Thank you, Chair, for being here today.
Of course rail has always been an issue. As Ms. Brosseau said, we last dealt with this in 2013-14, and I'm disappointed that we're back here dealing with it again. There have been some changes between now and then. Then we didn't have the numbers. We didn't see the data. We didn't know what was going on. Now we have Mark Hemmes with the Quorum Corporation giving us that data every week. When you start seeing at week 12 that 50% of the railcars aren't being delivered, that's the first sign. Then, when you start seeing it show up in weeks 13 and 14 and continuing on...activity should have happened a lot sooner, but we can't take that back.
I think we need both ministers because, for example, with the Minister of Transport coming in front of this committee, we're going to need an order in council to actually show some results here. The reality is that Bill C-49, the way it stands right now, would not fix this problem, and the producers are telling you that; the grain companies are telling you that. Basically, anybody who is relying on rail for service is telling you that Bill C-49 won't do, so you need amendments. That means the amendments that have to come out of the Senate will take a lot more time.
In the meantime, we need to have an order in council sitting there with fines. The only thing that CN and CP actually react to is fines, so when they start seeing that there's a penalty for not performing, then they actually stand up and take notice.
I give CN credit for the letter that was in the paper today, whether or not that was a result of today's emergency meeting. I will also give credit to the FCC. Again, it's nice and convenient that it made its announcement at the time when this meeting is taking place. Farmers need to know that. That's another reason why we now need the Minister of Agriculture to come in, because there is a cash flow issue here. You have a transportation issue, for which we need the Minister of Transport to tell us the path forward. What he is going to do in the meantime with an order in council is what I'd like to see, until Bill C-49 is amended and brought back to the House with something we can all support.
Then you go to the cash flow issue, so the Minister of Agriculture is going to have to come in. Whether it's having advance programs, talking to all the banks, and doing what they did with the FCC, he needs to have a game plan moving forward now on spring advances, because cash flow is a big issue. We need to figure out what that's going to look like, so he needs to report on that. It's not as though they've never done this before. The department has done things like this in the past, so it's not as though he is taking any new path forward. He can lean on experiences in the department from the past and do something there. That's basically an hour of a meeting.
Then you talk about CN and CP coming in for an hour. I think that's good, because they need to present their path forward and what they're doing. I think CN, in their article, talked about leasing locomotives and putting managers on the lines, and that's good. I wish they would have been doing it in week 12 instead of now, because road bans are hitting. Basically, with road bans, restrictions come into play, and then they usually don't get lifted until we start seeding. So by seeding time, we have a whole pile of grain that has to move into terminals; guys are trying to put their crop in; and everything just hits the farm at the same time. There's no ability to spread it out. That's why the winter season is so important to move grain: you have the frozen roads; you can move grain, and you don't have to worry about planting, spraying, or anything else going on at that time. Again, we can't take that back. It's unfortunate, but that's just the way it is.
So you look at that, and then you say, “Now we want to talk to producers.” Think about it. One hour of producers would get you four producers in here from three prairie provinces—Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba—and then there are even some producers in northern B.C. That doesn't even get you one per province. Then you have three parties here, so everybody is going to want their producers here. So again, one hour is inadequate to give you a good idea of how it's impacting different areas across the Prairies.
And it does have an impact on different areas. When CN and CP start getting behind, instead of bringing cars into Saskatchewan and Manitoba, because it's a longer trip, they flip things through Alberta more quickly and ignore Saskatchewan and Manitoba, so you have to deal with these inter-regional aspects. There are lots of things to consider here before you can just say, “Hey, we're going to have an emergency meeting” and feel good. Farmers won't buy it, guys. It shows that you're not willing to do the job. It just shows that you're going to show the goodwill but not actually put any teeth into anything to get results. So you need the order in council. You need to move this forward. You need to do it now, because it has waited too long.
Chair, I guess I'll wrap it up there. Just keep in mind that if you're sitting on the farm right now, you have bills to pay from last year. You're supposed to be buying inputs for next year, so you're supposed to order your canola and stuff like that. A lot of that stuff is supposed to have been ordered in December or November, and all of those bills are starting to come due. You have bins full of grain. We have some 40 ships sitting out on the west coast waiting to be loaded. This is a crisis. This is very real. I'm sorry, but pushing off until it's convenient for us isn't acceptable. We need to do it now.
Thank you, Chair.