I am sorry, Madam Speaker. I listened to the minister's speech and there were no solutions offered in that speech.
The government is perfectly aware. It quoted from a Canadian Wheat Board news release that said the wheat board had lost $9 million in sales to Asian buyers in the last 48 hours. It has to forgo sales to several more customers in other areas because timely delivery for nearby shipment positions could not be guaranteed.
The wheat board goes on to say either the two direct parties in this dispute must find a solution or the government needs to take action immediately. The strike action is affecting Canada's reputation as a reliable supplier. As of today there are 11 ships waiting at the port for wheat from the Canadian Wheat Board. That is a lot of grain, just for the wheat board.
The head of the wheat board also says the loss of customers is costing not only western farmers but the Canadian economy as a whole through direct revenue losses, uncertainty in the ocean freight market, loss of shipping capacity and loss of customer confidence. These things cannot be recovered easily. This is serious. This affects all Canadians and they may not even be aware of it.
I have some confidential sources. I will reveal some of the things they have said regarding this matter. The first withdrawal of services commenced at 11 p.m. on Sunday, January 24. I remind members that today is March 18. On January 24 there was already a withdrawal of services. On January 28, 1999, the grain companies appeared before a Canada Industrial Relations Board with Paul Lordon in the chair for a ruling on subclause 87(7) of part I of the Canada Labour Code.
We have been given the impression that this is just happening now. The government had lots of notice about this a month and a half ago. Also this source says that the Canadian Grain Commission weighmen are on strike and picketing all five terminals. These are just some facts. There are five vessels at berth and eleven are waiting. The 16 vessels represent some 370,000 tonnes of grain that could be shipped. Of these boats, two are at berth belonging to the wheat board and five are waiting, belonging to the wheat board, and seven additional vessels are due this week.
CP Rail will not spot empties in the country as of today and I have given some examples already. It has cancelled all car allocations for the next week. CN advises that it is only spotting empties today in locations that do not already have cars and CN will not be spotting empty cars next week.
CN has 19 trains built and staged in Vancouver that cannot be moved forward. CN also has 3,400 cars under load near Vancouver while CP has 2,300 cars waiting with grain. In Vancouver CN has 700 cars. CP has 850 loaded rail cars sitting in Vancouver at the moment.
Neither railway is lifting cars for Vancouver. To date 2,935 rail car unloads have been lost at Vancouver. The industry expects to lose 4,200 rail car loadings this week and next if the strike and picketing continue. Each week after that 2,750 cars per week will be lost.
The losses are in the millions and most Canadians cannot comprehend how much this affects prairie farmers. The accumulated lost tonnes at this time equal some 642,150.
What are the ramifications? Canada's reputation as a reliable supplier of grain will suffer immensely. The results of such reputation loss may be lost sales in the future. That is very serious. We will not just be affected for the short term. This will affect us well into the future. This statement is made as a result of conclusions drawn in a number of government reviews and statistics. It is not just us or this source saying so. The Sims task force, the Industrial Inquiry Commission and the Western Grain Marketing Panel all made that very clear.
Currently grain companies are experiencing operational costs considerably above normal in order to handle less tonnes. Some 50% of productivity was lost during rotating strikes. Some 700 third party employees, that is grain workers, stevedores and ship pilots, are unable to earn a living at this time. This backup in the rail system will plug primary elevators costing producers the opportunity to deliver grain, which will adversely affect their cash flows at a time of year when they need it to prepare for spring seeding.
It is unreasonable for 70 employees as part of a much larger group to be allowed to provide such a large negative impact on 100,000 grain producers, in excess of 700 company employees and hundreds of rail employees. Seventy grain commission employees should not be allowed to put third party grain producers, farmers, sales contracts at risk well into the future.
The President of the Treasury Board has to be asked to consider options that would allow or direct these employees to continue working. The minister also needs to consider amending the Public Service Act with regard to part 1, subclause 87(7).
