Provincial and municipal leaders are stunned that Willard Estey questions whether increased grain trucking is damaging roads.
In his report on Canada’s grain transportation system, former Supreme Court justice Estey suggested that “any attempt to assign responsibility for increases in the cost of operating these roads is pure conjecture.”
That was enough to make one rural group challenge the entire report.
“When he missed the whole point about road impacts, I would suggest maybe there’s some other things he missed too,” said Sinclair Harrison, the president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.
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The four provincial governments, who collaborated on a report to Estey that highlighted the pounding country roads are taking as rail companies close lesser-used branch lines, are now trying to understand how Estey could have decided that there was scant proof that grain hauling is the culprit.
“The tonnage hauled per mile per year is way up, therefore there’s automatically guaranteed more road impact,” said Manitoba transport minister Glen Findlay.
“We all, as provinces and municipalities, (should) be shocked by any comment that there isn’t demonstrated impact on roads.”
Estey said that “some damage” to secondary highways is traceable to the increased use of heavy truck hauling, but called repair cost claims “outlandish.”
He said there is no way to tell what industry’s trucks are causing damage.
“Grain represents only a part, and sometimes a small part, of the traffic on these roads,” reads the report.
“Depending on the area, they also convey oil rigs and oil tanks, heavy drilling equipment, farm produce other than grain, forestry products, ore, and construction equipment.”
These views have left the provincial governments wrestling with how to make the point more convincingly when they make another joint submission.
“We have a great deal of difficulty with that statement,” said Saskatchewan highways spokes-person Mike Woods.
“From our point of view, the roads is a huge issue, along with the rate cap and the Canadian Wheat Board.”
But while the provincial governments have not reached a consensus on whether to support Estey’s recommendations on the rate cap or moving the CWB out of prairie rail co-ordination, they all agree that road damage is occurring and should be recognized.
