There ain’t much workin’ on the railroad being done the live-long day today. As of this morning, engineers and other Canadian Pacific Railway workers walked off the job.

A representative of Teamsters Canada Railway Conference (TCRC), the union representing the striking workers, told the CBC that they “have made every reasonable effort to get a settlement” from the CPR. Despite the reasonable efforts currently displayed by both sides, federal Labour Minister Lisa Riatt has already prepared back-to-work legislation — only 10 hours after the strike began.

Although the House of Commons is not sitting right now as MPs are currently “working” in their home ridings, the impending legislation comes as no surprise. In the past year, the feds hammered through back-to-work legislation against striking Air Canada and Canada Post employees. Unfortunately for Canadians, service at neither Air Canada nor Canada Post has improved since then.

“The Government is concerned about the national economic significance this will have and we are prepared to act in the interest of the national economy,” minister Raitt said today.

Of course, according to this government, pretty much everything has “national economic significance,” which is why they’re always willing to step in with some back-to-work legislation. The good minister has said beforethat she’s not a “union buster” but she sure is getting good at fucking with the unions.

Not that many Canadians use CP Rail regularly. But then again, not many Canadians make use of Canada Post these days either. Considering CP Rail’s primary revenue stream comes from shipping wheat to export for that doomed commie bureaucracy the Canadian Wheat Board, many outside the agricultural sector may be slow to even take note of the current strike. Particularly with all those whiny Québecois stirring up the pot over in Montréal.

Or at least that was my first thought this morning. When I scanned some Canadian news sites, I expected to drown in coverage of the 200K+ strong demonstrations against loi 78. Fancy my surprise when the CBC, the Globe & Mail and the National Post didn’t feature the Québecois uprising very prominently whatsoever on their homepages. Rather, the news was focused on a few hundred railway workers potentially slowing down the almighty economy for a couple weeks.

I guess the rest of Canada really doesn’t give a flying fuck about the Québecois after all.

CBC News
Flickr