OTTAWA — The St. Lawrence Seaway grain fleet is fast dwindling in numbers while ownership has become concentrated in the hands of just three companies, one dominant.
And that, according to the president of the Canadian Shipowners Association, is the good news.
Norman Hall told a Commons committee studying the Seaway’s future last week that the alternative to fewer shipping companies on the Seaway is to have almost no grain ships operating.
In the past decade or so as grain volumes have declined, the number of bulk carriers capable of taking grain east to the ocean has declined from 84 to 45, he said.
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“Farmers have nothing to be concerned about,” he said when asked if the concentration of ship ownership reduces farmers’ shipping options. “Listen, this is reducing costs. It is the best way to ensure grain service into the future.”
The federal Bureau of Competition Policy, which investigated the ownership of the shrinking fleet, ruled that price increases are unlikely because of declining cargo and the need to be competitive. Grain shippers can move the product by rail or through the United States if they find monopolistic price increases.
Hall repeated to MPs the argument that a large part of the Seaway’s problems can be traced to growing Pacific Rim markets for grain, helped along by a bias in the Western Grain Transportation Act toward western movement.
Seaway grain volumes have declined to 9.6 million tonnes last year from 18.6 million tonnes in 1984, the year the new grain freight subsidy was introduced.
He said changes in the WGTA method of paying the Crow Benefit subsidy could help increase the flow of grain through the Seaway.
Likewise, the new world trade agreement should reduce the ferocity of the grain trade war and send more Canadian exports through the Seaway to markets traditionally served via the eastern route, he said.
Hall said that other assistance could be: Reducing or eliminating tolls; more flexible and cheaper pilotage rules; relaxing of union rules; and having the government ensure that the rail competition is playing the game fairly.
Seaway promoters are angry that the National Transportation Agency recently allowed the railways to charge less than compensatory rates on some grain shipments east of Thunder Bay, despite a legal requirement to the contrary.
He said it is time to quit studying Seaway problems and to do something.
“I sincerely trust … that we will not see this marine policy political football kicked out of bounds again,” he said. “The policy of benign neglect has to end before it’s too late.”
