Step in to stop looming rail shutdown, Western municipalities urge feds

Rural municipalities in Western Canada are asking the federal government to step in and help avoid work stoppages on Canada’s two biggest railways.

The Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA), Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM), and Association of Manitoba Municipalities issued a joint statement Tuesday expressing concern about the looming rail shutdown.

“Both CN and CPKC provide Prairie farmers with critical access to markets. Without trains running, the livelihoods of thousands of producers are at risk. If Minister MacKinnon does not act on requiring binding arbitration, he and his government must be willing to live with the economic and social consequences the decision will bring across the Prairies,” Bill Huber, SARM’s acting president, said in a statement.

“From the perspective of Alberta’s rural municipalities, this is not simply a labour issue; it is an economic development issue, it is a community sustainability issue, it is even a food security issue,” RMA president Paul McLauchlin said.

AMM president Kam Blight said a rail shutdown could have long-lasting effects.

“We are very concerned that a work stoppage will not only place several municipalities at risk in the short-term but will create a significant reputational and logistical challenge that could harm local communities in Manitoba and across western Canada for years to come.”

Labour Minister Steve MacKinnon is heading to Montreal on Tuesday and Calgary on Wednesday to meet with stakeholders as a railway strike and lockout loom across the country, a spokesperson from MacKinnon’s office told Global News on Tuesday.

Freight trains across Canada could come to a grinding halt as soon as Thursday with roughly 9,000 railway employees nearing a looming strike or lockout date.

“Minister MacKinnon will be in Montreal today and Calgary on Wednesday to meet with the parties and federal mediators and urge CN (Canadian National) Rail, CPKC (Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd.) and Teamsters to fulfill their responsibility to Canadians, reach agreements at the bargaining table, and prevent a full work stoppage,” a spokesperson for MacKinnon said Tuesday.

The union representing thousands of workers at Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. says it has served a 72-hour strike notice on the railway.

The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference issued a news release saying that unless the parties reach a last-minute agreement, workers will be off the job as of 12:01 a.m. Eastern time Thursday.

Not long after the union’s statement, CN Rail issued a notice that it intends to lock workers out at that same time unless an agreement or binding arbitration is achieved.

“CN must continue with the progressive and planned shutdown of its network, as we remain under the threat of an unpredictable strike notice. This planned shut down helps to ensure the safety of the communities in which we operate and the safety of our customers’ goods, and to optimize the network’s recovery following a labour disruption,” CN said in a statement Sunday.

Earlier this month, CPKC said in a statement that it would lock out workers on Aug. 22 as well. The railway has not issued a statement since Sunday’s strike notice.

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MacKinnon’s visit to Montreal and Calgary comes as industry groups have called on the federal government to end the shutdown through binding arbitration.

Barry Prentice, director of the transport institute at the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business, said it was unlikely that the government would allow the strike to go on for too long.

“I don’t think the government will have any hesitation to recall Parliament and to pass back-to-work legislation,” he said.

Prentice added that if that does happen, all parties could go into binding arbitration within seven to 10 days of the legislation.

“This has been the pattern we’ve now seen several times, and it’s what most of us would expect to see happen,” he said.

However, the federal Liberals need the support of at least one other party to pass legislation, and their current supply-and-confidence agreement partners in the NDP have urged Ottawa not to use binding arbitration, saying it ” would take away the unions’ power to negotiate for their workers.”

The union, however, said it would prefer to engage in “good faith negotiations” with the railways rather than under the “threat of binding arbitration.”

“Binding arbitration is never the right approach. First off, this would allow the company to get concessions that they could not otherwise get through good-faith negotiations,” TCRC spokesperson Christopher Monette said.

He said with binding arbitration, the problems would just “end up snowballing down the road towards the next round of negotiations, creating further supply chain risks and further instability.”

The looming rail strike could also have ripple effects on the airline sector, which is expecting its own labour dispute with Air Canada pilots voting on a strike mandate this week.

“Rail is a critical mode of transport in the aviation supply chain. For instance, 40 to 50% of aviation fuel used at Toronto Pearson airport is shipped via rail. Any interruption of service would not only result in disruptions to the aviation supply chain but would result in increased costs as a result of pursuing alternative methods of transport,” the National Airlines Council of Canada said in a statement.

— with files from The Canadian Press

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