The Quebec government tabled a bill that gives it sweeping new powers to curb and limit strikes or lockouts by broadening the notion of essential services and granting the labour minister the power to refer labour disputes to an arbitrator, proposals that critics have derided as nothing less than a direct frontal attack on the constitutional protected right to collective bargaining.
The proposed legislation, lauded by business and decried by the labour movement, will amend Quebec’s Labour Code and introduce a wholly new and untested legal concept in labour relations. It also gives the government the power to adopt a decree to refer a labour conflict to the Administrative Labour Tribunal, and grants the provincial labour minister similar discretionary powers to those used by Ottawa to end work stoppages involving rail, port and postal workers last year.