Furious railway workers to protest against Trudeau and his Liberal donors on Tuesday

Photo: Sean Kilpatrick The Canadian Press A worker holds up a Teamsters Rail sign at the Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) rail yard in Smiths Falls, Ontario, on Thursday, August 22.

Michel Saba – The Canadian Press in Halifax

Published at 7:00 a.m. Updated at 2:28 p.m.

• Canada

Crying “injustice,” union members from Canada's two major railways will protest Tuesday outside a Halifax hotel where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will meet with Liberal donors on the sidelines of his cabinet retreat.

“Our plan is to rally Tuesday outside the Westin. “We are calling on all unions, all workers to mobilize,” said Teamsters Canada Rail Conference President Paul Boucher in an interview with The Canadian Press on Sunday evening.

Railway workers are furious that the government ended the labour dispute and deprived them of their rights to free collective bargaining by ordering the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to begin the arbitration process, which it quickly imposed on the parties.

Read also

• Ottawa will not legislate to make rail an essential service
• CPKC shutdown continues, CN strike notice for Monday
• Commuter train service to resume Monday

The simultaneous disputes at Canadian National Railway Company (CN) and Canadian Pacific Railway Kansas City (CPKC) have paralyzed freight shipments and hampered travel across the country.

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The minister said the parties were at an impasse in contract negotiations and that Canadian businesses and relations commercial were at stake.

But Mr. Boucher counters that the Canada Labour Code gives the union the right to freely negotiate collective agreements and to exert economic pressure on businesses. “This is a fundamental right that we will fight for,” he sent.

“The Liberal government has been pretending for a long time that it is pro-workers, but it has shown Canadians that it is not,” he sent.

On Facebook, his communications director, Marc-André Gauthier, is even harsher, saying that Canada is “the country of oligopolies” and that the Liberal Party of Canada is “their political arm.”

Tuesday night’s reception is being hosted by the Laurier Club, an organization of Liberal activists who contribute $1,725 ​​a year to fund the Liberal Party of Canada. The event is being billed as a “unique event” where attendees will be able to sit down with Trudeau to discuss “the next steps in our Liberal government’s work to build a better, stronger, more resilient Canada.”

At a press briefing Sunday night, MacKinnon said Ottawa has a responsibility to “prevent economic carnage.”

MacKinnon is far from on the same page as the Teamsters. According to him, “it is difficult to remember a decision that was taken more in the interest of Canadian workers” since a shutdown of the rail sector would have major impacts on the country's economy and its workers.

“When you think about the shutdowns and the potash mines, when you think about the auto plants that are running out of inventory, when you think about the forestry and aluminum operations across the country that don’t have the storage space, that have to ship this product,” he said.

While the full financial impact of the shutdown remains uncertain, credit rating agency Moody’s has warned that it could cost the Canadian economy $341 million per day. It said agriculture, forestry and manufacturing were among the hardest-hit sectors.