Debates of Feb. 5th, 2014

Grain Transport

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

Mr. Speaker, there are some things that all of us will agree on tonight. If we could just agree on those things and then get on with the rest of the debate, that would be helpful.

First, farmers have done a marvellous job in growing this crop, an incredible job. It is a record crop by far. We have never grown a crop like this before.

Second, the railways simply have not performed in the last few months. CN has become an excellent railway and has increased the movement of all commodities, including grain, each year for the past four years, until December and January.

The third thing we can agree on is that a lot of harm is being done to farmers because the railways are not moving grain as they should. Moreover, grain companies are taking advantage of this situation, the fact that there is not competition, and are offering farmers a lower price than they would if we had real competition in moving the grain to the ports.

So I think we can agree on all those things. I would like to ask the member once again to provide some serious part of the solution to this problem.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, first we need to recognize the need to amend the Fair Rail Freight Service Act. If the member needs some advice on that, the member for Wascana, or the critic for agriculture, would be more than happy to provide that information or amendments as necessary. This is something that we must absolutely do.

To what degree has the Government of Canada actually sat down with our railways and talked about the number of locomotives and rolling stock and the staffing issue, to ensure that we can in fact mobilize and get the wheat out to the Pacific Ocean? The government should have been working on this with the railways. We hope it will expand on that particular point in the debate this evening.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture]

Mr. Speaker, we are here tonight because we are dealing with a record crop in western Canada. All players in the supply chain are looking at solutions for getting grain more quickly to port. Let me share what Mr. Gary Stanford, president of the Grain Growers of Canada, 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

As many in the industry have said, higher crop volumes are expected to be the new normal, and our government is taking action to help the industry prepare for that.

Our government also understands the challenges that Canadian farmers are facing. Canadian farmers face some of the longest inland distances to market of any exporting nation. On the Prairies, grain travels an average of 1,500 kilometres to reach a port terminal. In addition, in 2012 farmers paid over a billion dollars to move grain by rail. Grain growers deserve an efficient, reliable, and predictable rail service to get their crops to market.

World demand is growing and while the bumper crop is posing frustrations for our grain farmers, it also represents an opportunity for the industry to find new efficiencies. That is why we are working with stakeholders on a number of fronts to make the supply chain more competitive. Over the past months, the minister has met on several occasions with key players throughout the grain sector to find long-term solutions. With the new reality of larger crops, this holistic approach is the best way forward, and is certainly much more constructive than pointing fingers. That said, as we are working with stakeholders to identify improvements going forward, we expect all players in the supply chain to step up their game.

I would like to talk about an important action our government is taking to protect the economy and Canadian grain producers.

Our government is concerned about the potential repercussions of the CN strike on hard-working Canadian farmers, the manufacturing sector and exporters. We were disappointed to learn that the union representing CN workers, Teamsters Canada, gave its strike notice. A strike would have damaging effects on our economy, farmers in the Prairies, auto workers in Ontario and proud forestry workers in Quebec.

The total impact of a work stoppage is estimated at $450 million per week.

Canadian farmers have harvested record crops. At the same time, our government has opened markets for our exporters. Our government is working hard to support growth in this sector, and a devastating strike would threaten our grains and our gains and would hurt workers and their families. Today, at the Port of Vancouver, container ships are waiting to be loaded for export. Our government will not allow other obstacles to prevent Canadian exports from getting to market. A strike would compromise our recovery.

Therefore, our position is clear. Our economy must be protected. Our product has to get to market. We must protect jobs. That is why, today, our government is taking action to protect the Canadian economy and Canadian farmers by giving notice of a bill to get CN back on track.

I have received confirmation that our government welcomes a tentative deal to protect Canadian jobs and the economy and to prevent a strike at CN Rail. Our Minister of Labour said:

I am pleased that the parties continue to make every effort to settle their differences. It is essential that employers and unions work together to come to agreements that are in the best interests of everyone involved.

They are reaching a tentative agreement, but of course this still has to be finalized. I would ask the members of the opposition to support the type of legislation we are proposing if this tentative deal is not finalized.

As well as taking action on a potential CN strike, our government has taken steps to improve the performance of the entire rail supply chain. This includes investing $1.5 million in a special crops 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 creates a process to establish service agreements; investing $25 million to support grain shipments through the Port of Churchill; and implementing marketing freedom for western Canadian wheat and barley growers.

We are also working to help farmers get their crops to market by bringing industry groups together through groups such as the commodity supply chain table, the crop logistics working group and value chain round tables to facilitate comprehensive industry-led solutions.

On Monday, we further acted to respond to early recommendations of the crop logistics working group by pursuing enhancements to the grain monitoring program to improve the frequency of reporting, and by committing to providing an ongoing forum for representatives across the industry to discuss improvement throughout the supply chain.

The crop logistics working group has clearly identified a need for a fuller measurement of the transportation system from farm to point of sale. The working group said that a broader, more timely system is needed to deliver the kind of information required to support the efficient functioning of the crop logistics system. In other words, to improve productivity, timely and transparent measurements are needed.

