CN announces 450 temporary layoffs as disruptions cause $425M worth of goods to sit idle every day
Rail blockades have brought Canada’s manufacturing industry to a virtual standstill, and the industry will start seeing plant closures and temporary layoffs soon if it continues, the group that represents the industry says.
Rail and transport protests are hurting a key cog of Canada’s economy at a time when it can hardly afford the hit, members of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (CME) said at a news conference in Toronto on Tuesday.
In British Columbia some Indigenous protestors and sympathizers have shut down a key rail line in Northern B.C. because they oppose the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline on the grounds that it would run through the hereditary land of the Wet’suwet’en people.
Another group has blockaded another key rail line near Belleville, Ont., in solidarity with the B.C. protest.
Those actions have broken the supply chains for manufacturers, who rely on rail service to bring in parts and components but also to ship out finished products to customers.
The group says that every day the rail stoppages continue, $425 million worth of manufactured goods are sitting idle.
CBC News – Feb 18, 2020.
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