Agriculture minister Ralph Goodale said last week he expects grain and rail industry leaders to tell him within weeks how to devise a system of rewards and penalties to make the grain transportation system more accountable.
He said he expects to see a penalties system implemented, but would not make a firm commitment.
“That is the direction I anticipate but until I actually receive firm recommendations, it is hard to know if I will accept them or not,” Goodale told reporters April 8.
He said he has asked for recommendations from the industry, “the sooner the better.”
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No announcement
Goodale was commenting after media reports from a speech in Moose Jaw stated he had announced the government has decided to create a rewards and penalties system for the industry.
He said the stories were premature.
Rather than announcing creation of new rules, he merely had indicated there is support for the idea and that the industry soon will be proposing how it could be done. It may not require government intervention at all.
Goodale said the advice could range from a system of private contractual commitments between grain companies and railways, to a form of government regulation or legislation.
“The industry is wrestling with it,” he said in Ottawa. “I will be anxious to get their advice.”
No time line
The agriculture minister said he could not predict when a decision will be made and new rules implemented.
“But I think there is a common belief across Western Canada that the system is not sufficiently accountable and there needs to be a substantially modified approach to build in the rewards and penalties that would establish the accountability and remove at least part of the burden from the party that is at the end of the line, the farmer who presently ends up bearing all of that cost when logically, it is not the farmer’s fault,” he said.
Goodale said while the railway performance in moving last year’s crop has improved during the past several months, it still is not good enough.
“To the extent that we can wring more performance out of 1996-97, we will obviously do that,” he said. “It will require all of the players paying very close attention to the most minute of detail.”
