Note that all cited universities are located in Southern Ontario (Toronto and Hamilton). Tuition has gone up in Canada, but not as high as it has in the States,

Note that all cited universities are located in Southern Ontario (Toronto and Hamilton). Tuition has gone up in Canada, but not as high as it has in the States, not by a long run, and it has stayed quite low in Quebec, at least for residents ($2750/year). I know that at the University of Montreal adjuncts have been unionized for a long time, and they have a bit of job security; there are no multi-year contracts for a given course, but they get priority on courses they've already taught. One issue is that adjuncts used to be mainly professionals who'd teach one course per semester on the side. That was fairly common at my engineering school back in the early 2000s. Since it was secondary income, they did not see much point to unionize or fight for job security. But now you have a lot of people who end up trying to make a primary living through adjunct teaching, and that old model or part-time teaching doesn't really work for them.