Another truckers' protest heats up after similar blockade ends

By Associated Press, 2/23/2000 11:20

WOODSTOCK, New Brunswick (AP) A truckers' blockade heated up today near the Maine-New Brunswick border, only hours after a similar protest ended at New Brunswick's border with Nova Scotia.

Up to 60 vehicles operated by truckers upset with the rising cost of doing business and falling wages slowed and stopped traffic near Woodstock, not far from the border crossing at Houlton, Maine.

The truckers were keeping traffic to one lane and protest spokesman Marty Johnson said they were also preventing other tractor-trailers from getting by.

Bert Magnus, a U.S. Customs official at the Houlton crossing, confirmed in a phone interview that commercial traffic into the United States had all but ceased.

''The only thing we've seen is empty loads getting through,'' Magnus said, adding that passenger vehicles were getting through unimpeded.

The American customs official said he couldn't see the blockade from his perch, but said it was unusual there would be no loaded trucks coming through Houlton-Woodstock, one of the busiest crossings between New Brunswick and Maine.

Johnson said the group wants to meet with New Brunswick's deputy premier, Dale Graham, whose constituency lies north of Woodstock.

Meanwhile, in Newfoundland, truckers continued to pull their rigs off the road today in Foxtrap and Grand Falls-Windsor.

At the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border, transport trucks were once again travelling the Trans-Canada Highway after a two-day partial blockade ended Tuesday night.

That protest ended following a meeting between protest organizers, Mounted Police officers and the one politician who agreed to sit down and talk to the drivers.

Peter Mesheau, New Brunswick's economic development minister, agreed to take the protesters' concerns back to Fredericton, and that was enough of a concession to end the sometimes rowdy standoff.

''We wanted to get the ball rolling,'' said trucker Barry Cohoon from Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley, one of the protest instigators.

''The country as a whole needed a wake-up call. Now was the time.''

Mesheau's attendance was a bit of a surprise. Earlier in the day, New Brunswick Finance Minister Norm Betts said he wouldn't meet with truckers until the protest was over.

The Nova Scotia government also refused to talk to the truckers and slapped an injunction on the protest earlier in the week, which the truckers ignored.

The truckers said they believe the Canadian public and politicians heard their message that they are being driven out of business by exploding fuel costs, toll highways and the increasingly competitive nature of the trucking industry.

The protest had effectively shut down truck hauling to and from Atlantic Canada for two days. The Trans-Canada Highway through New Brunswick is the main commercial link for the movement of goods in the region.

Many truckers said they were disturbed by the reaction from Canada's top politician, Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who said the truckers should pass their rising expenses on to others.

''The price of oil has tripled,'' Chretien said in Ottawa. ''The truckers are like any other business. When you have added costs, you transfer it to the people you are working for.''

The partial blockade was the first of a series protests in other parts of Canada and the United States.

Angry truckers drove home their discontent in Washington, D.C., and on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday.

Truckers were also on the march in northern New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Ontario.

Up to 2,000 drivers are expected at a rally in Pickering, Ontario, today.

In Talbotville, Ontario, dozens of truckers lined their rigs in front of the Flying M Truck Stop near the St. Thomas Ford Assembly Plant on Tuesday.

The show of solidarity drew immediate concern from Ford's head office in Oakville.

''Any significant interference in trucking will impact our business,'' said John Arnone, public affairs manager at Ford of Canada. ''We rely on the independent truckers and we're monitoring the situation closely.''

The cost of diesel, traditionally less expensive than regular gasoline, has soared to more than $2.65 a gallon recently.

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/054/region/Another_truckers_protest_heats:.shtml

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 23, 2000