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The Canadian government has forced flight attendants at Air Canada back to work less than 12 hours after they began striking and ordered binding arbitration over a dispute that has left more than 100,000 travellers stranded around the world during the peak summer travel season.

Since March, Canada’s largest airline and the union representing its flight attendants have been locked in an increasingly bitter dispute over what the union has described as “poverty wages” and unpaid labour. Flight attendants are not paid for any work before or after the plane takes off.

On Saturday, Canada’s federal jobs minister, Patty Hajdu, said it was clear the talks had reached an impasse and that the impact was being felt by Canadians and visitors across the country.

“The talks broke down,” said Hajdu as she told reporters that she had asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order an immediate end to the strike and to impose binding arbitration. “It is clear that the parties are not any closer to resolving some of the key issues that remain and they will need help with the arbitrator.”

She appeared to link her actions to the toll that US tariff increases had taken on the Canadian economy. “In a year in which Canadian families and businesses have already experienced too much disruption and uncertainty, this is not the time to add additional challenges and disruptions to their lives and our economy,” she said in a statement.

Hajdu’s power to halt the strike stems from a section of the Canada Labour Code, which gives the minister unilateral authority to end work stoppages in order to “maintain or secure industrial peace”. While the section was rarely used by previous governments, the Liberal government has invoked it several times in the past year, quelling strikes by workers at Canadian ports, the post office and railway companies, prompting analysts to voice concerns that the use of the clause may be undermining workers’ rights.

The union representing the flight attendants decried the Liberal government for stepping in within hours, accusing it of violating their right to take job action. Air Canada had reportedly previously requested that the government intervene to impose binding arbitration.

Wesley Lesosky, of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said the government was giving “Air Canada exactly what they want – hours and hours of unpaid labour from underpaid flight attendants, while the company pulls in sky-high profits and extraordinary executive compensation”.

After issuing a strike notice earlier this week, flight attendants stopped work in the early hours of Saturday. Around the same time, Air Canada, which operates about 700 flights a day, said it would begin locking flight attendants out of airports.

According to the aviation analytics firm Cirium, the airline had cancelled 671 flights by Saturday afternoon, leaving some travellers stranded overseas and others scrambling to find alternatives during the busy summer travel season. About 130,000 customers a day could be affected by a disruption, according to the airline.

Air Canada said it was planning on restarting flights on Sunday evening but that some would have to be cancelled over the next seven to 10 days as the schedule stabilises and returns to normal. It had previously said it could take up to a week to resume full operations.

The airline said earlier it had offered its flight attendants “an increase of more than 38% on global compensation”, but the union said the figure failed to fully account for inflation. Air Canada also said it was willing to pay flight attendants 50% of their wage for work done before planes take off, leading the union to reply that its members should be fully compensated for their labour.

About 70% of the airline’s flight attendants are women, said Natasha Stea, a local union president and flight attendant. She questioned whether they were being treated fairly, given that Air Canada pilots, the vast majority of whom are men, received a significant raise last year.

“We are heartbroken for our passengers,” she told the Associated Press late last week. “Nobody wants to see Canadians stranded or anxious about their travel plans, but we cannot work for free.”

• Mutual fund assets peak Rs4.43tr Dec 2024, drop to Rs3.93tr June 2025.
• SECP links decline to govt tax policy, temporary bank-driven fund shift.
• Retail investors hold 39.2% AUMs 2025, corporate share slips to 61%.
  

ISLAMABAD: The size of Pakistan’s mutual fund sector has surged almost seven times over the past six years, with assets under management rising from Rs578 billion in 2019 to Rs3.93 trillion by June 2025, fuelled by robust growth in both conventional and Shariah-based funds, latest figures from the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) show.

The News reported that conventional funds rose 5.2 times over the period to Rs2.206 trillion, while Shariah-compliant funds surged 6.7 times to Rs1.726 trillion, narrowing the market share gap. Shariah-compliant products now account for 44% of the industry, up from 39% in 2019, reflecting rising investor preference for Islamic finance.

After jumping from Rs2.70 trillion in June 2024 to Rs4.43 trillion in December 2024, mutual fund deposits fell by more than half a trillion rupees to Rs3.93 trillion in June 2025.

A senior official of the SECP attributed the sharp decline to the federal government’s announcement of an incremental tax of up to 16% on banks with an advance-to-deposit ratio below 50% as of Dec 31, 2024. “To meet the Advance-to-Deposit Ratio requirement, banks had to either expand lending or reduce deposits. To ease deposit pressure, they encouraged large clients to shift funds into mutual funds, temporarily boosting mutual fund assets. Once the ratio target was met, much of that money flowed back into the banking system after December 31,” the official said.

Decline was around 10%, from December to June 2025, though a substantial increase on a year-over-year basis, he added. The official said that the SECP has been holding focus group sessions with industry stakeholders to map the next phase of reforms.

Key priorities include the digital transformation of mutual funds, the introduction of exchange traded funds (ETFs), and launching infrastructure and ESG-based funds to tap sustainable investment demand.

The regulator also plans to revamp mutual fund distribution models, promote systematic investment plans (SIPs) for retail savers, and enhance financial inclusion, with a special focus on women investors. Additionally, reforms are on the table for prudential limits, governance, and transparency standards to safeguard investor interests.

Market analysts say the sector’s growth has been fuelled by a mix of low bank deposit returns, rising financial literacy, and regulatory support. However, they warn that sustaining momentum will require innovation, wider accessibility, and robust oversight. With mutual fund penetration still low compared to regional peers, the SECP’s reform agenda signals a push to deepen capital markets and channel more domestic savings into productive investments — a shift that could support Pakistan’s broader economic development goals.

Retail investors now hold 39.2% of Pakistan’s total Assets Under Management (AUMs) in 2025, up from 38% in 2019, while corporate investors’ share reduced to 61% against 62% in 2019.

The SECP data also shows that 56% of total AUMs are conventional, while 44% are Shariah-compliant. There are now 768,769 individual investors and 6,361 corporate investors in the market, showing widening retail participation in mutual funds and capital markets.