Parliament Hill advocates of the Farmer Rail Car Coalition bid for the federal government’s 13,000 grain hopper cars are scrambling to protect the proposal from an onslaught of negative arguments.
Last week, the House of Commons agriculture committee heard from the FRCC that its proposal is sound, has been verified by Transport Canada as feasible, is supported by most prairie farmers and will save farmers in freight costs.
But MPs also heard from prairie elevator owners who joined the railways and the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association in arguing against the FRCC proposal. They said non-profit corporation ownership of the cars would be inefficient, inject uncertainty into the system, perhaps not provide the freight rate savings promised and does not represent the views of the 90 percent of farmers that the coalition claims to represent.
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Federal transport minister Jean Lapierre has said he wants to resolve the festering eight-year issue of the rail cars within months, and FRCC defenders worry that the momentum is against them.
“The big players, the railways and the grain companies have certainly turned up the heat against the Farmer Rail Car Coalition,” said Liberal MP and FRCC defender Wayne Easter in an interview Nov. 25. “They’ve decided on a strategy to try and undermine the FRCC proposal. These companies have had a whole century to show they could create efficiencies in the system that actually get down to the farmer and we haven’t seen them.”
He plans to lobby Lapierre to convince him to support the farmer proposal. He wants the ag committee to hear from Transport Canada and the Canadian Wheat Board on the benefits and credibility of the FRCC proposal.
Last week, representatives of the Western Grain Elevators Association were on Parliament Hill to warn that the FRCC proposal was too vague to offer the industry the security it needs.
The cost-free transfer of the cars, worth as much as $200 million commercially, could create trade challenges and offers no guarantee of farmer savings or system efficiency, they argued.
“We fail to see how a transfer of this magnitude, of 13,000 hopper cars, to FRCC would generate any efficiencies or additional efficiencies,” said Saskatchewan Wheat Pool vice-president Richard Wansbutter. “It is the grain companies, in working with the railways, that generate those efficiencies.”
Wheat growers’ president Cherilyn Jolly told MPs the FRCC does not represent the number of farmers it claims, since organizations like the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities and Agricultural Producers’ Association of Saskatchewan assume taxpayer and farmer support they do not necessarily have.
In contrast, Saskatchewan National Farmers Union activist and FRCC vice-president Jim Robbins told MPs the farmer proposal is based on a solid business plan, appropriate planning, solid producer support and clear benefits for producers in lower freight rates and increased power in the transportation system.
