Trudeau says government will have more to say soon about resolving rail shutdown

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hinted Thursday that his government will have an update soon on its plans to find “the right solution” to a historic railway shutdown that’s threatening to upend supply chains.

“We are not taking this lightly because Canadians across the country are worried about it,” he said during a stop in the Eastern Townships region of Quebec.

“We will have more to say shortly on what we are doing to make sure the right solution is found quickly for the economy.”

Freight traffic on the two largest rail networks came to a halt simultaneously on Thursday morning after months of increasingly tense and bitter labour negotiations. It’s the first time ever the two railways have been idle at the same time.

Canadian National Railway Co. (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. (CPKC) locked out 9,300 engineers, conductors and yard workers after the parties failed to agree on a new contract before the midnight deadline.

The impasse also affects tens of thousands of commuters in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, whose rail lines run on CPKC-owned tracks. Without traffic controllers to dispatch them, passenger trains cannot run on those rails.

Pressure from industry groups and government to resolve the bargaining impasse has been mounting for weeks. Calls to hash out a resolution are likely to ratchet up further now the work stoppage has begun.

The companies haul a combined $1 billion in goods each day, according to the Railway Association of Canada. Many shipments were pre-emptively stopped to avoid stranding cargo.

Negotiations collapse

Parties bargained late into the night Wednesday at hotels in Montreal and Calgary before talks broke off shortly before midnight.

Bargaining played out in separate negotiations between each company and the Teamsters, which represents 6,000 CN workers and 3,300 CPKC workers. 

Each side has accused the other of failing to negotiate seriously.

Jonathan Abecassis, director of public affairs and media relations at CN Rail, said that without an agreement or binding arbitration, the company “had no choice” but to lock out employees.

“The Teamsters have shown…