Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on behalf of the NDP caucus to speak to the motion concerning this crisis put forward by the member for Brandon—Souris. There is a crisis in western grain transportation. We must try to find workable solutions.
I heard the member who put forward the motion lament that it was non-votable, but it certainly has been actionable. The government has seen fit to take some action. As previous speakers have noted, the government has appointed retired Justice Estey to look into the grain transportation crisis. We welcome Mr. Estey's appointment in this effort. He is a distinguished Canadian citizen and was a distinguished jurist at the supreme court level. A native of Saskatchewan, he knows in his bones just how important grain transportation is to our vast and land locked province.
In a recent interview in the Western Producer , Justice Estey said: “You know I'm a westerner from 100 years back and I don't remember four provinces ever agreeing on what day it is, but they did today”. The member for Souris—Moose Mountain noted that the four provinces are in agreement on the need for this urgent transportation review.
The federal government in 1975 appointed a royal commission to investigate grain and rail in western Canada. The commission was led by a colleague of Mr. Estey, the late hon. Justice Emmett Hall. At that time Justice Hall was being encouraged by the railways to move toward deregulation. He was wise enough not to accept their recommendations. He insisted there had to be a degree of regulation in the grain transportation system.
We have an historic problem which has been with us since the first stages of agricultural settlement in western Canada. Farmers grow grain and they have to move it to market. To do that effectively and efficiently in the land locked west they must rely on the railroads, as previous speakers have noted.
The railroads are effectively a monopoly or at least a duopoly made up of CN and CP when it comes to moving grain hundreds and thousands of kilometres from the farm gate to the port. From Sir John A. Macdonald's day until today, the railways have always had farmers and rural communities at their mercy. Much of western Canadian history revolves around attempts by farmers to force governments to create institutions and/or regulations to protect them from this monopolistic environment.
Mr. Hall did not buy the railway's cry for deregulation two decades ago. He knew the only protection for farmers in this monopolistic situation was the continuation of some form of regulation. But the governments of Pierre Elliot Trudeau and Brian Mulroney and the current government of today did buy those arguments from the railroads. First the Crow rate was abandoned and replaced by the Crow benefit. Then the Crow benefit was abandoned in the last Parliament and railways have now been given the green light to abandon rail lines at will.
We are not talking about hypothetical situations. I refer to the line that includes Eston and Elrose. The previous speaker moved around Saskatchewan when he ran for various legislatures. He will know about the Elrose area, Dinsmore, Beechy and Estonia.
This is an area where the farmers had to get together to move the grain in December because CN had indicated that it had no intention of coming in. I would like to quote from the minister of highways who is responsible for transportation in Saskatchewan. The hon. Judy Bradley said:
CN's refusal to negotiate in good faith with the West Central Road and Rail Committee is simply unacceptable. Communities will lose their railway system, not because rail service is not economically viable in the region, but because it does not support the bottom line of CN and the grain companies. This is not an answer Saskatchewan will accept.
While I am on this point about West Central, I congratulate my colleague from Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar who notes that the West Central R and R has put together an excellent package, one that will ensure the future of the rail line and one which will work for farmers. There is no sound reason for CN to reject it.
The prairie provinces have suffered dramatically as a result of changes to federal regulations governing rail transportation. It is not enough that they are abandoning rail lines but they are dismantling the tracks at the same time. It is a real scorched earth policy.
I listened carefully to the exchange last week between the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands and the Minister of Transport. The member was urging the government to place a moratorium on rail line abandonment until the Estey report was concluded. The minister gave a lot of platitudes and indicated he would look into it but he was certain that the railway companies were not abusing the situation.
There is absolutely no reason at this point that the government cannot simply issue an edict that says there will not be a centimetre of rail track that is lifted during this report by Estey. That is the real problem. If we abandon the track, we can always put rail cars on at a later date, but if we tear up the track, the cost is prohibitive and it means the line is gone forever.
We see examples of that in parts of Saskatchewan and in other provinces. The railway companies are tearing up a significant portion of track to make sure that short line railways will not be viable for Omnitrax or some of the other competitors that are thinking of coming in to fill the void created by CN and CP to move grain to Hudson Bay and elsewhere to the main lines. That is a very significant concern. It is something the government could and should move on immediately.
In addition, I mentioned the abandonment of the Crow rate and the Crow benefit. We have seen in the last few years that the railways have doubled and tripled freight rates on grain. At the same time they have ripped up tracks and shifted the costs of long hauls onto the backs of farmers.
This is not the only cost to individual farmers. The roads in western Canada and the grid roads in Saskatchewan—and we have some of the largest road networks in the country on a per capita basis—were not built for these huge trucks. The roads are taking a terrible pounding as the member for Souris—Moose Mountain noted a few minutes ago. They are taking a pounding because the grain has to be carried further and further to the giant inland terminals.
Mr. Estey, we believe, is off to a good start having met quickly with governments of the four western provinces and with various stakeholders. I agree with Mr. Estey when he says that he can and must proceed with his review even while the wheat board complaint against the railway continues concurrently. On this point I do not accept the member for Brandon—Souris' point that the wheat board's complaint against the railway should be dropped. Clearly the two situations can go independently of one another.
In conclusion, we are demanding again that the federal government stop all rail line dismantling until Mr. Justice Estey's review is complete. Whatever results from the review of the grain transportation system, it must ensure that a fair share of the benefits of an improved system find their way back to the farmers and thus to their communities.
Also, we must ask ourselves what government policies and regulations may be needed in a situation where competitive services and rates are not historic in a continuing monopoly by the railroads.
Finally, there are other various ideas which are of great interest to us, including joint running rights and the organization of short line railroads. Railways have thwarted efforts by Saskatchewan producers often in frustration for the establishment of short line railways.