The premier of Saskatchewan took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves before addressing the issue of grain transportation last week in Saskatoon.
Speaking at a forum organized by the provincial highways department, the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities and the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association, Roy Romanow came out swinging.
He said branch-line abandonment must stop while the system is under review.
And he promised financial help for groups in the province trying to buy branch rail lines.
In what Romanow said was a non-partisan speech, he blasted Ottawa for “not living up to its responsibilities to all Canadians in transportation and especially Saskatchewan grain growers and rural communities.”
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The elimination of the Crow Benefit took away $400 million a year from Saskatchewan producers, the premier said; the 1996 deregulation of the rail system gave the railways “a blank cheque to accelerate their programs of branch line abandonment and elevator consolidation.”
The end result, he said, is that this part of the country is being “pillaged” as the system is dismantled “and we all pay.”
He said the railways are hindering the development of short lines despite the fact that the 1996 Canada Transportation Act is supposed to be “short line friendly.”
Romanow said farmers are facing “a grave situation, an urgent issue” that is “near the top of the government’s agenda.” Everyone must get involved, but “at the end of the day you shape your own destiny and your own future.”
Draw up a business plan and come and talk to us if you need short-term financial help to buy assets, he said.
Romanow urged farmers to work with their local rural and municipal councils and to make representations to former Supreme Court justice Willard Estey who is conducting a review of the grain transportation system.
The premier said Ottawa must step in since “there is no sense reviewing a system that is being dismantled while the review is under way.”
Romanow didn’t get a standing ovation for his speech, but he should have.
This is an issue that strikes at the very heart of each and every prairie community; it is pitting community against community, the haves versus the have-nots as lines go and elevators fall and some communities gain and others lose.
