I think we need to have a conversation about exactly what is wrong with this. There are two things going on here. First, Andrew Scheer is always trying to take the opposite side of anything the Liberal government does. #cdnpoli @JustinTrudeau 1/20
Some may say, "They are the opposition, their job is to oppose." Well, yes and no. In a fully functioning democracy, where all parties have the public good at the heart of everything they do, the opposition opposes when they government is doing something bad. 2/20
They are not meant to automatically take the opposing side when what the government is doing is for the public good. They are supposed to represent their constituents & offer advice & amendments to improve government legislation. Automatic nay-saying is just obstructionist. 3/20
What that approach does is try to make the government seem ineffectual, with a view to replacing it. It is actually working against the public good when they choose party over country. Which is what they do, again and again. 4/20
The second thing that is going on here is the CPC's anti-union/anti-worker philosophy coming out. Conversely, it could be seen as pro-corporation. The irony is, the CPC have campaigned on helping regular Canadians "get ahead". 5/20
Are CN workers not regular Canadians? How do they align this knee-jerk reaction to a strike over working conditions with helping regular Canadians get ahead? Surely, safety at work is pretty basic on a hierarchy of needs. 6/20
This CPC response raises the question of who, exactly, are the regular Canadians they claim to be helping? Not CN workers, clearly. Probably not anyone unionised. Not Indigenous Peoples as we saw clearly during Harper's reign. 7/20
Not, one might guess, the LGBTQ2+ community. Not immigrants of colour. Not non-Christians, apparently. Not academics. Not environmentalists. Not the poor. Not the disabled. Not the ill. This is based on things Scheer and other members of the CPC have said and done. 8/20
So who are the Canadians on whom Scheer and the CPC focus their attentions? Straight. White. Married. Affluent enough to put their kids in hockey or ballet. Probably affluent enough to have Mom stay home & home-school or send the kids to private school. Sunday church-goers. 9/20
So, being firmly on the side of the company over employees, the CPC sees only one option. Make the employees go back to work and to hell with their safety. Because changing things to make them more safe would cost the company money. 10/20
A party truly interested in working, regular Canadians would be pushing the company to examine ways to make their employees safer at work. This appears to be what the Liberal government is doing, causing great pearl-clutching and gnashing of teeth in the CPC. 11/20
Also interesting are the number of people on Twitter who have spoken up, saying the rail workers should just get back to work. They say the rail-workers are over-paid already. They say danger is part of many jobs, like farming, and they should get over it. 12/20 
Indeed, there have been quite a few saying that unionised workers don't deserve anything. That they already have too many advantages. This is messed up. This is like saying "My house burned down so we have to burn my neighbour's house down to make it fair". 13/20
So many people these days do not understand that because of organised labour we have weekends. We have stat holidays and parental leave. We have sick days. We have Employee Assistance Programs. We have workplace health and safety regulations... 14/20
Which brings us back around to should the government make the employer make work safer for CN workers, or should they side with the corporation and just make workers go back to work that risks their lives? 15/20
I think any worker in any industry that wishes workers in another industry have unsafe workplaces is turning their back on their fellow worker/wage earner. We are in this together. We can raise each other up together, or we can sink alone. Think about it. 16/20
Corporate employers are not your friends. They don't care if you live or die, except that it might look bad in the media. Your fellow workers can be your friends. There is strength in numbers. That's why unionisation works to make life better for everyone. 17/20
Unions brought about the middle class. If we lose unions and the power of the worker, we split the society into haves and have-nots, just as it was during the Industrial Revolution. Think hard. 18/20
The captains of industry would rather all workers lack basic health and safety because it's cheaper for them. This isn't about railworkers alone. This is about the power that workers have to improve their situations. 19/20
Those people in the corner offices with their manicured nails and BMWs are getting rich. Unions allow workers to demand a decent life, a living wage, and a working environment that won't kill them. Think on that. 20/20
