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CTV News
37 minutes ago
- CTV News
How will the Air Canada strike impact Canada Post negotiations?
Watch Lawyer Lily Coodin discusses how the Air Canada strike could impact what happens during negotiations between Canada Post and postal workers.
CTV News
37 minutes ago
- CTV News
Flight attendants refused a back-to-work order. What does this mean for postal workers?
Lawyer Lily Coodin discusses how the Air Canada strike could impact what happens during negotiations between Canada Post and postal workers. Last week, Air Canada flight attendants refused to comply with a federal return-to-work order, extending a strike long enough to secure a new deal with their airline. Toronto-based labour lawyer Lily Coodin says that could be interesting news to the union representing Canadian postal workers, whose strike was paused late last year by a similar federal mandate. 'I think anyone working in a unionized context, especially Canada Post, is looking closely at what happened with Air Canada,' she told CTV Your Morning in an interview Thursday. 'If you are a union engaged in negotiations right now, you're thinking: 'Is this a tactic I may want to use in the future'?' Flight attendants began striking overnight Saturday after a breakdown in contract negotiations, most prominently over compensation for work done before and after takeoff. The strike, which the airline says grounded hundreds of flights and disrupted travel plans for more than 100,000 passengers, lasted less than a day before the government intervened. Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu announced Saturday afternoon that she was ordering operations to resume under Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, extending the previous collective agreement and arranging binding arbitration to determine a new contract. The flight attendants rejected those orders, continuing to strike under potential threats of fines and imprisonment until they reached a new tentative agreement with Air Canada Tuesday, pending a coming union vote. The government gave a similar order late last year, following a month-long strike by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), but as negotiations with Canada Post drag on, questions have emerged about the legislation that forced them back to the bargaining table in the first place. 'People are wondering: What is the value of Section 107 if a union can say: 'Actually, we don't like that order, and we're not going to comply'?' Coodin said. 'Everyone is taking note, and we will probably see more of this, going forward.' She said that, historically, Section 107 leans toward supporting employers, as it weakens the power of unions to apply pressure through work stoppages. 'If you take away that ability to strike, which is by the way a constitutionally protected right, that is a major tool that the union loses,' Coodin said. 'This tends to be more favourable to the company.' Earlier this week, Canadian Labour Congress president Bea Bruske described the section as 'effectively dead," now that the flight attendants have shown it pays to ignore the order. 'Unions, workers, the labour movement has been emboldened by this and we're not going to turn around,' she told The Canadian Press in an interview Tuesday. In recent months, the CUPW has rejected what Canada Post called its "final offer," though the union has since returned with a new counter offer, and it remains unclear if a resumed strike is on the horizon. With files from The Canadian Press
National Observer
38 minutes ago
- National Observer
BC recreational anglers score a rare chance for sockeye, amid bumper salmon run
British Columbia fishing guide Dean Werk says he was getting calls last week from keen anglers wondering if this would be their year. "Do you think there's going to be a salmon opening, Dean?" Now they have the answer. Amid bumper returns of millions of prized sockeye salmon, Fisheries and Oceans Canada issued a rare notice on Tuesday opening recreational fishing for the species on a stretch of the Fraser River for 11 days, from Friday until Sept. 1. The joint Canada-US Pacific Salmon Commission predicts a sockeye run on the Fraser of 9.6 million fish, which would make it the biggest return since 2018. Anglers can keep two sockeye per day from a non-tidal stretch of the river from the Mission bridge upstream to Hope. Werk, who has spent decades on the river and wears multiple hats on fishing associations and advisory boards, said the recreational opening is something to be celebrated, even if he wishes the window to fish was larger and businesses got more notice. "People are going to go to the river and just go fishing, and that should be a huge win and a celebration, you know? So seeing these salmon runs come back in these numbers really excites me," he said. The last time there was a recreational sockeye opening on the Fraser River was in September of 2022. Sockeye runs are cyclic, with fish usually returning to spawn four years after hatching. There are peaks every four years, which the commission calls the "dominant cycle." The commission says in a report issued last week that the forecast for 9.6 million sockeye this year "is the largest run size observed since 1997" excluding those dominant cycle years. Werk said the opening will provide an economic boost for communities along the river and its tributaries including Chilliwack, Hope and Mission. "You are going to see an influx of people come into these communities and buy up many things, whether it be gas, whether it be a coffee, whether it be a Subway (sandwich), whether it be fishing tackle," he said. But he said the DFO decision should have allowed fishing sooner and increased the bag limit to four fish per person. He said the short notice meant there was not enough time to prepare and advertise the rare opportunity to interested anglers. "Over the last bunch of years, everybody in the world thinks the Fraser River is closed for business. That's what they think because we can't even market to do this when we're having huge runs of fish coming back. It's an imbalance, and the government needs to do better," he said. Earlier this month, representatives of multiple organizations including Werk wrote an open letter to DFO's area director Steve Gotch calling for fishing to be opened. "Opening this fishery immediately would have little if any measurable impact on late run fish, generate between $17 and $31 million in expenditures, increase funding for conservation through licence sales, and most importantly, provide food security by putting locally harvested salmon in British Columbians' freezers," the letter says. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 20, 2025.
