This bill was last introduced in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in August 2015.
Gerry Ritz Conservative
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill.
This enactment amends the Canada Grain Act to permit the regulation of contracts relating to grain and the arbitration of disputes respecting the provisions of those contracts. It also amends the Canada Transportation Act with respect to railway transportation in order to, among other things,
(a) require the Canadian National Railway Company and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company to move the minimum amount of grain specified in the Canada Transportation Act or by order of the Governor in Council; and
(b) facilitate the movement of grain by rail.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-30, An Act to amend the Canada Grain Act and the Canada Transportation Act and to provide for other measures, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.
The Deputy Speaker Joe Comartin
There being no motions at report stage, the House will now proceed without debate to the putting of the question on the motion to concur in the bill at report stage.
Fair Rail for Grain Farmers ActGovernment Orders
Battlefords—Lloydminster Saskatchewan
Conservative
Some hon. members
Agreed.
The Deputy Speaker Joe Comartin
(Motion agreed to)
I declare the motion carried. When shall the bill be read a third time? By leave, now?
Some hon. members
Agreed.
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.
Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to report Bill C-30 back to the House.
The bill addresses the immediate needs of Canadian farmers, bulk shippers, and our overall economy. Our government knows our economy needs a supply chain that works today and tomorrow, with the capacity to move what is produced.
I was proud to speak to the benefits of this bill at the agriculture committee last month. I understand the committee had a very extensive series of meetings, including testimony from over 20 stakeholder groups. The committee heard from the entire supply chain from farm to port, and from a wide range of commodity shippers, from wheat to oats to barley, as well as from fertilizer, mining, and timber groups.
I was pleased to see a strong will around the table to work toward industry-led solutions focused on service and private sector responsibilities.
This is a piece of comprehensive legislation, and opposition and government together appreciate the non-partisan work of the committee to date, along with all of the witnesses that came forward. By working together, we were able to strengthen the bill, which, I would like to note, passed through the committee with unanimous support. I thank the committee members for that.
It was extremely unfortunate that the member for Edmonton-St. Albert turned a deaf ear to those farmers and shippers by attempting to deprive them of meaningful service level agreements, or SLAs. His point of order accomplished nothing but delaying the much-needed measures in the bill.
I want to be clear that these parliamentary games, while unfortunate, will not deter our government and the opposition from amending Bill C-30 to include service level agreements with reciprocal penalties. Testimony shows that the majority of stakeholders support the bill and what it sets out to accomplish.
During the committee's consultations, shippers of all commodities applauded this legislation, but they also asked the government to go further. They asked us to put more teeth into service level agreements to bring day-to-day accountability to the railways. Responding to this feedback, my parliamentary secretary introduced an amendment at committee on behalf of the government.
The first part of the amendment would give the Canadian Transportation Agency the authority to
...order the company to compensate any person adversely affected for any expenses that they incurred as a result of the company's failure to fulfill its service obligations...
By “company”, of course, we mean railways.
The amendment allows shippers who enter into service level agreements to be directly compensated for any expenses they incur as a result of the railways' failure to meet those service obligations. This includes compensation if the shipper is out of pocket for costs such as demurrage, contract defaults, or penalties. It goes further than the reciprocal penalties that many in the industry have requested, because it applies to any level of service complaint under the Canada Transportation Act. This is a market-based solution that would help get all bulk commodities moving and continuing to move.
The second part of the amendment reads:
...or, if the company is a party to a confidential contract with a shipper that requires the company to pay an amount of compensation for expenses incurred by the shipper as a result of the company's failure to fulfill its service obligations, order the company to pay that amount to the shipper
This measure is equally important, because it allows compensation to be paid within a commercial contract. It would encourage the shippers and railways to come to the table and set their own terms and agree on SLAs with reciprocal penalties, should they so desire.
The goal is to level the playing field and provide better tools for shippers when railway companies breach their service obligations.
We are working to continue to improve the efficiency, reliability, and predictability of the entire supply chain. I am pleased to say that strengthening SLAs has the support of industry, the provinces, and the opposition, and I thank them all.
Industry groups that support this needed amendment include, but are not limited to, the Inland Terminal Association of Canada, the Barley Council of Canada, the Canadian Canola Growers Association, Cereals Canada, the Mining Association of Canada, the Canadian Fertilizer Institute, and the Freight Management Association of Canada. It covers all of the spectrum.
The importance of the bill cannot be understated. I recently returned from a trade mission to South Korea and Japan, where, alongside Canadian industry, I spoke directly with international buyers of Canadian grains about problems incurred in our immediate past. I assured these buyers that our government was not taking this situation lightly and explained the details of Bill C-30 to directly address their concerns. These buyers were pleased to hear that our government was taking this needed action to ensure Canada's reputation as a reliable grain shipper, and they thanked our government for acting quickly.
Farmers and all shippers need our government to pass the bill, as amended, as expeditiously as possible. Our economy and Canadian jobs are relying on us to act.
