Business Council of Alberta says rail strike implications go beyond our borders

Scott Crockatt of the Business Council of Alberta speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about the impact of the Canadian railway strike.

This interview, which was taped prior to the federal government imposing binding arbitration, has been edited for length and clarity

Michael Higgins: Pressure is building on the federal government to step in now that more than 9,000 rail workers are on the picket lines, locked out overnight by Canada's two largest rail companies. Negotiations between the two sides have been going on for months without meaningful progress. What does this mean for the transportation of Alberta goods?

Scott Crockatt: This is unprecedented and we are in the midst right now of news, it's just unfortunate news, that for the first time in our nation's history both of our rail lines are at a standstill. They've ground to a halt and this has big implications, basically, for every area of our country and every sector of our economy.

But just to top line a few for you that I'm worried first about. First and foremost would be for workers and the jobs that are tied to this. There's 200,000 Canadians, 30,000 Alberta families, whose jobs are tied very closely to the rail industry. Those are homes whose livelihoods are uncertain today.

There's also some broad economic impacts. You may have heard the headline numbers, the railroads move a billion dollars in goods a day, and that's already been restricted back through some of the moves in the lead up to this. But to sort of bring that home, that's going to affect all kinds of folks in Alberta in particular.

Everyone should be thinking about farmers right now. In Alberta we officially began harvest earlier this week so that means that crops are coming off of fields, the food is perishable, and it may have nowhere to go. It doesn't have anywhere to go at that stage. So that's one of the groups that I'm really concerned about.

We've spent the morning interacting and chatting with other folks across this province and there's certainly some concerns for food security. While rail tends to move bulk foods, previous disruptions have shown us that it increases prices on grocery store shelves, and for consumers. And so those who are very close to food insecurity, it can have big implications for them.

And then last, something probably most of us don't spend a lot of time thinking about is chlorine, but chlorine moves exclusively by rail. Ninety five per cent of the people in Canada rely on it to sanitize their drinking water, although they don't usually see it. Those stockpiles are going to start to dwindle very quickly, so widespread applications.

MH: Your organization was among those calling for federal government intervention to keep the labour stoppage from happening. Should it not have be on the parties involved to work this out on their own?

SC: Absolutely the best settlements are ones that are negotiated at the bargaining table, the best deals are ones that are negotiated at the bargaining table, and certainly that was one of the things that we were pushing for in the weeks and months leading up to this stoppage. Having said that, there comes a time when it's the job of the federal government and our parliament to protect Canadians.

In this labour dispute, there are actually three parties at play. There's the unions and the workers they represent, there's the employers and their businesses, and then there's all Canadians, the 40 million of us who are going to be affected by this and end up paying most of the bill.

And I would say very clearly that we at the Business Council feel now is the time. In fact, it's past time for the federal government to be leaning in with quite a bit more urgency and involvement and using all the tools that are available to them to solve this. The Federal Labour Minister, Mr. McKinnon, still saying as of, I believe that was just yesterday, that all of the federal government's efforts and focus were on getting a deal done at the negotiating table. I'd submit to you that I'm just not sure that that's good enough at this stage for Canadians.

I think we should take a page out of the way that our American friends handled this when they were facing a similar disruption just two years ago. The president convened an emergency presidential board and eventually it resulted in congressional action being taken, bipartisan action, to resolve that stoppage as quickly as possible.

MH: What are the consequences if this lingers longer than need be?

SC: Timing is hugely consequential. While this is the first official day of the stoppage, in reality we've probably had two weeks of partial stoppage up until now. Just out my window here is a very large rail line that I look at each day and there have been very few trains moving in the last week or so, and none for the last several days. And so that's already beginning to have implications.

For example, products like chlorine, that I mentioned earlier, hasn't been moving since about Aug. 12. So already we're working our way into the backlogs. I'd say in terms of urgency, the most urgent is probably for those industries that have perishable products that can only move by rail.

So in particular I'm thinking about farmers here. As we get into a more mid-length stoppage, a few days in, I'll start to be more concerned about some of those specialized products and chemicals that can only move by rail. And then, if this becomes really protracted, that's when Albertans are going to really start to feel it in the pocketbook and see it on their store shelves and the prices that they're paying.

MH: What kind of reputational impact do you expect this to have outside of Canadian borders? What might Alberta businesses need to brace for?

SC: I'm so glad you asked that question because we're concerned, at the Business Council, about what this means for Canada's reputation, and I think that this has to be on the table for discussion.

We're looking at now the fourth major rail stoppage in the past five years for Canada and that just says to our international partners and allies and those who rely on us, ‘can Canada be a reliable supplier of the food and the fuel and the fibre of the fertilizer that we need to make this world run?’

I think it's fair for them to ask that question. We need to have a very hard look at ourselves after the immediate emergency is done here to say, ‘what can we do so that we're not in the same situation again in a year or two?’