Montreal port shuts down adding to Canadian supply chain woes

Canadian supply chains are reeling from port shutdowns on both coasts. 

Dockworkers have just been locked out from Montreal, the largest port in the east of the country, as a long-running labour dispute shows no sign of ending, while ports in British Columbia on the west coast have been closed for the past seven days as well over a separate labour dispute. 

The Montreal Port Authority has asked prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government to put an end to the labour dispute. “I believe that the best agreements are negotiated at the table. But let’s face it, there are no negotiations,” Julie Gascon, the port authority’s CEO, said last Thursday. 

Canadian labour minister Steven MacKinnon said last Thursday that the government supports negotiations, but said talks in both British Columbia and Montreal were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved”.