Building on their recommendations, we are taking action to expand the mandate of the grain monitoring program to incorporate that information and to increase the frequency from quarterly reporting to monthly reporting. Expanded monitoring will provide a much clearer picture for all players, helping them to improve planning and to cut overall costs.

The proposed expanded range of metrics and reporting frequency would include railway order fulfillment information; weekly loads on wheels by carrier; the covered hopper car fleet size and grain service for both mainline carriers by class of service on a weekly basis; terminal unload performance by railway; western Canada railway grain traffic to eastern Canada, United States, and Mexican destinations; U.S. grain traffic to western Canadian destinations; and western Canadian grain traffic shipped to port in containers.

Our common goal is a more transparent system, so that all players in the supply chain, especially farmers, have the information they need to make the right decisions for their businesses and for our economy as a whole. Together, a better flow of information will help build a more reliable, predictable, and efficient transportation system.

These concrete actions build on our previous investment of $1.5 million under Growing Forward 2 to identify key areas of improvement in the supply chain and develop the tools and technical support to get there. This is a five-year, long-term collaborative industry effort led by Pulse Canada.

With matching industry investment, the goal is to improve the efficiency and reliability of the supply chain from farm gate to port terminal. The whole idea of increasing our logistics capacity is being able to figure out where we are at, where we are short, and what needs to be done.

I would add that we have the support of the Grain Growers of Canada in this way forward. As well, the Premier of Saskatchewan spoke today to a trade summit in Saskatoon, where he said:

We fully support the federal government in any measures they can take to address this situation.

As many in the industry have said, these kinds of crops are the new normal. Everyone has to improve, and that includes the railroads. Since day one, our government has been there for Canadian farmers and we are there for them today.

Our government knows that Canada's grain industry drives our economy and jobs with over $20 billion of our exports. The fact is that agriculture is a growing economic powerhouse in Canada and around the world. Agriculture is a big reason that Canada's economy is leading the industrialized world. That is why our government continues to ensure that farmers and food processors have the tools they need to continue to grow our economy and to employ Canadians.

Let me give a few examples. Top of mind, of course, is marketing freedom for western Canada's hard-working wheat and barley producers. This year's record harvest clearly demonstrates that the end of the old single desk two years ago has reinvigorated Canada's world-class grain industry.

Our farmers seeded 2 million more acres of wheat and produced over 20 million more tonnes of grain this year over last year. Since the end of the antiquated single desk, western grain farmers now enjoy the basic right to make their own business decisions on the marketing of their crop.

Over the first 18 months of freedom, we have seen record farm incomes with a strong balance sheet, two million new acres of wheat, and wheat exports up by close to 20%, with sales to the United States up by half.

A Canadian Federation of Independent Business survey found that the vast majority of its agriculture members, over 80%, are positive on the impact of marketing freedom on their operations. It is called choice, it is called freedom, and it is clearly working.

Trade is an another excellent example of how we are strengthening the industry. To help our farmers find new markets for their high-quality crops, our government is moving ahead with the most aggressive trade agenda in the nation's history. I would remind those voices for protectionism who would build a wall around Canada that Canadian farmers depend on trade to market up to 85% of their products.

For 2013, all signs point to another record year. Our beef industry is back on the map, with our beef trade with China increasing sixfold last year alone. None of this would have been possible without a lot of hard work from industry and our government in working together.

Of course, the historic breakthrough on trade was our agreement in principle with the European Union on a comprehensive economic and trade agreement. This accord is without doubt the most comprehensive and ambitious trade agreement since NAFTA.

Upon ratification, Canada will be one of the only developed countries in the world to have preferential access to the world's two largest economies, the European Union and the United States. With Europe and NAFTA, that will mean access to more than 800 million of the world's most affluent customers.

Right now, our agriculture imports hit a tariff wall of almost 14%, so we see the kind of opportunity we are looking at in the world's largest and most affluent market for food. Under this agreement, tariffs will be eliminated on the vast majority of our agricultural exports, including wheat, which currently faces tariffs of up to $122 per tonne. Clearly, this agreement will mean more money in the pockets of our Canadian grain producers.

Likewise, the Canadian beef sector will secure new market access opportunities for exports of 65,000 tonnes, and the industry estimates that new beef market access under this accord to be worth about $600 million a year.

Additionally, increased access for Canadian pork products to the EU has been estimated by industry to grow by $400 million, or $20 a hog. For Canada’s economy as a whole, the agreement is expected to create an additional 80,000 jobs nationwide and boost Canada's GDP by $12 billion.

We are working hard now to finalize the technical issues, which would then allow the agreement in principle to be formally approved. We will also push forward on other trade agreements, like India and the trans-Pacific partnership, a vast market of almost 800 million people. As well, we have revived the South Korean trade talks.

