OTTAWA—Prime Minister Mark Carney said his government had no choice but to impose binding arbitration on Air Canada flight attendants this weekend because negotiations were not ending the dispute.
“It was the judgment of both the union and the company that they were at an impasse. That’s not my judgment. It’s their judgment,” the prime minister said ahead of a meeting with Premier Doug Ford on Monday morning.
Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu stepped into the dispute Saturday with an order calling on the industrial relations board to end the strike and impose binding arbitration on Air Canada and CUPE, the flight attendants’ union.
Air Canada attempted to resume flights on Sunday evening, but flight attendants have so far refused to return to work and the industrial relations board declared the strike illegal Monday.
Carney said the labour dispute was too big a disruption for the government to ignore.
“We are in a situation where there’s literally hundreds of thousands of Canadians and visitors to our country that are being disrupted by this action,” he said. “I urge both parties to resolve this as quickly as possible.”
