A First Nations protester stands in front of a transport in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory near Belleville, Ont., on Feb. 11, 2020, in support of Wet’suwet’en’s blockade of a natural gas pipeline in northern B.C.
Lars Hagberg/The Canadian Press
Railways in the country’s most populous areas approached gridlock Tuesday as Indigenous people and their supporters protested against a B.C. pipeline development and government leaders squabbled over who should intervene.
Canadian National Railway Co. announced it “will be forced to shut down significant parts” of its network if protests don’t end soon along Southern Ontario rail lines, which control trains headed east and west. After six days of protest, hundreds of trains hauling everything from fresh produce to chlorine for municipal water purification were parked on the tracks, which are filling rapidly.
Protests escalated and spread across the country after police confronted protesters from the Wet’suwet’en Nation who had blocked construction of the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline in British Columbia. RCMP arrested seven people on Monday along a key logging road in a bid to restore access to construction sites for Coastal GasLink. Along that road, police have arrested a total of 28 people at protests sympathetic to the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs’ cause since Thursday.
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Port operations in Halifax, Montreal and Prince Rupert were slowed, while rail service disruption in B.C. caused trains to be backed up to Saskatchewan, according to CN. Passenger train service Via Rail, which runs mainly on CN tracks, cancelled 34 trains in the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor on Tuesday because of the protests. Some 24,500 travellers have had to make other plans since Thursday. Via said late Tuesday it’s cancelling all service on the Montreal-Toronto and Toronto-Ottawa routes in both directions through Thursday because of the blockade.
“It’s not just passenger trains that are impacted by these blockades, it’s all Canadian supply chains,” said JJ Ruest, chief executive officer of Montreal-based CN. “We are currently parking trains across our network, but due to limited available space for such, CN will have no choice but to temporarily discontinue service in key corridors unless the blockades come to an end.”
As the protests along CN’s main line near Belleville, Ont., entered their sixth day, Andrew Brant, who is from the nearby Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, said the demonstration along the train tracks began organically, as a gesture of solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en and other Indigenous communities.
“It just happened,”’ he said. “A couple people went out there because we’re sick of how we’re treated as Indigenous people in Canada.”
The protesters, who are by their own admission acting without the support of their chief and band council, say they will not move until the RCMP stop enforcing a court injunction against anti-pipeline protesters in northwestern B.C.
“Pull out and leave them alone” Mr. Brant said. “As soon as that happens, we can leave. We can all go back to our daily routines.”
Despite being thousands of kilometres apart, the communities of Wet’suwet’en and Tyendinaga forged a bond during the 1990 Oka crisis, a long standoff between Mohawk communities in Quebec and the Canadian Armed Forces over the expansion of a local golf course. “They were there for us in 1990,” Mr. Brant said.
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Last Friday, CN obtained an injunction against the protesters from Tyendinaga, as their encampment continued to snarl passenger and freight traffic between Toronto and Montreal. Protesters have vowed to defy the injunction.
Federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau said he is concerned about the blockades, but it is up to provincial governments to enforce the law along railways.
“The impact is enormous,” Mr. Garneau said. “The railways have obtained injunctions. … It is the responsibility of the province to make sure an injunction is respected, not the federal government.”
The Ontario Provincial Police are continuing to speak with protesters and seek a “peaceful resolution,” said spokesman Bill Dickson, including by delivering gifts of tobacco and maple syrup. The OPP is acting in accordance with the force’s framework for police preparedness for Indigenous critical incidents, Mr. Dickson said. The policy was adopted in the wake of the Ipperwash Crisis, a 1995 standoff over disputed land in Southwestern Ontario between local First Nations and provincial police.
“It’s been a peaceful demonstration,” Mr. Dickson said. “We’ve had nothing but good co-operation, good communication with the individuals participating.”
Quebec Premier François Legault, whose province is cut off by the Ontario protest and is also dealing with a commuter rail line blockade south of Montreal, said Ottawa and the local Mohawk Peacekeeper police force must act. “I think there’s a big part of this that is the federal government’s responsibility,” he said. “We’ve got passenger train problems and once again looming propane shortages for farmers. It has to stop. It can’t go on like this for long.”