Crop yields show every sign of continuing to grow through better technology, higher yielding, more disease-resistant varieties and better agronomic practices.
Shippers of all bulk commodities that rely on rail are growing their businesses exponentially and are demanding increased capacity to get those products to a burgeoning marketplace. That is why we must move forward to strengthen the supply chain now for the next crop year and beyond.
Bill C-30 holds solutions that would benefit the entire supply chain. I urge everyone in the House to work together to pass this important bill, with this needed amendment, as quickly as possible.
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Mr. Speaker, we do indeed support the bill, although we do not believe it goes far enough.
Certainly, the minister's point that the movement of grain is important to the economy, and trade is important, it makes no sense to go out there and sign trade deals when we cannot get our product to market. Transportation is functional to marketing and we believe the bill goes some distance to assure that transportation takes place in a timely fashion.
However, the bill falls very short in one area, and that is price transparency for producers. We know now that the spread between the export price and the price paid to producers is much greater than it was last fall. In fact, some would say that producers were getting 87% of the export price last fall, and now they are getting about 48%. This means the grain companies or someone in the system is profiting extensively at the expense of the farmers.
When the minister brought in legislation to allow this new selling system to take place, why did he not incorporate in either this bill or in previous legislation the requirement that the logistics would be in place to ensure that there would be proper movement, proper transparency in terms of pricing to farmers so farmers could be assured they would get their fair share of the market price?
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Mr. Speaker, the gist of what the member for Malpeque has spoke about, and I agree with most of what he said, is the basis price. This is the price that the grain companies would offer a farmer on that day, at that time and in that place. This is reflective of their inability to move that grain to market. It was a market signal to say “If we're going to buy your grain, we're going to buy it so cheaply. We can afford to store it”.
The good news is less than 1% of Canada's record production in western Canada last year was sold at that lower basis price. Those are actual numbers from the Grain Commission. This is good news in that farmers were not forced or pinched to sell at that level, but we need to see more transparency in those numbers.
There are some holes in the way that is projected now so that farmers are not necessarily right up to speed, should they so desire it. They are all very much technically inclined, and they will know at a moment's notice the price being offered. They need to know what the export price is and what they are being offered in their own community.
They now have the ability to move that grain much farther than they did under the old single desk system under the Wheat Board. They are not confined to a permit book that forced them to sell to one particular point of entry. They can actually put it on their truck and take it where they need to now. That has given us some competition to keep that price where it should be.
We are seeking ways, through regulatory packages attached to this legislation, that will give that transparency to farmers on a day-to-day basis.
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his kinds to the opposition in that we did say we would sit down and work together, and we have managed to do that, albeit we have hit a bump in the road, it would seem with the piece that, to use the minister's words, put some teeth in the bill. My colleagues in the Liberal Party and I were trying to put a whole mouthful of teeth in the bill, if we could, but unfortunately we did not quite get there.
I have a couple of specific questions, because I will be rising on debate, so I will leave some of my comments until then. Could the minister report to the House the most recent statistics about how many railcars were delivered by CN and CP last week and how much grain was moved to port? Does he know whether those ports were the Port of Vancouver, or was some of it heading north or was some of it heading south?
I recognize it is a bit technical in the sense that he may not have all those numbers absolutely precise. I appreciate the fact that if he has to round that up, I will never hold him to that if he were off by a few cars here and a few tonnes there. I would not come after the minister in question period and say that he told me it was this or that. I recognize that this question is somewhat spontaneous. However, I think there is a need to know how many cars are supposed to be there, because the ramp up should be now complete for CN and CP.
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the NDP and the member for Welland, who sat on the committee at times, for the great work that they did in moving this forward as expeditiously as we have. We need to take it from the red zone and past the goal post. I am looking forward to that today.
With respect to his specific point on the number of cars and the amount of grain moved, the railways are within the target that was set for them. I do not have a corridor-by-corridor breakdown in front of me, but the vast majority of the grain is moving to Vancouver where the ships are sitting. Grain is moving to Thunder Bay. As I understand it, there are four boats in store at Thunder Bay right now and another 10 to 15 coming up through the canals and the lakes now to take advantage of what is in store at Thunder Bay. The overabundance of boats that were in Vancouver are being loaded and moved out as expeditiously as can be done. Also, a small amount of grain is starting to move into the southern corridors.
Part of this legislation would give Mark Hemmes of Quorum Corporation the oversight capacity and far more powers to give us that breakdown week-by-week, corridor-by-corridor. He was never able to give us the corridor specificity going south or east of Thunder Bay. We will now have that captured with the regulations under this legislation.
Brent Rathgeber Independent Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Mr. Speaker, why does the minister believe the Canadian Transportation Agency is the appropriate body to award compensation to shippers. He undoubtedly knows that the agency is a regulator with no experience with respect to the assessment of damages. Nor does it have the procedures in place to properly assess damage claims that are put to it.
