Within weeks, the federal Liberals will try to defuse a festering political issue by announcing a broad investigation into problems in the prairie grain handling system.
Agriculture minister Ralph Goodale said in an April 14 interview the government cannot wait for the scheduled 1999 review of the freight rate cap on grain rates.
“I think there is an inclination to try to go farther, faster,” he said.
Goodale is working with transport minister David Anderson to write the terms of reference and the structure for a review of the grain movement system.
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He said the review will be announced soon. “Minister Anderson and I are working right now on the structuring and the content of what would be the most appropriate approach in the circumstances for both this year and the long term to try to ensure that this kind of problem doesn’t keep happening over and over again.”
The Liberal plan to announce a broad-ranging review of the grain movement system will be the answer to election-campaign complaints about unsold grain.
It comes after an intense week of industry proposals for a way out of the morass.
In private, the railways have been lobbying on Parliament Hill for an early review to lift the grain freight rate cap which has been included in federal law until at least 1999, when it is to be reviewed.
Railways’ solutions
Last week, in speeches before a conference of the Canada Grains Commission, senior industry players proposed solutions. The railways came out of the closet.
Phillip Richardson, general manager of grain for CN Rail, said the freight cap should be lifted and the industry deregulated to allow the railways to deal directly with shippers “based on their mutually selfish economic interests.”
He said it would make the system more flexible.
“This would ensure that assets like grain hopper cars would be used in the most logical, highest-value manner possible,” he said. “It would help take politics out of grain movement.”
Gordon Cummings, chief executive officer of Alberta Wheat Pool, told the conference it is time for a review of the entire system, including whether the “central command system” now in place is appropriate and how the entire system could be reformed to make it more efficient.
He said complaints that there is no accountability are true. “No matter who screws up, the farmer pays.”
Still, he did not resist the temptation to take a shot at the railways for the 1997 performance.
“I believe we are being blackmailed this year,” he said.
