By Cheryl Jahn

CN Rail strike has potential impacts

Aug 20, 2024 | 3:30 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Nine thousand unionized rail workers with Teamsters Canada Rail Conference are expected to be off the job this week, disrupting a key link in the supply chain for almost everything, regardless of where you are.

“We are one of the large majority of Canadian communities that make our living by selling stuff to the world. To get stuff to the world, you need to be able to ship it. And the large majority of shipments go by. Rail. Port of Vancouver, two-thirds of all product that moves through the port of Vancouver gets there by rail. 90 per cent of international imports to Canada through Vancouver come by rail. Second, we don’t grow enough food to feed ourselves.”

The Port of Vancouver has already spoken out about the potentially detrimental impacts of a strike via Facebook. But the community of Prince Rupert. The Fairview Container Terminal has a capacity 1.6 million TEUs per year. The potential strike is worrisome to the community’s mayor.

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“But once shippers reroute traffic, it’s really hard to get them to reroute it back. It’s not like they’ll just go somewhere for a day or week or a year. They make new relationships, they make new commitments. And and so that’s the more worrying part is, is how will this impact shipping but also the community over the longer run,” says Mayor Herb Pond.

The other concern is the supply chain, but less so items that can come by truck. But it’s a matter of timing.

“If Canadian Tire wants to have Halloween goods on its shelf by, you know, the time within which they can sell it, it has to be shipped at a certain date and getting it three weeks after Halloween. Pointless right. More than pointless and costly because now what do you do with those goods? And so that’s the challenge.”

Scott says some shippers are already sending a message to Canadian receivers.

“Maersk, the largest shipping company in the world, stopped taking products that is coming to Vancouver. If that product will be moved by rail started a week ago. The minute this happened, the largest container shipping company in the world stopped taking products shipped to Canada that had to be moved by rail,” says Scott.

He says what is vasty different with job action: Canadian Pacific Kansas City and Canadian National don’t negotiate as a bloc, they typically rotate talks.