Thousands of Passengers Suffer From a VIA Rail Engineer Strike
As if tourism in Nova Scotia hasn’t been hit enough, now the rail link has been cut. VIA Rail, the passenger link across Canada, is canceling its passenger operations to Halifax and other areas due to an engineer’s strike. This means many overseas trips will not materialize and those Canadians who want to realize the Nation Dream of crossing Canada by rail will have to do it another year. It also means that thousands of travelers are now scrambling to find alternative ways of travel. And this is another black eye for Canadian tourism.
So, do engineers not have the right to strike? Sure they do. And although the media calls it an “Engineer’s Strike” they should not field all the blame. These people have been working without a contract for 2 years so where is the negotiating sense with both VIA Rail and the unions?
Both should realize that rail travel is very expensive and people aren’t breaking down the ticket offices to ride such a high-priced mode of travel. So every time there is a work stoppage during the only time of the year people really want to go on a transcontinental trip the urge to go again will probably not be there next year. And who’s to say that another union may not stop the trains?
Tourism is much to important to Nova Scotia to let two sides play out their whims. And now, even if the strike is short-lived, the damage has already been done. On top of the thousands of unhappy passengers left stranded by the strike people are already canceling their trips. And this means less people visiting Nova Scotia.
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