Sask Pool not buying farmer-owned rail car plan

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Published: February 27, 2003

Saskatchewan Wheat Pool has panned a producer effort to buy the federal government’s hopper car fleet.

At the company’s annual meeting Feb. 13, vice-president of commercial relations Richard Wansbutter said the Farmer Rail Car Coalition can’t answer all the questions the company has about its proposal.

He said producers must benefit from a change in car ownership.

“I don’t want this to appear as an attack on FRCC,” he said.

“One of our frustrations has been a lack of detail about what this proposal really is.”

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Wansbutter said the pool has been unable to get detailed information from the coalition about its business plan.

FRCC president Sinclair Harrison said the coalition has shared as much information as it could.

“When you’re in a situation where you don’t know if they’re going to bid against you, you don’t show them all your game plan,” he said.

The FRCC has met with the pool and the Western Grain Elevators Association.

“For some reason they seem to feel that we’re going to interfere with car allocation and somehow confuse the issue,” Harrison said. “We want to make a better system.”

Wansbutter told pool delegates that car ownership should not mean an automatic right to car allocation decisions.

He said he had “grave concerns” about a new third party trying to inject itself into the marketplace.

“There cannot be interference in the allocation and apportionment of those cars.”

Wansbutter also asked how FRCC decided to guarantee Ontario farmers 500 cars. He said he had been told it was for political reasons.

“If one goes down the political route of getting cars to appease political concerns, our question as producers should be … where does this ultimately end up?”

Harrison said the offer was made when the FRCC formed six years ago and a deal was struck with Ontario farm groups to guarantee them up to 500 cars at commercial rates.

“They really don’t have any need for cars whatsoever right now but asked that we leave the agreement in place,” he said. “We didn’t spell out which cars we would give them.”

For example, they could use some of the 2,400 aluminum cars that are better suited for short hauls.

Harrison said there are a lot of politics in grain transportation, and having Ontario farmers on side shouldn’t be considered a bad thing.

About the author

Karen Briere

Karen Briere

Karen Briere grew up in Canora, Sask. where her family had a grain and cattle operation. She has a degree in journalism from the University of Regina and has spent more than 30 years covering agriculture from the Western Producer’s Regina bureau.

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