Mr. Speaker, this clause has been quite contentious among the users in the grain industry. They have some difficulty with the phrase "commercially fair and reasonable" which clause 112 contains.
This is not something that I alone was concerned about in the House. The hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster had also attempted to move a similar motion, hence the support by my hon. friend from Lisgar-Marquette.
The problem is that the provisions of this clause are to provide an interpretive direction to the Canadian transport agency when it is setting rates or conditions of service as they apply to carriers.
Since the clause now reads "a rate or condition of service established by the agency under this division must be commercially fair and reasonable", a lot of the witnesses who were before the transport committee, including the prairie pools, the National Farmer's Union, the three prairie provincial governments, indicated they could not support such a provision because there was no clear definition as to what constitutes fair and reasonable.
It was also indicated that clause 113 was to serve as a general guideline for the NTA. If that were the case, this kind of guideline should be conveyed to the agency through means other than legislation.
In their submission to the transport committee the three prairie governments stated clause 113 provides yet another potential avenue for railways to delay the process and to appeal rates established by formulas for interswitching and competitive line rates.
Since a large number of the people who will be affected by this clause think it should be dropped, I am in agreement and propose this amendment to strike this clause from the legislation.