Article content continued

Inside, Port McNeill Chamber of Commerce executive director Jessica McLaughlin gave an emotional speech to the ministers about how the only coffee shop in the forestry town has laid off all its employees except one and the town is approaching a crisis point.

“She’s talked to people all over the place and they’ve said they are on the edge of losing their businesses,” said Port McNeill mayor Gaby Wickstrom. “And she said, ‘Do not mistake my emotion for weakness, because I am pissed.’ That got a resounding applause.”

Donaldson and Trevena repeatedly said they would take the comments back to Premier John Horgan.

“The general sentiment in the room that rose to the surface after everything, and this was directed to government, was that you have the power to do something,” said Wickstrom. “We the people in the room don’t have the power, but you do to do something.”

The meeting concluded without any concrete action.

“I’m usually that person with the rose-coloured glasses in the corner looking for the sunshine and I’m not seeing any,” she said. “That’s tough.”

The WFP strike now mainly centres on alternate shift scheduling that the union says forces members not to take consecutive days off and endangers their safety due to long hours and lack of sleep. The company has refused to give what it calls a “veto” to the union over the type of shift schedules that are economical.

WFP and some contractors have asked government to intervene, but the Steelworkers Union (the NDP’s largest donor in the 2017 election campaign) has demanded government stay out of the dispute.