Every day I tune into the election news, hoping for some mention of agriculture: the issues we in the industry are facing and proposed solutions. And every day I’m disappointed.
But I remain optimistic because surely the parties and the candidates will realize at some point that agriculture is a major economic driver, creating one in eight jobs and contributing more than $100 billion to the Canadian economy, and it cannot be ignored.
If they’re short on ideas about how to engage the farm vote, how about starting with Canada’s grain transportation system? It’s been broken for such a long time now, and efforts over the past 30 years to fix it have yielded little for farmers.
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Deregulation was supposed to have resulted in better, more innovative rail transportation services, but in reality it’s meant branch line abandonment, a drastic decrease in the number of delivery points and increased costs for hauling grain to these points.
On the other hand, deregulation has allowed the railways to reduce expenses, reduce services and in-crease profits.
The issue has been and still is a lack of competition. This was apparent in the fall of 2013, where at one point, only 27 percent of cars were delivered to elevators on time — and that was to haul a record-breaking bumper crop.
Farmers lost billions because of backlogs at local elevators that caused basis levels to skyrocket.
And the sad part is, not much in the way of rail service has changed. Last year, according to the Ag Transport Coalition, Canadian National Railway delivered on average 62 percent of cars on time, while Canadian Pacific Railway averaged 36 percent.
Remember that the railways have a monopoly. Farm groups have been decrying this monopoly for years, and the federal government finally took action last year.
First, the government ordered the railways to each move 500,000 tonnes of grain per week or face $100,000 fines. This was followed by a review of the Canada Transportation Act, which is still ongoing, with a report due in December.
I cannot stress enough the importance of this review. It is paramount to improving grain shipping — the best hope we’ve had in a long time.
I sat on the Crop Logistics Working Group with other key stakeholders from across the country, including producers, shippers and processors, to develop a submission for the review in the hopes of fixing the system.
In addition, many of these groups, including Keystone Agricultural Producers, made individual submissions, and it appears that essentially most agree what the elements of the fix must be.
They include creating railway accountability and transparency relating to service, giving the Canadian Transportation Agency in-creased power to monitor railway service and enforce service agreements, improving shippers’ rights in service agreements and improving small shippers’ access to rail service.
I also sat on the group’s sub-committee that looked into the maximum revenue entitlement mechanism that prevents the railways from overcharging farmers to move grain. Railways would like to get rid of this mechanism, but our group found that it really does work the way it’s supposed to.
The first positive steps have been taken with the CTA review, and now we need a commitment from each political party that if elected, they will not allow the review recommendations to sit on the shelf.
If politicians still don’t think transportation is important, I point to the fact that new and expanded trade agreements require moving more and more farm goods and other products to export markets.
What’s the good of a trade agreement if we can’t get our products to market? In essence, we’re putting the cart before the horse.
Ever the eternal optimist, I will continue to scan the news in the hope that some candidate thinks farm issues are important, starting with a promise to act upon the recommendations of the CTA review. If not, the door remains open for more heavy losses for farmers.
