SASKATOON — Some farmers on the senior grain transportation committee (SGTC) are miffed that their group has been shunted aside in the effort to put Canada’s grain transportation system back on track.
Agriculture minister Ralph Goodale has created a new ad hoc committee of senior industry and government officials to oversee changes designed to prevent a repetition of this year’s grain shipping tie-ups.
But some elected producer members of the SGTC say they can’t understand why the minister set up the new committee when the senior grain group was already in place.
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“The SGTC as such has largely been circumvented by other political processes on some of these issues,” said Curtis Sims, a farmer member from MacGregor, Man.
Added Bill Fedeyko, a farmer member from High Level, Alta.: “Our committee isn’t being used to its full advantage. You really couldn’t get a better group, I don’t think, to deal with this.”
In addition to the nine elected farmers, the 28-member SGTC includes representatives from the six major grain companies, the two national railways, labor unions, truckers, Great Lakes shippers, special crop growers, feed grain users, the Canadian Wheat Board, the Grain Transportation Agency (GTA) and the Canadian Grain Commission.
Jim Robbins, a farmer member from Delisle, Sask., said that although he can’t figure out why, it seems clear the SGTC has been bypassed by the federal government.
It doesn’t make sense, he said, because the same corporate and government interests that are represented on the new committee set up by Goodale already sit around the table at the SGTC. The senior grain committee has the added advantage of directly-elected farmer members.
“There could have been a special meeting of SGTC called and you would have had all the same corporate players that (Goodale) had at the meeting he did call on May 16,” said Robbins.
Adding to the frustration is that the senior grain committee has in recent years recommended changes in some of the same policy areas now being reviewed by the new committee.
Gordon Miles, Manitoba Pool Elevators’ representative on the SGTC, said previous governments have simply ignored what the committee has said on issues like rail car demurrage.
“I think the SGTC has had some important things to say in the past and the government really has not taken action on some of its recommendations,” he said.
Sims thinks Goodale would get a more balanced view of how policies might affect farmers if he asked the SGTC to develop solutions to Canada’s grain shipping woes.
Farmers don’t have all the answers, he said, but “the bottom line is the SGTC, the producers in particular, are getting a little frustrated with not much emphasis being paid to us.”
SGTC member Harry-Jae Elder of Fillmore, Sask., said he’s not upset by the creation of the new committee, although he suspects Goodale’s motives weren’t totally altruistic.
“I suppose from a politician’s point of view, it gives a bit of political mileage to establish what appears to be a new group,” he said.
Howard Migie of Agriculture Canada, co-ordinator of the so-called May 16 committee (named for the date it first met), said the new group is designed to bring together the people who can actually change the way things are done.
Members on committee
“The minister wanted to sit down with those in the industry that are responsible for either moving the grain or getting it to market, … the ones that are making the decisions,” he said.
He said the SGTC, along with other “advisory” groups like the wheat board producer committee, will continue to provide advice to the government, but the May 16 committee will deal with short-term, operational issues that need immediate attention.
The new committee has 18 members, representing grain companies, railways, labor, the Ontario grain industry, the Canada Grains Council, the maritime employers association, the wheat board, GTA and grain commission, Transport Canada and Labor Canada.
Ironically, those same high-level officials once sat on the senior grain group, but have gradually been replaced in recent years by operational people, as the committee dealt with some of the very issues now under review.
Robbins said it’s possible that the SGTC may have been bypassed because the GTA, which provides administrative and secretarial services to the senior grain group, has been severely criticized from some government backbenchers for its role in the grain car crisis.
“The SGTC and GTA are not the same thing, but maybe they’re linked in the eyes of some government people,” said Robbins.