Here at home, we continue to transform and modernize our agricultural industry to help farmers drive our economy and feed the world. Growing Forward 2, our five-year framework for agriculture with the provinces and territories, has a much stronger focus on proactive measures like science and research and less on the reactive measures of the past. Growing Forward 2 is driving innovation through investments of over $70 million in industry-led research clusters on grains and oilseeds alone. We are helping our grain sector to succeed.

We remain committed to developing a policy to manage low-level presence of genetically modified organisms in grain for food and feed. We continue to work with our trading partners and domestic stakeholders to develop an approach that is predictable, flexible, transparent, and proactive.

Also to drive innovation, the government recently introduced the agricultural growth act, to bring our plant breeders legislation in line with the rest of the world. UPOV ’91, as it is known, will strengthen intellectual property rights for plant breeders and help increase investment in research and development for Canada's crop sector.

These discussions have been going on for 22 years, and industry agrees it is time to invigorate investment, innovation, and growth in Canada's agriculture sector, right now. That will help our farmers remain competitive by providing them with access to the best new crop varieties, whether they are developed here in Canada or abroad.

Farmers have a bright future. My message to the House this evening is that we are taking action on the grain transportation challenges our farmers are facing. We are taking action on early recommendations of the crop logistics working group. Our government knows that action is needed now and for the long term. We will continue to take a holistic approach, working with all stakeholders across the industry.

The ministers of agriculture and transport continue to work with producers and the entire value chain to identify and generate new efficiencies. All stakeholders, from farmers to elevators to grain companies to railways, must look at the challenges of transporting this year's record harvest and identify improvements for going forward.

It is a competitive marketplace. Our farmers' renewed strength has also benefited from marketing freedom. Marketing freedom, coupled with a top-quality product, puts our farmers on a level playing field with any country in the world.

To win and maintain our markets, Canada must be competitive not only on price and quality but also on service reliability. The recommendations from the crop logistics working group are a big step in that direction. I am confident that they will help build a stronger supply chain for farmers over the short, medium, and long term. Record volumes present both challenges and opportunities for the industry, and the time is right for the Canadian grain industry to capture these opportunities in marketing their world-class products in a secure and profitable way.

Our government has always put farmers first, and it will continue to do so.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, by golly, if farmers are sitting out there tonight thinking that they are probably not going to get their grain shipped until spring and therefore have no income, they must really be reassured by the lead spokesman for the Government of Canada that they really are still going to sit there until spring with no income, because that is all the member has said tonight.

The parliamentary secretary falls back on this “two million more acres”. Look, Canadians, do not be fooled by that. In 1990, there were nine million more acres seeded than there were last year, so let us not play the numbers game.

My question to the member is quite simple: who is responsible for allocating the grain cars now, so that the grain can get moved?

The member used the diversion of “possibly a strike”. The reality is that Parrish & Heimbecker put in an order for 800 cars last week and they got zero. Roughly 4,500 cars are supposed to be allocated every week, and that was zero. It used to be that the Canadian Wheat Board allocated the cars and took some control over the railway and the grain companies.

My question is who is allocating the cars now? Who is responsible?

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, clearly in my speech, I was showing a few things. One of them was the actions that we are taking, primarily engaging all stakeholders across the crops logistics sector. Second, I was showing how farming and agriculture have succeeded under our government, both with ending the single-desk monopoly of the wheat board and with our innovations in science and research.

The fact that an extra two million acres were seeded is good news. The member treats it as bad news. The harvest is up by 20 million tonnes. There is no question that it is a record crop this year and that the transportation system is struggling to deliver it.

We do not take this matter lightly, which is why the minister has been meeting with stakeholders across the country on a number of different occasions. We have made funding available to encourage them to find solutions, not just tomorrow but in the short, medium, and long term, because we are convinced that agriculture will continue to succeed, and it needs medium- to long-term solutions as well.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the only thing missing from the member's speech was the Canada action plan sign behind him, but I know that would not be allowed as a prop.

We talked about CETA and we talked about TPP, South Korea, and all these trade deals. The Conservatives can sign trade deals until the grain rots in the bin, because they are not going to move one kernel of grain by signing another free trade agreement, no matter how good it is.

This is about getting stuff out of the Prairies. As wonderful as the parliamentary secretary’s speech was in highlighting all of the wonderful things that the government thinks it has done, it will not move grain out of the Prairies.

Gordon Bacon said just this week, as part of the round table group, that it is obvious some serious improvements to transportation are needed, but he said it is not as simple as adding more rail cars. He said that shipping grain requires coordination from farm to rail terminal to port.

We used to have that, but the government decided, in its wisdom, that we did not need it any more and it threw it away.

The parliamentary secretary talked about these great deals and how we are going to be wonderful partners.

Mr. Bacon, CEO of Pulse Canada, said that “Our goal is to be seen as a reliable supplier of grain to markets around the world and our record is a bit tarnished in that area”.

How on earth do we ever do trade deals with our partners when our reputation is tarnished?

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I see on the opposition side a lot of arm waving and am hearing that something should be done, but I do not hear any proposals. I do not hear what the opposition is proposing to resolve this problem tomorrow, which is what they are actually advocating.

