A potential work stoppage at CN and CPKC would be unprecedented, according to New Brunswick’s largest seaport.
Both companies have said they will lock out around 9,000 engineers, conductors and yard workers early Thursday if a deal is not reached.
For Port Saint John, where much of the cargo that moves through the port goes by rail, it is unchartered territory.
“We’ve come to build a rail program that’s become our main value proposition,” Craig Bell Estabrooks, president and CEO of the port, told our newsroom.
The port is serviced by three rail companies, though CN and CPKC account for most of the traffic.
Bell Estabrooks said a work stoppage would disrupt the fundamental operations of the port, but it is hard to say how significant the impacts would be.
“If this goes any significant length of time, we will not have an ability to move rail efficiently out of our container terminal or into the container terminal for export,” he said.
Upwards of 2,000 to 3,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) move through Port Saint John’s cargo terminal every week.
The port also moved more than 2.2 million metric tonnes of potash through its terminal in 2023, or about 42,000 metric tonnes per week.
Bell Estabrooks added a work stoppage will create bottlenecks throughout the supply chain that will take some time to clear.
“We’re starting to finally see some relief on the inflationary front and my worry would be that a significant supply chain disruption is going to harm that positive trajectory,” he said.
The president and CEO is also concerned that a work stoppage would have reputational harm to the country’s supply chain.
Bell Estabrooks said the federal government needs to look at all of its tools to help the parties reach an agreement.
