Montreal, March 31, 2026 – After dominating Quebec news in 2025, the reform of the Labor Code aimed at better addressing the public’s needs during strikes or lockouts risks generating much more noise than results, concludes a new study by the Centre on Productivity and Prosperity – Walter J. Somers Foundation (CPP).
Effective as of fall 2025, this reform expands the government’s scope of intervention regarding essential services by creating a parallel framework whose boundaries can be extended by government decree. In the researchers’ view, this law will have limited impact. “By choosing to rely on discretionary government intervention rather than generally applicable mechanisms, the government is missing an opportunity to establish a genuine mechanism for resolving labour disputes in the event of an impasse,” summarizes Robert Gagné, CPP Director and co-author of the study. However, Quebec faces a major structural challenge due to a particularly high concentration of labor disputes in the public sector, which is why it is necessary to effectively modernize the Labor Code.”
