Selkirk residents are waking up to a strike that has shut down every Dynacare lab in Manitoba, including the city’s only private outpatient testing facility.
At 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday, September 8, approximately 350 laboratory technicians and technologists walked off the job after contract talks with Dynacare broke down over wages. The workers, represented by the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals (MAHCP), are seeking pay that matches their colleagues in public labs operated by Shared Health.
“When we do the same work as the hospitals, and we’re getting paid 20, 50 per cent less, it’s a little bit crazy,” said Shayleen Quiring, a Dynacare lab technician.
The strike affects all 22 Dynacare locations across Manitoba. Selkirk’s first Dynacare lab opened in May 2026 at the Interlake-Eastern Health Services building on Easton Drive, offering bloodwork and other routine tests. The facility is now closed.
Residents needing lab work should use the Shared Health laboratory services at the Selkirk Regional Health Centre. Shared Health has expanded hours at select locations to 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week. Emergency and urgent testing continues, but non-urgent routine tests may be delayed by about two weeks.
The Manitoba government has asked the Manitoba Labour Board to declare Dynacare workers essential and order them back to work. A hearing was held on September 8. Dynacare workers perform about 40 percent of all lab testing in Manitoba, and the company expects a weekly backlog of 34,000 patients without intervention.
