My name is Garnet Etsell. Our family operates a turkey farm in the Fraser Valley of B.C. For 13 years I was also the chief financial officer of a group of agribusinesses in the Fraser Valley. The core company of that group was a feed mill serving the dairy and poultry industries.
It is indeed a pleasure to be able to present to you today. I want to echo Humphrey and applaud the government for taking a bold move to remedy the grain backlog situation we face. However, this move has brought unintended consequences.
I noted with some comfort that both Ministers Ritz and Raitt, when presenting to the committee on Monday, indicated that there would be no negative impacts on the government's initiative on other commodities. I have grave concerns with these statements. Minister Raitt acknowledged that the railways' best performance to date, prior to the introduction of the order in council, was 9,800 cars—last night we heard it was 9,500 cars—and 11,000 cars per week is the target contained in the order.
My concern is that the difference in cars will come at the expense of other commodities. All the discussion to date has focused on moving the grain backlog to export positions. What about the value-added livestock and milling sectors that need that grain to feed their animals and process grain through their mills? We have a $2-billion livestock sector in B.C.'s Lower Mainland that is dependent upon prairie grain. Our volume demand is a constant 100 cars per week, 52 weeks of the year.
The livestock sector is currently dependent upon producer cars and shipments from smaller independent terminals, both of which have experienced challenges in getting adequate rail service. The big four grain companies are not currently taking any orders for domestic delivery, and with the order in council and now with Bill C-30, virtually all the effort on the part of the rail company is being focused on getting the grain to export positions.
To make up for this shortfall, it has been suggested that B.C. just truck the grain in. Firstly, it is questionable whether there is the trucking capacity to make up this shortfall. Secondly, trucking costs are $40 to $70 per tonne higher than shipping by rail. If B.C. started to resort to trucking its feed grain requirements, and if—and it's a big if—we could truck it all, it would cost the livestock sector an additional $18 to $34 million on an annual basis. On my farm alone, I would be paying $114,000 more just for transportation costs. Clearly this is not tenable.
To quote Bob Dornan, who is secretary treasurer of the B.C. Animal Nutrition Association, the association all of the feed mills belong to, we need to:
expedite and facilitate a resolution to the issue of reliable rail service to the Fraser Valley before we find ourselves in an emergency situation where lack of...grain supply causes animal health and welfare issues, notwithstanding serious supply chain impacts at all levels.
In summary, ladies and gentlemen, it must be recognized that the Canadian domestic livestock sectors and milling sectors are facing a crisis as well, as we depend on reliable transportation of prairie grain. Therefore, it is our recommendation that Bill C-30 contain provisions that ensure that priority is given to Canadian feed grain and other value-added Canadian markets to ensure our continued viability.
Thank you.