For National Farmers Union president Nettie Wiebe, one of the most important lessons of the Canadian Transportation Agency case brought by the wheat board against the railways was that farmers can’t count on grain companies as allies.
“Although the grain companies were quite clearly badly served by the railways, none of them had the courage or power to in fact even support the board publicly, let alone bring a case on farmers’ behalf,” she said in a recent interview. “It flushed out the grain companies for us a little more clearly.”
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A senior CWB official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the board did have discussions with grain companies about participating in the complaint.
“Some companies were interested … but the thought of going against the railways scared the tar out of them,” he said.
He also said the grain companies didn’t have the same financial incentive to go after the railways as did the board. It wanted to recover for farmers an estimated $50 million lost as a result of lost and deferred sales and late shipping penalties.
“The grain companies didn’t lose anything,” said the board official. “They handled the same tonnage, they just handled it later than they would have otherwise.”
In fact, the board says one of the costs incurred by farmers was additional fees paid to grain handling companies for storage and interest as a result of the shipping delays.
The Western Grain Elevators Association did intervene at the CTA hearings, but it didn’t take the board’s side. It said the railways shouldn’t be singled out for causing the shortfall in rail car unloads.
“Weather, the difficulties in forecasting and an extremely bureaucratic system will all have played a part,” association chair Bruce Johnson of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool told the panel.
Grain company officials interviewed last week said the association did consider participating in the complaint but decided against it for a number of reasons.
Among those were concern over the impact on future relations with the railways; there was a feeling that the CTA process wouldn’t allow a true finding of accountability; some didn’t think the railways should shoulder the blame; and some worried about the time and expense that would be involved.
“The wheat board initiated the process and I guess we were waiting to see how it would work,” said Sask Pool president Leroy Larsen. “And we had concerns about the process itself.”
Manitoba Pool Elevators chief executive officer Greg Arason agreed: “We just weren’t prepared to put the resources into it that we felt would be required.”
