Ontario Nurses' Association launching constitutional challenge over lack of right to strike | CBC News

"For decades, [the law] has stripped Ontario nurses and health-care professionals of fundamental constitutional rights and has created a system where employers routinely sidestep meaningful collective bargaining. Instead, employers have relied on arbitrators to impose contracts that reinforce the status quo and consistently fail to address critical systemic issues like equal wages and understaffing."

"This notion that strikes are dangerous or unsustainable or impossible without compromising patient care is just not true, because there are many other models that work and allow job action for health-care workers."

"Ontario is an anomaly. There are many other models that allow some form of strike action in most other jurisdictions in Canada and across the world."

"Patients do not choose when they need care, and hospitals must always be there for them. Any action that opens the door t"

The Ontario Nurses' Association is launching a constitutional challenge to the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act, which bars any form of job action during bargaining. Nurses say the law is among the most restrictive in Canada and removes fundamental constitutional rights, allowing employers to avoid meaningful collective bargaining. Nurses argue that arbitrators impose contracts that reinforce the status quo and fail to address systemic issues such as equal wages and understaffing. The association says essential care can be maintained while nurses engage in job action and points to other jurisdictions that allow some strike action. The Ontario Hospital Association calls the challenge reckless and says legislation protects patients from unnecessary risk.

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