Madam Speaker, on June 2 I urged the transport minister to ask CN for a standstill on rail line abandonments until Justice Estey's report is received at year end. This question was precipitated by CN's announced closing of the Imperial subdivision in my riding.
The transport minister said he was counting on the goodwill of the railways not to abandon lines until the grain transportation review by Justice Willard Estey was complete. So much for goodwill. Both CN and now the CPR have announced their intention to close branch lines under the new process implemented with changes to the Canadian Transportation Act.
This request seemed reasonable because every day in question period the government told us it was waiting for the MacKay report on the bank mergers. Well why wait for MacKay but not Estey? That is what I want to know and so do the farmers in Saskatchewan.
For the record, the mandate of Justice Estey's review includes “ensuring that Canada has the world's most efficient, viable, and competitive grain handling and transportation system to meet the ongoing and long term expectations and demands of all customers”.
I guess there are a number of ways to do that but the way the Liberal government has approached the entire grain transportation system is not one of them. Here is what the Liberals did instead: They spent millions of taxpayers' dollars to upgrade CN's rail lines. Then they privatized the CN. Then CN announced it would abandon those lines for a salvage value of between $25,000 and $80,000 per mile, lines that will cost $1 million per mile to rebuild.
The Liberal government also changed the Canadian Transportation Act to remove the federal transport minister's ability to say no to rail line abandonments. Now when asked to support a standstill he can say “my hands are tied”. It is a great trick. Houdini ties his own hands. Just like Houdini, maybe the minister could untie them again by making amendments to the CTA, like the ones suggested by the Government of Saskatchewan.
I do not have time to go into the list today of what the government has proposed, but if there is no action from the Liberal side of the House, I will introduce a private members' bill to deal with those amendments myself.
A major cost associated with this policy of rail line abandonments is the increased wear and tear on Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba highways. Justice Estey during public consultation meetings in Saskatchewan said that roads are the biggest single issue facing this review.
The provincial transportation ministers agreed at their May meeting on a proposal for federal participation in a national highways program. Canada is the only OECD country without one. They suggested that the federal government take the $300 million it already spends on various highway programs, add $500 million more from the debt reduction fuel tax, for a total of $800 million which the provinces would then match. This proposal was endorsed by the premiers. As yet we do not know what happened to it from the federal government.
A number of new developments have occurred. A number of recent developments on the rail issue should be brought to the attention of the House today. It concerns me because it makes it seem like the tail is wagging the dog a bit.
The Sask wheat pool announced the closure of 235 elevators in 170 locations on September 15. Then the CPR announced six branch line closures on September 17. Then the transport minister told his provincial counterparts on September 25 that there can be no official moratorium on rail line abandonments. But CN officials told me months ago which elevators the wheat pool would be closing. The wheat pool told CN that it would not tell me as a member of parliament and it did not announce it for another four months publicly. I wonder, did they tell the transport minister? Did they tell Justice Estey?
To conclude, I believe that most participants in the grain transportation system have confidence in Justice Estey's work. That is why we should wait for the report. I worry that the federal government is undermining his work though by letting the railways get away with announcing closures now and that the wheat pool is doing more or less the same thing.
I encourage the Minister of Transport to step up his efforts with the railways, consider amendments to the transportation act to give himself back some clout in this regard, and to keep fighting the Minister of Finance so that we can get a national highways program in our country.