Montreal, Quebec is the site of the 43rd Grand Lodge
Convention of the International Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes, scheduled to
be held July 13 through 17, 1998. This is the eighth convention to be held in Canada, the
first being in Toronto, Ontario in 1906 and the last in Vancouver, British Columbia in
1982.
As the BMWE prepares to enter its third century of existence, it is particularly
fitting that the delegates will be meeting in Montreal. BMWE history was made in the City
of Montreal in 1902 with the signing of the first agreement with the huge and powerful
Canadian Pacific Railway, following a bitter strike of maintenance of way workers lasting
from June 17 to August 30, 1901.
Just three years before, in 1899, 12 years after its founding, the BMWE became an
international labor union, when maintenance of way workers in Canada voted for
amalgamation with the BMWE.
Through the years, the Canadian membership has been a vital segment of the
international union. During 30 of the first 41 years following the amalgamation of 1899,
the BMWE had a Grand Lodge President elected from the Canadian membership. A. B. Lowe
served from 1908 to 1914; A. E. Barker from 1914 to 1920; and F. H. Fljozdal from 1922 to
1940. (Although Brother Fljozdal emigrated to the United States from Iceland with his
parents when he was a small boy, he went to Canada some years later.)
Growing from a small French colony in the latter half of the 17th century (it
celebrated its 350th birthday in 1992) to a thriving metropolis, Montreal is to this day
the second largest French-speaking city in the world. Montreal is also the second largest
metropolitan center in Canada, located 187 feet above sea level on the Island of Montreal,
the largest of a group of islands at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers.
Montreal's role as a leading meeting place is not new. Long before it was Montreal, or
even "Ville-Marie" as it was known in the early days of the colony, it was
"Hochelaga" -- a place where native tribes came together for thousands of years
before the first European set foot there. So it is perfectly fitting that delegates gather
in Montreal to set the course which will lead the BMWE, a union building the way from
yesterday into tomorrow, into the next millennium. |