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‘Dynacare sucks,’ Manitoba premier says after labour board agrees to halt strike
Posted: September 10, 2026
(September 9, 2026) by: Arturo Change, CBC News
Union says comments don’t align with government’s actions as Tories accuse NDP of hypocrisy
Premier Wab Kinew says the province might consider taking over testing services provided by Dynacare after his NDP government successfully applied to halt a strike by the company’s workers.
Kinew said Wednesday the province might have looked into ending its contract with Dynacare if test results had continued to be interrupted by the now-paused work stoppage.
“Yeah, Dynacare sucks. I’ve got no problem saying that,” he said in an interview with CBC’s Information Radio. “Dynacare should give these workers a raise. Dynacare is making a mess of the situation. They have the whole way through here.”
Hundreds of lab technologists and technicians hit the picket line Tuesday morning after contract negotiations between the company and the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, which represents the lab workers, broke down.
But the action was stopped that same day by a decision from the Manitoba Labour Board, which ordered workers to return to the job until the independent body can rule on whether Dynacare employees are an essential service.
The province applied for the interim order, arguing during a hearing Tuesday a stoppage could have catastrophic consequences for Manitobans who rely on the testing services and for the broader health-care system.
Kinew said Wednesday it’s “absolutely” an essential service, and that the province might look into making the whole system public.
“The situation is not great. This company is making a mess,” he said. “I think it’s pretty clear I’m not happy with them. At the same time, nobody should be trying to use people’s health care as leverage.”
The lab workers’ union accused the province of backing an American-owned company “exploiting front-line health-care professionals instead of supporting those severely underpaid workers.”
It said Tuesday it’s exploring its options to “address the government’s interference,” but would follow the interim order.
Kinew said the province has “off-ramps” to its contract with Dynacare, and had contingency plans in case test results were interrupted by a work stoppage.
He said his government would have looked at exercising that option had the labour board failed to halt the strike, but tests have resumed now.
The premier did not say how long testing would have to be interrupted for the government to end the contract when asked about it during an unrelated announcement later on Wednesday.
“If you are waiting for a cancer test I, as a premier, cannot say some contractual mumbo-jumbo is going to make you wait to get the results,” he said.
On Tuesday, the province argued to the board the public system might not be able to handle the backlogs caused by a disruption in Dynacare services.
Among other things, Manitoba Chief Public Health Officer Brent Roussin said testing delays increased the risk of transmission of diseases such as measles, and reduces the ability to respond to ongoing hepatitis and HIV outbreaks.
About 1,120 people might have been unable to obtain HIV testing every week during a stoppage, the doctor said in an affidavit.
Dynacare ‘the ones at the table’: premier
During Tuesday’s labour board hearing, the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals also criticized the government for its delay in raising objections to an agreement it made with Dynacare in March, in which both parties said the workers were not essential.
When asked about the timing of the application to the labour board, Kinew laid the blame on Dynacare.
“They’re the ones at the table,” he told reporters.
“When it becomes clear that people aren’t going to get the results of a Pap smear … of a measles test the week that kids are going back to class, then it becomes an issue for government.”
Dynacare said in a Wednesday statement it’s working on a “sustainable” collective agreement that will ensure its lab services are reliable.
“Dynacare shares [the premier’s] commitment to ensuring Manitobans have reliable access to community-based laboratory services, and that is exactly what we are working to protect,” the statement says.
Manitoba Federation of Labour president Kevin Rebeck said he was more angry at Dynacare than the government.
The company has “made a mockery of fair bargaining here,” he said.
“They’ve gone back on their word. They signed an agreement in March saying they thought the public health-care system could handle a labour disruption,” he said, referencing the document that said the work wasn’t essential.
“It’s outrageous to me that they’re … manipulating the situation, getting government involved.”
Jason Linklater, the president of the union representing Dynacare workers, said he couldn’t square the premier’s comments about making lab services fully public with the government’s actions.
“The only reason we’re not on strike today is because of the affidavits that were made on behalf of government,” he said.
“He’s the premier of Manitoba. He could make this right today if he wanted to.”
On Wednesday, the Manitoba Health Coalition called for a fully public model for outpatient lab services, saying Dynacare has had a private monopoly since 2017, when the company bought out Unicity Labs.
Kinew’s comments ‘sheer hypocrisy’: PC leader
The Unicity Labs acquisition happened under a Progressive Conservative government. The NDP government extended the province’s contract with Dynacare for five years in 2025.
Kinew said taking over Dynacare would be costly based on health department estimates, but “anything is possible.”
He blamed the former PC government for privatizing things that “become technically possible to re-nationalize, but exceedingly expensive to do so.”
Unicity Labs was a private company. Dynacare has had an operational presence in Manitoba since 2008, when it acquired Central Medical Laboratories, according to the company’s website.
Progressive Conservative Leader Obby Khan called Kinew’s comments “sheer hypocrisy.”
“Let’s not forget that this NDP government, this premier, signed the contract that Dynacare [is] under right now,” the Opposition leader said. “They knew the terms. They knew the conditions. They said this was a great deal for Manitobans.”
Ontario Health Coalition chair Ross Sutherland, who wrote a book on the history of private lab clinics in Canada, says that market has been expanding in Manitoba for decades.
Manitoba, Ontario and British Columbia are the only provinces that extensively rely on the private sector for lab work following Alberta’s takeover of a lab services provider in 2023.
Those companies “avoid the really difficult tests and they avoid the emergency work which you get in hospitals. So they just have a very steady income stream, which we pay them from our tax dollars,” he said.
Sutherland says a public model would create a more integrated system and a more stable workforce since private profits could be directed to better wages.
Winnipeg resident Beverly Moore, who was at a Dynacare Wednesday to get some bloodwork done, said she was personally happy the strike was halted — but not that workers were ordered back.
“These guys are doing the same work as Shared Health. So why shouldn’t they be paid the same?” she said.
“It’s an essential service.… Give them the money.”
