“Canada’s biggest airline is hiding a secret,” warned unfaircanada.com , a website campaigning on behalf of Air Canada flight attendants and their union during recent contract negotiations. “Their cabin crew is being forced to work for free during the most critical moments of your flight experience.” Except it wasn’t exactly true that they were being forced to work for nothing, and it was never a secret.

In the end, it didn’t matter that the Unfair Canada campaign wasn’t being completely honest. What mattered was that the union’s message — “Tell Air Canada and the Carney government unpaid work is a true crime” — had its intended effect on Canadians and their elected officials.

On Monday, before the labour dispute was resolved, Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu said that the flight attendan

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