More than 9,000 workers have been affected by the labour disruptions at CN and CKPC, but Grande Prairie Mayor Jackie Clayton says residents will soon bear the weight of the stoppage if a resolution is not reached soon.
According to Mayor Clayton, the city’s main industries are almost entirely dependent on CN. At the height of the agricultural season, local crop producers have been forced to consider alternatives to rail, which she says is no easy task.
“Alberta is really blessed with a lot of resources, [but] those resources are only as valuable as how fast we can get them to market,” she says. “You can only store agricultural products for so long, and when we, as a province and as a country, are in a locked position with no access to rail, we’re forcing international trading partners to look to other markets.”
Clayton mentions the supply chain issues that Alberta and most of the country have struggled through since the pandemic, saying the consequences could be dire if a solution is not reached quickly.
“Every rail car not delivered means a lost shift in a mill or a grain elevator,” she says.
“This is about more than just GDP or an industry’s bottom line, this is the impact that it has on everyday workers and our communities and our quality of life,” she adds. “These industries in our region, agriculture, forestry, oil and gas, and manufacturing make up a significant part of Alberta’s 90 billion GDP alone so if you think of the significant impact from the north in that 90 billion of Alberta’s GDP, it really has an impact.”
The Mayor criticizes the federal government’s decision to deem rail “non-essential,” saying it is now on the feds to take a second look at the Canada Labour Code to include rail as an essential service.
“I think that it’s unfortunate that the federal government deemed rail not essential, once this resolution is done and the labour dispute is done, for the long term, the conversation has to shift to the Canada Labour Code to include rail as an essential service,” she says. “If the two parties in the conversation can’t find a solution, the federal government has the opportunity to fix that and really that’s their job.”
Despite Clayton’s criticisms, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently made a statement on the situation, saying his government “isn’t taking the shutdown of Canada’s railways lightly.” The PM says the federal government will have more to say as the stoppage develops.Â
