The “Stop the Strike” coalition held a news conference Wednesday morning, calling on CN Rail and CPKC Rail to resolve their labour dispute with the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference.
However, the deadline of midnight Eastern Time (10:01 p.m. SK time) came and went without a deal in place. Crew scheduling and fatigue management are among the issues stalling negotiations.
Prior to the passing of the deadline, Pulse Canada Chair Terry Youzwa said the federal government could have prevented this weeks ago by using binding arbitration.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars in grains are delivered to elevators every week with the expectation that they will soon move on to fulfill contracts here in Canada and around the world, and if grain is not able to be delivered, farmers aren’t getting paid,” Youzwa told reporters. “With no rail service, grain deliveries and cash flow comes to a screeching halt. We get increased costs, zero cash flow, and a reputation as a reliable supplier is forever damaged.”
Grain Growers of Canada Chair Andre Harpe is also calling for a deal to be quickly struck as farmers and grain elevators depend upon rail services to get grain out to market. A stoppage of this magnitude, Harpe says, would be costing grain farmers 43 million dollars a day next week before increasing to 50 million dollars a day a week after.
Canola Council of Canada Vice-Chair Dean Roberts, who is also a farmer, noted his local grain elevator has started rationing space for grain deliveries, affecting his ability to manage cash flow and pay his bills. Roberts added canola producers, and the canola value chain, are already feeling the pinch.
“From a canola seed export perspective, we risk losing approximately 11 million dollars per day in exports together with another 20-plus million per day in lost crush as a result of idle canola processing facilities. The economic impact of the canola value chain is massive and likely impossible to recover, and the number I cited are losses experienced during the service disruption and do not account for potential future losses resulting from the effects of the stoppage on our international reputation.”
The grain sector isn’t the only industry affected by the full halt of rail services of CPKC and CN Rail. The meat sector would also be impacted, according to Canadian Meat Council board member Sylvain Fournaise. Fournaise said the meat industry also relies on timely exports to markets like Japan and Asia as well as imports. Numbers from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada show beef exports were 589,130 tonnes in 2023 and pork exports were 1,403,330 tonnes last year.
The longest strike of rail workers in recent memory was in 2012, when Canadian Pacific workers were on strike for nine days before the Conservative government issued back-to-work legislation.
Subsequent strikes in 2015, 2018, 2019, and 2022 all ended within a very short period of time with a collective agreement reached.
