Canadian National Railway has turned down a request for mediation on the issue of producer car loading sites.
On Dec. 27, Keystone Agricultural Producers asked the Canadian Transportation Agency to set up a mediation process to address the railway’s decision to delist 53 producer car loading sites across the Prairies, including nine in Manitoba.
The agency told the farm group last week that mediation could not proceed because not all parties agreed to participate.
CTA spokesperson Marc Comeau would not identify which party declined to participate. A CN spokesperson could not be reached for comment.
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However, because only two parties were involved and KAP requested mediation, the only conclusion is that CN said no.
“It’s very disappointing,” said KAP president Ian Wishart.
He said mediation would have presented an opportunity for an open discussion between the railway and farmers.
The CTA provides for mediation as an alternative to service complaints, but it has not usually been used in disputes involving grain movement.
The two sides would have met face-to-face, along with a trained mediator provided by the CTA.
When KAP requested mediation, two service complaints had been filed against the railway, one from Hanley, Sask., farmer Cam Goff and one from the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan.
Wishart said that with those complaints in the works, it didn’t make sense to go that route.
He added the more informal mediation process would have been less confrontational than the quasi-judicial service complaint system.
Mediation would also be less costly and the process lasts a maximum of 30 days, compared with 120 days for a service complaint.
Wishart said farmers had been complaining to KAP that they couldn’t get good information from CN about the costs or conditions involved in leasing a producer car loading site on a long-term basis.
“So we felt that for our producers in Manitoba, the best thing would be to try and get some clear information as to what is involved, and decided the best way to do that was through mediation.”
CN spokesperson Kelli Svendsen disagreed with Wishart’s comment that the railway has been inconsistent.
“None of the groups that we have presented information to has raised an issue,” she said in an earlier interview last week.
“We provide them with our standard commercial agreement for leasing the land and track and it’s been the same for everyone.”
Comeau said CN had until Jan. 18 to file a response to Goff’s complaint. The railway’s response was not available by deadline for this story.
Four organizations have requested intervener status in support of Goff’s complaint: the National Farmers Union, the Producer Car Shippers Association of Canada, the Canadian Wheat Board and the Hudson Bay Route Association.
APAS’s application is currently in limbo. The agency asked the farm group to provide more information about the use of loading sites in the province.
That hadn’t happened by the Jan. 6 deadline.
