Churchill railway ownership group switches CEO

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This article was published 30/08/2022 (850 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — The northern Manitoba group that runs the railway to Churchill and its port has replaced its chief executive officer, and is staying mum on allegations of racial harassment among workers.

“I’m not a quitter; I see things through. But I didn’t have the option,” said Sheldon Affleck, whose term as CEO of Arctic Gateway Group ended Wednesday.

He will be replaced starting Thursday by Michael Woelcke, who oversaw Via Rail’s rural routes, including Winnipeg to Churchill.

Arctic Gateway said in a Wednesday news release Woelcke will oversee repairs to the railway which, after four years, are moving “toward the halfway mark” and that he will soon focus on “new opportunities and business development.”

In an interview, Churchill Mayor Mike Spence said Affleck was offered a different role, but the board wanted someone who could help with the shift from repairs to more business.

“We remain focused on completing this work that needs to be done, but as a board we’re also undertaking work to look ahead,” said Spence.

“Sheldon (Affleck) played a critical role in assisting to secure our rebuild plan.”

He said half the railway should be repaired by this fall, with the rest fully upgraded a year later or by early 2024 at the latest.

Lately, that work has involved replacing sand with ballast rock, which has blasted and stored near Churchill and Thompson.

Using American equipment, the company will replace stretches of rail bed along the line, which stretched from The Pas and Churchill. The company had previously restored bridges and used plastic honeycomb grids to maintain more stability atop thawing permafrost.

The railway connects remote communities to southern rail lines, and gained national attention in 2017 as a result of spring snowmelt track washouts that left Churchill without an overland land link to for 18 months.

In 2018, the Trudeau government bought the railway from Omnitrax and transferred it to Arctic Gateway Group, a consortium owned by Indigenous communities and towns that rely on the rail line.

In February, the group appointed an independent investigator to probe accusations of workplace racism reported by the Free Press.

Former and current workers at the company’s headquarters in The Pas had recounted racial slurs directed at Cree staff, the singing of a white nationalist anthem and allegations Indigenous employees were prevented from advancing to better-paid roles.

Christian Sinclair, former chief of Opaskwayak Cree Nation who had served on the group’s board earlier, probed those allegations in a report submitted to the board months ago.

Spence said Woelcke has been given a month to review that report, but not say when the board received it, nor what it says.

“The board take issues of racism and HR matters extremely seriously,” said Spence.

“As an majority-Indigenous ownership group and board, it’s our priority that a thorough review of concerns being raised are addressed.”

He said that will involve a look at the company’s policies and procedures.

Affleck argued the consortium, which has received nearly $300 million in taxpayer dollars, should make the report public.

“The racism report was actually favourable to management, but actually did recommend board changes — that’s maybe why you weren’t given a copy,” Affleck told the Free Press.

“I don’t know why it wouldn’t be a public document, at all, because there shouldn’t be anything to hide,” said Affleck, who had been company CEO since March 2021.

Since the 2018 takeover of the railway and port, Ottawa has pledged $220 million for the consortium, while the province has earmarked $73.8 million.

That provincial funding came in recent weeks, when the Stefanson provincial government broke with the Tories’ years-long policy of not funding the railway repairs.

Meanwhile, the Port of Churchill welcomed its largest freight shipment by rail in five years, with 44 carloads of goods bound for Nunavut.

“There are exciting times ahead of us; the opportunity for this region and central Canada,” Spence said.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca