Canada’s commodity shippers are growing impatient with the re-elected Conservative government’s lack of action on implementing improvements to the rail freight system.
In late May, weeks after the Conservatives won a majority May 2, Ottawabased Coalition of Rail Shippers chair Robert Ballantyne wrote new transport minister Denis Lebel to urge that the government move on pre-election promises to implement proposals of the Rail Freight Service Review.
Ballantyne said government action is needed to correct the “significant imbalance in the relationship between railways and shippers.”
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And he asked for a meeting with the new, inexperienced minister.
More than two months later, there has been no response from the minister, no commitment to quick action and a meeting with Transport Canada officials who promised to take the concerns “under advisement.”
Rail Shipper Coalition member Grain Growers of Canada is not impressed.
“You know what ‘taking it under advisement’ means,” GGC executive director Richard Phillips said Aug. 8. “It means delay. We really need a public indication from the minister now that he is committed to act. Even then, we are looking at probably a two-year implementation period.”
Phillips said the danger of a lack of commitment from Lebel is that the railways and bureaucrats within Transport Canada will work to stymie reform.
“We really think that a lack of a clear declaration from the minister that he intends to act will give the railways and the department more time to work against it and really erode any momentum for reform,” he said in an interview.
Grain Growers and the Shippers’ Coalition want government-imposed reforms that include negotiated and enforceable service agreements between railways and shippers, including government legislation to require such agreements.
There also is a call for improved freight movement logistics and an analysis of the grain movement chain.
A statement from Grain Growers president Stephen Vandervalk from Alberta said Lebel has had enough time to figure out what to do.
“We think it is time for a public statement so that all players in the industry are ready to engage in a timely manner to avoid unnecessary delays,” he said. “The minister has had several months now to come up to speed on the file and he can help us maintain the momentum.”
Lebel is a four-year House of Commons veteran and until his major promotion to the transport, communities and infrastructure portfolio as one of just five Quebec Conservative MPs elected May 2, he was a junior minister and a minor government player.
Before election to Parliament, he was a businessman in rural Quebec.
