Alberta’s Transportation Minister urges feds to make sure Canadians have a rail network that works

Alberta’s Minister of Transportation and Economic Corridors says it is a major concern all across the country if our railways have to have a work stoppage.

Talks between Canada’s Class 1 railways – Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. (CPKC) and Canadian National Railway Co. (CN) – and the Teamsters union are deadlocked. The work stoppage is currently slated to happen at the start of the day on Thursday, August 22nd (00:01 ET).

Devin Dreeshen says, obviously, harvest and the fall is really peak time for agriculture but there are so many different aspects and industries that rely on rail shipment.

If it was to happen, Dreeshen has heard that for every day off, it takes about three to five days to get caught up and that doesn’t even take into account the reputational damage to this country’s supply chain. He says “we hope that there isn’t going to be a strike. I’ve been talking with CP and CN. We’ve tried to reach out to the labour folks as well. Just to see why they feel like they need to go into this position. It’s really just unfortunate again, the federal government not being able to step up and show some clarity of how this could be resolved in a way that doesn’t result in a work stoppage.”

The Innisfail-Sylvan Lake MLA adds, it is so frustrating to see the same bad movie play over and over again when it comes to labour relations in Canada with this current federal government. He says “a port strike that happened last summer was bad, but a rail strike is even worse. When you have both (CP and CN) striking at the same time, it could be terrible.”

Dreeshen points out that he has written to his federal counterpart, Alberta’s Labour Minister has written to his federal counterpart as well, and Premier Danielle Smith has reached out to the Prime Minister. He says “the dollar amount for both CP and CN, and all the industries and businesses – it’s a big one.”

Meanwhile, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) continues to call on the government to make ports and rails an essential service, so they remain fully operational at all times.