Addressing the House of Commons Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked Canadians to be patient with his government as it seeks a negotiated end to Indigenous protests that have crippled the country’s transportation network.
Trudeau said his government is committed to “dialogue” with the Indigenous protesters that have shut down CN Rail in eastern Canada and much of Via Rail’s services nationwide by blocking a key artery in southern Ontario.
The blockade has been in place for 12 days and CN has been forced to shutter its network of east of Toronto since Friday — a devastating development for businesspeople, commuters and farmers who rely on the railway for their livelihoods. The protesters from the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory say they are acting in solidarity with some of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs in B.C. who oppose the Coastal GasLink pipeline project running through their traditional territory.
“On all sides, people are upset and frustrated. I get it,” Trudeau said. “It’s understandable because this is about things that matter — rights and livelihoods, the rule of law and our democracy.”
While the prime minister did not lay out a clear path forward in his speech, Trudeau seemed to be ruling out police intervention at this point in favour of more conversations with the protesters. He said the suggestion from the Conservative Opposition that Ottawa forcibly remove the protesters from camps along the CN tracks in Belleville, Ont. is “not helpful.”
“Finding a solution will not be simple. It will take determination, hard work and cooperation,” Trudeau said. “We are creating a space for peaceful honest dialogue with willing partners … We need Canadians to show both resolve and collaboration. Everyone has a stake in getting this right.”
An hours-long meeting between Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller and the Mohawk on Saturday failed to end the blockade. Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett flew to B.C. Monday to meet with Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan hereditary chiefs, but that meeting never actually took place.
Trudeau said that, for too long, the federal government has ignored Indigenous demands to solve lingering land and treaty disputes. He chastised Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer (without mentioning him by name) and other politicians he accused of pushing Ottawa to “act with haste and boil this down to slogans and ignore the complexities.”
‘Weakest response to a national crisis’
Scheer called Trudeau’s address “the weakest response to a national crisis in Canadian history.”
He said Trudeau’s speech offered Canadians “a word salad” with no meaningful plan to restore rail service and end the illegal blockades that are hampering the country’s economy.
“The prime minister’s statement was a complete abdication of responsibility and leadership,” Scheer said. “The prime minister has emboldened and encouraged this kind of behaviour.”
Scheer said the Conservatives stand with “everyday hard-working Canadians” and not the “radical activists” he claimed are determined to shut down the country’s energy industry.
On Friday, Scheer said the prime minister should direct the RCMP to remove the protesters. The Ontario Provincial Police are on hand in Tyendinaga but they have not yet enforced a court injunction that gives them the power to dismantle the protest camps and arrest those behind the blockade.
During a news conference in Ottawa Tuesday morning, AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde said all the players — federal and provincial politicians, hereditary Wet’suwet’en chiefs and elected band officials — need to come to the table.
“It’s on everybody. It’s not on any one individual,” he said. “I’m just calling on all the parties to come together, get this dialogue started in a constructive way.”
Mohawk Council of Kanesatake Grand Chief Serge Otsi Simon called on protesters to end the rail blockades as a “show of good faith.”
“Bringing down the blockades doesn’t mean that you surrender. It doesn’t mean we’re going to lay down and let them kick us around. No, it would show compassion,” he said.
“I’m simply pleading with the protesters … Have you made your point yet? Has the government and industry understood? I think they did.”
National Chief Perry Bellegarde of the Assembly of First Nations spoke with reporters on Tuesday 1:05
Business groups were calling on the federal government Tuesday to take steps to immediately restore full rail service.
Dennis Darby, CEO of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, said the situation is “beyond serious.”
The group estimates that goods worth about $425 million are being stranded every day the blockade continues — and it will take three to four days of work to recover from a single day of disruption.
Bob Masterson, president and CEO of the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada, said a prolonged shutdown inevitably would lead to shortages of his industry’s products, such as jet fuel for planes, propane for home heating and chlorine for drinking water.
Protesters with the Mohawks of Tyendinaga have been stationed beside the tracks near Belleville, Ont., since Feb. 6 to protest the RCMP’s raids in Wet’suwet’en territory in northern B.C.
Via Rail said partial service is set to resume between Quebec City, Montreal and Ottawa beginning Thursday.
Almost all other Via Rail services remain cancelled, with the exception of Sudbury-White River and Churchill-The Pas, until further notice.
Via says the partial resumption of service between Ottawa and Quebec City follows a notification received from Canadian National Railway.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