What is needed are short-, medium- and long-term solutions. There was a record harvest this year, which is complicating all matters regarding transportation and crop logistics. I do not think anybody in the House believes that if the single-desk Wheat Board were in charge, all those problems would be solved. In fact, what we saw was another layer of bureaucracy, and in fact, far less efficiency and far more unhappy farmers than we have today.

What we are proposing is working within the sector in a meaningful way and making funding available to launch initiatives to solve this problem, not just tomorrow but in the near, medium, and long term.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture for his comments. I also want to thank the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food for the work he has done on this file.

There is no question that we have some major challenges. In my riding of Selkirk—Interlake in Manitoba, we are facing a backlog. There are many producers who just cannot get their grain delivered. The Paterson elevator at the South Lake location in Selkirk—Interlake is full. It cannot move grain, and there has been difficulty getting cars placed. These inland terminals can handle a lot of volume, as long as the rail system works.

It is great to see that the minister has met with all players in the industry and with CN and CP. However, I want the parliamentary secretary to talk about two things. First is the problem of making sure that farmers who cannot deliver at this point in time make use of cash advances. Second, what is being done to ensure that CN and CP rise to the challenge we have with this bumper crop and also make sure that we are not in this situation again next year?

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague brought up an excellent point about the advance payments program to help farmers manage cashflow challenges, particularly because of what is happening logistically now in the grain sector.

In terms of what we are doing with the railroads, we are bringing the railroads together with the minister and with the other stakeholders in the industry so that common solutions can be found. Normally when the government jumps in with its own solutions, and proper consultation and proper work has not been done with stakeholders, those solutions tend not to succeed. It is very important to engage the stakeholders, who understand the challenges they are facing and have very practical solutions.

It is larger than the railroads. The railroads must step up their game, but they must also work in concert with the other stakeholders within the crop logistics system.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, going right to the issue of potential solutions, I wonder to what extent the government has discussed expanding capacity in the rail system with additional locomotive power, railway rolling stock, and trained staff to increase throughput. To what extent has the government examined a new system for logistical coordination with all of the players in the grain handling and transportation system? That problem was evident two years ago, and not a wheel has been turned since.

Has the government examined the issue of coordination? Has the government tried to get more throughput through Churchill and through the port at Prince Rupert, and to what extent can the government move more grain south through U.S. facilities, if the Canadian system just cannot handle it?

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I can say that work is being done on a number of those initiatives. In fact, he is asking about, for example, the Port of Churchill. It is our government that made $25 million available in funding to support grain shipments through the Port of Churchill. We were more proactive in terms of making this funding available a number of years ago. Unfortunately, the member voted against that initiative of $25 million to help improve grain shipments through the Port of Churchill.

In terms of specific solutions for the railways, this is the idea of bringing stakeholders together so that those types of solutions can be discussed and then implemented.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was at the transportation committee when Bill C-52 was discussed, and it was clear that the grain shippers were not happy that they were not going to be able to negotiate certain aspects, which they are feeling now. The aspects of that bill they cannot negotiate are what they are being hit with: these big expenses.

In addition was the demise of the Wheat Board. While it was cheered wildly on the other side of the House, there was one thing the Wheat Board was able to do that is not possible now without it. That was to pay farmers and subsidize the transportation of grain eastward through Thunder Bay and Churchill in order to go westward. The Wheat Board did that as a regular part of its business, because it knew full well that the port of Vancouver could not handle a bumper crop. The port of Vancouver cannot transport all the grain that comes off the prairies to China. It just cannot do it. It is physically impossible, and here we are.

We knew it was going to happen, but the Conservatives are discovering it for the first time. We are having what is called an emergency debate, because there is an emergency. Farmers are not going to have money this year. They are not going to be able to plant crops next year if they do not have money this year.

The government has indicated that it wishes to use its legislative authority against Canadian National Railway. Will it do so, not just for the workers? Will it use its legislative authority—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary, a short answer please.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the Wheat Board, no one really believes that the Wheat Board was free for farmers and that it solved all logistical problems. What we did see under the Wheat Board was much less seeding of acres for wheat and barley crops and much smaller harvests. That is what is making the system struggle today.

When it comes to the labour situation with CN, I would be interested in knowing if the member would support the Teamsters going on strike. If they go on strike, this situation will certainly not get better. I am hoping he will comment on this a little later in the evening.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will try not to wave my arms too much, because it seems the parliamentary secretary believes that my arm waving annoys you, and I would never try to annoy the Speaker. Being a Scotsman, we are somewhat inclined to move our arms. At least we are moving our arms in the sense of having conviction and passion about doing something immediately and are not flapping our arms in the air trying to fly like a gull, when clearly we are not.

Ultimately, this really is about an emergency now, not in three or five years. There is no question that additional data will be a good thing and the round table will eventually be helpful. However, the round table that will come out with recommendations six months from now, in the initial report, and then in additional reports over the next five years, will not move one more bushel of grain off the Prairies in the foreseeable future.

