Mr. Speaker, last October, I drew my colleague's attention to the situation of a feed mill in my riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan. Top Shelf Feeds in Duncan is facing a staggering 27% increase in the cost to haul its product on the Vancouver Island rail line. As the only feed mill on Vancouver Island, Top Shelf provides most of the feed available to island farmers. Without it, the price of farming would increase dramatically since all feed would have to come over from the mainland.
The Island Corridor Foundation is working hard to ensure that there is a viable commuter rail service on the island. One crucial part of its plan is to improve rail freight service on the line so it is cost effective and can cover some of the costs of maintenance for the line. Unless the government takes action to ensure rail freight costs are fair, the future of rail transportation on the island and across the country is pretty dim.
Vancouver Island is not alone in its fight for fairer railways. This quote is from the latest National Farmers Union newsletter, the Union Farmer Quarterly. It states:
An immediate railway costing review is needed to address obvious over-charging by the railways. Farmers are once again being taken advantage of by the railway monopolies. According to the recent Travacon study commissioned by the Canadian Wheat Board, farmers are currently being over-charged by the rail companies for shipping their grain. Over the last two years farmers were charged an average of $199 million over-and-above what they would have had to pay under previous legislation. That converts to an average over-charge of $6.87 per tonne. The federal government has stated that it will not consider any further action [until] the current service review, which is well behind schedule, is completed. Participants argued that the service review and costing review should be undertaken simultaneously.
Since that newsletter came out, the government finally completed the long-awaited service review and it was no surprise that costing was not included. Now farmers are waiting to hear when the government will commit to a full railway costing review.
Along with the National Farmers Union, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Keystone Agricultural Producers, the Agriculture Producers Association of Saskatchewan, Wild Rose Agricultural Producers and the Canadian Wheat Board are all demanding a cost review of railway grain transportation. This is an example of what is happening on the Prairies with grain, but I need to point out that on Vancouver Island we are very concerned about keeping the farmers in business there.
Many people know there have been several reviews about Vancouver Island's ability to supply its own food in the event of a disaster, whether it is a snowfall, high winds or an earthquake, and there is only a two-day food supply on the island. It is essential that we support our local farmers and one of the ways we can support local farmers is to ensure their suppliers can supply their feed at a reasonable cost.
I am wondering how long the government will make farmers wait to find out if they will have access to fair, cost effective and reasonable rail transportation.