Debates of Feb. 5th, 2014

Grain Transport

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

It is okay, Mr. Speaker. I will try to speak above the heckling going on from the other side. They just do not want to hear the truth.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I should know that they like to bully, particularly when the women stand to speak. Therefore, I will just continue speaking, because I am proud to stand up for the Prairie producers.

The reality is that the farmers are not receiving fair return on their product. There are a good number of measures that the government could be taking. As has been mentioned previously in the House by the NDP agriculture critic, the rail review report by Justice Estey, in 2002, recommended open access of rail lines, and a number of members this evening have spoken about that, encouraging the government to pursue that more thoroughly.

Of course, we are shipping our bitumen by rail through those lines, all the way to the United States. Why on earth can we not also be pursuing, with equal energy, the potential use of those lines to get our grain to market?

Other recommendations have been suggested tonight that have been recommended by many producers and others.

Previously, there were shared lines between CP and CN. Perhaps that is a solution.

There is potential for short lines. Obviously that means that other Canadian investors have to invest and get those lines up and going. I know that a number of former members from this House are working on exactly those kinds of lines and other ways to get grain product out.

Again, there is the potential use of U.S. lines.

One of the matters brought to my attention this evening was by Humphrey Banack, who is the vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. His concern is that there was a lot of a hullabaloo when the government passed its Fair Rail Freight Service Act in June 2013. That act was supposed to resolve the issue about negotiations between the producers and the shippers. Their concern is that the minister promised that he would resolve the matter of this dispute sometime back, and still they are waiting, yet all the minister has done is propose further studies. Therefore, they are calling upon the government to step up to the plate to deliver on those promises and actually establish a rotation process but ensure that penalties are imposed on the rail companies when they do not actually deliver on those contracts that are entered into. They say that has a significant impact on them.

They still remain optimistic. They are hoping, as a result of the emergency debate this evening, that the agriculture minister might move on that promise.

Again, absurdly, the government is standing and bragging about the bumper crop. This is part of the so-called problem. We have this bumper crop and, for whatever reason, the two major rail companies, CN and CP, are simply not providing the cars, even the number of cars they promised to provide, the initial lower estimates.

So, we need them to step up to the plate. We are proud of our grain growers and we want to make sure that not only they get their crop there in time but that they get a fair price.

Disappointingly, this evening, we have heard, time after time, the government members saying the real culprits here are the unions. I defy the government members to tell us why it is the union members' fault that this product is not getting to market. I know that a good number of rail workers were let go. We know that there are far fewer rail cars now available, that the current president and CEO of CP has significantly reduced the number of cars available. We are also well aware—and this matter is being discussed in the House and well into the future—that there are many cars now being dedicated toward the shipping of bitumen. In fact, in Alberta, we are gearing up with two major terminals that are going to be providing 24-hour loading of bitumen to be shipped along lines.

This question arises: What is going on between the shipping of products such as potash and grain vis-à-vis the shipping of bitumen? Do we have an issue where the federal government should be intervening on behalf of our farm growers?

In closing, I would like to say that the government has been given a lot of options this evening on specific actions that could be taken. I know that the grain growers look forward to action on one or all of those.

I welcome questions.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for being here to speak tonight. I appreciate her taking an interest. Her lack of understanding of agriculture is to be forgiven. She is from the city, and I am not faulting her for that at all. She is here and, again, I give her credit for that.

There are some things she has not talked about tonight. The agriculture minister, I believe, is the best agriculture minister Canada has had in decades. He has done a long list of really important things. He has opened markets around the world, along with the trade minister, the Prime Minister, and others, and he has ended the monopoly of the Wheat Board.

By the way, the members across the floor saying the Wheat Board is gone is simply false. The Wheat Board still exists. It is competing and moving grain on behalf of farmers. It is still functioning well without the monopoly. That has been an extremely important measure that has helped farmers.

The minister has certainly taken this issue on. He started months ago. I know he recognized in mid August that there would be a lot of grain to move due to a bumper crop. He has done an awful lot, and I wonder why the member will not do the right thing and acknowledge what the agriculture minister has done.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. I enjoy serving on the natural resources committee with him. I am a fellow Albertan, and he can throw all the buns at me that he wants, saying I am a city slicker and I do not know about agriculture. I think I can appreciate our farm producers the same as any other Canadian.

The issues I am raising tonight are not my personal opinions. They are the opinions of the grain growers of Canada. I am standing up on their behalf because they do not have an opportunity to be here. They have been trying to get the attention of the minister. I will let them voice their opinions on whether the minister is acting on their behalf.

He mentioned that the minister responded quite some time back. I am hearing exactly the opposite, that the minister has not been responding in a timely manner and has not caught up with the amount of crop that has actually been produced and the delay in delivery to export.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, there seems to be some consensus in the House tonight, even from some of the members on the government side, including the member for Prince Albert, that perhaps the rail level of service legislation that was passed at the behest of the government last year is not quite up to the standard it ought to be.