Yes, there is a recommendation not only from the minister but from Farm Credit Canada that farmers should apply for advance payments. That certainly is a program to protect farmers, but in some cases, these farmers are going to actually have advance payments and will still have crops in their bins in April when they are getting ready to seed the next new crop. They will actually have to repay it by September and may not have the funds to do that.

Would the minister's position then be forgiveness for some of those things if they do not happen? Clearly if they are backstopping that, and they still run into difficulties, it is going to be farmers who take on additional debt for what was not their problem. They did not cause this logistics problem such that they cannot get grain out of their farms to ports and to their customers.

In fact, a couple of my colleagues down the way were at that committee hearing, the members for Malpeque and Wascana. I remember it all too well. It was the minister who said that they just needed to get with the times and forward-contract.

I got an email from a farmer who forward-contracted in November. He said that he had not moved a bushel yet, and it is now February. When he forward-contracted, he had a price of $7. He is now looking at a base price of $4. No one is telling him who is making up the $3. He asked if the elevator company would be making it up and was told, “We don't know. We don't know what we'll be able to sell it for. We don't care what the contract was”.

There was another account of a farmer who had 85,000 tons of malt. Lo and behold, it never moved. Not one bushel moved. The buyout ended up being $1 a ton. They bought out his contract instead of honouring it. Instead of being able to sell it for $4.50, he ended up getting $1.

At the end of the day, it is farmers who are suffering, and clearly we need to do this.

For my friend across the way, the parliamentary secretary, a tentative agreement means exactly that. It means that both sides have said that they actually think they have a good deal. They will take it back to their membership. On the union side, the teamsters will. They will put it before their membership and ask them to ratify it. I would suggest that folks on the other side have a little faith in the process rather than jumping the gun. A tentative agreement has been reached, and 99% of the time the tentative agreements are actually ratified, because the members who have bargained on behalf of the workers are empowered by those workers to go and do that job for them, usually with marching orders as to what they need to bargain for.

It seems to me, according to the parliamentary secretary in his announcement, that there was a tentative agreement. That is a good-news story. We should accept it as a good-news story and not look to continue to swing at workers when there is not necessarily something to swing at.

What we need to do is look at some of the things that have happened in the last year, specifically at CP. There was an article in The Globe and Mail business section last week featuring the new CEO of CP. “Harrison's Revolution” was the title of the chart it had. What was it? It was the 90,000 carloads of crude oil CP moved in 2013, which was a 68% increase over 2012. That was a good-news story for CP, not for grain, mind you, but it was a good-news story for CP.

Four thousand five hundred and fifty jobs were eliminated. That is not a good-news story for those workers, their families, and their communities and not good for farmers, because these were folks who actually drove locomotives.

Eleven thousand rail cars were removed from service. Were they decrepit? Were they broken down or no longer functioning? No, they were just taken out of service.

Then what happened? Four hundred locomotives were taken out.

My colleague from Wascana talked about the need to put more locomotive power on the track. What did CP do? It took it out, removed it.

Everybody knew we were headed for a bumper crop. At the time that we were headed for a bumper crop, the railway took capacity out, to maximize its profit. What did it get? It got a better operating ratio, it had more profit, and its shares went up. Well done, CP. It made a business decision based upon itself, not the overall system.

We know we need to get grain off the Prairies. The primary mode of transportation is rail. We have two railways in this country, CN and CP; and we have short lines that do great work, but primarily we are looking at two. We have, basically, a duopoly in this country.

I take my friends from the Liberal Party back to 2001, when they were the government. There was actually a review done on rail, at the time—the esteemed Justice Estey was actually part of that—as to whether we should have open access. That was part of it. Senator Banks was also part of that review. The recommendation of Justice Estey was that he thought open access should be part of the changes, making more competition on the rail between CN and CP, allowing other players in. Short-line railways, at the time, were very keen on it. Short-line railways, today, are still very keen on it, by the way. That would help with this emergency access, by the way, at the moment. Short-liners are willing to step up to help if CN and CP cannot.

The review panel, with Justice Willard Estey, supported it. Senator Banks supported it. It was supported by the Canadian Wheat Board. It was supported by the grain commission and growers. It was support by a number of other folks. The three major players that said they did not want it were CN, CP, and Transport Canada.

We cannot talk about CN and CP, in the sense that they are private businesses. I guess they make those kinds of decision.

However, Transport Canada is ours. It belongs to the government. We deal with that. We have a Minister of Transport. We have authority there.

In the irony of ironies, in fact, it was actually hypocritical. At the time, CN and CP said they did not want open access to their lines in Canada; they were lobbying the U.S. government to have open access into the United States on its rail lines. Therefore, while they thought it was good for them and the U.S., they did not want to do it in Canada. They wanted to close off that loop, just to protect themselves, and got access into the United States.

The irony of all that is at the time this review was done, 12 years ago, we actually may have had more competition than we have now. There is no guarantee of that, none. We do not know if indeed those competitors were committed; perhaps they would have been taken over or perhaps they would have gone out of business. We are not necessarily certain.

