Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the guests for coming today.
I recently returned from the Prairies. I was doing an agriculture tour. Mother Nature's been good. The farmers, of course, did a good job and there's a good crop out there. The fertilizer business is good also, a world demand product. Some of the sectors are saying there's a shortage of labour out there for the agriculture industry and the fertilizer industry.
My questioning mostly deals with the rail. Both of you need the rail. You're both dealing with commodities that have to be exported.
Just today, two articles came out on the problems that are happening in the rail out west. One article is from the Leader-Post in Regina. It says that a bumper crop is unprecedented, but Statistics Canada says it's only 10% higher than usual. Then it goes on to say that port terminals are now competing with each other to use rail. The result is there are too many ships waiting for too long and that means farmers are getting less money. Farmers have now missed record high prices because of this.
In another article, it says that grain companies report a weekly shortfall of 1,000 to 2,000 cars with a backlog of 18,000 cars and rising.
Keystone Agricultural Producers president Mr. Chorney told Minister Ritz that the performance is not acceptable. There are guys who are going to be held up waiting for their grain to go. This is a big problem.
With both of your products being export products and needing rail, my question will be started on—and whoever wants to answer it.... Because there are also some farmers saying the demand.... Potash can be shipped all the time, so you guys use a certain amount of cars. Does there need to be an investigation or inquiry on the whole rail system, that it's not meeting the demand for fertilizer and grains and that we're kind of losing out on some of the international markets and the prices we should be getting?