B   M   W   E
JOURNAL
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ONLINE VERSION VOLUME 107 - NUMBER 5 - JUNE/JULY 1998
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BMWE 43rd Grand Lodge Convention
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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.

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