For the first time in more than a year, the service that railways provide to western Canadian grain shippers won’t be subject to federal fines.
The federal government an-nounced March 28 that weekly grain targets will no longer be used to ensure that Canada’s railways are adequately serving the country’s grain shippers.
In a prepared statement, federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said the order in council could be reinstated if required, adding that Ottawa will continue to monitor performance.
But even without weekly targets in place, Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway are facing more scrutiny than they were a year ago.
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In addition to last week’s announcement on mandatory volume requirements, Ottawa confirmed that information gathered by the Grain Monitoring Program has been improved.
Last year, Ottawa announced plans to beef up the program, which was established in 2001 to monitor the overall efficiency of the prairie grain handling and transportation system.
Changes to the program’s mandate will result in new data that measures:
- The movement of western Canadian grain by rail to the United States, Mexico and Eastern Canada.
- The movement of American grain to Canadian destinations.
- The size of the railway fleet currently being used to serve the grain industry.
- The amount of time that port terminals are unable to unload rails cars because of a lack of staff or cars.
Quorum Corp., contracted to collect and compile data for the monitoring program, is also working on a system to measure rail car order fulfillment.
Quorum will also begin reporting Grain Monitoring Program data weekly and monthly, which replaces previous quarterly reporting requirement.
The first weekly report, which covers Week 33 of the 2014-15 crop year, was posted April 1.
Information in that report showed year-to-date rail car unloads at western port locations were up 21 percent from the same period last year.
Western country elevator stocks during the past 15 weeks were consistently higher than five-year average levels but consistently lower than last year.
Vessel lineups at Vancouver in-creased to 16 vessels in Week 34, up from a historical average of eight to 12 and vessel counts at Prince Rupert, in northern B.C., increased to seven, up from an historical average of two or three.
All grain monitoring reports can be viewed online at www.grainmonitor.ca.
