Feds must handle rail strike properly for more than national unity
This is a chance for Trudeau to make a big statement to worried westerners
Let us be clear that most every federal issue is a national unity issue these days — and that definitely would include a railways strike that could hammer the western Canadian economy.
So if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to make a loud statement to anxious Western separatists in particular, his first order of business must be to deal with the CN strike.
How do you silence those who argue the country doesn’t work? Prove that it works by freeing the blockage pinching our economic lifeblood.
Of course, this won’t stop the nonsensical separatism rhetoric that’s often interwoven with provincial/federal conservative criticism of the federal Liberal government that’s usually stemming from legitimate issues. But the former goes away if the latter gets fixed. And it’s the job of Ottawa to fix the latter.
So when Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is writing to Ottawa to encourage the federal government to deal with this strike, he is doing his job. This is not some esoteric national unity issue. It’s a big-time-in-the-here-and-now problem. We do need to do what we can.
Regardless of how legitimate the issues are for those 3,200 striking CN conductors, train workers and yard workers who argue their long hours are a threat to public safety, we have to understand the movement of oil, grain, potash, oilseeds and pulse crops is crucial to the Saskatchewan and western economy.
CN Rail carries $250 billion worth of goods annually. It cannot be shut down for a prolonged period and it’s particularly critical that the tracks are running before shipping in this country runs into the hazards of winter.
A lack of pipeline capacity means we are already experiencing a backlog of CN rail movement of oil that amounts to 180,000 barrels a day. (In all, petroleum and chemical products account for 20 per cent of all CN annual revenue, compared with 16 per cent for grain and fertilizer movement.)
Through November, CN Rail has agreed to supply 5,650 hopper cars a week for the movement of agricultural products. This is critical because the 2019 crop — notwithstanding its quality, which will result in a lot of it being used for feed — is huge.
Come December, the risk of trains being delayed by snow or cold increases dramatically and the weekly grain car allotment falls to 4,150. It is expected to remain at that level until March.
For that reason, it’s strange that Moe and Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister David Marit aren’t coming forward with more direct suggestions beyond the obvious call for, if necessary, back-to-work legislation.
The need for more grain cars is pretty much an annual problem — one that has sometimes morphed into a crisis, as was the case back in 2014-15 when then-economy minister Bill Boyd failed to get then-conservative federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz to properly address the issue.
Five years later, we seem to be heading toward the same problem that may be worsened because of this strike.
Given recent political history, it’s hard not to be a little bit suspicious that the lack of exploration of pre-emptive options such as seeking more hopper cars has to do with the focus of provincial conservative politicians on making it known that this is a federal Liberal government problem.
Whatever the suspicion, let us be clear that this is a federal government problem. Rail transportation is a federal government responsibility. That Ritz and company may have done no better in addressing problems with the rail transportation system during their tenure simply doesn’t change the reality that we are very much facing a problem in the here and now.
And when it comes to the here and now, we are also in a bit of a unity crisis in the West — notwithstanding those in both East and West who are eager to write off the anger as nothing more than the work of redneck yahoos.
Fixing this country is always about fixing the things we need to make it work. That begins with fixing the railways.