"VIA Rail has no choice but to continue the cancellation of its services on a large part of its network… Therefore, it is with sincere regret that we must proceed with temporary work suspensions. Starting today, close to 1,000 VIA Rail employees will receive a notice regarding this matter", the company said in a statement.
The interruption in most nationwide service is a first in VIA Rail’s 42-year history, chief executive Cynthia Garneau said in the statement.
Wednesday’s layoffs come on the heels of Canadian National Railway’s announcement on Tuesday that 450 workers would be laid off at its Eastern Canadian operations.
Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that disruptions in transportation services due to protest blockades are harming citizens and must be resolved.
"We understand that this is an unacceptable situation", Trudeau said during Wednesday’s Question Period at the House of Commons. "Canadians are hurting. Canadians are facing layoffs. This is something we need to resolve and need to resolve it not just for today and tomorrow. We need to resolve it for the weeks and months to come".
Protesters have blockaded transportation corridors in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Ontario in response to the eviction of activists protesting the construction of a gas pipeline on indigenous land.
Canada’s official opposition and the business community have repeatedly blasted the government’s response to the wave of protests that has crippled a crucial part of the country’s economy.
Polling numbers released by Ipsos/Global News today appear to support this, with the majority of Canadians (61%) disagreeing with anti-pipeline protesters and 53% in support of police intervention to end the blockades.
The protests began on 6 February in response to a RCMP operation to enforce a court order against those interfering with the Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline project.
Solidarity protests began in the Vancouver metropolitan area, but following a wave of arrests in British Columbia that saw more than 80 protesters detained at the campsite and their sympathizers in the Vancouver area, the protest spread to other parts of Canada, including Ontario, where a group of indigenous protesters shut down Canada’s busiest railway corridor between Toronto and Montreal.