CHRIS CONNORS
CAPE BRETON POST
NORTH SYDNEY — A Cape Breton manufacturer is almost at the end of its rope as a result of the nationwide train blockades.
Sean Burke is general manager of Polysteel Atlantic Ltd. in Edwardsville and sister company East Coast Rope Ltd. in North Sydney. He said when CN shut down its Eastern Canadian operations a “really critical” rail car carrying the polythene resin pellets they turn into rope was stuck somewhere in Quebec or New Brunswick.
Burke said even if they can find pellets, shipping it by truck will cost the company between $6,000 and $10,000 extra.
“We’re challenged even to find the materials and to find the resources to get it to our plant,” he told the Cape Breton Post on Thursday. “When and if we do — and I’m pretty sure we will find it, I’m hopeful anyway — it’s going to have an increased cost because it’s obviously become a really dear product to everybody, so prices typically go up in crisis, and just the trucking alone will increase the cost of the materials.”
Burke said because a rail car holds about four times more cargo, one truckload of the plastic pellets will only allow them to keep their extruders running for seven to nine days. That means if they can’t find a reliable supply, the plants, which employ about 60 people in total, might have to shut down.
“We put a memo out to our staff today just to bring them up to speed on where we were with our materials and, basically, it’s kind of a head’s up that if there’s not a resolution to this in the near future then we obviously can’t keep the plant open if we have nothing to do. Now, I don’t see that as an immediate thing — it’s not tomorrow or the next day — but without any kind of guidance of how long this is going to last, we can’t give any firm guidance to our employees. It will all depend if we can get that first truck, and if it’s going on past that, if we can get our second truck. We’ll have to take it truck by truck, I guess is the best way to describe it.”
Copol International Ltd. vice-president of operations Denis Lanöe said the North Sydney-based manufacturer of plastic films has enough resin pellets in its inventory for the short-term. However, if the rail blockades continue, it could be an issue.
“If the blockade doesn’t get resolved very shortly, within the next few weeks or so, it will have an impact on us,” he said.
Polysteel Atlantic and East Coast Rope also ship their rope by train. Burke said that could cost them sales now and customers in the future.
“If we can’t get our product out there, people don’t buy it so we’ll just end up losing sales because of this,” he said.
“This is just an example of the way it could affect an economy. If we miss orders and customers decide to go somewhere else. We have customers in the U.S. and they look back at Canada and say ‘Wow, it’s a lot safer to do business with a place we know we can get our product from instead of place where there so much uncertainty.’ That can have lasting damage and it’s really difficult to quantify that damage.”
The blockades began Feb. 6 in support of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs who are opposing RCMP intervention at a Coastal GasLink pipeline construction site in northern British Columbia.
Burke said while he’d like the protests to end immediately, even a timeline on when the federal government will step in would help his business and others.
“I have a hard time understanding when somebody is breaking the law it seems like it should be enforced,” he said. “Even if there was a deadline around that, it would be helpful for us.”