There were two principal deficiencies identified in that legislation. Number one was that the definition of service was far too vague to be meaningful or enforceable, and the second was that the method of enforcement was a fine to be paid by the railways to the government, not liquidated damages to be paid by the railways to the farmers when the railways failed to deliver the farmers' product.

If we could arrive, in the next day or two, at an agreement on how to fix those two deficiencies in that particular piece of legislation—and we have drafts for how to do it, word for word, already prepared by the shippers and grain companies, the legislation already prepared—would the New Democrats in the House give us unanimous consent to allow those amendments to that piece of legislation be adopted in no more than 24 hours?

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, of course, I cannot speak for my entire party, and I am sure we look forward to deliberating on those proposed measures expeditiously.

The very measures that the member is recommending are the very measures that were brought to my attention by all the grain growers I have spoken with, as recently as an hour ago. In particular, on the last measure that the member mentioned, they are deeply troubled that the penalty provisions are not assisting the grain growers when they are suffering due to the delay of their shipments. They are very troubled that, while the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food promised he would move expeditiously on this, he has not.

Certainly, New Democrats will take his recommendations under advisement. All members of the House will have been listening very closely, and we look forward to the government moving expeditiously in considering and actually acting.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity this evening to speak to this motion. It is important that the players in the grain transportation system explain, identify, and work with the government to improve our grain transportation system.

As I think everyone is aware, Parliament just returned from our winter break. One of the first items of business we undertook was establishing committees, including the agriculture committee. I am very pleased that I am now a member of that committee.

The member who brought forth this motion can be assured that it is a priority for committee members from our side to make sure we get to the bottom of this transportation backlog. We will be asking hard questions to principals in charge, in order to get some real answers to determine real solutions to a real logistics problem.

That having been said, and as my colleague from Prince Albert has mentioned, I am a grain farmer, although my wife does most of the work. I would like to explain a little about what it is like on the farm and give a bit of a farmer's side of the story.

We start off by seeding our grain in the spring. We are making decisions based on the situations we see in front of us. We are watching our crops grow. This year farmers knew that it was going to be a record crop. Decisions were then made about extra bins, grain storage bags, how much to store in the ground, and the amount to sell straight off the combine, either directly or with some fall contracts or other contracts that we would have throughout the year.

After they have secured safe winter storage for the grain they have, farmers look to the next off-farm opportunities to deliver. That means we do not want to be delivering in -40°, as we were often told to do under the previous system. Certainly, the other time we would be called to haul grain would be when the spring road bans were on or when we were trying to put our crops in.

Farmers recognize that, for cash flow, the other opportunities they have are agri-invest and also crop advance opportunities. We have heard comments about cash advances, but this is something that farmers have as a tool and the government has as a tool if farmers find that this particular situation that we have continues. The point is that we knew the yields, we analyzed the risks, and we took action.

The next part of the supply chain, during fall delivery, was a change of attitude on grain elevators, especially in Alberta. They made calls to organize daily delivery times, which was a lot different from normal practices, but it worked well as truckers hardly had to wait in line. In the past, they could be sitting for an hour when companies just gave a generic call to haul.

Obviously when the elevators are plugged, though, everything stops. As I said earlier, farmers make decisions on their part of the distribution system in conjunction with the grain industry.

Let us talk about the next part of the system. As those trains roll through the Prairies, did no one notice the bumper crops that existed? Where was the planning on the part of the rail companies? What coordination was there between the grain company sales, the rail company car spots, and the efficient ship-loading at the ports? These are questions that will be asked of those involved in the grain logistics system.

We will solve this problem. However, for now what I would like to do is speak about where Canada's grain industry is going. Canada's world-class grain industry is a strong driver of the economy and jobs. In 2012 Canada had its best export year on record for the agriculture and food industry. There was a new record, $47.7 billion. For 2013, we are likely going to approach $50 billion.

All of the top exporting sectors come from the Canadian grain industry: wheat, canola seed, canola oil, soybeans, and pulses. That is total exports of over $20 billion, driving jobs and growth across Canada.

Grain and oilseed farms account for the highest share of total Canadian farm asset values, representing over 44% of total Canadian farm assets, and account for about 60% of all farm cash receipts. To maintain this incredible momentum, the government has embarked on an ambitious plan to modernize Canada's grain sector, and the timing could not be better. We are coming off of a record harvest, global demand is growing, and the FAO estimates that the world will need a billion tonnes more of cereals over the next four decades.

To help meet this new demand, we have a new open market for wheat and barley in western Canada. The record harvest clearly demonstrates that the end of the old single desk two years ago has reinvigorated Canada's grain industry. In the second year of marketing freedom, farmers planted two million more acres of wheat, and I would be happy to talk about how important marketing freedom has been for our farm. Decisions are ours, and as I mentioned earlier, a dropped ball by CN and CP would hit just as hard or worse under the single-desk buyer. We would just be hearing excuses from them instead.

A Canadian Federation of Independent Business survey found that the vast majority of its ag members, over 80%, are positive about the impact of marketing freedom on their operations. This is why young farmers are coming back to the farm. They are making marketing decisions from the combine, and this is going to continue. Yes, bumper crops are now the new normal. A fellow farmer said:

We had a record crop last year with a significant increase in yields. A buoyant farm economy, better genetics, increased usage of new and better fungicides, overall better agronomics, and better utilization of micro-nutrients in fertilizer application were all contributing factors....

The person who said that was Gary Stanford, president of the Grain Growers of Canada.

That said, we understand farmers' frustration with a system not moving grain fast enough to keep up with the demand. The government has taken steps to improve the performance of the entire rail supply chain to help farmers get their crops to market. These include, if necessary, taking action to protect Canada's economy and grain farmers by introducing legislation to get CN Rail back on track if that issue does materialize, which we have heard some good news about tonight; investing $1.5 million in a Pulse Canada-led multi-sector collaboration project of the pulse, oilseeds, and grain industries to improve supply chain efficiency and reliability; passing the Fair Rail Freight Service Act, which will create a process to establish service agreements; investing $25 million to support grain shipments through the Port of Churchill, which, of course, had record shipments this year; implementing marketing freedom for western Canadian wheat and barley growers, allowing decisions to be made by individuals, who now have a vested interest in all parts of their own operations.

The government is also working to help solve the challenges of the supply chain by bringing industry groups together through fora such as the commodity supply chain table, a crop logistics working group, and value chain round tables to facilitate comprehensive industry-led solutions that are suitable for all players. These are the people who have their finger on the pulse of the commodity supply chain.

We have further acted to respond to earlier recommendations of the crop logistics working group by pursuing enhancements to the grain monitoring program to improve the frequency of reporting, and committing to providing an ongoing forum for representatives across the industry to discuss improvement throughout the entire supply chain. This crop logistics working group was created to drive new efficiencies in the system, and we are already moving forward with some early recommendations. The working group provided a useful forum for industry to exchange views, build consensus on priority areas, and identify future opportunities to improve supply chain performance. Its work will complement the government-funded study of the grain supply chain, which will also identify ways to improve the efficiency and reliability of the system.

To bring more predictability and to clarify the system last year, the government passed the Fair Rail Freight Service Act. The act creates a process to establish service agreements and ultimately encourage commercial solutions between shippers and railways. Transport Canada has committed to establishing a commodity supply chain table where supply chain partners can discuss issues, including the grain sectors.

I would like to talk for a moment about the Canada-Europe free trade agreement, the comprehensive economic and trade agreement. The government will continue to work toward a modernized grain sector that has the tools to solve issues commercially and is well positioned to continue to drive the Canadian economy. The discussion this evening speaks to that as well.

A prime example is the historic trade agreement in principle between Canada and so many other countries, but specifically the European Union. Once this trade agreement is fully implemented our farmers and food processors will have virtually tariff-free access to half a billion consumers. This is a remarkable achievement when we consider that currently only 18% of EU agricultural tariffs are duty-free.

Our agriculture industry here in Canada will be the only one of all the G8 countries to have preferential access to the EU. As Grain Growers of Canada said recently, this trade agreement is opening up a new frontier for Canada's grain industry.

Our top three agri-food exports to the EU are soybeans, durum wheat, and non-durum wheat. Europe has a grain deficit when it comes to feedstocks, both for livestock and for the biofuels industry. So we really have the opportunity there to start shipping products to them.

The Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance is estimating there will be new grains and oilseed opportunities in Europe of $100 million a year. On wheat, tariffs of up to $122 a tonne will be gone once this deal is fully implemented. At a wheat yield of one tonne an acre, that is $122 an acre. On barley, tariffs of up to $120 a tonne will be gone once the deal is fully implemented. On processed pulses and grains, tariffs will disappear as well, and they start at over 7%. It is the same story as well with canola oil, whose tariffs now exceed 9%. Canola growers alone are looking at $90 million a year in new sales to Europe, including the biodiesel market. Our pulse producers are estimating a new market of up to a million tonnes in Europe for them to use as healthy ingredients in a whole range of processed foods. Of course, our pork and beef producers will also win with an estimated billion dollars a year in new sales, which is good news for our grain sector as well.

Let us talk about some of the great initiatives in agriculture that will help guide them. In terms of non-tariff barriers to trade, the agreement will establish mechanisms allowing Canada and the EU to address issues of importance to our agricultural exporters, such as technical and regulatory co-operation, promotion of efficient science-based approval processes, and co-operation on low-level presence of genetically modified crops.

