Via Rail joins CN in recalling workers as barricades come down

Via Rail says most of the 1,000 employees it laid off at the height of the rail blockades in support of British Columbia’s Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs’ opposition to the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline running through their territory will be back at work by the weekend.

On Tuesday, CN began calling back to work most of the 450 employees it temporarily laid off during the blockades.

Via says virtually all services between Toronto and Montreal and Toronto and Ottawa will be up and running by Saturday.

It said its transcontinental “The Canadian” resumed departures on Wednesday and is back to its full and normal schedule.

People arrive at a blockade in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory near Belleville, Ont., on Feb. 11 in support of Wet’suwet’en’s blockade of the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline in northern B.C. The blockade disrupted Via Rail service on the Montreal-Toronto and Toronto-Ottawa routes that week. (Lars Hagberg/The Canadian Press)

However, service on the Prince-Rupert-Prince-George-Jasper route remains suspended as Via works with CN Rail, which owns the rail line.

The resumption of service follows a draft agreement reached last weekend between the chiefs and top ministers from the federal and the B.C. governments that prompted most of the blockades to come down.

However, there is still no word on whether Mohawk activists will dismantle their blockade of a CP rail line at Kahnawake, across the St. Lawrence River from Montreal, and in Listuguj, Que., where Mi’kmaq activists have blocked a rail line that connects the Gaspé Peninsula with New Brunswick.

Reports are circulating that Mohawk leaders would make an announcement on Thursday afternoon.

With files from CBC, RCI, CP, CTV, Montreal Gazette