Gerry Ritz isn’t in charge of railway legislation but he took heat for it anyway from Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities delegates at their recent annual meeting in Regina.
They told the federal agriculture minister that they didn’t like the new maintenance agreement with the railways and weren’t satisfied with the level of service.
Lorne Sheppard, from Lucky Lake, Sask., said his community is supposed to have service from CN every two weeks but called the situation a gong show.
“They don’t want to compete. They don’t want joint running rights,” he said of the railways. “They don’t want short lines but they won’t provide good service, so what are we supposed to do?
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“They are manipulating farmers. They’re manipulating this country, and I understand it’s mostly American owned, so you guys got to do something with the railroads.”
Ritz said Bill C-8 will help.
The legislation, if passed, would bolster shippers’ rights in disputes with the railways by allowing groups to band together.
“I think there’s some great possibilities to bring the railways back into the service industry with C-8,” he said.
Herb Park, a councillor from the RM of Rocanville, said it seems railways have the power to seduce governments.
A railway car repair company in his community was working on hopper cars, but that ended when Ottawa signed new operating agreements with the two main railways that will see them do the work themselves.
“You’ve screwed a few communities and ours is one of them,” he told Ritz.
The minister said the railways let maintenance and repair slide because the ownership of the cars was in question. Now, they intend to fix and upgrade them and at less cost than they did before. Ritz also said there may be opportunities for companies in small towns to get maintenance contracts from CN and CPR.
“They told us they’re going to go across the board and use everybody that was interested in doing work on them, depending on what work needs to be done,” he said.
Ritz added that the railways, not taxpayers or farmers, will pay to replace cars.
“I want to see those rail cars cycling regardless of who owns them and that is the biggest complaint that I’ve heard from folks,” Ritz said. “Like it or hate it, at least we made a decision.”
