The president of the Freight Management Association of Canada says rail service is so essential to the Canadian economy that strikes and lockouts to stop it should be ruled out forever.In an interview with Western Standard, John Corey said uncertainty from a potential rail stoppage at Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railway is already hurting industry and an actual stop would have dramatic and devastating consequences.“Uncertainty kills business, and it's very hard to operate a business when you don't know if you're going to be able to ship or receive product,” he said.Should the strike occur, its timing would be the worst possible, as shipping the fall harvest will be immediately followed by shipping wares in advance of the Christmas season.“In the case of many shippers, there is no alternative. So it's, ‘We're going to shutter down the plant’ when you're talking about production of chemicals,” Corey said.“For every day of a rail strike, it takes about a week for the supply chain to rebound or right itself. So if a ten-day strike happens, we're going to be around Christmas before it gets straightened out.”Corey said only industries that could truck their wares to seaports 800 miles or less away could continue, and even then with difficulty.“The problem is there aren't any trucks available because they're already pretty well at capacity. And if you could find a truck, it would probably be at a cost that is so enormous that you probably say, ‘Forget it. I'm just going to lose money,’ right?”In May, Federal Minister of Labour Seamus O’Regan agreed to a request by shippers for the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to consider if a rail stoppage would have serious harm to Canadians health and security.“The argument was, chlorine for drinking water would stop, propane for northern Canada would stop. And absolutely, there could be risks of Canadians’ health and safety.“Anyways, the CIRB came out with their decision on August 9. The decision was no, there was no harm, which I think was a very poor decision, but in keeping with the government's attitude towards the situation.”Corey said a Liberal government that relies on support from the NDP does not want to offend labour in any way. However, his organization wants binding arbitration to be routine in rail disputes where the sides can’t agree, just as it is for police, firefighters, and ambulances.“I would say shutting down Canada is probably a pretty important thing and maybe those rail workers should be subject to binding arbitration,” he said.“Arbitrators generally, unless it's really pie in the sky, side with workers. The wages go up. Who knows? But they don't even want to talk about that, because if you do that, the labor unions lose all their leverage.”Although shippers know the importance of railways all too well, Corey says the public isn’t quite so aware of how personally rail shipments affect their lives.“Imagine if Air Canada and WestJet went on strike at the same time. The public would be apoplectic, they would go insane, and the government would immediately order them back to work because there'd be too much pressure,” he said.“People don't read about railways and strikes and whatnot until it affects them, and this is going to affect them come August 22. And then they're going to say, ‘What the hell? Why didn't someone take care of this?’ And that's a good question. That's a question I ask daily: ‘Why doesn't someone take care of this?’”
