A transportation bill making its way through the House of Commons represents a betrayal of western grain farmer interests by the Conservative government that holds dozens of rural prairie seats, Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter said last week.
Bill C-11, which is designed to amend the Canada Transportation Act, includes a provision to adjust grain freight rates to better reflect actual grain hopper car maintenance costs. In effect, it legislates the government’s decision in May to cancel an agreement in principle reached by the previous Liberal government to transfer ownership of the 12,000-car hopper fleet to the Farmer Rail Car Coalition.
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“With the implementation of these two provisions, the Conservative government has sold out the farmers of Western Canada and delivered an asset of incredible value, once again, to the railways,” Easter said in a Sept. 20 Commons speech.
He accused the railways of “gouging” farmers by being paid for maintenance work they have not done and being able to claim in the freight rate structure far more for maintenance than they were spending.
He challenged an assertion by transport minister Lawrence Cannon that adjustments in the freight rate formula to lower credited costs for maintenance would save farmers $2 per tonne in freight rates.
Alberta Conservative MP Leon Benoit said Easter had “more nerve than most people in the House of Commons” for daring to criticize Conservative grain transportation policies after 13 years of Liberal mistakes.
He said three Liberal transportation decisions in particular devastated prairie farmers and the grain transportation system: privatizing Canadian National Railway without ensuring more competition in the transportation system; introducing the Canada Transportation Act without making provision for more competition and ending the Crow Benefit grain subsidy in 1995 without ensuring it would lead to system improvements.
