Thank you very much.
Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the standing committee.
On behalf of the Western Canadian Shippers' Coalition, WCSC, I would like to thank you for the invitation to participate in this session. My name is Dave. I am the president and CEO.
WCSC is based in western Canada and represents shippers from multiple resource commodity sectors, many of whom are completely dependent on one railway. Our membership includes some of the largest Canadian and North American shippers in these sectors. Collectively, members provide tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs in communities across Canada, ship billions of dollars' worth of product annually, and spend over $3.5 billion on total transportation. The point of commonality for our members is a reliance on market-dominant providers of rail freight, truck and port transportation.
Shippers have faced significant supply chain disruptions since the fall of 2019, following CN Rail's strike and service issues related to unusual weather conditions. While shippers were in recovery mode in 2020, blockades disrupted railway lines across Canada; Transport Canada issued a slow order in response to a train derailment in Saskatchewan; and supply chains and operations began experiencing additional stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The downward spiral continued in 2021 with extreme heat, the B.C. wildfires and flooding, bringing the supply chain in some areas of western Canada to a standstill or a crawl. CP's labour disruption in March of this year and the effect of the war in Ukraine are further testing the resilience of an already strained supply chain. As a result, WCSC members are operating in a very challenging business environment.
Supply chain shortages in all modes—rail, trucking and containers at port—increased costs, scheduling issues and shipping delays have taken a toll. The driver shortage in the trucking industry is not a new phenomenon. Class I railways drastically reduced head counts and active equipment in 2020 and 2021, and they have been slow to bring people and equipment back. In many areas they are, again, stretched too thin to meet demand and they lack the resiliency to manage normal operating procedures. In fact, given the system-wide rail service issues resulting from a combination of weather-related crises, which are no fault of the railway at all—and I must commend them for a great job of bringing everything back—and a personnel and equipment deficit, some of our members have been forced to take temporary plant shutdowns and operate at reduced capacity for prolonged periods of time. In addition to the impact on the member companies, these pressures are damaging confidence in the reliability of Canada as a supplier of goods and resources. Canada's competitiveness and reputation as a trading nation depend on our ability to get products to market.
We need to look ahead. WCSC believes that a comprehensive supply chain review is necessary to determine precisely what Canada's major trade corridors will require in terms of maximizing performance of our roads, rails and ports. This includes determining current and future capacity, first- and last-mile efficiencies and bottlenecks in congested areas, such as the Vancouver Lower Mainland and northern Alberta.
Another area we suggest focusing on is contingency planning. The supply chain must be better prepared in 2022 to move forward through potential things such as climate events—like the ones we have already seen—and other disruptions, such as strikes, blockades, pandemics and now a war. WCSC recommends that regional, federal and provincial task forces be organized similar to those successfully put in place in 2021 during the B.C. flood.
Another area is resiliency. Trade corridors are under much strain and, in some regions, have begun to break down. A comprehensive review of all modes to fully identify these challenges is necessary, including looking at bottlenecks and underutilized corridors, and identifying opportunities to move national trade corridor funding and infrastructure focus accordingly.
There is also seasonal versus winter planning. The narrative and direction for planning need to shift, as what we currently rely on is not working. WCSC suggests that a combination of climate event planning, other trade corridor disruptions, as I described earlier on, and seasonal fluctuations in commodities and manufactured goods in the supply chain need to be considered. What we need is basically a road map.
Finally, we also suggest focusing on data and metrics. More regionally detailed real-time information is required. Capacity data is needed to provide a benchmark so that we can understand what the trade corridors can handle. Shippers are responsible for internally building chain visibility dashboards and need regionally detailed metrics to compare their performance and supply chain against.
We will also be looking at and prioritizing some future legislation moving forward, including reviewing what was put forward in Bill C-49 and looking at areas and recommendations that were not previously considered. We're also looking at the ports modernization review and things we can do, including mechanisms similar to what we have in place for rail, looking at excessive fees and charges, and perhaps looking at some changes to the act to include some mechanisms for shippers to respond to that.
Finally, we are looking at the Canada Transportation Act review and are wondering when the next review will be. We're going to be approaching 10 years since it was last launched. In fact, it's already been more than eight years since it was last launched, and it's something we should consider.
I want to thank everybody for their time, and I look forward to some questions coming up here in the future.