The company and the union are pointing fingers of blame at each other for a shutdown of Canadian Pacific Railway operations that began Sunday while the two sides remained at the bargaining table.
The Canadian PressAn employee boards a Canadian Pacific Railway locomotive at a yard in Calgary on Friday. A shutdown of Canadian Pacific Railway operations began early Sunday.
Waldron said the company wanted to keep talking then, still wants to keep talking, and wants an immediate end to the dispute. He said Canadian Pacific supports the government taking action, and claimed the union was being "dishonest and irresponsible."TCRC, which represents some 3,000 engineers, conductors, yard workers and other train employees, issued a release just before midnight saying a lockout was being initiated by management at the Calgary-based railway.
The office of federal Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan said in a statement that while the work stoppage had begun, both parties were still at the bargaining table with mediators and it expected "the parties to keep working until they reach an agreement.""CP and Teamsters Rail continue their work today. Canadians are counting on a quick resolution," O'Regan said on Twitter.
The House of Commons resumes Monday following a two-week break, so legislation could come as early as that day. "The timing is really bad, particularly for farmers coming out of the worst drought in 20 years. So a lot of them are short of cash flow. And if they can't move that last bit of crop in a timely fashion, that's going to affect their ability to finance the crop," he said.
Last week, about 45 industry groups warned that any disruption of rail service would hinder Canada's freight capacity and hurt the broader economy as it grapples with inflation, product shortages, rising fuel costs and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.