Senior members of farm groups, commodity organizations and grain companies attended the announcement of federal demands that the railways move more crops.
Here are some initial reactions from people in the room:
CURT VOSSEN – Richardson International chief executive officer:
Are the measures good and will they work?
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen the details of it.”
On the need for federal action:
“There needs to be an understanding of how critical that part of the pipeline is to the overall economy, and therefore it has to go beyond efficiency, returns to shareholders and returns on capital deployed because it’s bigger than that.”
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On the need for penalties on railways if service is poor:
“We felt it should have been in the legislation introduced last year. We think an opportunity was lost by not introducing it at that point in time. Hopefully this addresses it at this point in time.”
On the general situation:
“We’ve got empty terminal elevators, we’ve got full country elevators, we’ve got big inventories in the country, we’ve got a marketplace that is looking for more volume. That suggests that there’s a need for some sort of an action. This appears to potentially be part of that action.”
REG DYCK – Keystone Agricultural Producers:
“I applaud the government because action was needed. It’s a dire situation.”
BLAIR RUTTER – Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association:
“It’s really directing the railways to ramp up. It’s sending a signal to the railways that their performance has not been acceptable and will not be tolerated.”
“If they don’t comply (with the order in council) you can expect that this legislation will be far more onerous than they would ever imagine.”
GREG CHEREWYK – Pulse Canada:
“It sends a clear message to the industry and to the railways that the rail freight capacity of the system has to match our productive and marketing capacity in this country. We can’t execute a growth strategy in Canada based on last year’s volumes and five year averages.”
