PRINCE ALBERT, Sask. – They thought the railway doth protest too much.
No matter how much the representatives of Canada’s Omnitrax railway said they had an excellent relationship with CN Rail, many members of the Hudson Bay Route Association meeting here refused to accept that CN supports Churchill.
“It’s been nothing but great since after we took over,” said Hudson Bay Railway president Brooke Ruskin. “They’re a good group of people to work with and I don’t see any problems.”
Charlie Phelps, a past-president of the route association, didn’t accept that answer.
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“I’m still very suspicious about that, and so are all these other farmers,” Phelps said.
Omnitrax officials did admit they wished CN would offer incentive rates for grain shipped to Churchill like Thunder Bay and Vancouver.
“We really don’t see a reason why CN doesn’t offer the same incentives,” said Lance Norman of Omnitrax Canada.
Getting those incentives will be especially important this summer, Norman said, because of the lack of grain in the prairie system.
Skimpy supplies
The Canadian Wheat Board expects to have sold 85 percent of last year’s crop by May, leaving only 15 percent available to fight over during the Churchill shipping season.
Last year Churchill handled more than 400,000 tonnes of prairie grain. This year it expects to handle only 200,000.
Norman said getting incentive rates will help the port compete for grain west of the Battlefords to the Alberta border. Most of that grain now flows to the West Coast.
Omnitrax has a good relationship with the Canadian Wheat Board, Norman said, but the company wants it to try harder to make Churchill sales.
Association members agreed. President Arnold Grambo said “it’s not good enough” to just offer Churchill to customers. The board should be out selling the virtues of the port to customers.
“If you know there’s a savings, a benefit to the farmer, if you know there’s a savings to the customer, it’s not good enough to say it’s available,” Grambo said.
Ruskin hopes Churchill can attract non-board grains destined for Europe such as peas and lentils.
While some farmers suggested the wheat board do a better job of using Churchill, most kept their hostility for CN, which Grambo referred to as the “bully on the block.”
Grambo said farmers need to help Omnitrax.
“Pull behind them and make sure they can make it work.”
