SASKATOON (Staff) – No matter what history says about the Grain Transportation Agency, there’s one fact that can’t be disputed.
During the organization’s 16-year lifespan, the amount of prairie grain shipped by rail to market grew steadily.
In the three years before the GTA was created in 1979, export shipments averaged 20.4 million tonnes. In the last three years of the agency’s existence, shipments averaged 27.7 million tonnes.
“I’d like to think the agency played a role in achieving those numbers, though there’s probably many that would dispute that,” said Bruce McFadden, executive director of operations during the agency’s final year.
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Richard Wansbutter, general manager of marketing and transportation for Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, said that while no one will ever know whether those totals would have been matched if there had been no GTA, the agency can probably claim some of the credit.
“I would not say it was solely responsible, but I would say it was a contributing factor,” he said.
McFadden said the Canadian grain industry has always had, and will continue to have, transportation problems during periods of peak demand, especially right after harvest.
Volumes transported rise
“But notwithstanding that, the crops have been moved throughout the year and we’ve had increasing movement throughout the period of the GTA.”
In 1994-95, a record 37.8 million tonnes of grains and oilseeds were shipped by rail to domestic and export destinations, a total that former GTA co-ordinator Peter Thomson doubts will ever be matched.
Thomson saw the GTA’s goal in simple terms.
“We were trying to move as much grain as possible as fairly as possible, not to give any one element of the industry an advantage over another,” he said.
McFadden said during his more than 10 years at the agency, it never lost sight of who it was there to serve.
“Our objective has always been to co-ordinate and facilitate grain movement in a way that would maximize returns to producers.”
