Alberta’s Minister of Energy Sonya Savage and Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Devin Dreeshen are calling on Prime Minister Trudeau to immediately recall Parliament to urgently address the CN Rail strike.
“CN Rail regularly ships in excess of 170,000 barrels of Western Canadian oil per day. Any disruption in shipments would have serious consequences for an economy that is already dealing with severe bottlenecks due to cancelled and delayed pipelines. Alberta cannot see further restrictions on our ability to export our product,” said Savage. “Parliament is scheduled to return on Dec. 5. Unfortunately, even this short wait could result in serious damage not just to the Alberta economy, but to the Canadian economy as a whole. We call on the Prime Minister to immediately call back Parliament to enact emergency back-to-work legislation for CN Rail.”
Some 3,000 CN Rail workers went on strike just after midnight Monday, after failing to come to an agreement with the nation’s largest railroad operator.
A statement from the Trudeau government says that it is monitoring the situation closely.
The two sides are continuing talks today in Montreal, a spokesman from Teamsters Canada (TCRC) said, over health and safety issues.
“Alberta farmers depend on rail to get their world-class products to market. We have seen the severe consequences of rail backlogs before,” said Dreeshen.“Farmers don’t need the added pain from compounding rail delays, especially after this difficult harvest. Now is the time to act.”
CN employed a total of 25,720 employees, as of Dec. 31, 2018.
