To the end, Railway Association of Canada president Cliff Mackay was focused on arguing that Canada’s railways should not be saddled with more legislation or regulation to force service improvements.
On Nov. 22 at the Canada Grains Council grain industry symposium, the clearly ill Mackay hung onto the podium as he defended Canada’s railways against recommendations in the railway level of service review that legal requirements should be implemented as a backup in case shipper-railway negotiations do not improve service.
In his last major public speech, Mackay argued that commercial arrangements are good enough.
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“We believe what we have now is reasonable,” he said. “We don’t think new legislation and regulation is needed to make it more reasonable.”
And in a vintage performance, Mackay denied the shipper argument that commercial negotiations are unfair because the national railways enjoy a virtual monopoly in their areas of service.
If the railways are monopolies, he said, “how come they have to work so damn hard to make their money?”
On Jan. 26, Mackay, 63, died of cancer after a four-year battle.
He had been RAC president for almost six years.
During the political battle over railway service, one of Mackay’s main adversaries was Bob Ballantyne, chair of the Coalition of Rail Shippers and a former RAC president.
“The relationship between shippers and the railways is usually, not always but usually, an acrimonious one,” he said in a Feb. 1 interview. “But our relationship was good and our professional differences did not affect our relationship. Cliff was articulate, a very good defender of those he represented.”
Mackay was adept at facing railway industry critics and making his points without creating enemies, said Ballantyne. “He was very good at what he did. He was a key player at a time when the industry was evolving.”
