Evidence of meeting #8 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was provisions.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB
They couldn't, then, pick and choose; it's all or nothing.
Director General, Surface Transportation Policy, Department of Transport
That's correct.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB
That's very helpful. I appreciate the answers. Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you, Mr. Warkentin, and thank you, Mr. Tupper.
Mr. Breton, you have six minutes.
Liberal
Pierre Breton Liberal Shefford, QC
Thank you very much for being here and for your comments on grain transportation.
Following the report, are consultations being held with the people in the sector? If so, what is being done? I will ask some sub-questions afterwards.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy, Department of Transport
We have just given advice to the minister with respect to a way forward for laying out that process, and the minster will be announcing that process in the very near future. It isn't yet public, but there is a plan to move forward with a very active engagement.
Liberal
Pierre Breton Liberal Shefford, QC
So there have been no consultations with the agricultural sector so far. Is that correct?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy, Department of Transport
The process has not been announced yet. We'll have to wait a little.
Liberal
Pierre Breton Liberal Shefford, QC
Okay.
So far, has the industry commented on the report? Could you tell us about that?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy, Department of Transport
Yesterday and today, my colleague took part in meetings with various sector representatives. They made comments and expressed their views, which has helped us brief the minister.
Liberal
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy, Department of Transport
I cannot talk about that.
Liberal
Pierre Breton Liberal Shefford, QC
Okay.
Earlier, you talked about capacity. What do you foresee in terms of increased capacity for grain transportation across the country?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy, Department of Transport
Do you want to handle that?
Director General, Surface Transportation Policy, Department of Transport
Is it about increased capacity with respect to the ability to transport grain?
Director General, Surface Transportation Policy, Department of Transport
As Shawn mentioned in his earlier comments, there have been initiatives put in place to expedite the transportation of grain by the railways. I guess I would say that the indications we have—and we monitor each grain week to see where we are in terms of performance both of transportation and at the ports—are that performance has been very good this winter. We're above the levels we were at last year, both with respect to car order fulfillment and general transportation volumes.
I think it's fair to say that the system is functioning well now. It doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement, but overall this is functioning well—as well as it has in the past decade.
Liberal
Pierre Breton Liberal Shefford, QC
In terms of investments in rail sector infrastructure, could you tell me how train car or train modernization may help improve our system? Is our current infrastructure able to handle all those new investments or train car modernization for transportation?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy, Department of Transport
I think that specific results concerning the kinds of investments government would be making in the rail sector are something we want to proceed with in the CTA review to understand and identify priorities. I think we're still some distance away from the government's actually making those decisions concerning its priority investments in the transportation sector specifically.
The government has clearly indicated to us that infrastructure investments are a key priority, and in the last budget they indicated a fairly broad range of investments. None of those is specific to the rail sector. As I say, part of this needs to be included in our review and our understanding of how the government wants to respond in looking at the priorities identified out of this review.
NDP
Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My thanks to the witnesses. I am really pleased that we are studying grain transportation in Canada.
A few years ago, my colleague Mr. Shipley and I participated in a study on Bill C-30 at this committee. Producers were facing huge losses in revenue when goods could not be delivered by rail. Something had to be done. All three parties reached a consensus in the committee, which was very interesting.
I hope the committee will once again be prepared to undertake a study like that, in order to provide a report with recommendations to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, who are both responsible for handling this situation.
In the report there were four recommendations, and from what I understand, the minister can go through with an order in council. I think a motion would have to be put before the House, if we wanted to keep some of these provisions in place.
Is that right—an order in council and then a motion before the House?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy, Department of Transport
That's exactly right.
NDP
Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Perfect.
I've spoken with many stakeholders, some of whom are here in the room today. I had the pleasure of meeting this week with my colleague from Alberta Grain Growers, Alberta Canola, Albert Pulse Growers, and Alberta Barley. Many of the people I've been speaking to have talked about the importance of keeping the MRE. The report recommends something different.
Could you comment on how you see the MRE being modernized?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy, Department of Transport
For us, using the occasion to meet with the representatives from the sector but equally to engage more broadly, the direction of the report and the advice it gives us is I think to frame out things so that we find the balances in the system. That is going to be a key element of our hearing from folks how they react to the recommendations within the report and of trying to understand how we can achieve a balance.
I think the approach needs to be to ensure that all the parties meet their responsibilities for the efficient operation of this system, and I think we need to hear from people how they're reacting to the recommendations and how we balance their input to the minister in determining a way forward to do that modernization.