Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out a report that was given to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food the other day to back up some of my figures, just kind of arguing the point with the hon. member about going through Thunder Bay.
When we had the PSAC witnesses on grain transportation, they pointed out to us that in a two week period of officially weighing grain which is done for Agriculture Canada, it was detected that 341 rail cars would have gone through the system with the wrong car numbers, putting the wrong grain to the wrong customer. One hundred and sixty-nine had the wrong initials on them, bringing the total to 510 cars in two weeks that they had to correct.
In the same period, there were 26 mixes between different railways, 45 mixes that were prevented by weighers and assistants. Grain was left in receiving hoppers 10 times, 12 spills, overweight as much as 25 tonnes on a boxcar or on a hopper car or underweight in some cases.
The total was 1,173 cars that were under the wrong procedure in two weeks out of a total shipment of 13,000 cars. Almost 10 per cent of the cars that were directed to Thunder Bay had been marked incorrectly by elevator companies. How can you have a system deliver our grain under those circumstances?
This is why I say we have a disaster. We have a calamity in the transportation system. If this government does not correct some of those problems we will never be able to survive on the farms by becoming more efficient and producing more. It is senseless.