The city's archbishop is promising to use his moral authority to engineer a truce in a labour dispute at the city's biggest Roman Catholic cemetery that would allow hundreds of families to bury their dead.Jean-Claude Cardinal Turcotte met with representatives of families whose loved ones have remained stored in refrigeration units at the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery since mid-May.
After the meeting yesterday, Turcotte called on management to end its lockout and the union to call off the strike it began shortly after being locked out.
"It was a good meeting because it enabled me to understand more deeply the pain of those families that are unable to bury their dear ones," Turcotte said.
"For me, they are the most important victims of the conflict at the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery," he said, calling the situation ``intolerable" for the families.
Turcotte acknowledged he has no legal power to intervene in the dispute, but has the moral power to nudge the two sides closer together.
"I think it is realistic to suggest a short-term solution, to lift the lockout and suspend the strike, and a long-term solution with a new contract that satisfies the two parties," he said.
Turcotte is now asking the two sides respond to his proposal by the end of the week.
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