SASKATOON – The leader of the farm coalition bidding to buy the federal government’s grain hopper cars has shrugged off the latest defection from the ranks.
Last week the Western Producer Car Group pulled out of the coalition, just a week after a similar move by the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.
The Saskatchewan Canola Growers Association also considered withdrawing last week, but decided to stay in for the time being.
Coalition chair Sinclair Harrison said he doesn’t think the withdrawals hurt the coalition’s credibility or its chances of getting the 13,000 rail cars. The coalition started with 10 members.
Read Also
Land crash warning rejected
A technical analyst believes that Saskatchewan land values could be due for a correction, but land owners and FCC say supply/demand fundamentals drive land prices – not mathematical models
“These associations are doing this for their own reasons, but among the actual producers back on the farm, we still have very strong support,” he said.
Harrison said he has yet to receive a call from any grassroots producer saying the coalition is on the wrong track, adding that other organizations have recently approached the coalition about joining.
Producer car group chair Paul Orsak said his organization decided that owning the cars would not help achieve its twin goals of securing access to the cars for farmers and small shippers and having rules that will promote efficiency and competition in the grain transportation system.
“It’s the commercial, competitive aspects that we are insistent upon,” he said. “Ownership is really immaterial.”
Lost sight of goals
Orsak said his group has been uneasy for some time about some of the attitudes within the coalition, feeling that other members were interested in ownership simply for the sake of ownership and had lost sight of other goals.
The ultimate decision to pull out was made easier by the move of the wheat growers association, which shares his group’s commercially oriented market philosophy.
“When one of the more significant legitimate groups decided it wasn’t for them, it certainly didn’t help the situation at all,” said Orsak.
However, another coalition member said the only way farmers can have any influence over the future shape and operation of grain transportation is to have an equity position.
National Farmers Union president Nettie Wiebe said that’s simply the nature of the capitalist system and the two groups that have pulled out don’t seem to understand that.
“They have a great deal more faith in the charitable intentions of the railroads than most farmers who live and farm in the Prairies. They seem to think the railways will look after us. Farmers rightly are more skeptical,” she said.
Harrison said the groups that have pulled out are jumping the gun, since the operating agreement that will govern the cars is still being negotiated between the railways and the federal government.
Canola growers president Ken Mannle said his organization’s future in the coalition will depend on whether the groups’ as-yet-unwritten business plan is based on sound commercial principles.
“We don’t want to be part of anything that is political or social in nature,” he said.
The coalition was told last week that because of the time required to renegotiate the operating agreement between the government and the railways, the call for bids has been delayed from late June until August at the earliest.
Meanwhile, Manitoba’s farm lobby group will remain part of the coalition.
Keystone Agricultural Producers defeated a resolution at a meeting last week that called for the group to withdraw from discussions about the potential ownership of the rail car fleet.
