Carney’s moves on labour and environment could create an opening for the opposition

OTTAWA — The Liberals may be riding high in the polls now, but their opponents say Prime Minister Mark Carney’s strategy for boosting growth offers them unexpected opportunities for political gain.

Bill C-39, the “Building Canada Strong Act,” proposes giving the government new powers to fast-track major infrastructure projects and end labour disputes, putting it offside with environmentalists and many union members.

The legislation would enshrine the labour minister’s power to end work stoppages in federally regulated industries. Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu has said the legislation would impose guardrails on that so-called Section 107 power by requiring that the minister first consider a special mediator’s report and determine whether a work stoppage is having a negative effect on the “national interest.”

But the labour movement argues that the “national interest” trigger gives Ottawa too much power to quash strikes.

The NDP has deep ties to Canada’s labour movement, while the Conservatives have been making political inroads among union members for years. Members of both parties say they plan to go to bat for union members as C-39 makes its way through the House of Commons.

“That’s our biggest opportunity,” said Matthew Green, a former Ontario NDP MP who just wrapped a stint as the party’s interim national director.

“And I think that for some of the unions in the labour movement, that traditionally have had to manage their relationship with the Liberal government, they are now directly in their crosshairs and will be forced to fight back.

Green said that while Carney’s government is very popular right now, thanks in large part to Canadians’ anxieties about the U.S. trade war, the prime minister shouldn’t interpret that as “carte blanche and a mandate” to rewrite labour relations.

Green said the NDP would be out “shoulder to shoulder” with striking workers under C-39. CUPE announced last week it will defy the legislation if it passes without amendment.

Kyle Seeback, the Conservative labour critic, said last week he wants to see C-39 studied thoroughly by the House of Commons. While he didn’t come out for or against the bill, he ripped the federal Liberals’ “unprecedented” use of Section 107 of the labour code.

“They’ve made such a mess of labor relations in this country, which is why they had to resort to things like the use of Section 107,” he said. “It’s actually made labour relations worse. If you talk to anyone in the labour movement, the repeated use of Section 107 has made labour relations worse across the country. These are all the things that should be discussed at committee, especially when they’re making changes to the legislation.”

Shachi Kurl, Angus Reid Institute president, said she expects to see rival messaging campaigns from both the NDP and Conservatives as they try to court union voters.

The environmental aspects of C-39, she said, offer a bigger opening to New Democrats than to Conservatives.

The bill proposes creating “national interest” zones where a wide range of projects could be pre-approved. It would shift review authority over pipelines, transmission lines and nuclear projects from the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada to specialized regulators.

Kurl said one Liberal voter in six was offended by the federal government’s agreement with Alberta to work on building a bitumen pipeline to the Pacific coast.

“This has been akin to a glass of ice water to the face. And they are making their displeasure known,” Kurl said, adding those disappointed Liberals aren’t necessarily showing up in the NDP’s column in recent polls.

“That may change, but it’s also up to (NDP Leader) Avi Lewis and the NDP to highlight and make the point that if people are unhappy, they have a better home to find with the federal New Democrats,” she said.

Jordan Leichnitz, a former NDP strategist, said the party should find a way of criticizing the proposed changes that doesn’t simply defend the status quo for project reviews.

“There’s undoubtedly efficiencies to be found that can be found without compromising the reviews and the studies and the things that are necessary to do things like protect our drinking water, or make sure that we’re not irreparably damaging some of these really sensitive ecosystems,” Leichnitz said.

With climate change now fading slightly as a top-of-mind political issue in polling, Leichnitz said the NDP will likely need to focus this message on local and regional issues, like the effect of increased tanker traffic in B.C. on endangered killer whales.

She also cautioned the party will need to pick its targets carefully on the labour side, since the bill does include items union members support, such as measures to prevent wage theft.

Green said New Democrats were approached by “lifelong Liberals” during the summer byelection campaign in the Toronto riding of Beaches—East York who said they were disgusted with the Carney government’s approach to environmental and energy policy.

While the Liberals won that riding with more than 50 per cent of the vote, the NDP share of the vote increased nearly 20 points over the 2025 election.

Green said he now sees room for the NDP to grow its support in the Montreal riding of Laurier—Sainte Marie, where the resignation of former environment minister Steven Guilbeault will trigger a byelection in the near future.

“This is a former minister who has taken, finally, a principled position and stepped down because he himself could not stomach the direction that Mark Carney was taking this Liberal government in,” Green said.

“So we will be very well positioned to capture disaffected Liberals who in the past have held their nose and voted Liberal for a whole host of reasons, but had a promise under Guilbeault of climate justice and climate sensitivity.

“We now know that mask is off.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 29, 2026.

David Baxter, The Canadian Press