Should the Conservative Party back the striking Air Canada flight attendants? The Hub debates

What’s needed is a fundamental rethinking of Canada’s approach to competition and labour. We must break the stranglehold of corporate monopolies, not just in aviation but across the economy. More competition would mean better service, lower prices, and greater resilience against disruptions like this strike. It would also mean a fairer distribution of economic power, one that doesn’t leave workers fighting for scraps while executives pocket millions. Some will argue that the solution is simply to force workers back to their jobs—to restore order and keep the planes flying. But that misses the point. The real issue isn’t the strike itself; it’s the conditions that made the strike inevitable. If we don’t address the underlying problems—corporate concentration, weak labour protections, and a lack of consumer choice, real wage stagnation —we’ll find ourselves in the same situation again and again. In the end, the Air Canada strike is about more than airline employees and their grievances. It’s about the kind of economy we want to live in. Do we want one where a handful of government-protected corporations dominate critical industries, where workers have little power, and where consumers pay the price? Or do we want an economy that prioritizes competition, fairness, and a kind of prosperity that leads to higher real wages without labour disruptions? The answer is obvious. If this strike forces Canadians to confront these questions, then it will have served a purpose far greater than any arbitration ruling ever could. The flight attendants are doing more than withholding their labour—they’re holding up a mirror to our broken economic model that is Laurentian capitalism. It’s time we took a long, hard look. Who’s standing for the Canadians caught in the middle of these strikes?  By Sean Speer, editor-at-large at The Hub The ongoing strike by Air Canada flight attendants has become a litmus test for Canada’s political realignment and the Conservative Party’s growing support among working-class voters. Although the Conservatives’ support for the striking workers must be understood in this broader context, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve made the right choice in this particular case. As I recently wrote at The Hub, successfully navigating the political realignment will require that Conservatives (and conservatives) are able to discern where principle and politics have them championing labour issues and when they should not. The Conservative Party’s growing support among non-professional class workers is well documented. It’s a big reason why the party was able to push its support up to the highest levels since the 1980s in the last election. Building on this progress is clearly a priority for Pierre Poilievre and other senior Conservatives. He even said in an exclusive post-election interview with The Hub that he wants unions to become more active in internal Conservative Party politics. It’s against this backdrop that the Conservatives have come out decidedly in support of the Air Canada flight attendants in their ongoing strike action. Yet it seems like a bad test case. Flight attendants generally earn more than the median earner. They also have more generous benefits and a pension plan. There’s ostensibly a huge demand for jobs at their current level of compensation. And in the latest round of negotiations, Air Canada reportedly offered a 40 percent increase in total benefits over four years. This is not, in other words, a case of working-class injustice. It’s pretty run-of-the-mill union entitlement. The real victims in all this are the thousands of Canadians whose flights and travel plans have been disrupted. It’s awful to think of families who scrimped and saved to take their kids on a summer vacation only for it to be canceled by the union’s obstinate actions. These are the ones that the Conservatives should be speaking out on behalf of. As a party with a self-image of being for aspirants and strivers, it seems odd to cede the interests of ordinary customers to the Carney government. My colleague Rudyard Griffiths rightly draws attention to Air Canada’s poor track record on customer service. Many Canadians understandably have bad feelings towards the company because of its high prices, scheduling issues, and a culture of disregard for passengers. But just because Air Canada sucks, it doesn’t mean that the flight attendants are necessarily in the right. Griffiths also rightly points out that a major source of the problem is the government’s own restrictions on competition in the airline industry. This critique is the sweet spot for a Conservative Party that’s seeking to maintain fidelity to conservative principles and advance the political realignment. The lack of competition in the market is both the reason why Air Canada’s service is poor and the union’s strike is disruptive. In each case, ordinary Canadians are hostage to the company and its workers. As University of Toronto economist Joseph Steinberg has written, the solution is straightforward: open up the market. When consumers can easily substitute for other providers, it creates competitive pressures for both parties. The company has to compete for our business. And the union cannot maximize its leverage over passengers and the rest of the economy to secure better compensation terms. The key point here is that the Conservatives cannot let the realignment project become synonymous with union interests. It has to involve the application of conservative ideas to the issues and needs of working-class voters. In this case, that means contesting government policies that preclude competition and force ordinary consumers to remain hostages to the whims of Air Canada and its union. That’s the lesson of the Air Canada strike. The stranded passengers—the families missing their summer vacations, the grandparents unable to make it to a wedding, the workers grounded on their way to a job—are the real test of whether Conservatives understand what the realignment is ultimately about. It isn’t about siding reflexively with unionized workers or defending entrenched corporate players. It’s about proving that conservatism can speak to the needs of ordinary Canadians caught in the middle. This commentary draws on a Hub podcast. It was edited using AI. Full program here.