Thank you. I'm not going to use the full seven minutes. I'm sure of that. I'm going to speak briefly and summarize my letter of December 18.
Canpotex is an export marketing company representing the three Saskatchewan potash producers, Agrium, Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, and Mosaic. They are large, integrated fertilizer companies.
We're the world's largest exporter of potash. We have been averaging sales of approximately 7.5 million metric tons annually over the last several years. This, of course, results in a fairly significant benefit to the Saskatchewan economy and to the Canadian economy as a whole.
As Canpotex, the nature of our product being a bulk commodity and the nature of our company being fully only export, we are fully reliant on the transportation industry, both rail and terminal facilities, to handle our exports. We rely on it entirely with respect to rail transportation to the coast and for terminal handling at the coast. We feel any labour disruptions in the transportation industry would cause Canpotex great concern for immediate lost sales and significant long-term harm to our international reputation. Although we're not directly affected by the Canada Labour Code, in that our workers are not affected by it, obviously rail workers are and the rail industry is, as are terminal handling facilities, and they are our concern.
In 1997 we made a significant change in our operations by establishing a port facility in Portland, Oregon, outside of Canada, simply because of previous labour disruptions that affected our operations in Vancouver. They caused a loss of reputation and sales losses that are hard to recover from.
With respect to the bill itself, our comments are only this. Although we are not directly affected by it, it would have the potential to affect us adversely if there were to be a labour disruption. Obviously our shipments would stop immediately, and from there we would have little ability to ship our product. We have no ability to make any alternate shipping arrangements, and we would therefore definitely lose sales.
The potash market internationally is very competitive. Although we're a large exporter of it, we have intense competition from countries such as Russia, Belarus, Germany, and Israel, which will not be affected by similar legislation, thereby putting us at a disadvantage.
My comments are to please take a close look at this bill before introducing it, committee members, because perhaps it will have adverse effects on all shippers, not only on Canpotex.
Thank you.