Vaughn Palmer: Eby, Rustad took a savvy view of port strike, Falcon went corporate
VICTORIA — Premier David Eby was quick to praise this week’s tentative settlement in the port dispute, celebrating it as a vindication of the NDP preference for deals made at the bargaining table.
“I am very pleased to see a tentative deal reached between the union and the employer that will resume operations at the Port of Vancouver,” Eby declared on his social media account shortly after the news of the four-year deal broke Thursday. “The best way to get a lasting resolution is through negotiations at the bargaining table.”
Eby had spent the week refusing to join the chorus of premiers, pundits, and business leaders demanding that the federal government immediately recall Parliament to legislate an end to the strike.
He fielded those calls in person while attending the annual premiers conference in Winnipeg, where the premiers of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario had all urged Ottawa to wield the legislative hammer.
