Mr. Speaker, I am here today to follow up on a question I asked a few weeks ago in the House. Not having received a satisfactory answer, I thought I would pursue it this evening. I hope to get a substantial answer.
An independent study released by various organizations, such as the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Canadian Wheat Board and Keystone Agricultural Producers, showed that farmers were being gouged for rail service to the tune of $200 million a year. Calls for a costing review have gone unanswered.
I asked the minister when he was going to put a stop to this robbery by the railways. I said that the money of hard-working farmers who have already overpaid needed to be returned.
The answer I received was not to my satisfaction. I was told that farmers cannot depend on my party, that the Conservative government usually performs for farmers, acts in their best interests and that the Conservatives will not take any lessons from us. I wanted to pursue this and perhaps get to the bottom of it, now that we are not in the show of question period.
I have a letter written to the minister by Mr. Ken Eshpeter, who is president of the Battle River Railway, a newly founded new generation co-op whose mission it is to provide farmers a marketing and transportation alternative while preserving valuable infrastructure.
Although his letter mainly concerns the loss of producer cars, he does say that in the mid-1990s the total cost of grain handling and rail line consolidation was downloaded on to the farmers. Because of that shift in the cost of services, both big grain and big transportation have benefited immensely financially, but farmers have not.
This does not just concern those in the agriculture sector. I recently received a letter from the Forest Products Association of Canada. It wants to draw to our attention the significant challenges the industry faces with respect to rail service and to alert us of the industry's strong opposition to a recommendation by the Rail Freight Service Review Panel to defer for a minimum three year period any legislative or regulatory action on this issue.
The association says that the forest products industry and other commodity shippers have endured poor service and high freight rates while awaiting legislative action to address the lack of competition in Canada's rail freight transportation service.
It is asking us to do the responsible thing and to take action on this.
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture stated in a press release on October 15 that the federal government must act now. It stated in the press release:
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture and its railway coalition members have again renewed their demand that [the] Transport Minister...instruct the Canadian Transportation Agency to immediately conduct a full costing review of railway grain shipping. In light of the interim report released last week by the government's rail service review panel, this request is justified....
“The federal government must act now”, said Ron Bonnett, CFA President. “Their own review panel has confirmed what we have been saying for the last two years. CP and CN operate in a dual monopoly system and continue to possess market power over many of their customers. The railways have historically fought off competitive measures such as open running rights and opposed regulations to maintain this monopoly”.
I am here to get some answers. Hopefully we can see some positive movement by the government. I hope the parliamentary secretary can address this.