A battle over the fate of a rail line in northwestern Manitoba last week appeared headed for the courts after a rural municipality defied CN Rail’s efforts to tear out a section of the track.
Shortly after CN Rail began dismantling part of the Erwood subdivision in early June, the Rural Municipality of Mountain served the rail company with an order to stop the work.
The RM backed that order with a notice that it had granted municipal heritage designation to the section of track within its jurisdiction.
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CN stopped dismantling the track, partly to avoid placing its workers in the middle of a dispute. But CN spokesperson Jim Feeny said the railway will contest the stop-work order and the heritage designation in court.
“We don’t think this has any legal basis,” Feeny said.
“We think it’s an improper use of the Heritage Resources Act and we plan to challenge it.”
But seven municipal councils in northwestern Manitoba are united in their effort to protect railway infrastructure in their region from further abandonment.
Maxine Plesiuk, a spokesperson for the seven councils, said the outcome of the court challenge by CN could set a precedent.
“We’re going to find out whether this legislation in the province has any teeth.
“It very clearly gives municipal authority to do what we’re doing and on good grounds.”
The legislation allows municipalities to preserve, protect and enhance sites that they deem to have sufficient heritage significance, she said.
Meanwhile, RM of Mountain reeve Jack McKay is hoping for a meeting with CN to talk about rail-line abandonment.
Feeny said CN followed the rules set out under the Canadian Transportation Act for discontinuing service on the rail line. There was ample opportunity for a private company, a municipality or the province to buy the section of track, he said. No viable offers came forward.
Plesiuk, an outspoken advocate for short-line rail service, is among those in recent years who wanted Ottawa to place a moratorium on line abandonment.
She said there’s an opportunity to develop regional railroads on the Prairies that would boost the use of the port of Churchill, a northern shipping port on Hudson Bay.
Such a system could reduce freight costs for producers and other shippers while easing the amount of traffic on municipal roads, Plesiuk said.
While CN may have followed the rules of the Canadian Transportation Act, Plesiuk argues the company did not abide by the spirit and intent of the federal legislation.
