The battle over new railway rules is shaping up to be a significant test of the strength of the prairie commodity shipper lobby and the priority the Liberal government gives western interests.
At the moment, it doesn’t look good on either score.
Unless the Liberals have a “road to Damascus” conversion soon, prairie commodity shippers like grain companies will have to live with new rules that they say tilt the balance of power too much in favor of the railways.
The next few months will tell the tale as bill C-101, the Canada Transportation Act, makes its way through Parliament and into law.
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In shorthand, the legislation will set new rules for the rail system, reduce regulation, make it easier to abandon money-losing lines and create a new Canadian Transportation Agency.
It is, in the words of Commons transport committee chair Stan Keyes from Hamilton, a blueprint for revitalizing the railways by freeing them from the “regulatory burden” they have faced.
Some of that regulation was the result of the last rewrite of national transportation act, engineered by former transport minister Don Mazankowski in 1987.
The Liberal government has decided that the Mazankowski legislation was too pro-shipper and hobbled the railways too much. It is not a view shared by prairie shippers, who fear that the new rules will severely limit their ability to get CTA relief from railway abuses.
On paper, the informal coalition which has appeared before MPs to make that argument looks powerful. It includes grain companies and bulk commodity shippers like fertilizer and wood products with tens of thousands of employees and annual sales in the billions of dollars.
They share a view that they are captive shippers potentially susceptible to railway abuse of monopoly power.
They have mounted a vigorous lobby in public appearances and behind-the-scenes arm twisting, targeting western Liberals, rural caucus and members of the Commons agriculture committee. By all accounts, they have those groups on side.
Agriculture minister Ralph Goodale has lobbied transport minister Doug Young. Others have lobbied his parliamentary secretary, key Liberals on the transport committee and other cabinet ministers.
So far, their efforts have produced little.
Transport committee Liberals were visibly skeptical of shipper arguments that they are captive. They exhibited a relationship of friendly alliance with railway officials and lobbyists.
Transport Canada officials who appeared before MPs to defend the bill also acted at times as if the railway officials were part of the team.
And then there is minister Young, who appears to believe that in transportation matters, the best government is the least government. It is a market-forces side of the Liberal government that has little interest in trying to understand the implications of the unequal relationship between a railway and shippers on a prairie branchline.
In this case, the Prairie and rural voice within the governing party may simply be too weak to make a difference.
