Premiers ask federal government to delay Greyhound service reductions

The country's premiers are pushing the federal government to step in to ensure rural communities have safe access to transportation after Greyhound announced they were cancelling their bus services in western Canada.

Earlier this month the company said as of October, they would no longer service routes in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and cancelling all but one route in B.C.

That prompted an outcry over the safety implications for people living in rural and remote communities, especially for Indigenous women.

Those concerns were on the minds of the premiers as they met in New Brunswick this week, and prompted a section on Greyhound to be included in their final communique.

The joint statement welcomed the commitment by the government to find a path forward, further urging Ottawa to work with the company to extend the service period until affected communities could implement alternative services.

"This is fundamentally important to rural communities, to Indigenous communities, it's important to seniors, it's important for women," Alberta Premier Rachel Notley told The House.

She spoke about her experience using the bus company as a safe way to travel around Alberta as a teenager.

"We have to have a safe and secure rural transportation of some form in this country," she said.

Notley said Greyhound was one of the issues she was able to find common ground on with her B.C. counterpart, John Horgan. The two have had a tumultuous year as they feuded over the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, resulting in the federal government purchasing the infrastructure for $4.5 billion.

They met for the first time this week since siting down with Justin Trudeau earlier this year to discuss the pipeline controversy.

That same pipeline is, in Notley's mind, a good example of how to diversify the Canadian market as the government battles with the U.S. administration over trade issues.

To tackle that uncertainty, the premiers also signed a communique this week vowing to work harder to better implement the Canadian Free Trade Agreement that allows trade between provinces.

Interprovincial trade will be the subject of an upcoming fall meeting with the prime minister, but Notley says she wants to see effort from the federal government to understand the intricacies of the roadblocks in the lead up to the date.

"I think that they're going to have to do a lot of their own homework before they come to this meeting."