Legislation to protect shippers from railway abuses has died twice on the parliamentary order paper in recent years.
Now grain shippers are lobbying hard to prevent it from happening a third time.
The Canadian Wheat Board, the Western Grain Elevators Association and Grain Growers of Canada are among a number of groups urging the government to re-introduce Bill C-58 when Parliament resumes next month, and move quickly to pass it into law.
“We’ve told the minister how important this is,” said Wade Sobkowich of the WGEA.
Read Also
Potato farm requires year-round management
The most recent Open Farm Day in Alberta showcased agricultural producers across the province educating the general public about the process that is required is to get food to their table.
“We think this should be a priority for the government.”
CWB director Ian McCreary agreed, saying that while the bill doesn’t provide everything shippers would like, it’s supported by a broad consensus of farmers, shippers and governments.
“It’s a lot better than anything we’ve seen and we’ve been at this for a very long time,” he said.
“It has more shipper protection provisions in it that we have now, so let’s get it done.”
The fact that railways lobbied hard against the bill indicates it’s good for shippers, he added.
The bill had gone through second reading when the session was shut down. Shippers hope it can either be re-introduced at that stage, or move quickly through first and second readings with an agreement from all parties.
It would then go to the Commons transport committee for further study, public hearings and possible amendment, before receiving third reading and royal assent.
While the government has given no indication of how it will handle the issue, McCreary said the board has received a positive response from MPs of all parties.
“We’ve received no pushback on this, and I have no reason to believe the government has backed away from this at all,” he said.
Bill C-58 would amend the Canada Transportation Act to, among other things:
- Remove the requirement that a shipper suffer substantial commercial harm before the Canadian Transportation Agency grants a remedy.
- Allow groups of shippers, rather than just individual shippers, to enter into final offer arbitration to resolve disputes over rates or conditions.
- Permit the agency to investigate whether fees and conditions for incidental services are reasonable.
- Require the railways to publish lists of sidings available for producer car loading and provide 60 days notice before removing them.
- Require the railways to offer 30 days notice of rate increases, up from 20 days.
It would also require the government to launch a full-scale review of railway service within 30 days of the bill being passed.
Grain Growers president Ross Ravelli said in a letter to transport minister Lawrence Cannon that while shippers would like to see some of those clauses strengthened, the improvements are too important to be lost through “political bickering or parliamentary inertia.”
“Any delay will cost all of us in our sector value chain more money,” he said.
Sobkowich said the association hopes the legislation can become law before Christmas, but acknowledged the time frame is tight.
“We’re hopeful that can happen but there’s no guarantee,” he said, adding farmers and farm groups should contact their local MPs and the minister on the issue.
The legislation has its origins in the federal government’s grain transportation review led by Arthur Kroeger in the late 1990s.
That resulted in a CTA review a few years later, which resulted in two separate pieces of legislation, both of which died on the order paper.
In May 2006 a group of commodity shippers fed up with poor railway service and rules that they said favoured the rail companies urged the government to act on the issue.
“We thought it would be fast-tracked at that time,” said McCreary. “This should have been dealt with by now.”
While the government’s legislative agenda for the new session likely will not be unveiled until the Oct. 16 throne speech or later, the Conservatives are expected to highlight economic competitiveness as one of their pre-election themes. The prospect of a more efficient grain transportation system could fit into that government priority.
