AMT injunction rejected as CP Rail strike looms

Commuters who use the Candiac, Vaudreuil-Hudson and St-Jérôme rail lines may need to find an alternative way to get around as early as Sunday morning.

A Quebec judge refused late Friday to grant the Agence métropolitaine de transport an injunction which would have forced the Canadian Pacific Railway and its unions to provide passenger service in the Montreal area even in the event of a strike.

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The judge said the injunction would have meant the railway would be forced to replace striking workers with managers who aren’t properly trained to do the job.

Two unions, Unifor and the Teamsters, representing around 5,000 rail workers across the country have issued strike notices, with a deadline of midnight Saturday.

Negotiations were ongoing Friday between the railway and the unions at a Montreal hotel, with the help of federal mediators.

A strike would mean about 19,000 commuters will be left in the lurch on Monday, with many already wondering how they’ll get to work.

“If there's a strike, I'm going to be stuck taking the bus.  And if I can get on the bus, it’ll probably be in sardine conditions,” said one train-user, Linda Frate.

Nicolas Girard, the head of the AMT, said if CP goes on strike he won’t be able to guarantee the same level of service to its riders on Monday morning:

In the event of a strike, CP Rail said some of the managers who have appropriate training will run some CP freight trains, but the plan doesn’t include passenger trains.