The Conversation: Why Canada needs better data on strikes, unions and other labour issues

As written in The Conversation Canada by Adam King, Assistant Professor of Labour Studies, Faculty of Arts.

In the summer of 2025, the federal government quietly pulled national strike and lockout data from public view. The move followed a complaint from the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN), the second-largest trade union federation in Québec.

The CSN learned that an employer organization was waging an anti-union campaign using flawed data published by Statistics Canada. The data artificially inflated the number of strikes in the province, leading the Montreal Economic Institute to falsely assert that since 2023, 91 per cent of Canadian work stoppages had affected Québec.

On Dec. 16, the corrected data was restored without comment.

Months of missing data made it difficult for employers, unions and researchers to make sense of trends and emerging patterns in Canadian labour relations. Worse yet, the flawed data helped influence a debate and shape public opinion about labour law reform in Québec.

This episode highlights a persistent problem: Canada does a poor job of gathering vital labour relations information. In a period of rising inequality and renewed union-management conflict, stakeholders need better and more accurate data.

Read the full story at The Conversation.