The agreement also includes new mechanisms for preventing and resolving trade challenges related to plant health and food safety issues. The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food remains committed to developing a policy to manage low-level presence in grain, food, and beef, and we continue to work with our trading partners and domestic stakeholders to develop an approach that is predictable, flexible, transparent, and proactive.

Canada also launched a global LLP initiative via a group of 15 countries committed to developing international solutions to LLP, with the goal of minimizing trade disruptions. Likewise we remain committed to implementing UPOV '91, with a view to stimulating investments, innovation, and growth in the agricultural sector.

We are focused on international standards on maximum residue levels for pesticides, which can also act as a non-tariff trade barrier for Canadian exports.

The reform of the Canadian Wheat Board and European trade agreement, as significant as they are, have essentially launched us into an active agenda for modernized grain policy, expanding markets and moving the markers on innovation.

We are pushing ahead with our aggressive trade agenda in key markets like China, and through the trans-Pacific partnership, negotiations with Morocco, and the talks with some 50 other countries that are under way with key customers around the world.

The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food is also committed to continuing our modernization agenda around the Canadian Grain Commission, building on our first round of reforms.

We will also continue to focus on improving the supply chain through a number of initiatives, including encouraging Transport Canada to convene the promised supply chain round table to squeeze inefficiencies out of the supply chain.

Our strong innovation continues. Under Growing Forward 2, we are investing over $70 million in grains, oilseed, and special crop research clusters and projects. That includes the wheat cluster, backed by shared government-industry funding of over $25 million. All of the clusters continue to do a tremendous job of bringing everyone to the table to set common directions and achieve common goals.

There is also the $97 million Canadian Wheat Alliance . The alliance is a five-year partnership with the University of Saskatchewan and the National Research Council to develop elite new wheat varieties. The goal is to kick-start wheat yields by an estimated 10 bushels an acre, increasing producer revenues by close to $5 billion over the next two decades.

As we have learned from the clusters, collaboration is key to moving the yardsticks forward on innovation. Ensuring that farmers continue to have the latest tools at their disposal will take greater emphasis on public-private collaboration and value chain partnerships, such as what we are discussing tonight.

Meeting the new global demand for grains will take investment from government and industry. At the same time, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada remains committed to core research while partnering with industry to get new tools out the door. A good example is the recent discovery by scientists of three genes resistant to Ug99, a potentially devastating wheat stem rust. The discoveries coming out of this research will protect farmers' livelihoods and food security in Canada and around the world. We have already invested $13 million in the fight against this disease, plus an additional $1.6 million under Growing Forward 2.

The new variety registration system is also tied in closely with our innovation capacity. We are committed to working with industry to develop a system that facilitates increased innovation and productivity, reduces the time it takes to get varieties into the marketplace, and delivers on the performance demands of our farmers and the quality and consistency demanded by our customers.

Looking ahead, the Canadian grain industry will certainly continue to play a vital role in creating jobs and economic growth. Of course, there are challenges. That is to be expected for an industry that is in an expansion mode. We are addressing these challenges by working closely with industry and calling on all players, including the railways, to step up their game.

The time is right for the Canadian grain industry to capture new opportunities in burgeoning markets that are looking for healthy, nutritious foods more than ever. The government will have to continue to work with the Canadian grain industry to drive transformative change and lay down the conditions required to unlock the sector's full economic potential.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I see that they are all speaking from the same blueprint, because they all go on and talk about the 2 million additional acres over last year. Let us put the facts on the record. That is 7 million fewer acres than in 1990.

The member talked about the new open market system. What farmers are beginning to see is whereas we used to have an orderly marketing system, there is now a disorderly marketing system. There is chaos at port in trying to move the rail traffic around to get the grain into the hull of a ship to get it to market.

I wanted to ask a question of the member who is from Red Deer and is himself a farmer. I talked to one of his neighbours tonight. He told me something, and I wonder if the member could confirm these figures under the new system. On the pricing on spring wheat, the farmer said he was getting $3.78 per bushel on January 14. He said that $2.32 per bushel of that $3.78 was taken away for the rip-off by the grain companies and the railways in handling and transportation costs. At the same time, the Minneapolis future price was $6.10. In other words, the new pricing arrangement under this new system means that Canada's price is discounted by 35% to 40% off of the Minneapolis price. Could the member confirm that those figures are relatively right?

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things we can talk about is where the bases are. The amount that makes up those bases would come through elevation, inspection, cleaning, storage. These are the amounts that make up the particular chunk that is taken off. If there is no transportation, that gets larger because we are dealing with the storage aspect of it. In situations where people want the grain, that is where we would be looking at negative bases or trucking incentives that are also going to be included in that. We have to recognize that is what is taking place and that the prices are there if we are selling. That is why we have to take a look at some of the options that are available.

