Via Rail has suspended nearly all of its train service across the country “until further notice,” while CN Rail announced a “progressive shutdown” of its operations in Eastern Canada on Thursday as the disruption caused by anti-pipeline blockades intensified nationwide.

Via Rail was forced to make the sweeping cancellations after CN Rail said it could not support its operations amid the blockades.

“At this point, there was a concern whether or not we could carry out our service obligations with (Via),” CN Rail spokesman Jonathan Abecassis said in an interview with the Star Thursday evening. “The situation is beyond our control and the safest thing for us to do — for all passengers — is to make sure they don’t get stranded ... by canceling all service until further notice across the country.”

Although Metrolinx shares some rail lines with CN, the decision does not affect GO train service.

Via Rail said it will automatically refund passengers for canceled trips. Passengers already en route Thursday evening were expected to be forced to disembark at the nearest station. The only exception to the company’s indefinite shutdown are its services between Sudbury-White River and Churchill-The Pas.

Protests in solidarity with the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation have sprung up across the country as demonstrators show support for Indigenous leaders in northern B.C. who oppose construction of the already-approved Coastal GasLink pipeline. While all 20 elected First Nations band councils from the region have signed benefit-sharing deals connected with the project, hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en have claimed the pipeline can’t proceed through unceded traditional territory without their consent.

Tensions flared in recent weeks after the company building the natural gas pipeline, TC Energy, obtained an injunction against any construction blockades from B.C.’s top court. The 670-km. pipeline would carry liquified natural gas from northeastern B.C. to a port in Kitimat, where a conglomerate of companies is building a $40-billion export terminal that Ottawa has boasted as the largest private-sector project in Canadian history.

Via Rail had already suspended service between Toronto and Montreal earlier this week due to blockades of CN tracks near Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory outside Belleville. Demonstrators from the Kahnawake Mohawk community south of Montreal also blocked commuter trains in that city.

Abecassis, the CN spokesman, said that as a result of the blockades — in many parts of the country — there are trains parked across the railway network, “which is affecting the speed and velocity of our network and affecting our ability to move anything.”

He said the railway did not make its decision lightly. “This is a decision after many days of making it work and trying to move our operations around this,” he said. “At some point, we had to make a tough decision and we did.”

CN said the shutdown may lead to temporary layoffs.

Teamsters Canada, a union representing 16,000 rail workers, called on the federal government to “find a solution” to the blockades.

“These blockades are having a catastrophic impact on ordinary, working-class Canadians who have nothing to do with the Coastal GasLink pipeline,” said François Laporte, the union’s national president. “Hundreds of our members have been out of work close to a week. Now up to 6,000 of our members risk not being able to support their families or make ends meet this month — and they are powerless to do anything about it.”

Alex Voisine, a CN train engineer in Quebec who has worked for the company for three years, said the issue isn’t complicated. “They have to arrest the protesters,” he wrote to the Star in French. “No trains, no income. All of the engineers could get temporarily laid off.”

Eve Lamargot, an accounting lecturer at Wilfrid Laurier University who travels from her home in Montreal to Waterloo every week, said she has been frantically searching for other modes of transport and alternate accommodations for her six-year-old daughter. “It’s really very time consuming and stressful, and it’s costly,” Lamargot said by phone as a passenger of a rideshare on Highway 401. “I mean, if there’s no train I’m not going to be able to work.”

In a statement, CN said it “sought and obtained” court orders to end the blockades in Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia.

“While the illegal blockades have come to an end in Manitoba and may be ending imminently in British Columbia, the orders of the court in Ontario have yet to be enforced and continue to be ignored,” reads an unattributed part of the company’s statement. “The Company has tried to adjust its operations to serve customers in the face of these challenges, it is now left with the only remaining responsible option: progressively shutting down its Eastern Canadian operations until the illegal blockades end.”

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More than 400 trains were canceled last week, the company said.

Port of Vancouver spokesperson Danielle Jang said she didn’t have any up-to-date information on how the service shutdown would affect their operations, but she expected it to be significant.

“Generally one dollar of three of Canada’s trade outside of North America goes through the port of Vancouver,” Jang said.

Pedro Antunes, chief economist for the Conference Board of Canada, said it’s difficult to gauge what the economic impact of the disruption to rail service might be, but it’s likely to be significant and wide-ranging. CN says it transports $250 billion worth of goods annually.

“When we get into the transport of goods, we’re really talking about the supply chain. We’re talking manufacturing. We’re talking exports. All of these things can be quickly affected.”

But Antunes said the long-term impact may be more economically damaging.

“This doesn’t bode well in terms of attracting investment into Canada,” he said. “Whether we’re talking about the pipeline issue and the energy sector or we’re talking about just, in general, getting investment in the resource sector … these are things that affect long-term growth.”

A spokesperson for the Port of Halifax said it would be working with CN Rail and terminal operators to minimize the impact.

Clara Waschkowski, 19, a second-year political science student at the University of Guelph, said she went into a panic Thursday afternoon when she saw that her train to London on Friday was cancelled. She was looking forward to getting home to see her family, including her grandmother in hospital.

“I felt stranded,” she said. Eventually she snagged one of the few remaining seats on a Greyhound bus.

Waschkowski said she’s of two minds about the ongoing blockades. She understands it’s an effective tool for getting a message across, but when it affects the national economy it’s too much. “The government should intervene,” she said.

Others saw the value in the protests, even as it made their lives more difficult.

Tyler Griffin, a third-year journalism student at Ryerson had a trip planned to Ottawa for reading week. Now, due to the ban, he might not make it home.

He said he was disappointed, but said it was a “great thing” that protesters were supporting the Wet’suwet’en chiefs.

“You have no choice but to break a few windows when the house is on fire.”

With files from Adlakha, Abhya, Alex McKeen, Omar Mosleh and Douglas Quan

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