John Ivison: Carney throws the NDP a lifeline with his new labour bill

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There are signs of life in the NDP. The party’s support has crept up on cat’s paws since the last election, reaching double digits in some national polls in recent weeks.

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New(ish) NDP Leader Avi Lewis looked like a man recalled to life as he held a press conference on Parliament Hill on Tuesday, flanked by a number of Canadian union leaders. It was just like old times for the NDP, which was shut out of Ontario in the last election, losing seats in union-heavy towns such as Hamilton, Windsor and London.

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Lewis has taken the party further left than many of its traditional supporters feel comfortable with, taking hardline positions against Zionism, fossil fuel development and free enterprise.

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But on Bill C-39, he is on solid ground for progressives.

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“I understand there’s a little Carney-mania going on in the world,” Lewis told reporters. “People are very enamoured of the prime minister internationally and here in Canada. (But) we’re trusting this man with massive changes that will accelerate projects at the cost of Indigenous rights, at the cost of the environment, and at the cost of protections for workers, including the fundamental right to strike.”

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Prime Minister Mark Carney described C-39 as “the most consequential economic legislation” of this session.

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It will give Canada “the tools it needs to build more, better and more efficiently,” said Transport Minister Steve MacKinnon.

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It is split into three parts and amends at least 17 existing acts.

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Part one concerns regulatory changes that “modernize, simplify and reduce duplication” in the approvals process, and “provide certainty to those deploying capital, while maintaining strong environmental protections.” The goal is to provide proposed projects with one impact assessment that takes one year.

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Part two concerns integrating transportation routes and making airports, ports and railyards more efficient.

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Part three is the most controversial and provides new rules around the right to strike. The government argues that it “raises the threshold” on its ability to end strikes using Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, the federal back-to-work legislation.

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In the most intractable disputes, the new bill directs the minister to appoint a special mediator, who is obliged to submit a public report to the minister if no agreement can be reached between the two sides. The minister can then direct the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order binding arbitration, if the strike is deemed to be having an adverse national impact. The minister is the sole arbiter of what constitutes the “national interest.”

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The Liberals have introduced these measures in the full knowledge that they will be controversial with progressives, including inside their own party.

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The Conservatives have been silent on the substance of the bill thus far, in the full knowledge that many, perhaps most, of their supporters back measures to simplify the approvals process and reduce days lost to strikes.