There is always the discussion that it happened because of the Canadian Wheat Board, which has nothing to do with it. It happens to have the same information as the canola commission, which is managing it now. All it needs is to have that information available, and it is there for them.

People have to recognize the other aspect of it, as well, which is that the government will be there. The concern, and I heard this earlier today, is that the farmer is going to owe all of this. It is part of the equity that the farmer has in that crop. That is what we have to look at and what people should be looking at when making these marketing decisions. If we sell at the bottom, we are going to be under the system and it is going to cause a problem. We have to look after—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Thunder Bay—Superior North.

[Bruce Hyer, Green, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member has done a great job of talking about our farmers who are doing a great job in producing bumper crops.

Over a month ago, prairie farmer groups, including agriculture groups in Alberta, asked the Minister of Transport to look into the problem of constraints, and she has not even bothered to get back to them yet.

We are the only country in the G20 that has no national rail strategy at all. We have doubled the number of oil transports in the last five years in unsafe DOT-111 cars.

I would like to ask my colleague, when is the government going to invest in rail safety, rail quality, and rail efficiency? That starts with a national rail strategy.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, people have to recognize that a couple of things have happened. We are 3% above the five-year average with respect to the amount of grain that has been delivered already. We are 5% below last year, and that is an issue.

When we are looking at situations like that, we then have to look at why we are having this problem. Cold temperatures do matter. As I mentioned earlier in my speech, there is a reason that we do not take our grain to the elevators when it is -40. We do not want to be taking our trucks through that. We do not want to have to worry about that. We do not want to be standing at the elevators in that kind of situation, and that is happening at this particular point in time.

I am not excusing the rail companies, but if they have to move from 130 cars to 107 cars because of the temperature and conditions, then we have to recognize that is where the problem is at this point. The rest of it is a case of trying to make sure we have the right rail allocation for the grains we have.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, western farmers had a bumper crop, but have been unable to ship their products to market.

The Conservatives dismantled the Canadian Wheat Board without coming up with a plan for shipping grain. On Monday, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food announced that the government would conduct a five-year transportation study. Five years is a bit too long.

Does my Conservative colleague not think that the government should work more efficiently to solve this problem?

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Wheat Board is still there, and it is still working. I talked to members in December who were putting into the pool and buying grain at that point. They were making that decision. We can take a look at the types of things that are going to happen. If they decide that they have the transportation opportunities, then they will build new pools and go from there.

To suggest that there is no Canadian Wheat Board is not true. Farmers were asking for a choice, and the Canadian wheat pool is one of those options.

This is the kind of thing that we have to look at. We have to realize that when people say there is no Canadian Wheat Board, it is all because of that, and that is not true.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to represent the farmers from the Peace Country. Today there are Peace Country farmers looking to move their product. This has been an exceptional year. We have seen record amounts of crop coming off the fields of the Peace Country, and I am incredibly proud of the resourceful Peace Country farmers who have seen record crop yields.

We have had record crops coming off the fields. We have also had record amounts of snowfall this winter. We know that the rail companies have contended with that. We know there are a number of reasons for this. The challenges are real, but the only solution my colleagues on the other side of the House seem to have is forcing my farmers, who voted overwhelmingly to get rid of the Wheat Board, to bring back the Wheat Board and force it back on each and every farmer. That is not a solution. I have heard from many farmers who say they are really pleased with the opportunities they have today.

The other option that is being floated around on the opposition benches is nationalizing the railway. I do not think there is any Canadian who is looking at this situation reasonably who thinks that is a solution.

Therefore, I wonder if my hon. colleague could talk about some of the things our government has done to work through the challenges we are facing, in terms of the bumper crop, the amount of wheat and barley and canola that have come off Peace Country fields as well as prairie fields, and the issues of shipping that product to market?

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the most important aspects of this is recognizing that the rail system has to match the amount of grain that can work its way through the system. The purchasing of it at the grain elevators, the transfer of it to the ports with the trains, and then getting it on to the ships and moving it is something that has to happen. Our government, in discussions with all of the stakeholders, is looking for ways in which that can occur.

As I mentioned earlier today in my speech, we can be assured that when we speak about this to the stakeholders, and I am hopeful we will do that soon, we will be getting answers from people other than politicians, and we will be finding the situations that occur and the important things that are required.

To go back to one of the questions, I know that people were talking about car allocations. It is important to understand that the Canadian Wheat Board never allocated cars. It is the Canadian Grain Commission that allocates those cars, and it is the commercial deals that occur between the grain companies and the railway that are now actually allocating those cars.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by stating that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member of Parliament for Newton—North Delta.

I am pleased to rise to speak to this motion in the House. It is a motion that many people in my constituency and in my part of the country feel strongly about.

