The “Phase One Report” by Justice Willard Estey on his review of the grain handling and transportation system gives few clues as to what recommendations he will eventually make to the federal government.
As Estey notes in it, the purpose of the preliminary report is merely to briefly catalogue the issues and representations made to date: “There are no conclusions reached in this report.”
It is interesting, however, that the report identifies the issue of rail-line abandonment, including the impact of trucking on rural roads, as the most frequently mentioned concern: “It has been so far the major question discussed and also appears to have the greatest pervasive effect on most of the other issues.”
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If Estey does make this issue a priority, he would be well advised to give particular attention to a brief submitted to him in April by the Saskatchewan rural and urban municipalities associations. Among other examples, the brief described how grain is often trucked east 365 kilometres to a Moose Jaw inland terminal, then shipped back west to the coast by rail.
That sounds wasteful, but the farmers get a better price at the terminal, truckers who take feed grain west into Alberta get a backhaul, and the railway’s job is simplified.
The trouble, the municipalities said, is “none of these benefits are transferred back to the taxpayers responsible for keeping up the 365 kilometres of road where this ‘recreational trucking’ takes place.”
In addition to calling for more money for road maintenance, the brief said municipalities should be involved in decisions about the future shape of the grain transportation system.
Other proposals included removing obstacles to short-line railway companies, establishing joint running rights to allow competing rail services on the same track, and discouraging abandonment by requiring railways to completely rehabilitate the land involved with an abandoned rail line.
“We fully recognize that in many cases it is inevitable that rail lines will be abandoned and elevators will close,” they noted. “These events, regrettable as they may be, are often unavoidable and reflect evolving global trends and local practices.”
But communities that want strongly to keep their rail line should be given more opportunities to do so:
“Farmers and rural communities know all too well that once railways are gone, it is extremely unlikely that they will ever return. Just as when an elevator is torn down, the future of the farmers and the communities in the area is changed forever.”