I said I would drop a bombshell and here it is. Back in January the minister knew in advance the result of these work stoppages, that they would happen, and he could have done something six weeks ago. In a letter dated January 27, 1999, he was informed, as was the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Minister of Transport, the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board and the Minister of International Trade. They were given in a letter clear indications of this problem, and they did nothing.
The Canadian Grain Commission has provided six supervisory personnel who are doing their best to cover a regular contingent in excess of 70 weighmen. Even if no picketing action is taken by weighmen, numbers this small have effectively closed port operations. That was told to the ministers. The results of such work stoppages have stopped the unloading of over 700 rail cars per day, eliminating the loading of approximately 275,000 tonnes of grain. The backup caused by not unloading rail cars will cost Canadian grain producers millions of dollars and impact our critical trading relationships with foreign buyers. This is all from a letter that was sent on January 27.
The Canadian grain industry and in particular western farmers are at the mercy of the weighmen. The minister was told this. We are not suggesting that back to work legislation is the only alternative. We are asking for the co-operation of all parties, including the federal government, in ensuring that the impact on western farmers is minimized during this time. To this end members are committed to finding solutions to the present situation. The government knew well in advance and could have acted, and it did nothing for six weeks.
Indirect costs to farmers could mount to millions of dollars, while the cost of the damage to Canada's competitive position is really hard to determine. AgriCorp agreed several months ago to send canola to China at prices that are $60 per tonne higher than current values. The buyer might use this stoppage to break the contract. Who will suffer? It will be farmers. Sixty dollars a tonne is big bucks.
We may see a couple of million dollars loss on just one vessel. One ship means several hundred million dollars. The customer would be happy to break the contract that he had made.
Deanna Allen, spokeswoman for the Canadian Wheat Board, says:
If the dispute prevents the board from filling an order for high protein wheat that fetches a premium, the cereal will go to lower price contracts and reduce the netbacks to growers. We could be looking at a direct revenue loss because of our inability to execute our sales program.
Amendments to the labour code last year designated grain shipments as an essential service, preventing most dock workers from going on strike or being locked out. However, the changes did not apply to the PSAC members who are in a legal strike position and the 700 unionized employees who work at Vancouver's five terminals refused to cross the picket lines.
If members need more examples and more facts to back up the extent of this problem, Japanese buyers of canola have already expressed concern about the build-up of ships in Vancouver. Deanna Allen from the wheat board said that nine million sales was only part of the picture. They are regularly losing sales in the $2 million to $10 million range in Latin America and Asia. These are very real dollars which are not making it to western Canada or Canada as a whole.
There is obviously something wrong with our negotiating system. “We are not part of that system but we pay the price. If the people who do the negotiating were affected in their pockets they would feel it differently”. Those are the words of a farmer from Manitoba. He goes on to say: “The shutdown definitely affects our reliability as suppliers. We could lose customers forever”.
Deanna Allen from the Wheat Board said that there would not be late shipment penalties known as demurrage. That will not apply because the Vancouver Grain Exchange issued a declaration that freezes the whole process because of the strike. “This means demurrage cannot be levied until 14 days after a strike has ended and no customer can cancel a contract”, she said, adding that many people assume automatically it will be levied because that happened a couple of years ago when there was a cause for delay and it was not identified immediately. Just because demurrage cannot be charged does not mean our customers will come back. We will be losing grain sales and it will affect us greatly.
As Reformers we have proposed final offer selection arbitration as a mechanism for settling outstanding issues in sectors where continued service is essential to the national economy. We would like to ensure that there is a continuous flow of grain to market. There have been estimates that the grain handling and transportation system in western Canada is at a disadvantage of about $500 million in my province alone. This is one of the problems which illustrates that something must be done.
I am very appreciative of the fact that I was able to address this problem this evening. I am speaking on behalf of the farmers in my area. We would like the government to do something, not just solve this in the short term, not just do something to get these workers back to work. We have to address this in the long term so that we are not back here every few months dealing with another aspect of the problem. We need to solve the grain handling and transportation problems in the long term. I urge the government to do that immediately.