Before I talk about where I come from and how important rail transport and its connection is to both the agricultural industry and the northern economy, I want to comment. There are some moments we have in the House where time and space seem to collide. We swear that what we are hearing we have heard before, and we swear that the problems people are talking about are what people predicted just a short while ago.

Here we are debating an issue that farmers across western Canada said would happen. Despite the rhetoric of the Conservative Party, farmers across western Canada and across the country know their land. They know the reality of their communities and the economy around them better than any of us.

What did farmers across the country tell us when the spotlight was on them as the government ran roughshod over their voices to dismantle the Canadian Wheat Board? They told us that they were getting ripped off by rail companies. They told us that they were working hard to produce a product of the highest quality that they could ship around the world, something they continue to do. They told us that they knew from development in communities around them, whether it is southwestern Manitoba, across Saskatchewan, or in Alberta, that oil and gas was ramping up and that rail lines were increasingly being taken up for product that was not theirs. They were facing immense challenges as a result. They were saying that their voices, whether it was on the Canadian Wheat Board, or on any other decision that affects them, needed to be at the centre of the decisions being made.

That is the last thing that the government has done. There are many across the aisle who have spent many years working hard as farmers in the agricultural industry, something that we all respect. However, what I do not understand is that many of those members of Parliament, whether or not they have an agricultural background, stand up and profess to talk about communities in western Canada. What they are not doing is speaking on behalf of the people who are saying they need help and support. Farmers across western Canada have given, as they do every year, everything they have to produce what they need to live, to provide for their families, and to grow their communities. Unfortunately, the player at the table who is letting them down, who has the power to make a difference, is the federal government. It is the very same federal government that is made up of members of Parliament who claim to represent their interests.

I believe there is a map in the Prime Minister's Office and on part of the Prairies there is a lot of blue colouring that says “taken for granted”. There is no debate better than this one to show how the government takes the west for granted. It takes for granted the people who work hard to give back, who have helped build our country through the agricultural sector, given Canada the great name it has in terms of its grain exports, and who simply want a fair deal.

This has a domino effect. I can speak to this as the member of Parliament for Churchill because I know the way Churchill has been impacted by the government's wrong-headed and corporate interest-driven decision to dismantle the single desk Canadian Wheat Board.

Churchill is a community that has a very diverse history, but one of its pillars is the port. This is a port that is a gem for northern Manitoba, for my province, and really for our country. It is the only deep water seaport in northern Canada. As an unfortunate result of climate change, there are some opportunities for increased trade through that port, as it takes longer for the ice to freeze in the fall.

There are many opportunities for investing in this port. We could be looking at how to grow linkages between Churchill, other northern countries, and countries around the world.

One of the staples that has gone through Churchill for decades is grain. The Canadian Wheat Board, as it did for every port, coordinated to the n^th degree the kind of traffic that would need to go through Churchill and every other port. It chose Churchill because it was the fastest and cheapest way at that time of year to get to certain countries. It was not cheap so that it could be good for the Canadian Wheat Board; it was to save money for farmers. It was to save them money and save them time in terms of not having to decide where and how they would ship their grain. It looked out for and had the backs of farmers in western Canada. The moment the Conservative government dismantled the single-desk Canadian Wheat Board, it let Canadian wheat and grain farmers down.

In Churchill, we know that the government's ironic decision to subsidize trade that goes through the port has made for a superficial bump in the traffic going through there. This subsidy, as members know, will be over in five years, by 2017. In fact, people in Churchill, and I was just speaking to the mayor a few days ago, are very concerned about what lies ahead for this community and our region.

Churchill, of course, is affected by the fact that the single-desk is gone, but it is also affected fundamentally by the fact that the Conservative government fails time and again to project and realize a vision based on Canadians' interests and the interests of people living in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, whether they are related to the agricultural industry or any other industry.

The domino effect extends to other industries. When rail cars are not available for farmers, they are increasingly not available for other industries. For example, our region also depends on forestry, which is another sector that has suffered deeply under the current government's reign. Most recently, Tolko, a successful forestry company in our region, announced that it would be laying people off temporarily. Why? It is because it cannot ship its product. It has produced far too much, and there are no rail cars to ship it out.

It is not that the product is not in demand. In fact, it is industrial paper that is very much in demand around the world. The company has global exports. It is not because the product is not of high quality. In fact, incredible research and cutting-edge technology have gone into producing it. The reason people are losing their jobs is that they do not have access to enough rail cars.

During this debate I have had a chance to hear great stories from the other side and very positive remarks about the hard-working farmers across our country. I cannot help but think of the people who right now are struggling because they have lost their jobs. They know that what they produce they cannot send elsewhere. They do not know what they are going to be able to save this year. As a result of the Conservative government's inaction, they do not believe that the situation will get better next year.

We are not just sitting here until midnight to talk at each other. We are here to call on the Conservative government to make a difference and to stand up for farmers across western Canada, western Canadians, and communities like Churchill, The Pas and many of the communities the Conservatives represent.

