Lily Azli is excited to compete in the World Archery Youth Championships in Winnipeg this week, but she is also disappointed core members of her team from Australia won’t be firing arrows alongside her amid a strike that’s plaguing air travellers heading to or from Canada.
About 570 athletes from 63 countries were slated to arrive in Winnipeg for the World Archery Youth Championships on the same weekend the Air Canada strike impacted about 750 flights Canadawide.
“You know how many hours they’ve put into training and how many little and big sacrifices they’ve made to be here,” said Azli, 18. “To know they’re not going to be here at all, it breaks your heart.”
Five of Azli’s 19 teammates won’t make it for the competition due to cancellations related to the ongoing Air Canada flight attendant strike.
Flight attendants remained on the picket line at Winnipeg Richardson International Airport on Monday.
CUPE Manitoba president Gina McKay is adamant the picketing will continue, despite Canada’s Industrial Relations Board deciding Monday that continued defiance of a back-to-work order is illegal.
“No matter what, we have constitutional rights to strike and that’s what we’re doing here today,” she said Monday outside the Winnipeg airport.
“We’re working and fighting for fair wages and we’re fighting for a fair contract. And that’s what we’re doing is we’re holding the line.”
The industrial relations board called on the union to stop all strike activities and direct its members to restart bargaining talks. Disobeying the the board’s order could result in fines and penalties.
The union has characterized the federal Liberal government as supporting Air Canada’s “refusal to negotiate fairly” by issuing the back to work order.
Michael Zakaluzny said the strike resulted in the cancellations of flights to Columbia for he and others in the Melos Folk Ensemble, a Winnipeg-based Ukrainian folk group composed of choral, orchestral and dance elements.
“Major disappointment,” said Zakaluzny, co-director of the ensemble. “We had put in the preparation work, people had taken … a week of holidays and all of a sudden they’re going nowhere fast.”
Thirty-one of the nearly 60-member group was to perform at the Festival Folclórico Internacional de Barranquilla Estefanía Caicedo in the coastal cities of Barranquilla and Ciénaga.
They had been rehearsing since earlier this year and were slated to put on 15 shows in Columbia over 10 days.
Hours before their flight was to take off from Winnipeg they found out a leg of the trip from Toronto to Bogota had been cancelled.
“The festival was expecting for us to be there and participate, they’d made arrangements for hotels, food, transportation, all those things on their end,” said Zakaluzny.
“The day before the festival starts, all of a sudden we’ve left them, through no fault of our own, with a huge hole in their lineup.”
Zakaluzny said the group looked into alternate flight options through their travel agent but were unsuccessful.
“To cover themselves they do say they’ve tried to make alternate arrangements but none are available. I’m not sure … that’s actually happening but they don’t give you much notice and basically throw everything into a state of disarray.”
Though Air Canada will provide the group refunds, the section of their trip booked through a Columbia airline did not cancel that flight, so the group is out of pocket for that flight.
Kerilee Falloon, director of communications for the Winnipeg Airport Authority, said it’s best to stay home if you know in advance your flight has been cancelled and are hoping to rebook.
“It’s best not to come to the airport as the airport won’t be your point of contact for rebooking.”
The archery competition schedule had to be bumped by a day — to begin Wednesday — to accommodate potential late arrivals, said Riel Dion, a member of the local team managing the championships.
Dion said the tense bargaining situation between Air Canada and its staff has created a layer of uncertainty to the competition.
“Planning an event of this scale is challenging into itself, and when you add something like a strike on top of that it definitely makes things a little bit more difficult,” said Dion, who is also founder and CEO of event management company Event Camp.
He said so far some international athletes have made it to the U.S. or Canada but have had to scramble to make alternative flight arrangements to get to Winnipeg.
“There are some [athletes] from further away, especially southeast Asia, who are still on the phone with me saying we still can’t come, our flights were cancelled,” he told CBC Information Radio host Marcy Markusa.
Faiiuz Azli’s 15-year-old son and Lily, his 18-year-old daughter, were among the lucky ones to not face cancellations from Australia. But 15 athletes and six officials weren’t so lucky.
Of the 19-member team from Australia, Azli estimates about 14 will make it in time to compete.
“I am speechless because we know all the kids, they all, as a team, they’re very close and now some of them aren’t going to be here,” he said. “It’s devastating, it’s very sad.”
