SUDDEN END TO CN STRIKE

Deal catches premier off-guard

It was Tuesday morning at a sawdust-strewn breakfast buffet, and Premier Scott Moe got a surprise message at an uncanny moment.

“We need the trains running in this nation,” Moe had just told an audience at Canadian Western Agribition, where he was the keynote speaker at an event billed as “presented by CN.”

A messenger came to the stage to update the premier. Canadian National Railway Co. had reached a tentative agreement with its unionized conductors, trainpersons and yard workers, who would now be back on the job the next day.

Moe greeted the news as “precisely what we needed here in this province.”

But he soon warned that Saskatchewan’s farmers and miners are not out of the woods yet. “We have a backlog,” he told reporters after the event. “Our challenges are not done in this province.”

Moe said the effects of a weeklong work stoppage will linger as producers struggle to get their commodities to market.

Todd Lewis, president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, was in the audience listening to Moe. He had precisely the same worry. He warned that Saskatchewan grains will have to compete with other products at a time when shipments are already “minimum 5,000 cars behind.”

Colder weather will make things worse. CN will soon reduce the number of cars available due to winter conditions.

APAS is calling on the company to update its winter plan. Lewis wants CN to run more trains and, if necessary, hire more workers to run them. With farmers harvesting what looks like the second-biggest crop in provincial history, there’s much at stake.

“The one-week strike has threatened the remainder of our shipping season,” Lewis added in a news release shortly after the event.

“This is crunch time for our cash flow and producers need to move grain to get paid. We need to know how CN plans to make up the shipping shortfall. We can’t afford to have this problem drag on all winter and spring.”

According to CN’S 2019-20 Winter Plan, once temperatures drop below -25 C the company will be forced to run shorter trains and slow down due to safety concerns. That limits efficiency.

Moe said his government will have discussions with federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau to ask whether it’s possible to push that back longer as a way to resolve the backlog.

“I’m asking him to look at the plans that will be submitted to him very seriously,” Moe said. “Maybe we are able to continue with some of our summer transport capacity much longer into the winter or throughout the winter.”

NDP Leader Ryan Meili said he too agrees with getting more Saskatchewan commodities moving. But he has previously raised safety concerns as unionized workers warned about accidents caused by fatigue.

He said the railway can afford to bring on more workers to ensure it can run enough trains to get grain to market without compromising safety.

“None of that is impossible,” he said, noting CN’S revenue reached about $4 billion last quarter.

Meili questioned the “timing” of Moe choosing to speak at the event, given the CN connection. He recalled that the NDP has already accused the Saskatchewan Party of siding with the company in the labour dispute.

Minutes before the message came to the stage on Tuesday morning, Moe again floated the idea of the federal government recalling Parliament and bringing in back-to-work legislation. He had also advocated binding arbitration, echoing similar calls from CN.

But Moe still argued that a negotiated settlement was the best option. He did so again after learning about the tentative deal.

He said it would have taken much longer to recall Parliament and jump through the necessary hoops to pass a bill.

“We are pleased that the negotiated settlement, the tentative settlement, has been reached,” Moe said. “This is what we have asked for all along. It’s the quickest, it’s the swiftest and we’ve always said that the best agreements do come at the bargaining table. We’re thankful to both sides.”

He rejected the idea that there was anything amiss about speaking at the event, despite CN’S role. He noted that it was part of Agribition, which he called an “important show” that showcases the strength of the provincial economy.

“It’s appropriate for me to speak at Agribition at any point of time regardless of the sponsor,” Moe said.