Evidence of meeting #61 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was shippers.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Richard Paton  President and Chief Executive Officer, Chemistry Industry Association of Canada
Fiona Cook  Director, Business and Economics, Chemistry Industry Association of Canada
Pierre Gratton  President and Chief Executive Officer, Mining Association of Canada
Roger Larson  President, Canadian Fertilizer Institute
Jim Facette  President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Propane Association
Claude Mongeau  President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian National
François Tougas  Representative, Lawyer, McMillan LLP, Mining Association of Canada

4:55 p.m.

Director, Business and Economics, Chemistry Industry Association of Canada

Fiona Cook

You may.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON

Monsieur Gratton.

4:55 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Mining Association of Canada

Pierre Gratton

I wouldn't have that number, and it really varies from place to place to place.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON

Do you have a belly-button guess?

4:55 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Mining Association of Canada

Pierre Gratton

You mentioned earlier that CP's largest customer has managed recently to put 15% of its product onto CN. That was one of the best things it's been able to do in recent years, because it is providing a little bit of competition.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON

Respectfully, I'm actually a bit surprised you don't have a stronger sense of that. Forgive the use of my Cape Breton mother's reference to belly buttons; I apologize. But the reason I said that is as a representative of your membership, it would seem to me you'd have a strong feel for where that CN and CP crossover lies.

Mr. Larson, do you have a sense?

4:55 p.m.

President, Canadian Fertilizer Institute

Roger Larson

I'm guessing that about 80% of our member company plants would have dual rail service, give or take....

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON

Thank you.

Mr. Facette, I need to ask you. You have a different one with pipelines, too, I suppose.

4:55 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Propane Association

Jim Facette

Well, CN and CP face quite a bit of competition from other modes, both truck and pipelines. I would say that of the producer community and the shippers that actually ship propane, all of our members would have other options they could turn to if they needed to.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON

Thank you all for that. I think I've covered everyone. Have I missed anyone? There are a lot of you here today. You all seem wise.

Ms. Cook, you said you want to elaborate a little bit on the CN and CP connection, that they're not necessarily competitors or linkups. Can you explain that a little bit to help us understand a bit better, please?

4:55 p.m.

Director, Business and Economics, Chemistry Industry Association of Canada

Fiona Cook

When you do have two options, whether it be because you're within an interswitching zone, which is if you're within 30 kilometres of another line...under the regulations the competing railway has to quote a rate so that you can use that line to get to the other railway. Often the railways will not do that, so you don't have a viable competitive option.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON

Why don't they do that?

4:55 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian National

Claude Mongeau

[Inaudible—Editor]

4:55 p.m.

Director, Business and Economics, Chemistry Industry Association of Canada

Fiona Cook

I'm not going to speculate on that, but that's what our members tell us.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON

Mr. Mongeau, just bear with me a second, but since you interrupted, I will ask you to respond, please.

4:55 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian National

Claude Mongeau

All of our chemical companies are sharing the business between CN and CP. That's true of Dow. That's true of NOVA. That's true of every chemical company. I don't know that we have one that has 100% with one carrier, and more than two-thirds are served by the two railroads, and we compete with pipelines.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON

I'm not going to get into a debate. I'll let you do that offline, if you don't mind.

I'll give you a last comment, Ms. Cook. It's only fair.

Go ahead, Ms. Cook. Do you have a final comment on that?

4:55 p.m.

Director, Business and Economics, Chemistry Industry Association of Canada

Fiona Cook

That's fine, thank you.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON

I appreciate the full engagement. I think you should all go into another room a little later on. If we'd done that a while ago, maybe we could have sorted this all out—

4:55 p.m.

A voice

Not without an arbitrator.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON

Oh, I don't know. They all seem—

5 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian National

Claude Mongeau

We almost joined the coalition.

5 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON

They all seem quite reasonable.

5 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Larry Miller

You just have a few seconds left, Mr. Holder.

5 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON

I wanted to ask this, Chair. I have the order fulfillment information on page 3.

You may or may not have this document, but I see the fulfillment of weekly cars on forest products, and they say it's 95% fulfillment. Has that been your experience in your various industries, yes or no?

Just a yes or a no, Mr. Gratton.