Within minutes of realizing the federal government would not step in to stop a contractor from ripping up the rail line running through her village, Vi Lawlor was ready to give up.
She told her three young children the family would have to consider moving from their small village.
Without a rail line, the grain elevator in Ethelbert, Man., has no future, Lawlor said. Without the elevator, the village will have to raise taxes. Businesses will suffer, and close. The school might close.
But a week after temporarily losing hope, Lawlor was back fighting again, traveling to Winnipeg to explain why the ribbons of steel running through the community are so important to her village, business and family.
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Lawlor appealed to the emotions of the men who are reviewing the Canada Transportation Act, asking them to call for a moratorium on rail line abandonment until they’ve finished looking at how to enhance competition among railways.
“I speak to you today in hopes I will touch the moral core of your being,” said Lawlor, describing the dim future for the isolated village if it loses its rail line.
“This is a desperate plea to save our community.”
The chair of the review panel told Lawlor he was unsure whether the group had the authority to ask for a moratorium, but that the members would discuss it. It’s not the first moratorium request the panel has received.
Brian Flemming said in an interview, the panel may be “looking for trouble” if it requested a moratorium in the midst of an election campaign.
However, an election may be a fruitful time for voters such as Lawlor to push for one.
“Elections are a very creative time for policy,” said Flemming, a consultant, columnist and lawyer from Halifax.
The panel has been concentrating on competitive access issues in Western Canada since it got rolling in early September.
Its first task is to submit an interim report on access issues by Dec. 31, a report that may or may not include recommendations for improvements, Flemming said.
“I’m not saying to you that we’re finally going to come down from the mountain with the tablets that would solve all the problems,” said Flemming, noting the historical emotion and ire surrounding rail issues on the Prairies.
The panel includes transportation lawyer Jean Patenaude, former Manitoba cabinet minister Glen Findlay, former Ontario premier Bob Rae, and British Columbia transportation economist Bill Waters.
The panel’s final report is due next July 1.
Flemming said the panel has received about 70 major submissions, plus many shorter submissions on a wide range of transportation topics.
It has met in private with major stakeholders in Western Canada, and held three half-day open forums.
At the forum in Winnipeg on Oct. 25, Arnold Grambo provided anecdotal evidence of inefficiencies in the transportation system.
He counted 200 tractor-trailers while driving from Brandon to Winnipeg that morning before giving up in disgust, having not encountered one train.
Grambo recommended the panel members talk to proponents of the failed West Central Road and Rail project, and communities along the long-suffering Cowan subdivision in northwestern Manitoba.
“The act needs to be changed so nobody can be jerked around the way these communities have,” said Grambo, head of the Hudson Bay Route Association.
Grambo said he supports open running rights and the OmniTrax regional railway proposal.
But another farmer who spoke to the panel said he thinks OmniTrax’s proposal is coming too late to help some branch lines.
John Mitchell of Rossburn, Man., described how grain elevators are moving off branch lines faster than railways can abandon them, leaving farmers to pay more to haul grain farther.
