Get grain trains back on track, farmers urge Ottawa

Bottlenecks in federal legislation and rail capacity are holding up grain transport at a crucial time, say Alberta wheat producers.

Rail companies are failing to get nearly half of Alberta’s wheat to market and Ottawa is dragging its feet in passing legislation to ensure they do, said Kevin Auch, chair of the Alberta Wheat Commission.

“The railroads are not fulfilling all the orders coming toward them, only 57 per cent on average and 63 per cent in the last two months,” he said.

“And with this legislation being delayed, there’s just no teeth to compel the railroads to get moving.”

He said final passage of Bill C-49, which has passed second reading in Parliament, has been put off until the new year.

It would impose penalties on railways for service failure and other measures to help producers.

Without it, Auch fears the province’s 14,000 wheat producers and growers of other grains and their shippers will have to absorb delay fees and suffer other setbacks.

“Railroads are the only part of the supply chain not accountable,” he said.

A repeat of a similar scenario in 2013-14 isn’t an option, he added.

“What happened in 2013 cost us billions of dollars and damaged our reputation with global buyers,” said Auch.

An official in federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau’s office laid the blame of Bill C-49’s holdup on Conservative Senator David Tkachuk, who he said as chairman of the upper chamber’s Banking Trade and Commerce Committee cancelled hearings this week and next on the legislation.

The Saskatchewan senator said he never cancelled any meetings, adding Parliament is shutting down for the holiday break and there’d be nowhere to send a bill in any case.

He said Garneau refused to extend interim legislation that would have helped the rail transport situation, adding layoffs by CN Rail last spring have left the company short-staffed.

“This bill wouldn’t do anything to solve that,” said Tkachuk.

“(Garneau) is blowing smoke, he’s playing politics on the backs of farmers and grain growers,” said Tkachuk.

Auch said he wasn’t interested in laying blame, but in seeing the considerable remainder of the province’s six- to seven-million tonnes of wheat moved, mostly to the west coast.

Tkachuk said Bill C-49 won’t be dealt with until late January.