MONTREAL, Que. — The Quebec Trucking Association (ACQ) has been informed that longshoremen will stop activities at the two container terminals, Cast and Racine, of the Société des terminals Montréal Gateway, from Thursday July 2 at 3 p.m. until Saturday July 4 at 6.59 a.m.

These terminals receive around 1,000 containers per day, representing traffic of about 800 to 900 trucks.

The ACQ will recommend its members  to carry out transportation movements early Thursday morning. Its CEO, Marc Cadieux, worries the collateral damage that the stoppage will cause throughout the supply chain, at a time when workers and businesses are already dealing with heavy losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This work stoppage will affect not only these terminals, but also all workers in the supply chain. It will hurt employers, but much more so for drivers and warehouse workers. And then a bottleneck will be created,” said Cadieux. “People who have absolutely no influence on the situation will suffer while we are all slowed down and we all suffer losses. This is not the time.”

The ACQ says it testified last fall at a federal administrative tribunal to have those services recognized as essential and it is monitoring the situation closely.