Good afternoon, Madam Chair, and committee. Thanks for having me here today and for being willing to listen to the Western Canadian Short Line Railway Association's experience with the national trade corridors fund. We really appreciate it.
As you are aware, our association is a not-for-profit, membership-based organization that represents 17 short lines across western Canada. We operate 26% of the rail line in Saskatchewan and we have hundreds of kilometres in both Manitoba and Alberta. We move grain, pulses, fertilizer, LPG gas, diesel, propane, frac sand and gravel. Some of our customers include Viterra, Pioneer, ETG, G3, AGT, JGL, Paterson, Superior Pulses, Scoular, ADM, etc.
The success of the national transportation network is key for us and our customers. I'm going to touch on four things quickly.
First of all is the overall NTCF process. We had seven short lines apply. Three did not make it through the expression of interest phase. Of the four that did, one decided not to pursue a comprehensive project proposal so we have three that have gone through successfully. We should be hearing shortly about two of them and then another one within the next four weeks or so. So at this moment I'm unsure of what the results are for us.
The process, overall, we found to be really well organized. It was very fast. The funds were limited but overall pretty well organized and the Transport Canada staff were incredibly helpful to us throughout the whole process.
It was really difficult for some of our short lines because obviously we have a hard time raising funds. For example, one of our short lines went through an economic development bank to try to come up with 50% matching funds. They were valuing the railway at 50% of the value of the railway's land, which is obviously small strips of land so not very valuable. That was a really big problem. We had a very short time frame with NTCF to come up with 50% of the funds, and that was impossible for many of our short lines even though they had projects that probably would have been quite good for the NTCF.
There were also unintended results in the process. CN and CP were looking like they were going to be a part of several of our projects and then at the last minute decided not to pursue. The short lines figured out other ways to come up with the funds and to continue on but the unintended result was that short lines are now going to be paying for projects that significantly benefit CN and CP and the class I partners rather than necessarily just themselves with no funding allocated from those partners.
For us, the NTCF will be fantastic for the few that are able to access it, but really we have larger infrastructure needs that aren't addressed here. It would have been really useful, I think, to have had more consultation before the process began to maybe just change some of the ways that it was designed to make more of our short lines be able to access the funds.
Recently there have been several reports, the Canada Transportation Act review report, the Railway Safety Act review report, and the Standing Committee on Finance's report in 2019, that have suggested that there be long-term and sustainable funding for short lines for both economic and safety reasons. It seems that the response to that has been the NTCF and the RSIP, neither of which has really addressed those recommendations. The national trade corridors fund is great for the few that have big projects that they can fund, but really our problems are larger than that. The RSIP is just for crossings so it doesn't really help us with safety. We're really appreciative of the national trade corridors fund and for the projects that will be funded; I am sure it will be hugely successful and great. But overall it really hasn't addressed our issues. There is a lot more work to come.
Thank you.