The image was striking in its symbolism: CUPE national president Mark Hancock standing outside Toronto’s Pearson Airport on Sunday morning, deliberately tearing up a Canada Industrial Relations Board order directing 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants back to work. “We are saying no,” he declared, as picketing workers cheered behind him.
It was theatre, certainly. But it was also something else — a calculated rejection of legal authority.
We’re living in an era where rules and norms are being regularly cast aside by governments and populist leaders, often cheered on by pundits and commentators who agree with the cause. Each successful act of defiance makes the next one easier to justify. Each time someone tears up an order and walks away without consequences, the value of all such orders diminishes. The result is a society where power matters more than process, where might makes right.
It’s also happening against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, including the trade war with the Americans. Shutting down a national airline that has 700 flights and moves about 130,000 people daily could inflict more damage to an already bruised and fragile economy.
This isn’t about taking sides in a labour dispute that has stranded thousands of passengers and cancelled hundreds of flights. Air Canada’s flight attendants have legitimate grievances about wages eroded by inflation and unpaid work when the planes aren’t in motion. The company’s position on compensation and working conditions is certainly open to scrutiny. Even the government’s decision to invoke Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code — sending workers back after barely 12 hours on strike — can be fairly questioned as heavy-handed intervention that tilts the playing field toward employers.
But there is a bigger principle at stake: the rule of law in workplace relations. When unions openly defy legal orders, they don’t just challenge specific policies. They also undermine the framework that makes business planning and labour relations predictable.
Such defiance is relatively rare in Canadian labour relations, making CUPE’s stance all the more significant. One of the more notable cases dates back five decades, in 1978, when postal workers refused to comply with back-to-work legislation. Their union president, Jean-Claude Parrot, spent three months in jail for contempt of Parliament.
Labour relations, like any complex system, depend on shared acceptance of established rules and processes. When parties can simply ignore legal directives they dislike, the entire structure begins to fracture. Today it’s a union defying a back-to-work order. Tomorrow it might be an employer ignoring safety directives or refusing to recognize certification results.
Uncertainty ripples outwards
For employers, this erosion creates a particularly challenging environment. How do you plan operations when such orders can be treated as suggestions? How do you budget for labour costs when the mechanisms designed to resolve disputes become optional? The uncertainty ripples outward, affecting everything from supply chain planning to investor confidence.
The irony is that CUPE’s defiance may actually weaken labour’s long-term position. Public sympathy for workers’ causes tends to evaporate when unions are seen as operating outside the law. More fundamentally, if legal processes lose their binding authority, employers will have less incentive to engage in good-faith bargaining. Why negotiate seriously if the other side might simply walk away from any unfavourable ruling and ignore it outright?
This isn’t to suggest that unjust laws should never be challenged. Civil disobedience has its time and place when fundamental rights are at stake. But there’s a crucial difference between strategic non-compliance as part of a broader movement for change and tactical defiance designed to gain leverage in a specific dispute.
CUPE argues the CIRB order is “unconstitutional” and points to a potential conflict of interest involving the board’s chair, who previously worked as Air Canada’s legal counsel. These allegations deserve examination — in court, through proper appeals processes, not through street theatre and symbolic paper-shredding.
Does Ottawa interfere too much? Maybe
The union also claims the government’s repeated use of Section 107 has made collective bargaining meaningless, since employers know Ottawa will intervene on their behalf in critical industries. There’s merit to this criticism. The Liberal government has indeed turned to this provision repeatedly, sending workers back to their jobs at ports, rail yards, and Canada Post. Each intervention does set a precedent that may embolden employers to bargain less seriously.
But the solution to problematic laws isn’t to ignore them. It’s to change them through democratic processes, court challenges, and political pressure. When unions choose defiance over due process, they abandon the moral high ground.
Each successful act of defiance makes the next one easier to justify. Each time someone tears up a legal order and walks away without consequences, the value of all such orders diminishes. The result is a society where power matters more than process, where might makes right.
As Air Canada passengers sat stranded in airports Sunday afternoon, watching their flights disappear from departure boards, they weren’t witnessing just another labour dispute. They were watching what happens when the rules that govern workplace relations become suggestions rather than requirements. The torn paper scattered at Hancock’s feet may have been just one legal order, and great theatre, but the precedent it represents doesn’t serve anyone’s long-term interests.