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Protesters used mounds of snow and wooden pallets to block the Candiac commuter rail line in the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory near Montreal, disrupting the daily travel of 3,000 people.
Some protesters were apologetic for the disruption they were causing, but pointed to the hundreds of years of inconvenience sthey had suffered since European settlement. “I feel like the message is getting across,” said Dayna Danger, a Métis-Saulteaux originally from Winnipeg who lives in Montreal and joined the Kahnawake protest in solidarity. “The RCMP [are] breaking our laws with their action [in British Columbia], so we’re coming together to pressure the RCMP to get out of that territory.”
In Eastern Quebec, members of the Listuguj Mi’gmaq nation blocked a small regional railway line used mostly to haul lumber.
Meanwhile, anti-pipeline protesters surrounded the B.C. Legislature on Tuesday, preventing some elected officials and journalists from entering the buildings and delaying the start of the 2020 legislative session.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, a fervent defender of the oil and gas industry, called the protesters hypocrites who are not helping to further Indigenous rights or fight climate change. He said that all elected First Nation councils along the pipeline route support the Coastal GasLink project, and he argued that ensuring countries such as China replace coal power with liquefied natural gas would have an enormous impact on reducing global emissions.
With reports from James Keller in Calgary, Justine Hunter in Victoria, and The Canadian Press.
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TORONTO – Roots Corp. may have built its brand on all things comfy and cosy, but its CEO says activewear is now “really becoming a core part” of the brand.
The category, which at Roots spans leggings, tracksuits, sports bras and bike shorts, has seen such sustained double-digit growth that Meghan Roach plans to make it a key part of the business’ future.
“It’s an area … you will see us continue to expand upon,” she told analysts on a Friday call.
The Toronto-based retailer’s push into activewear has taken shape over many years and included several turns as the official designer and supplier of Team Canada’s Olympic uniform.
But consumers have had plenty of choice when it comes to workout gear and other apparel suited to their sporting needs. On top of the slew of athletic brands like Nike and Adidas, shoppers have also gravitated toward Lululemon Athletica Inc., Alo and Vuori, ramping up competition in the activewear category.
Roach feels Roots’ toehold in the category stems from the fit, feel and following its merchandise has cultivated.
“Our product really resonates with (shoppers) because you can wear it through multiple different use cases and occasions,” she said.
“We’ve been seeing customers come back again and again for some of these core products in our activewear collection.”
Her remarks came the same day as Roots revealed it lost $5.2 million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.
The company said the second-quarter loss amounted to 13 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 3, the same as a year earlier.
In presenting the results, Roach reminded analysts that the first half of the year is usually “seasonally small,” representing just 30 per cent of the company’s annual sales.
Sales for the second quarter totalled $47.7 million, down from $49.4 million in the same quarter last year.
The move lower came as direct-to-consumer sales amounted to $36.4 million, down from $37.1 million a year earlier, as comparable sales edged down 0.2 per cent.
The numbers reflect the fact that Roots continued to grapple with inventory challenges in the company’s Cooper fleece line that first cropped up in its previous quarter.
Roots recently began to use artificial intelligence to assist with daily inventory replenishments and said more tools helping with allocation will go live in the next quarter.
Beyond that time period, the company intends to keep exploring AI and renovate more of its stores.
It will also re-evaluate its design ranks.
Roots announced Friday that chief product officer Karuna Scheinfeld has stepped down.
Rather than fill the role, the company plans to hire senior level design talent with international experience in the outdoor and activewear sectors who will take on tasks previously done by the chief product officer.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, are set to resume today as a strike that has stopped most services drags into a second week.
No timeline has been set for the length of the negotiations, but Joe McCann, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they are willing to stay there as long as it takes, even if talks drag on all night.
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people unable to navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last Tuesday, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
Hundreds of drivers rallied outside TransLink’s head office earlier this week, calling for the transportation provider to intervene in the dispute with Transdev, which was contracted to oversee HandyDART service.
Transdev said earlier this week that it will provide a reply to the union’s latest proposal on Thursday.
A statement from the company said it “strongly believes” that their employees deserve fair wages, and that a fair contract “must balance the needs of their employees, clients and taxpayers.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.
The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.
The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
