Employees at the Port of Churchill said they were blindsided when they were handed layoff notices Monday.

“It was like a funeral, there were people hugging, there were people crying, wondering a mix of, ‘what am I going to do,’” said Joe Stover, an employee at the Port of Churchill.

Staff were called to a meeting Monday afternoon and told there would be no shipping season this year.

“That was it, they just laid everyone off,” said Stover.

The Union of Canadian Transportation Employees said staff at the Port of Churchill were given no notice or no indication that anything was wrong.

“There was no discussion, no warning, nothing,” said UCTE Regional Vice-President Teresa Eschuk.

The UCTE said the move is devastating news for a town like Churchill.

“Our concern is for the community as a whole,” said Marianne Hladun, Regional Executive Vice-President with the Public Service Alliance of Canada. “It’s not like there’s another employer in town that can absorb these workers.”

Liberal MLA for Kewatinook Judy Klassen is calling on the provincial government to act ‘quickly and with urgency’ in response to the port’s closure.

“I am shocked to hear that 10 per cent of the Churchill population experienced a loss in their employment this week,” Klassen said.

“This is heartbreaking news that will have a devastating impact on an already struggling economy.”

UCTE said there were about 60 unionized employees working at the port last year. It anticipated at least that many to return this year.

It said OmniTrax, the Denver-based company that owns the port, refuses to communicate with the union.

“We have been told nothing about this,” said Hladun of the layoffs. “For months we have been asking for information about the potential sale of business and they ignored us. I’m not surprised by the lack of communication on this one.”

Meanwhile, he Manitoba Chambers of Commerce is calling the decision to close the port a troubling development it hopes will spark change in northern Manitoba.

The MCC said it has called for a long-term economic development plan for northern Manitoba for years. It said the closure by OmniTrax and subsequent layoffs prove that time is of the essence to develop a plan.

“At a time of the year where grain should be flowing from the port, this decision will hurt a community that relies on the economic spinoffs,” MCC said in a news release. “It also highlights the need to focus our efforts on redeveloping and reinvesting in the Port of Churchill.”

The chambers said it advocates that both OmniTrax and the provincial government establish a northern commission to assess Manitoba’s transportation infrastructure and its limitations, and said the province should develop a strategy to spark investment into the port.

In the meantime, employees at the Port of Churchill, like Stover, have been given two weeks’ notice, to find a job, or possibly face unemployment.

”It’s either they go away for work, or they have to go on stamps or something, I don’t know. If I was a father, I’d be really scared right now,” said Stover.