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Politics - Quick resolve to rail strike good for unity

We need to re-focus our attention on practical solutions to existing problems if this country is going to work. Also helpful would be to not create new, impractical problems for the purposes of scoring political points.
Politics

We need to re-focus our attention on practical solutions to existing problems if this country is going to work.

Also helpful would be to not create new, impractical problems for the purposes of scoring political points.

That would seem to be the problem with Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s notion of exploring a provincewide police force to replace the RCMP — a very expensive answer for a province that purports to be struggling with budgetary and financial constraints of our own.

The country cannot and will not work if we are creating problems faster than we solve the many, many ones that naturally exist.

So perhaps the focus of the federal Liberal government needs to be the 3,200 Canadian National Railway Co. workers that went on strike at midnight Tuesday — a direct threat to oil, potash and grain shipments in this province and across the country.

Of course, one gets the right of conductors and yard operators to walk off their jobs at CN as part of the free and collective bargaining process. Given that a key point of this dispute is the working conditions that are directly related to public safety that’s party of moving any commodity on rail, one might even have a little sympathy for at least the concerns of railworkers that are striking.

That said, one can not overstated how important it for a company that carries $250-billion worth of goods annually to be working efficiently.

It is especially critical right now because the lack of pipeline capacity means we are seeing a bottleneck of petroleum and chemical products that account for 20 per cent of all CN annual revenue via moving 180,000 barrels a day. (By comparison, grain and fertilizer account for 16 per cent of CN’s business.)

It is expected that CN Rail will supply 5,650 hopper cars per week throughout November and one can understate how important that is.

Last week was unseasonably warm through much of Western Canada, which means now is the time to move grain, oil seeds and pulses before it gets colder. In December when shipping slows down, the weekly grain car allotment is expected to fall to 4,150 cars a week — a level it is expected to stay at until March.

A prolonged rail strike will only feed into the existing problems.

So one can understand why Premier Scott Moe and his Saskatchewan Party government feel the strike needs to be addressed immediately — possibly, through a recall of Parliament to before Dec. 5 to deal with back-to-work legislation.

In fact, it might be better if the Sask. Party government and Agriculture Minister David Marit take other pre-emptive action like seeking more hopper cars in December and January to deal with a backlog in moving what still is a very large crop this year.

Perhaps everyone is still holding out the hope that this railways strike will be resolved in days and weeks instead of weeks and months.

Regardless, all this would seem to a perfect example where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could demonstrate good faith in the federation by recognizing the seriousness of this problem and putting resources to a quick resolution.

One can understand the frustration when so much doesn’t work.

Unhelpful is anger over problems that are then repeated on social media. We need to instead focus on solutions.

Almost as unhelpful is acts that seem more about political statements that solutions to real problems, like Alberta’s exploration of its own provincewide police force to replace the RCMP. It would be more costly and hurt Saskatchewan where mounties are trained.

We should be thinking about whether the alternatives are worse.

And we should be focussing on solving problems in this nation that do exist. That’s how this country works.

Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.