However, what it points to is that, indeed, open access is an alternative to be looked at.

The government is asking for ideas from this side of the House. I am happy it is asking. That would be one idea we suggest looking at. It is not simple to do. Running a railway is not an easy business. Allowing other access on one's rail line requires logistical support and planning. For sure it does; so it has to be well thought out. However, it ought to be thought about, at this moment, at this juncture in time. We could do it for a short period of time to see how it works out. Maybe it is a longer term strategy. Maybe that would come out of the round table.

However, I have to be honest. I have this vision of a round table. I remember the railway set I got when I was a child, many years ago, growing up in Glasgow, Scotland. It went round and round and never went anywhere.

I have this vision that nothing will happen with this round table and train that goes round and round. The grain will just not move. It will not do what all of us want it to do. I do not think that anyone in the House would say we should not bother with it. The problem is that there are solutions that need to be explored, and we cannot worry about it in five years or two years. We all know there are farmers who are hurting now. We have all received emails from across the country and the Prairies from farmers who are saying they are broke because they have not moved anything. They do not get paid if they do not move it, and they cannot move it.

I talked to a gentleman just the other night from the Port of Vancouver. He said straight out that his bins in the port are half empty and that he was shuttling ships up and down the berth. He said he fills one third here and moves that one up, like parking cars. Then he moves another ship in and fills it a third and then moves it back and brings the other one back. He said he now has ships at anchor off Vancouver Island because there is no longer room to put them in Burrard Inlet. Clearly, the backlog is not at the port. Rather, it is inland, as we head. One of the ways to solve it is to look at open access. I think the government should look at that.

Looking back in time, I found that the two railways got together in 2000 for what was called the Fraser Canyon deal. They both run west up one line through the Fraser Canyon. For those who may not know, the Fraser Canyon is a bit of a bottleneck for the railways. It is part of the geography of the country we live in. What amazes me, and I have always wondered about this, is when companies say it is snowing. Yes, it is. It is winter. It is Canada and it snows in the mountains. One would think that a major railroader would think about those issues. We understand it slows things down, but the Fraser Canyon piece was done because the two railways got together and said it would be more efficient for them to do it that way: going west, they go up one side where the grade is lower, and they go back on the other side where the grade is higher, because for the most part they are coming back empty, especially the hopper cars. In doing that they created efficiencies for themselves and did not pass any of the money back. That is not unusual. If it was good enough for them to do that in 2000 and they were more efficient, at this moment in time when we need them to be more efficient and need more capacity on the Prairies to move grain, it is another idea for the government to pursue with the railways, because talking clearly has not had any major effect on them.

I know there are a lot of numbers being thrown around. Let me provide some other numbers, because we know they are being bandied about tonight. This is what CN booked for the full year last year. For 2012, it booked 597,000 potash and grain cars. In 2013, it booked and handled 572,000. It is down, not up. At this moment in time when there was a bumper record crop on the Prairies, CN's carloads were down, not up. I cannot suggest that it took cars out of service, because it did not do that, unlike CP, which took its capacity away to increase its share of profits. CN just did not deliver the cars. My colleagues have talked numerous times about a large number of orders for cars. Even the minister said that he wants to know why, if an elevator orders 150 cars, it gets 100. Why does he not know? This has been going on for months. I would have expected the minister to be out there saying, “I no longer want to ask the question. You are going to answer it and answer it now. I do not want to hear any chin-wagging stuff about it being winter. I want to know where this stuff is coming from, because clearly it is not happening. We have all heard it.”

We, as legislators, as the policy makers, have the stick when it comes to the railways, because clearly the elevator companies do not. The grain farmers certainly do not. The profits were up for both railways last year and they are singing a merry tune to their shareholders, so why would they do something different? Is it in their best interests to do something different?

I would suggest that they probably would not. They have a record year in their profit bottom line, the share price is up, and the bonus is good. Why would they want to put excess capacity on the line that they might use for a couple of months but have to carry the overhead for six months or a year? Their bottom line would shrink. Why would they do that?

They are not service providers from the goodness of their hearts. They are service providers to make money, and we should accept that. Most of all, the government should know that, as it set it up that way.

If we want the railways to provide a true service to farmers who are in an emergency situation and need to move the grain off the Prairies, then it is going to take more than sitting down with them and asking for a favour.

I would suggest that the minister sit down with the railroaders and dangle a carrot, and when they refuse it, hit them with a great big stick. Tell them that they are going to do it or we are going to start talking about the fact that what they own is from the wheels up, but we own the track. That is the way we are going to make them move.

At the end of the day, if we own the track as the Canadian government, the railroaders will move. Then we can make decisions about open access and short-line railroads helping out, because they can and they have the initiative to do that.

We can bandy about the politics of the Wheat Board, and a lot of us would like to go back to that. One thing is clear: the logistics end of the Wheat Board worked. Now, it might not have worked as well as everyone would have liked, but we threw it all out and had nothing to replace it with.

