WINNIPEG – The Canadian Wheat Board should drop its complaint over railway performance, says the president of Cargill Ltd.
Kerry Hawkins said in an interview last week that the board’s complaint to the Canadian Transportation Agency over 1997 railway performance could derail the federal government’s review of the grain handling and transportation system.
And that would be a disaster.
“We absolutely have to have this review,” he said, adding that some grain importers are limiting their Canadian purchases because of concern over transportation.
He said Canada’s export capacity could be increased by 50 percent without any new investment simply by making the handling and transportation system work more efficiently.
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Former Supreme Court justice Willard Estey has been appointed to conduct the review. The first phase of the inquiry is to be completed by May 31 with a final report and recommendations to be submitted to the federal government by Dec. 31, 1998.
Meanwhile the wheat board’s complaint against CN and CP Rail over their performance hauling grain last winter is to begin March 30, with a decision made by June 30. The board has said it would use a favorable ruling to launch a lawsuit against the railways seeking financial damages for lost grain sales.
All that makes Hawkins nervous.
He said the “political reality” is that the government has probably two years before it starts to think totally in terms of getting re-elected.
“That means if we want to make changes we have to agree on what has to be done and how to do it and have it written and accepted by government and have them ready to go forward with change 12 months from now, in early 1999,” he said.
Given that tight time frame, he said the wise thing for the wheat board to do would be to negotiate a settlement with the railways or just drop the CTA case.
“It should never have happened,” he said. “It was a bad mistake.”
The CTA process will make lawyers rich and no matter what the outcome, will do nothing to improve the grain transportation system in the future, he said.
“Win or lose, so what,” Hawkins said. “It doesn’t help the system. All it does is point fingers and say ‘guess what, you were to blame.’ “
Complaint stands
A board spokesperson said the agency has no intention of dropping its complaint. Tracey Bryksa said the board wants the Estey review to proceed as expeditiously as possible, but said the problems experienced last winter have to be resolved.
“It’s not something that we can just set aside and say ‘it happened, let’s move on,’ ” she said. Farmers lost an estimated $65 million in grain sales and the board thinks they should be compensated by those responsible.
