Mr. Speaker, I had truly expected that a deliriously happy member for Brandon—Souris would stand in his place today to withdraw Motion No. 225 because for all intents and purposes it has been nullified by the transport minister's wise decision to undertake a comprehensive review of the grain handling and transportation system. Unfortunately such is not the case. The hon. member wants to play politics while this government is committed to finding solutions with the co-operation of all the stakeholders concerned.
I would like to go back a bit. The Canada Transportation Act enacted on July 1, 1996 is intended to modernize and streamline rail regulation, promote the formation of short line railways and ensure that shippers continue to have access to competitive transportation services. The act provides for a review of the provisions of the act during 1999 as they relate to grain transportation. However, given the difficulties incurred by the system, which the hon. member mentioned, during the 1996-97 crop year and the calls from stakeholders, the Minister of Transport decided to accelerate this review.
On December 18, 1997 the Minister of Transport appointed Mr. Justice Willard Estey to conduct this review. Justice Estey is one of Canada's leading jurists and he has been given broad terms of reference which allow him to conduct a comprehensive review of the system. Justice Estey's appointment has been exceedingly well received by the entire stakeholder community, including provincial ministers of agriculture and transportation.
For instance, Manitoba's minister of highways and transportation said “The western provinces are pleased that the federal government has appointed the honourable Mr. Justice Willard Z. Estey—. Justice Estey's pre-eminent background makes him a highly qualified individual to examine potential changes in the grain handling and transportation system”.
Leroy Larsen of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool said “This is exactly the broad mandate we were looking for—. Let us get all the issues on the table”.
Ted Allen, the president of the United Grain Growers, said “You have to see it as a positive”.
Justice Estey will be conducting the review in two phases. During the first phase he will consult stakeholders in order to identify the key issues and problems. Work in this phase of the review is already under way. Justice Estey will report to the minister on his phase one findings by May 31, 1998.
I want to stress to the hon. member that this is an important part of the review. The second phase will commence after the resolution of the complaint currently before the Canadian Transportation Agency. Phase two will involve the development of a package of recommendations on issues and problems identified during phase one. It is expected that Justice Estey will submit his report on phase two findings to the minister by the end of this year.
Justice Estey has eagerly begun to perform his duties. He has already taken two trips to western Canada where he has met with over 50 stakeholders and he has met with provincial transport ministers from the western provinces. Several more trips to the western provinces by Justice Estey and the review secretariat are planned. This will ensure that the consultation process for the review will be broad and that all interested stakeholders will have the opportunity to make their views known to the review.
I agree with the hon. member that consultation is crucial to the success of this process. If stakeholders are not consulted, then the resulting product simply will not be good enough to serve the needs of the industry.
Producers are the experts, shippers are the experts, railways are the experts, grain companies are the experts and so on throughout the entire system. These are the people who matter in this review and these are the people Justice Estey is eager to hear from. Without their input the review would be a sterile exercise because it would not be able to serve the needs of all elements of industry.
Taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by modern technology, the Estey grain review will have a dedicated Internet web site which will allow all individuals to make representations directly to Justice Estey for his consideration. This will allow all, and I stress the word all, interested parties to have their say on this important topic and it will ensure that everyone is heard.
Even before the announcement of this review, the Minister of Transport had taken steps to ensure that the difficulties incurred during the 1996-97 crop year were not repeated. In July the Minister of Transport along with the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board met with industry representatives to discuss plans for the upcoming crop year.
The Minister of Transport challenged the industry to take steps to ensure that grain movement would proceed without incident. As a result of that meeting an industry led contingency plan was developed. This plan would allow the industry to respond to emerging logistic problems before they became serious enough to materially affect grain flows.
By identifying and dealing with the issues before they get out of hand, the contingency provisions would ensure that the system would not repeat its 1996-97 difficulties.
The system has responded well to the challenge by the minister. We are currently about halfway through the crop year and already the system has exported more than two million tonnes of grain than it did at this point last year. That is good news for everyone and it ensures that Canada can maintain its leading role in world grain markets.
In addition to the contingency plan however, the more important achievement of the minister was that he help initiate a dialogue within the industry so that everyone's efforts were focused on moving grain this year instead of pointing fingers of blame for last year.
Finding solutions to the difficulties in Canada's grain handling and transportation system will require the co-operation of all parties. This review is only the start of that process. We need to focus on solutions to improve the efficiency of the entire system from the time the grain leaves the farm gate to the time the vessels leave the port loaded with Canadian grain for its export destination.
The Minister of Transport took great care in the selection of Justice Willard Estey. Many candidates were considered for this position but few could match Justice Estey's impressive credentials. As a former supreme court justice, Justice Estey is skilled in absorbing and processing vast amounts of technical material and then making sense out of it all in a rational manner.
As a former judge, Justice Estey is also skilled in the important quality of giving equal consideration to all the material that is relevant to a question before passing judgment. Justice Estey is new to the grain industry but his actions to date indicate that he has thrown his energies into this process with great enthusiasm. Stakeholders have been impressed with his vigour and candour and they are pleased that the minister has made such a fine choice for such an important matter.
There can be no doubt that this is a matter that is of the utmost importance to the Canadian economy. The Minister of Transport is confident that the work that will result from Justice Estey's review will help us achieve the most cost effective, customer friendly grain handling and transportation system possible. Canadian producers deserve no less and they will get no less from this review.
I appreciate that the hon. member brought forward his particular motion. At the time he brought it forward, yes, he had concerns and believed that we as an all-party committee could sit down and discuss these issues. However, we now have a review process that is independent of the political process.
This is the hon. member's first term here so I can understand where he might be coming from, that we could do a heck of a job in committee, bring two committees together and discuss the issue at committee stage. However, the member will discover as he lives on through politics and attends many of these committee meetings over the next short term of his political career, that the walls start to go up, the divisions start to happen and sometimes not everyone can be heard because of limitations of time, limitations to what the committee can do and limitations on how much money the committee can use to travel.
As a result, by putting it into independent hands and out of the political process, we are confident that Justice Estey will be able to take into consideration all the views from all the stakeholders and all the individuals through the web site in order to come up with a solution that is satisfactory to everyone in this system.