B.C. port strike must end ‘immediately,’ Poilievre says, urges Trudeau to act

B.C. port employers said in a statement Tuesday that the union’s internal caucus leadership rejected the 'fair and comprehensive package' that was proposed by a mediator.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to end a port workers strike in British Columbia “immediately.”

Roughly 7,400 port workers walked off the job again Tuesday after their union rejected an offer that briefly ended the strike last week.

That tentative agreement between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada (ILWU) and the B.C. Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA) was proposed by a meditator who received direction from Ottawa to table the offer.

“Justin Trudeau must do his job and end this strike immediately because of the massive cost to workers, consumers and businesses,” he told reporters in Niagara Falls, Ont. on Wednesday.

“We’re calling on him to deliver a plan (and) end this strike within the next 24 hours.”

BCMEA said in a statement Tuesday that the ILWU’s internal caucus leadership rejected the “fair and comprehensive package” that was proposed by the mediator.

BCMEA said the proposed four-year collective agreement included “considerable hikes in wages and benefits” that exceeded the approximate 10 per cent increase over the past three years.

The proposed increases, it added, were also “generally above the established norm of recent private and public sector union settlements in British Columbia and Canada.”