The lockout on Thursday was not quite 17 hours old when Steve MacKinnon, the federal labor minister, said he had told the Canada Industrial Relations Board to formally order the railways to restart service and to impose a contract through binding arbitration. He predicted that trains on the two freight railways would be running again within days.

Exactly how many days was still fuzzy on Friday afternoon. The union representing the 10,000 workers, the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, has said it opposes arbitration. It also filed a formal notice with Canadian National that it intended to go on strike against that railway on Monday and that it was keeping lockout pickets in place.

With the exception of one route in Northern Ontario, however, it’s been business as usual for Via. Its trains largely travel on Canadian National’s track as well as the comparatively small sections of track it owns near Ottawa and Windsor, Ontario.

Unlike their counterparts at Canadian Pacific Kansas City, the dispatchers who control the traffic along Canadian National’s rails are covered on a different contract and remained at work.

The lack of freight trains on the rails eased, at least temporarily, the single biggest factor when it comes to keeping Via’s trains on time. In the United States, federal law requires that Amtrak passenger trains be given preference over freight trains when running on freight railways’ tracks. (However, the United States Justice Department recently charged one of the largest freight lines in the country with illegally delaying passenger trains.)

Parliament did not give Via any such status. While weather, accidents and mechanical issues play roles, the most consistent factor behind delays on Via is the need for its trains to pull over and wait to allow freight trains to pass. Last year, just 59 percent of Via’s trains were on time. (Air Canada was not dramatically better: 63 percent of flights were on time last year.)

The latest scheme for improving train service between Windsor and Quebec City involves adding separate rails for passenger trains. And while the government is carefully avoiding comparing VIA HFR, the proposed passenger-only project, to high-speed trains in Europe and Asia, such a project would also increase train speeds. The new trains Via Rail is now rolling out, for example, have a top speed of 200 kilometers an hour but are limited to 160 k.p.h. on the current tracks.

The project’s initials stand for High-Frequency Rail — the idea being that frequent, relatively fast and reliable trains will lure passengers out of cars and planes, but at a significantly lower, if still multibillion-dollar, cost compared with high-speed trains.

VIA HFR is technically a subsidiary of VIA Rail and, as a result, owned by the government. But its spokesman told me that the two companies operate at arm’s length and that VIA HFR has complete authority over the new project.

VIA HFR would largely privatize rail travel along the 1,000-kilometer route that now accounts for 96 percent of Via’s passengers and 82 percent of its ticket revenue. It has asked three groups of companies to submit proposals to build the line and then operate and partly own the train system. Its land and infrastructure would remain under government ownership.

Last month, on the deadline day for proposals, Air Canada announced that it was joining a group that includes AtkinsRéalis Canada, the engineering and construction company that previously called itself SNC-Lavalin, and an infrastructure management and construction company owned by the Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec, the province’s pension fund.

It was something of a surprise given Air Canada’s vigorous past opposition to any passenger rail network improvements.

Beyond a brief statement, Air Canada has said little about the change in its thinking. It did not respond to my questions about its newfound interest in rail.

It is common in many countries for airline tickets to cover rail connections to the passenger’s final destination. Air Canada itself sells them to European cities.

Linking trains and planes can be more efficient and convenient than putting passengers on short-haul flights. The reduction in direct flights from Ottawa since the pandemic means that I now frequently connect in Montreal. In my experience, the absurdly short connecting flight back to Ottawa is often delayed, sometimes for longer than even a particularly slow train would take to complete the leg.

Jacques Roy, a professor at the HEC Montréal business school, has researched high-speed rail for decades and once wrote a study for the provincial government about linking it with air travel. When I asked him if it was necessary to have airline ownership of rail services to integrate planes and trains at airports, his answer was blunt: “No.”

Worse, he said, such a dynamic creates the possibility that Air Canada will block other airlines from integrating their flights with the new trains. In Europe, he said, “there’s no exclusivity.”

Transport Action Canada, a public transportation group that advocates the interests of passengers, goes further. It doesn’t want any Air Canada involvement in the new project.

“We are very supportive of good railway connections at airports,” Terry Johnson, the group’s president told me. “You just don’t have to have an airline own it.”

• Eric Kim, a food and cooking columnist for The Times, tells the story of Logan Moffitt, the 23-year-old from Ottawa who has become TikTok’s “Cucumber Boy.” And Amelia Nierenberg reports that the cucumber mania set off by Mr. Moffitt’s video recipes has created cucumber scarcity in Iceland.

• A mining company based in Vancouver operating in Botswana has unearthed a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond mined in more than a century and the second-largest ever found.

• Recaldo Thomas, a chef who was born in Canada and raised in Calgary, was among the people who died when a luxury yacht sank off Sicily. It’s still unclear why the $40 million ship sank so rapidly after being hit by a violent storm.

• Ben Ryder Howe dissects the popularity of Costco, which has become one of the five largest food retailers in Canada.

• A woman from Victoria was rescued after she was lost in the Colorado mountains for four days during a guided spiritual “quest.”

  A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for two decades. Follow him on Bluesky at @ianausten.bsky.social.

How are we doing?
We’re eager to have your thoughts about this newsletter and events in Canada in general. Please send them to nytcanada@nytimes.com.

Like this email?
Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up here.