The BC Liberal Agriculture Critic says the ongoing CN rail strike has the potential to have a huge impact on the province.

“A huge number of dairy farms and poultry and hog farms in the Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island depend on a lot of our grain products to come out of the prairie provinces by rail car,” said Ian Paton. “And then of course, we have cereal grains up in the north that are in grain bins that have to get to shipping ports in Vancouver.”

He says it is critical that feed shipments not be disrupted, so that ripple effects aren’t felt by other industries in BC and across Canada.

Paton is hoping that Transportation Minister Claire Trevena will do what she can to get a settlement in place.

“The hold up with the rail cars is only going to make it worse trying to get product to tidewater,” he added.

In all, there are 3,200 unionized CN workers on strike across Canada, including 125 in Kamloops.