We call on the government to listen to the people across western Canada and to sit at the table to engage rail companies to stop ripping off farmers and western Canadians. We call on the government to make a difference on behalf of a part of the country that deserves to have proper representation.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot from the government side tonight about predictions and not much in terms of what it is going to do to deal with the emergency. Maybe something will come five years down the road.

It is important to put on the record where the minister said we would be today. He made this statement on November 2, 2011, when he was talking about getting rid of the Wheat Board. He stated:

To that end, both CN and CP are doing over a billion dollars worth of renovations on their main lines across western Canada, because they know there are going to be demands on them to move more product more quickly than they do now, because we won't be dragging our sales out at...one-twelfth every month, as the Wheat Board does now. There will be a lot more...going to market positions earlier, getting us away from starting our trucks and our augers at minus 40 degrees in January. It used to drive me nuts. I'd wait for a malt car until the coldest, wettest, or muddiest day of the year. Now we'll be able to put that product into market position ahead of time.

That was his prediction. Has that come to pass, or is it just more of the same old, same old of the government? They sold out to the railways and the grain companies and in the process sold out farmers.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that blast from the past. I will never forget the kind of rhetoric we heard from the government side in its steadfast campaign to get rid of an institution that Canadian farmers built. Lo and behold, those rosy predictions not only have not materialized, but the government, when problems have persisted, has failed to act.

Let us come to the present day. There are farmers and representatives of farmer organizations who are saying that they need help right now. I want to quote Doug Chorney, the president of Manitoba's Keystone Agricultural Producers. He laid the blame for the bottleneck on abysmal service by Canada's two major railways. He further stated that the duopoly Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian National Railway have in the marketplace allows them to provide inadequate service without fear of consequences.

Lynn Jacobson, the president of the Alberta Federation of Agriculture, stated:

This is a crisis situation and something has to be done. It affects not only the agriculture community but the whole economy in Western Canada.

Take it from the farmers themselves. Take it from the organizations. The government must act.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague on one issue. This is a very serious issue that affects real families in Alberta. Whether I am talking to my colleague and friend, Ian Donovan, from Little Bow, or to the Bauer family farm in Thorhild, this is an issue that directly affects them and the outcome of their livelihoods. At the end of the day, it deserves serious debate, not the throwback model of back to the future we have we have heard from the Liberals.

I have some questions for my colleague on the other side, who is talking about needing staffing resources, railcars, and locomotives for Churchill going to the port of Vancouver. Will the member urge the Teamsters to accept the tentative deal with CN so that it does not deprive western Canadian families of those resources she was just talking about? Will she urge her friends and the Teamsters to accept the deal so we can ensure that we continue to move the record harvest of western Canadian grain?

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the House ought to be above cheap rhetoric like that. I am glad the Conservatives are finding this humourous.

Let us go back to the member's introduction, when he talked about real families in the real western Canada. I represent some of those real families, and they are hurting. People have lost their jobs in communities that I represent. People in Churchill do not know what the next two, three, or four years are going to look like. It is not enough for us to just sit here and talk. We want the government to act. It has the power to do so, and it is about time it acts on behalf of its constituents.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to speak in support of the motion before this House.

Like my colleague, I think that when we have these emergency debates it is an opportunity for all sides of the House to work together on an issue that we realize is urgent. I hear so much about real families. There are real families hurting right across this country. It does not matter whether they are in Newfoundland or Vancouver.

Today, let us focus on the farmers. We live in a huge country. Our geography is truly inspirational. It is our western provinces that grow the majority of the grain and the pulses. I was surprised a few years ago when I found out how much of our grain is exported to feed many corners of the planet. Members might be surprised to know that 40% of our pulses grown in the Prairies are exported to China and India. That took me by surprise. I did not know that.

We are talking here about the people who grow grain for us for domestic consumption, who help create a trade balance, and who also help to feed the rest of the world. It is embarrassing how badly our farmers feel they are being treated by the government.

I am not going to revisit the Canadian Wheat Board. I think what we are beginning to see are the very results that were predicted by people on this side of the House when the government was so adamant about dismantling a Canadian institution, one that served the Canadian grain growing farmers well, for its own ideological reasons. The decision was not based on what was needed by the farmers, but on the government's own ideology. The government absolutely rammed that through.

Today we are here to talk about how fast, or if ever, this grain can be moved. What we are hearing from the farmers is that they have a massive crop. We should be celebrating the fact that we have this massive crop. Most countries would be celebrating. However, our farmers cannot celebrate because the grain is not moving.

The government is very fond of signing international trade agreements. However, unless we have the infrastructure in place to move the goods within Canada to get them to our ports and out of the country, it begs the question of how serious we are when we sign those agreements or whether we are selling people a bill of goods, so to speak.

