Mr. Speaker, this bill will not bring grain transportation into this century. As a matter of fact, I would suggest that this bill demonstrates the failure of the government to honestly look at the recommendations of Estey and Kroeger. It has really put those recommendations through the shredder. It has paid little or no attention to them.
It is bad enough for the farmers in western Canada, who are fighting a subsidy war, to have their input costs driven up 98%, but I want to look at a few other figures to demonstrate what has happened in the last 15 years. Grain elevation costs are up 52%. Canadian Wheat Board costs are up 56%. With all due respect to the big bad railways, their freight rate has actually decreased, due to other measures, some 5%.
I mentioned one time in a speech in the House that when a person is in grade six in Saskatchewan they have to take as part of the curriculum a course to learn to hate the railways. Again, that is a very popular theme. However, let us say that both Canadian Pacific and Canadian National are not so irate as the minister mentioned because of the forced 18% reduction. What they are irate about is that they are being forced into a contractual agreement not with the elevator companies, not with the grain companies, but with a government agency. That is what is wrong.
Would the minister of minerals interfere with potash or coal? Would the minister interfere with the shipment of those products to market? No way. That is exactly what Justice Estey and Mr. Kroeger recommended. Get out of it. Both the CPR and the CNR would tell us “Give us a completely commercialized system and we will show you further freight rate reductions”. That is what Justice Estey said.
What happened? His report was put through the shredder. I have given credit to the transport minister. However, he had to concede to his colleagues, and that is too bad.
I suggest to everyone in the House that the amount of money which will be saved because of the 18% reduction will be short lived. I also suggest that in a few short years we will be right back discussing this issue in the House again.
I acknowledge what the minister said about the memorandum of understanding. I would have liked to have had that sooner. If the Canadian Wheat Board is to enter into the negotiation process through the ports of Vancouver, Prince Rupert, Thunder Bay and Churchill, then I want to get into the age-old problem of who decides which port. It has been said that wheat is 16% protein and the rest is politics. Now it will become more politics, not less.
Let me give the House an example. If we have a sale of No. 2 milling flour for the Asian market, it is then up to anyone who has any degree of responsibility to move that shipment and the tonnage required through the port which will represent the least cost. If it should happen to be that the least cost would be to ship it through Prince Rupert, that is where it should go. If, for instance, they are servicing the South American market and that same grain can be moved at a reduction in the freight cost through Port Churchill, then that is where it should go. That has not happened in the past and I do not think it will happen in the future. I know that is not in the best interests of those who produce the grain.
It might be of interest to know that the same union which handles the facilities at Lakehead is the same union that handles the facilities at Port Churchill. They hate each other now. They do not want each other to have any more grain. Where is the biggest interest? I see my colleague from Thunder Bay. There is more interest in Thunder Bay. There are more MPs. There are more votes. That is where politics gets into grain, and it always has.
No requirements have been specified. There is nothing within this bill in respect of the conduct of the Canadian Wheat Board in the process of tendering or operating under the contractual system. We have some questions.
The wheat board is taking on a new role. It is getting into the shipping business. I would like to ask these questions. Will the wheat board fall under the Canada Transportation Agency? Will it fall under the agency that deals with fairness in competition? To whom will the wheat board report? Certainly not to the House, because information we want from the wheat board is protected under the Privacy Act. It and CSIS are the only two institutions which are so protected.
Will the producers, the grain companies and the railways know outside the tendering process what the implications will be? I understand from the railways that they are going to have to provide to the wheat board certain information which is strictly confidential to the railway's operation, but the wheat board, in turn, does not have to provide that information to the industry. We have a real problem with this.
I would like to talk briefly about the regulatory powers to control car allocation. Gone are the days of the order book. In three years the old block ordering of cars will be obsolete. We are in a brand new era. The wheat board knows exactly what elevator, what commodity, what grain and what type of grain is in every elevator in Saskatchewan and across the west.
All it has to do is provide those elevators, those companies that have the grain, with the shipping order. Let them bid and see who can get the cheapest rate to get that grain to market. That is what the report said. That is what Estey said. That is what Kroeger said. They wanted to bring Canada into this new century. Unfortunately that is not going to happen.
I know that the Minister of Transport's colleague would like us to say that the Canadian Alliance is going to oppose the bill. That is what he would like but he is not going to fool anyone. We are going to oppose the bill through motions in committee. We will support the bill because it is the end of the crop year and because of the August 1 deadline. It is a temporary measure to save the farmers some money but it is not the answer. We will be back and back until they bring us into this century to provide us with what Kroeger and Justice Estey recommended.
I am sorry the minister did not get his way on this. I wish he had. Certainly the people in western Canada wish he had. They feel very much betrayed by the minister in charge of the wheat board and those ministers opposite who live in the city of Winnipeg. They will not forget this. It will be forever on their minds. I will do my part as a representative not just of my party but of my constituency and those across Canada to let them know that once more the thousands of dollars that went into the report literally went through a paper shredder.