OTTAWA – CP Rail last week announced it is moving its head office and 817 jobs to Calgary from Montreal and other cities by next year.
The job transfers come at the expense of cities across the country, from Montreal and Toronto to Vancouver and Winnipeg.
Immediately, some politicians raised the spectre the move was a direct result of uncertainty created by the close Quebec referendum Oct. 30 that rejected the province’s separation from the rest of Canada by 50.6 to 49.4 percent, and the prospect of another vote within a few years.
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CP spokesperson Barry Scott said the speculation was unfounded.
“I cannot emphasize enough that it’s not a political decision,” he said from Montreal. “It is because 80 percent of our business is done in the West.”
Fewer time zones
He said it will be more efficient and time-saving to have executives concentrated in Calgary, rather than having them spread over a number of time zones.
“When people are in different time zones, things get out of sync,” said Scott. “It is hard to arrange meetings and even telephone conferences are difficult.”
He said it makes sense to have railway head offices in the centre of the region which generates most of the railway’s bulk traffic.
For a shipper like Ron Weik of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, the CPR move west matters little.
“With all the communications links we have, they probably could have their head offices in Tuktoyaktuk,” he said referring to the remote town on the northwestern tip of the Northwest Territories.
Saskatchewan Pool, like other prairie shippers, has dealt mainly with CPR officials in the company’s Winnipeg offices.
“If we have to go somewhere, an hour’s flight east (to Winnipeg) or west (to Calgary) is the same either way,” he said.
In the House of Commons, the CP decision lost its commercial justification and became a political issue, at least for the separatist party Bloc QuŽbecois.
“The decision to move CP headquarters is a direct result of federal railway policies which, thanks to enormous subsidies and protected branch lines, have caused a shift in railway activity west,” complained BQ transport critic Paul Mercier.
He said the loss of 710 CP jobs in Montreal further diminishes Montreal’s status as a transportation centre.
Government spokesperson Joe Fontana, parliamentary secretary to the transport minister, said the BQ could help by supporting federal legislation which will make it easier to create short-line railways which could serve Quebec.
Government leaders also suggested that economic uncertainty created by the Quebec separatists has made many companies nervous about investing in the province or keeping investment in the province.
CP said it will keep 2,500 jobs in Montreal as a centre for eastern rail services.
The railway estimates that 732 CP employees will relocate to Calgary and 187 locals will be hired to replace employees who will not want to move west from cities such as Montreal, Toronto, Minneapolis, Minn., and Albany, N.Y.
