Employees move locomotives, right, as rail and tanker cars and shipping containers sit idle at the Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) rail yard in Port Coquitlam, B.C., Monday, Aug. 19, 2024.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Bob Masterson is chief executive officer of the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada.
As Canada’s two main railways shut down, the damage to Canada’s economy and reputation is well under way.
Canada’s chemistry sector alone moves more than 500 rail cars of product each day. Owing to the nature of our deeply integrated North American economy, nearly two-thirds of those Canadian products are exported to the United States and are essential to their mining, forestry, building, agriculture and transportation industries.
The U.S. Surface Transportation Board and Transportation Secretary have both publicly communicated they are watching the situation in Canada closely. In some respects, this unprecedented labour disruption affecting both of Canada’s main railways couldn’t come at a worse time. Beginning in 2025, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement will be under review. A made-in-Canada labour disruption affecting the U.S. economy will certainly hang heavily over that review.
But it’s not just the economic disruption alone that should concern us.
Beginning on Aug. 11 and in response to regulatory requirements, Canada’s two main railways began the suspension of service to chlorine producers in Canada and to U.S. chlorine producers who ship into Canada. By Aug. 15, all chlorine shipments within, into and exported from Canada were suspended.
This sets the clock ticking toward the possibility of significant public safety impacts as 95 per cent of Canadians rely on safe drinking water that needs chlorine and chlorine derivatives, such as high-concentration bleach. As the supply of these chemicals dwindles in the coming days, municipalities across the country will be forced to issue boil water advisories.
There are no substitutes for these important and now stranded chemicals. Also, the only way to move chlorine to municipalities or to the intermediaries that produce bleach is by rail. Owing to its hazardous nature, it is prohibited to move chlorine by truck.
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Past experiences show that once rail service is disrupted, for each day of disruption it can take three days or more to return to service when labour issues are resolved. This means the longer the existing service disruption continues without government action, the more severe the problems will be for municipalities. Chlorine producers are now approaching a week without any service. They will have one more week or less to continue to operate based on on-site storage constraints and then they will shut down.
Likewise, bleach manufacturers are not receiving chlorine. They too are counting the days toward their own shutdowns. Once service is restored, it will take five or more days to restart the chlorine plants. It will take additional days to move the product to bleach manufacturers and then they will also take several days to restart. Then and only then will the product begin the long, slow journey to municipalities.
Canada is in the midst of a first in the nation’s history: twin disruption of our entire rail system. As the disruption drags on, Canadians will face challenges with both affordability and availability of the goods they rely on every day. In the case of some essential goods, such as clean drinking water, the impacts will be even more severe.
Given the unprecedented nature of the situation, it is time for the Government of Canada and Parliament to take action to end this dispute. The federal government and Parliament are the only players with the authority and mandate to protect the economy, to safeguard our most important trading relationship, and to ensure public safety in the face of the disruption already under way for chemical producers and their key customers in Canadian municipalities.
It’s time for Ottawa to impose binding arbitration with a prohibition on the right to strike or lock out. Failing that, parliamentarians must be prepared to introduce and pass back to work legislation.