Mr. Speaker, on February 29, I raised a question directed to the new Minister of Transport. I pointed out that the grain shipment this year was the first when we had almost complete deregulation, and the use of two fully privatized railways has been abysmal.
Grain movement in the previous crop year to mid-February was 21.4 million tonnes. This year with the new system in place the railways have moved a mere 15.1 million tonnes.
I asked the minister what he was prepared to do to make the circumstances improve. He pointed out there had been some cold weather. There were three weeks of cold weather but that would not account for even half of the discrepancy between the amount moved the year before and the amount moved this year.
In my own research I discovered that vast parts of prairie Canada have a shortage of rolling stocks in locomotives. I have checked with the railways, which admit this. They point out that they perhaps will have to bring some locomotives and cars back from the United States.
I am sure the Minister of Transport even though he is new will quickly be apprised that the rates they can charge for the same cars and locomotives in the United States are considerably more than they can charge in Canada with the current ceiling on rail shipment of grains in Canada.
The U.S. rail system has dramatically increased their fees for service because they understand that grain prices are higher and they are simply charging everything the market will bear. There has been a rapid and radical increase in fees charged to farmers and shippers in the United States. Our railways are down there trying to take advantage of this, meanwhile shorting our ability to export grain and the ability of our farmers who produced a very good crop of excellent quality in prairie Canada.
There should be very little to stand in the way of rapid movement because virtually every district in western Canada has produced top grades of wheat and barley. It is not a problem to put together a full 104 or 108 car trains of one grade to be moved to the terminals at port.
Wheat and barley are under the wheat board and a system of pooling is used so that all of the train can be dumped at one
terminal even though some of the grain may have belonged to a different company. A book exchange of grains is used to speed up the turnaround. Turnaround time on wheat board grains is double or more than double the turnaround time for a similar car of non-board grains. Some of the specialty crops have turnaround times that would make one weep. They take three to four times as long as wheat board grains.
As well, the country elevator system has not been awfully co-operative. It took advantage of the new deregulation and filled its elevators late last summer and in the early fall, at least in northeastern Saskatchewan where I come from. Most elevators report that they are about half full of non-board barley, open market barley, for which the elevator companies have not yet found a buyer.
This is clogging the system. There is less than half of the space to handle this year's crop. The farmers are beginning to despair of being able to deliver what was a very good crop in this crop year when prices are high. I wish the Ministry of Transport and the new minister would take this into account and take action as quickly as possible.