The business of shipping grain may never be the same again.
If they accomplish nothing else, nine weeks of public hearings by the Canadian Transportation Agency into the 1996-97 grain shipping fiasco may change the way railways and grain shippers conduct their business.
Adrian Measner, the Canadian Wheat Board’s executive director of marketing, said one of the lessons of the CTA process has been that the railways and the wheat board should have all their transactions carefully documented
“Certainly we have operated in a lot of cases with verbal agreements and that has worked for everybody,” he said. “But this may mean we tighten some of that up and that’s not an insurmountable problem.”
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Testimony during the hearings made it clear that at times the board and CP Rail didn’t have the same understanding about specific shipping arrangements or commitments, and communication between the two often left something to be desired.
For example, there was no written contract covering the winter rail program, under which CP carried grain from Thunder Bay, Ont., to Eastern Canada. Witnesses testified some arrangements were made over dinner at a Winnipeg restaurant.
CP spokesperson Ian La Couvee agreed the CTA experience will probably result in some changes to the traditional way of doing business.
“I would think we’ll be a little more cautious in the future and make sure everything is understood between the parties,” he said.
But at the same time he doesn’t think there will be any long-lasting damage to the business relationship between the railway and the board, one of its biggest customers, regardless of the outcome.
“We have to work together every single day to move grain and it’s in everybody’s best interests to co-operate,” he said.
Measner said the relationship between the two sides has been tense during the hearings and he’s looking forward to a return to some semblance of normalcy.