I am curious as to why the chair ruled out of order the amendments proposed to create a compensatory scheme inside the Canadian Transportation Agency without giving it any mechanism to properly assess claims.
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Mr. Speaker, when the agency is assessing these claims, it would be assessing what is spelled out in the contracts that have been defined between the railways and the shipper of whatever commodity it happens to be. The great people at the CTA have the economic skills and the ability to do exactly that. The Minister of Transport has the right people in place to make those adjudications should they be desired and needed.
We are hopeful that the railways, with this extra tool in the kit of the shippers, will not have to take advantage of that adjudication. However, should they do it, the CTA is more than capable of handling that.
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
Mr. Speaker, let me start by suggesting for the government, as the minister has acknowledged, the hard work by this side of the House in working on a piece of government legislation. When both parties, the opposition parties and the government, seize the opportunity to work on legislation, that can happen. This is a prime example of how the House can actually function when it comes to legislation, without the need to ram it through under time allocation or closure. That should be the model the government members look to when they bring in legislation, that perhaps there is a sense that the other side can work together with them on it.
I would suggest that the Conservatives should look to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food in the future, in the sense of seeing how that could happen, as well as looking to those of us on the opposition benches who may be responsible for those particular portfolios, who could help them do that. Where it is not feasible, then let the House do what it normally does, and that is to have debates on legislation so we can improve it.
What we witnessed today with the Speaker's ruling is that when we get into a time crunch, albeit a time crunch that we put on ourselves, we make mistakes. As members of the committee, opposition and government, we agreed to try contract the time because of the emergency need of Prairie farmers to move grain. Even though we agreed to get this done expeditiously, mistakes happened, at least from the perspective of the Speaker, who ruled that it was an inadmissible amendment. The dilemma was that with the time frame in which we were dealing a mistake slipped through, but was then caught.
The member for Edmonton—St. Albert pointed it out to the Speaker, which is the member's right to do, and the Speaker ruled in an appropriate fashion. That should be a cautionary tale to all of us. When we rush legislation, mistakes get made, and we need to find ways to correct them.
Even though we are trying to accomplish something, we end up with a mistake on a procedural matter, not of legislation. The opposition parties agreed that we needed to find a way to get compensation all the way back to the farmer, not just necessarily the grain company. However, I use the pun intentionally when I say that sometimes a half a loaf is better than no loaf at all. In the parlance of people in the grain industry, they would be happy to sell some grain to make half a loaf because at the moment there is far too much grain on the Prairies. The expectation is that by the end of this crop year, which is July 31, there will still be 22 million tonnes of this year's grain left over when next year's crop comes in, so we will still see this need to move.
Clearly the legislation, from our perspective, moved the goal posts somewhat. Unlike the minister's analysis of being in the red zone and needing to get across the goal line to score a touchdown, I would suggest we tried an onside kick and we did not quite catch it. We are literally at a point where we have moved a bit, but we did not get to where we needed to get. Speaking for the New Democrats as the opposition, we have come to the realization and conclusion that this legislation needs to move forward. We intend to continue to support the legislation and move it forward.
It is important, albeit not as much as we would like, but in life we cannot get all of the things we want. However, this should be a cautionary tale for the government side. We want to work together and help the government with legislation. However, perhaps those members ought to also understand that when we put forward amendments, they are not frivolous, but are actually helpful and there are times when maybe they should accept them. I recognize the Conservatives do not have to take them all, and perhaps sometimes none, but when it comes to this type of legislation, we are working together. The minister has very graciously acknowledged that, which I appreciate and extend back to the minister.
His co-operation from the get-go was absolutely first rate. He ensured that we were informed ahead of time, so we knew it would come. When we are given that type of briefing, we greatly appreciate that. All opposition parties were given that, which was absolutely important to do because we worked together to do this. The next step is that sometimes our amendments are worth considering.
I would hope in the future that there will be other opportunities to do this again. It would go a long way to making things function the way they should, and we could actually take the next step where we really do consider all amendments from all parties. They may well indeed be worthwhile and helpful.
Let me just say, on behalf of the opposition, that we intend to support the bill at third reading, which was our intention from the beginning. The commitment to the minister was to try to help in the best way we knew how. We believe we have fulfilled and kept the promise we made to the minister at the agriculture committee. As the loyal opposition, we said we would do that, and we intend to do that.
I am hopeful that we will see the bill progress into law, so we can start to help farmers across the Prairies. This is what it is all about. It is about helping those farmers on the Prairies who have been suffering for a long period of time, and some may continue to suffer. I think the minister and I recognize that, and I am sure my colleague from the Liberal Party also recognizes that. Unfortunately, there will be some farmers who will get caught in this, for whatever reason. It will not be a good situation for probably a minority of farmers, which is the real pity of it all.
I look forward to the bill being implemented and to other opportunities where the government extends a welcoming helpful hand. We look forward to working with government members, and if the legislation would indeed help farmers, we will be there to make sure farmers get that help.