unfortunately, that was the cheap and easy political response — the very thing many criticize moe for always using. worse, it ignored the gravity of this current labour dispute.
one simply cannot downplay or ignore the significance of 9,300 engineers, conductors and yard workers with the canadian national railway co. (cn) and canadian pacific kansas city ltd. (cpkc) being locked out for an extended period.
like most labour disputes, one can surely blame both management and unions, both of whom accuse the other of caring nothing for the customers affected. no doubt management has legitimate issues related to costs and the union has legitimate issues regarding safety.
but simultaneously shutting down both national railways — again, a billion dollars a day — is anything but a typical labour dispute. the economy cannot endure a shutdown of this vital service for more than a couple of days.
it is important to assess each individual case. this situation is clearly grave.
politicians applying pressure to stakeholders or demanding a solution — up to and including federal government intervention — is hardy unreasonable in this case.
to his credit, moe toned down his political rhetoric. he contributed to a coalition of groups applying much-needed pressure on the railways, union and federal government to come up with a solution.