The new federal minister responsible for implementing the Rail Service Review recommendations got off to as rocky start on the file last week.
Denis Lebel, a rural Quebec businessperson with less than four years of House of Commons experience, was named minister for the mammoth transport, infrastructure and communities department in the new Conservative cabinet.
Along with new secretary of state for transport Steven Fletcher from Winnipeg, he inherited the rail service review file and the March 2011 government promise to begin to implement the service review recommendations within six months.
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The recommendations would impose more service review obligations on the railways and give shippers recourse to appeals.
Neither minister has a public track record or background on the issue of rail service complaints.
On June 8, Regina Liberal MP Ralph Goodale became the first to test the assumption that the government will act quickly on the recommendations when he raised the issue in the House of Commons. He received an odd response.
“It only takes a simple amendment to the Canada Transportation Act but the throne speech was oddly silent on that issue,” said the former agriculture minister and now deputy leader of the diminished Liberal Party. “Will the government commit unequivocally to enact that new legislation before the end of this calendar year?”
Lebel seemed confused by the question.
“We are currently working on moving ahead on these recommendations,” he told Goodale. “The safety of all transportation in the country is a major priority for our government and as usual, we will deliver the goods.”
The question, of course, was on freight service and not rail safety.
Later, Goodale said shippers, including prairie agricultural shippers, are anxious to hear government plans on the file.
“It’s too early to say (the issue) is going sideways yet, but the lack of knowledge on the file was striking,” Goodale said later. “Hopefully the officials are using the time since March to get a contract template together with legislation to follow soon. There can be no excuse for not having a legislative and regulatory framework in effect by the end of this calendar year.”
Goodale said he hopes “this is not just a stall to let the railways have their way again.”
