OTTAWA (Staff) – Within three or four months, the federal cabinet will be presented with proposals for the most radical redesign of grain transportation policy in decades, the deputy transport minister said recently.
Nick Mulder told the semi-annual meeting of the Canada Grains Council, it is time to update Canada’s railway policy, including the contentious issues of grain transportation subsidies, branch line abandonment and deregulation.
“Rail policy is at least 10 years behind the times,” he said. “We don’t facilitate change. We stop change.”
If Transport Canada gets its way, that new policy will include a change in the Crow Benefit method of payment.
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“The view is that we ought to make a method-of-payment change sooner rather than later,” said Mulder. “…we have to move in another direction.”
The specific direction will be the subject of cabinet debate.
Transport Canada already has announced it is passing responsibility for the $560-million subsidy to Agriculture Canada.
The debate will be over whether it should be paid out in a block, put into a safety net or cancelled.
Mulder said there is no chance the government will increase the subsidy amount in exchange for a change in how it is distributed, as proposed by Saskatchewan and Alberta.
“The chances of that happening are about as good as an ice cube surviving in hell for more than half an hour,” said the deputy minister.
The government also appears poised to announce next winter or spring a new, simpler way for the railways to abandon money-losing Prairie branch lines, possibly using National Transportation Act rules that apply to abandonment proposals in other parts of the country.
Abandonments could proceed
“There seems to be a consensus to lift the order (freezing abandonments until the year 2000),” he said.
However, Ottawa will consider whether some “transitional” funding should be sent to farmers or communities affected by an abandonment, said Mulder.
The idea quickly drew a blast from United Grain Growers president Ted Allen, who said public money should not be spent to compensate for abandonments.
According to Mulder, the government’s deregulation options are wide open.
Should there be centralized car allocation? Should the Grain Transportation Authority continue to exist as an agency to allocate grain cars? Is the country justified in keeping the Port of Churchill open? Should the Canadian government continue to own grain hopper cars?
There is a growing desire on the Prairies for change, efficiency and more day-to-day responsibility for running the system in the hands of farmers and shippers, said Mulder.
Transport minister Doug Young’s proposals to cabinet next winter or spring will try to address what he sees as the changing mood.
