Mr. Speaker, I will be dividing my time with the member for Comox-Alberni. Unfortunately that will only give me 10 minutes to discuss a national transportation system in shambles. I will not bother to get into the question of the Pearson airport mega-mess or the St. Lawrence pilotage rip-off. Instead I will deal with two problems which are of immediate interest in my specific riding, Swift Current-Maple Creek-Assiniboia.
The most pressing is the sudden, unexpected shutdown of most of our branch railway lines. Early this month the two railways announced that service would be suspended on almost all branch subdivisions in western Canada, including nine in my riding with 600 miles of track. Actually this was a bit anticlimactic. They said that there would be no service for three weeks, with those three weeks to expire some time around the end of this month, but service had been de facto abandoned on several of these lines for three weeks before they had even made the announcement. We have rarely seen a train since Christmas time.
Right now west coast grain shipments are at their lowest level in over a decade. Forty-six ships are sitting at the west coast waiting for grain. They are rolling up huge demurrage charges. Some of them have actually been there for a month. It is the farmers, the producers of the grain, who are going to have to pay for all those demurrage charges which at this point have already reached about $15 million.
This morning the minister of agriculture admitted that it is unfair that farmers have to carry the entire demurrage burden. Unfortunately, as is his habit, he did not offer any solution to the problem which he had identified. He always gets half way there. He says: "Yes, there is a problem. Yes, we will deal with it", but when an interested party says: "But Mr. Minister, will you please tell us how," he suddenly loses his renowned eloquence.
The minister of agriculture loves meetings and he loves reports which he can ignore if he so chooses but he has little taste for constructive action. He is having another soiree tonight in Calgary. This will probably result in yet one more stillbirth.
What it the problem? That is probably what they are going to try to figure out at this meeting tonight. According to the railways the problem is that they are short of locomotives. If this is true, I would suggest that perhaps usurious provincial and federal taxes and silly requirements for locomotives to be depreciated over a 21 year period could have something to do with it.
However, locomotives can be rented. I understand the CPR has rented some. But it was poor planning on the part of both the railways and the Canadian Wheat Board that got them into the bind that they are in right now. We cannot blame it on the weather. Yes, it has been a hard winter. We have a lot of hard winters. They should have had their act together months ago and they should be sitting panting at the bar ready to go again. But they have completely mismanaged the system. That is why 46 ships are sitting in Vancouver harbour.
It is not just demurrage that the producers are going to lose. They are also going to lose about $50 million because of the falling markets that they are going to get into by being unable to ship right now.
A lot of this is due to historic inefficiency. We know that. But these historic inefficiencies are not addressed in the new amendments to the Railway Act, Bill C-14. There is nothing there to prevent this sort of thing. There is no pain or penalty to the railways if they do not organize their business and get the grain out when the ships are sitting there waiting for it. They get their money regardless of when they ship. They could haul that grain a year from now and they would still get the full freight rate on it. There is no pain, no penalty.
The Minister of Transport and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food have referred to short line railways. There is only one short line in Saskatchewan and that is in my riding. It is operated as co-op. It does a good job because the producers run the thing themselves. They are not stuck with the costs of picking up union successor rights from previous operators. But thanks to the successor rights it would be difficult, if not impossible, for small
corporations specializing in the business to operate these subdivisions which are now at risk.
A few minutes ago when I asked the Minister of Transport about this issue he neatly ducked and dodged and did not reply so to date I have not had an answer. I do not know what the intention is.