I live in a port city, as members know, and I have the honour and privilege of having Deltaport in my area, as well as Port Metro Vancouver. I have had numerous meetings with transloading companies, and they tell me of the challenges they face. I have spent time at a number of these different companies to see how the port system works and how the goods that arrive from the Prairies then get moved out through our ports.

There are huge challenges facing the ports in Canada at the moment. Many of them are aggravated by a transportation of goods to the ports, in this case through the railway system. I found out, for example, that when rail cars filled with grain arrive at the transloading company, they have 24 hours to empty them. If they do not, there is a fine, and the fines are quite hefty. I was surprised.

However, if CN Rail is late by two days, or a day or even a week, there is no penalty for CN Rail. The penalty is borne by the transloaders. They lose in many different ways.

First, they pay a penalty to CN Rail.

Second, if they are expecting an arrival of goods and they do not arrive, they are paying their truck drivers. The truck companies, the owner-operators, as well as the transloading companies, lose double, then, as well. They have people there ready to unload the grain, bag it, and then ship it out. Guess what? They are paying those people while they are waiting for that grain to arrive. What they go through is famine to feast. That is no way to run a business. They hire staff, expecting goods. They do not arrive. Guess what? They still end up having to pay some staff. The truckers, the owner-operators, end up being big losers in this, as well.

We really need to address this issue in a very serious way.

The farmers on the Prairies have grown this magnificent product that is quality product, grains and pulses, that the rest of the world wants to purchase. However, here is the sad part. We do not have the infrastructure in place. Surely there is an easy way of getting rail cars. Surely the government can work with CN to work through all of those things.

Instead, we are in a situation where the farmers, after a magnificent harvest, are now saying they are going to be broke; they have not been paid, because they do not get paid until that grain gets moved. That is a serious problem for us. We need to know that it is the farmers who suffer, the transloading companies, and the truck drivers, and there is a whole chain where the costs are downloaded, and they are heavy costs.

I hear a lot about business sense and being good economic managers, from the other side. Good economic managers would address an issue like this, because here is a Canadian product that other countries want to buy, but we cannot get it to the port in time. It is our Canadian companies, the transloading companies, as well as the truck drivers, who end up being the victims and who end up suffering.

Truck drivers go from having days of famine to having days when they are told there are not enough trucks drivers and more trucks are needed.

Also, the ports themselves find it difficult to make the kind of plans they need to make to ship the goods out.

Sometimes members think that maybe we are just making all this stuff up. However, let me tell members that we have been hearing from some of the farmers and grain growers themselves. A flax farmer in Central Butte, Saskatchewan, says that free trade is no good if we cannot get the product there.

I come from a farming background in my ancestry, not that I have ever farmed myself. I have not, but my grandparents and great-grandparents did. One thing I know about farmers is that they are blunt and to the point. I think there is something significant to be learned from that.

Here is a quote from the Manitoba Pulse Growers Association president, Kyle Friesen:

We need to get the grain moving because many farmers may not be paid for last year's harvest until after spring planting.

How many members would like to wait six months or nine months before they get their pay, as members of Parliament? We would not.

This is already causing lost sales. Things need to improve; otherwise, this will translate into a serious cash flow issue for farmers when they need to buy seed and inputs this spring.

Also, it absolutely harms our international trade. What kind of credibility do we have when we do not have the kind of predictability we need for the transportation of our grains and pulses from the fields right to the ports and to the countries that have bought them?

Rick White, general manager of the Canadian Canola Growers Association, had this to say:

The big question now is, are they going to be able to get enough grain delivered into the system to pay off the advance prior to the deadline?

Farmers who are growing grain and are helping in our trade balance are being punished. If we want future generations to remain in farming and to utilize the wealth of our land, then surely we have to have an infrastructure in place and we have to ensure that they are remunerated at the right time and in an appropriate manner, that they are not left begging and wondering whether they are going to be able to feed their family, whether they will make it into the next year, and whether their grain is going to rot.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that intervention comes typically from a member who lives in Vancouver and who wants to tell a western Canadian grain farmer how a solution can be arrived at. Simply, the response is to just fix it. That is where we, as a government, differ from the NDP. If we want a concrete solution to a real problem, we get a real solution that is long term and is good for all farmers and Canadians.

From a Vancouver person's perspective, the member says she has a solution to the problem. What is her solution?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there are many things we know about without actually having to live that experience for ourselves.

I have been a teacher all my life, and that has to be a question that had me really thinking for a minute. I want to respond to this.

There is a very simple solution. Build infrastructure, support the infrastructure, provide extra rails, get the goods moved, and get them to the ports, to cities like Vancouver and Churchill where the ports are, so all the ports can operate and get the goods where they need to go.

The food we grow on the Prairies is part of a food chain. It gets grown on the Prairies and it gets used right across the country, but we also ship it overseas to earn money and to get a trade balance.