Arresting Canada

"Trucks are the branches. They reach out in all directions, delivering food to distribution centres and then on to your local grocery store. But the trunk of the tree is rail. That's where the heavy volumes are moved."
"It can get complicated because of how intermodal logistics has become -- cargo goes from ship to truck to train to truck to van, so do you count that as rail or truck?  But the rail contribution to our food supply is big. I don't have an exact number, but as much as 50 percent wouldn't surprise me."
"DCs -- distribution centres -- always have some stock on hand, in case of inclement weather or a traffic jam. But the food industry has moved more to just-in-time delivery. If you're near a source of food production, or a border crossing, or if you have good local trucking assets, you'll hold out longer. But that's not everywhere in the country. Atlantic Canada has particular supply challenges."
Karl Littler, Retail Council of Canada

"February is slower. Diesel is cheap, the Canadian dollar is stable -- this is letting us absorb some of the impact. But food prices could still spike 30 to 50 percent. This is a food security issue for low-income families."
"I've already noticed some items missing from shelves [in Atlantic Canada]. I can't link them [food shelf shortages] to the blockades because the distribution system is complex."
"I don't think we're there [emergency situation] yet. But in another two weeks? this will hit a critical point."

Sylvain Charlebois, professor, expert on food production, distribution and security, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia

A protester looks through a pair of binoculars from the closed train tracks in Tyendinaga, near Belleville, Ont., on Sunday, Feb.23, 2020. The rail blockade is in support of the Wet'suwet'en who oppose work on a pipeline in northern B.C. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)

Atlantic Canada will be paying a huge, painful price for a situation that began clear across the country in northern British Columbia where the first of the now-nationwide rail blockades began in protest by a handful of hereditary Wet'suwet'en First Nations chiefs against the plans of TC Energy Corp's plans to build its Coastal GasLihnk pipeline through traditional Wet'suwet'en territory in rural British Columbia. This, mind, after a decade of consultations between TC Energy and the elected Wet'suwet'en chiefs reached agreement that eventual profits would be shared with the First Nation, and employment of their members would be assured.

So while band members and their elected councils have signed on to the agreement, satisfied that their needs and their right to profit from such enterprises on their hereditary lands will be fully recognized, the hereditary chiefs have balked and refused their assent, calling on the need for further consultations, even while the company has already started its pipeline assets construction. The demands of the five dissenting chiefs has been taken up by environmentalists and other non-aboriginal supporters, leaving the country in a hostage position moving into its third week where Canadian National freight train delivery has been stopped and its passenger Via Rail contingent brought to a halt.

The federal government, while deploring the situation, has been calling for patience, refusing to order a stop to the blockades until several days ago. The federal, provincial and local police have had no direction from government, and although the courts have issued injunctions against the blockades, police have been loathe to take action to forcibly break up the protest/blockages and arrest the leaders who simply rip up the court orders they're served with. To take action against the protesters is to risk being labelled a 'colonialist' and a 'racist', not merely by the protesters but by government itself.

It is not just internal rail deliveries that have been disrupted, where needed manufacturing parts, propane for heating, chlorine for water treatment and all manner of goods have been stopped from being delivered to the sources awaiting them, halting production, but rail links outside Canada and Canadian ports, where containers have been unable to be transferred to freight trains and are left to sit and pile up on docks. U.S. container lines have begun diverting ships elsewhere than Canada after their valuable cargo has been stranded on docks for weeks.

At this juncture, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finally deciding to intone: "The barricades must come down, now" appears a little after the fact. When the leader of the official opposition in Parliament urged the government to take action several days earlier, he was frozen out of a meeting to discuss the emergency, attended by lesser opposition leaders becuse the prime minister characterized his statement as injudiciously unhelpful; now two days later he is echoing the opposition leader because his very own inaction was obviously injudiciously unhelpful.

And now that the federal government has finally taken a stand, noting that overtures by federal ministers to meet with the discontented chiefs in an effort to reach an understanding have been ignored, through repeated requests, and the chiefs have instead insisted that the RCMP must leave the site of the Coastal GasLink where the protests are continuing, before they may or may not decide to meet with the federal government, is a fair indication of the tail continue to wag this very particular donkey.

Supporters of Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs Edmonton, Feb. 19.Reuters/Codie McLachlan

"Aboriginal people are already in grocery stores getting confronted by people that just want to go back to work, they don’t like to see their lives disrupted. And these average Aboriginals, they’re not political. They don’t have an opinion on pipelines or blockades.They want to get on with their lives just like regular Canadians."
"[The] political rhetoric [from those who claim to support some of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs opposed to the natural gas pipeline ignores the] tremendous amount of work [done over the last 15 years among B.C. First Nations to get companies to consult and accommodate them on projects]."
"You’re trying to de-stabilize these communities and you’re trying to de-legitimize the work that collected band leaders and hereditary leaders have done over the last 15 years, not only to provide jobs or employment as a way out of poverty, but also to breathe life into the word reconciliation."
"I’m pretty sure Aboriginals across B.C. do not want to see those blockades, they don’t want to see it escalate to the point where Aboriginals are actually getting accosted on the streets. I mean, this is setting back reconciliation 20 years."
B.C. Liberal MLA Ellis Ross, B.C. politician and First Nations leader

OPP liaison officers leave after speaking with Tyendinaga Mohawk members at the railway blockade on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2020.   Lars Hagberg/The Canadian Press