OTTAWA – Prairie farm groups hoping to buy the government’s fleet of 13,000 grain hopper cars said they found some powerful political support last week on Parliament Hill.
But transport minister David Anderson said political support is not the issue as the government tries to decide what to do with its fleet.
Anderson said the cars will be sold to whoever seems most capable of creating a more efficient grain hauling system.
“The political aspect of this is not the determining factor,” the minister said Sept. 26, after meeting the farm leaders for the first time. “We want to have merit and not just politically arranged solutions.”
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Still, the minister conceded the growing show of political support for the farmer-owner option does not hurt.
A final decision is not likely until sometime next year, after bids are called for and proposals assessed.
“I think they’re certainly a credible player,”Anderson said of the Farmer Rail Car Coalition after their meeting. “They have an interesting consortium of people.”
That statement alone is part of the reason coalition leaders said their whirlwind tour of government offices last week was a success.
They said they heard supportive words or interest from government heavy hitters ranging from finance minister Paul Martin to natural resources minister Anne McClellan and Treasury Board president Marcel MassŽ.
“Paul Martin is very supportive on this,” said Sinclair Harrison, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities and Coalition chair. “They all were very familiar with the issue. Ralph (Goodale, agriculture minister) has been working hard for us.”
Goodale has been the main cabinet promoter of the farmer rail car proposal.
Harrison said the group also found strong support from members of the Liberal rural caucus.
“I am leaving here thinking we made some real progress.”
Harrison was joined in Ottawa by representatives of Ontario’s wheat and corn sectors, who have joined the coalition after winning agreement that they could have access to 500 cars if needed.
Support expressed
He was able to tell ministers that British Columbia farmers support the coalition and they soon will receive a letter of support from the powerful Quebec farmers’ union.
The group’s trip to Ottawa was aided by well-connected Saskatoon Liberal lawyer Doug Richardson, who is acting as counsel and who arranged a number of the meetings. Richardson spent years on Parliament Hill in the 1980s as principal secretary to then Liberal leader John Turner.
Harrison said the group will be back in Ottawa to continue the lobby, although the decision appears to be months away.
Anderson said he will not be rushed by “artificial deadlines.” Earlier promises to call for bids by mid-summer have been replaced by an insistence that the government will take the time to “get it right.”
The coalition says it faces two major obstacles.
- A continued insistence by the railways that the previous Conservative government gave them a right of first refusal if the cars are to be sold.
- The transport department bureaucracy continues to be suspicious of the idea that farmers could own and operate a rail car fleet. It is seen to be pro-railway.
