with the other two, they can write a dissent. Decisions are made by majority vote, but there can be dissenting opinions.
The board should be very proud of this: It’s rare for there to be any dissenting opinions. Some 20 or 30 years ago, there was much more dissent. The members weren’t representative. They have only been representative on the board since 1999. However, we don’t see many dissenting opinions because the legislation is relatively well defined and case law is well developed. This means that the decisions made by the board are predictable. When this is readily apparent from the evidence and arguments, decision-makers will easily side with the majority. However, there may still be dissenting opinions, even if this doesn’t happen frequently.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I have one last question. Among the vice-chairs or the chair, you all have a past, though. If you need to have experience with the Canada Labour Code, then surely you have represented the union or the employer at some point; everyone knows that.
Ms. Tremblay: Absolutely. It’s public, and that’s why we’re chosen. In fact, it’s stipulated in the legislation: You must have experience and expertise in labour relations to be appointed to the board. This has been the case since 1999. It was informal before, but now it’s codified, because it makes sense that people who have worked in this field should be able to settle disputes.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: There is also the nature of the dispute, as Senator Aucoin mentioned, which is another matter.
Thank you. I’ve tortured you enough.
The Chair: Thank you.
We have come to the end of our meeting. I’d like to thank you for being with us today, Ms. Tremblay. It’s greatly appreciated.
[English]
Before ending the meeting, I wish to thank the entire support team for this committee — those in the front, in the back and behind the scenes — for all the work you do. Thank you for the work that contributes enormously to the success of our work as senators.
(The committee adjourned.)