Now we have a five-year study. Mr. Bacon says that we need to put back in place something to get the crop from the farm, to the elevator, to the railway, to the port, to the terminal, and into our market. If we do not do that, he says we will tarnish our image, which is already starting to tarnish.

When we become an irregular supplier, when our customers see us as unable to get product to them, what will they do? I will bet Australia, the Americans, and Brazil will be knocking on their door saying that Canadians cannot deliver but they can.

There is an emergency debate for a reason: it is indeed an emergency. It means action, not words. I would enact it now, but I am not the government, and those are the rules of the House.

Therefore, I look to the government. Where is the action plan? Heaven knows it has enough billboards hanging about with wonderful colours. It has a lovely green on it, and I spotted orange on it once. Maybe somebody put a dash of colour in it. Show us some action on this. It is time for action from the Conservative government.

The minister and, quite frankly, the Prime Minister need to simply say that we have to actually act and that we are going to move forward on this. Farmers depend upon it, and it is not just farmers.

I will end with this.

There are a number of things happening across the broader economy. There is a mill in B.C. that has shut down because it cannot move product either. There are millers saying that they do not have product, and so they will probably have to go idle for a while. A canola plant in the western provinces last week went idle for a couple of days and it could not get rid of its crush. Where was the crush going? It was going to farmers who had cattle to feed. However, none of that happened, none of that moved, because as this bottleneck gets bigger, the backup impacts more than just the farmers. However, clearly, they are the ones with the most need at this moment in time because, unlike others, they do not get paid if they cannot deliver.

As I said at the beginning, these farmers have contracted to sell their grain months ago, but they still have it, through no fault of their own. They took the government's advice on the CWB and when it left they said they would forward market, do all the great things the government said, and at least they would have market freedom. The problem is that they are free to keep all their grain in their bins, which is free to them because they cannot get a nickel for it if they cannot move it.

Clearly, the obligation is on the government to show initiative, to make a decision, and to act.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman took us through an interesting excursion on grain policy and politics, and for the most part I found many things in his remarks to agree with.

I am curious about his reference to the Estey report back in 2002, and particularly Judge Estey's recommendations about open access, which I found to be quite an intriguing idea. The member will remember that the Estey report was an integrated set of recommendations that included removing the Canadian Wheat Board from the logistics of grain handling and transportation.

I wonder if my colleague embraces the second of those recommendations as enthusiastically as he embraced the first, because that would seem to be a bit contradictory.

My second point is this. To what extent practically, in dealing with this current crisis now rather than six months or five years from now, would it be possible to take some of the pressure off the Canadian system and put some money in the pockets of farmers by making use of some aspects of the American grain handling and transportation system as an alternative if the Canadian system just cannot cope?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Wascana was here in 2001-02.

To answer his question succinctly, yes, to the first part about open rail and no, to Judge Estey's piece. I know he wanted that clarification.

The open access piece is intriguing. Let me explain what that means exactly to the folks who are listening tonight. Has it been done anywhere else, because it sounds revolutionary? Bell Telephone and SaskTel do it. They have the telephone line, which they had to open up years ago. There is a carriage fee for it. It is not done for nothing. Railroads and telephones are not quite the same. Railroading is dangerous. Logistics are needed. It is not as easy as saying we would like to run a train down there.

To the second part of my colleague's question, I would first and foremost go to the short line in this country to see what it would be able to do for us, and then I would look to the American side to see if it could take some. It is an intriguing option and it needs to be looked at. It should be put on the table so that we can actually decide what is doable and workable. It is about finding a way to move this grain now rather than later.

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

Mr. Speaker, we are going to miss the hon. member for Welland on the agriculture committee.

The member and I agree on a lot of things. Our farmers do need to get their grain to markets. Farmers in my community have had bumper crops this year and their grain is sitting in bins and they are having trouble getting it to the market.

From the government perspective, the Minister of Agriculture has made it very clear that logistics are an issue. He has dedicated some money to fund a study of that, and not just an ongoing study.

We need answers to these problems. Canada is blessed with a bounty of natural resources and we need to be able to get them to port.

The member suggested that we should swing a stick. It is one thing to swing a stick but we need to be deliberate in how we do it and make sure it will serve a purpose. What are his recommendations to that effect?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his warm remarks and comments about my absence from the agriculture committee.

One always needs to be careful when one swings a stick. The two big railroaders in this country, CN and CP, basically have a duopoly. We allowed them to have that. We need to tell them that we might not let them have that duopoly any more.

The government and Parliament have the authority to tell them that they will no longer get to own this line or that line, that we are going to open them up to the United States if it wants to run down those lines. We could set regulations and charge a fee. The government does not always like regulations, and I understand that, but neither does business. I am sure my colleagues on the other side of the House understand that when business is threatened with regulations, it sometimes acts accordingly.

I would remind the government about some of the comments it made to the cellular folks last year to try to generate competition. You used a stick. You might find it helpful to get that stick back out.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Before we go to another question, I would just remind all hon. members to direct their comments through the Chair. When you use the word “you”, you are referring to me, not your colleagues.

The hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I find it very disheartening to stand here today and ask a question on an issue that I am sure could have been avoided had the Canadian Wheat Board still been in place.

We see over and over again a government that has refused to take action on serious issues. We have seen that with the meat recall, and now we see it again with the grain producers.

Rail is important, and the government has refused to invest in rail, whether it be passenger rail or by acting on this particular issue.

I am wondering if my colleague could talk about the importance of rail all the way across, whether it be passenger rail or grain transportation, and how we need a government that is willing to lead to make sure that the negative impacts are not felt in our economy.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that the railroad has an iconic place in our history. It was the railroad that opened up this country, in the sense that there really were no roads to get across. People either went up a river or across a lake, and the railroad literally opened up the country.

We see it from that perspective. However, with VIA we see reduced service in New Brunswick. In my home region of Niagara, we do not have any VIA Rail service at all. It was cancelled. There are no trains from Niagara Falls to Toronto, or from Toronto airport, from which folks might want to go to Niagara Falls.

When sitting down and talking to the president of the Niagara Regional Tourism Board last year, I learned that the first question foreign-based travellers ask themselves after they have decided where they would like to go is whether there is a train. The thousands of offshore tourists who think of Niagara Falls, the wineries, and the casino as a destination ask, “What do you mean you don't have a train? If you don't have a train, we're not coming”.

We need to make the railroaders understand that not only does our economy depend on them and that they can help themselves, but that they can also help the greater economy. They need to get on with the business of doing that.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Welland talked a fair bit about the railways being part of the problem, but is there not another huge problem, and that is the grain companies?

Grain used to be shipped as Canadian Wheat Board grain and could move around Vancouver by a paper transaction to get to a certain elevator, but now the grain companies are targeting it to their own elevators so they can profit from the demurrage in handling fees.

As a result, when the railways deliver a unit train of grain now to Vancouver, they have to break the train apart, whereas previously they did not have to do that. Grain cars are actually being used for storage of grain. Is that not part of the problem, the grain companies themselves and where they are allocating the cars?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would agree that is true. There is no question that there are issues with the grain companies themselves. In fact, at the agriculture committee before the winter recess, a question was posed to them about what would happen with these additional charges, because it is costing them. The answer from the grain companies that we heard was, “If you can get it from the railroad, we will give it back to farmers”.

Clearly, the grain companies are saying that farmers are on their own. They will not fight for them. They will not stand up for them. The railroad will not give the money back. At the end of the day, farmers will be out of pocket from these additional charges.

The coordination between the elevator companies and the ports is off. That is why, as I mentioned earlier, the gentleman from the Port Authority of Vancouver said, “We are literally shovelling ships up and down the berth to simply load them part way and then let them go out, and load them part way again and then bring in some other ship”.

Clearly, it is an inefficient system. It needs to be rectified now.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to highlight just how important the agriculture sector is to Canada. There is some $47.8 billion in exports coming out of the agriculture sector. It is 8% of our GDP and one in eight jobs is created in the agriculture field.

Canada has a world-class grain industry. It is a strong driver of the economy and jobs on its own, with over $21 billion in exports. Close to half of our total agriculture and food exports—pulses, wheats, canola, barley, flax, corn, soybeans, and many more grains—grow our economy and jobs. That is why our government is working hard with the industry to modernize Canada's grain industry. We have delivered on our commitment to bring marketing freedom to western wheat and barley growers, and over the first 18 months of open markets we have seen record foreign incomes with strong balance sheets, two million new acres of wheat, wheat cash receipts up by a third, and wheat exports up by close to 20%.

Another key part of our grain modernization agenda is to reform the Canadian Grain Commission. Building on our first round of reforms, we are looking at streamlining the variety registration system, updating plant breeders' rights legislation, and promoting a practical approach and a low-level presence of genetically modified content in our grain shipments.

We are continuing our strong focus on innovation and investing in over $73 billion in research clusters and projects on grains, oilseeds, and specialty crops and, of course, we continue to lock in new markets for our grain producers through trade missions and free trade agreements. We continue to work hard to get the new Canada-European Union trade agreement out the gate. That will open up the world's largest market to our grain producers, eliminating tariffs on wheat, pulses, flowers and canola oil, tariffs that could be up to $120 to $130 a tonne on wheat and oats, for example.

Industry is estimating there will be new grains and oilseeds opportunities in Europe of $100 million a year coming out of this historic agreement. Therefore, the future is bright. This year we are coming off of a record grain crop. Canada is up by close to 20 million metric tonnes from last year. At the same time, the global demand for grains is projected to grow by a billion tonnes over the next four decades.

Of course, we all know the large crop is presenting considerable challenges. Farmers across the west are facing major difficulties in getting their bumper crops to market, from the farm gate to the ocean port. They are depending on an efficient, effective, reliable rail service to move these crops off the farm to customers in Canada and around the world.

It is important that we take a step back and look at this crop year to put in chronological perspective what has been going on in the grain belt in Saskatchewan. Last May was a late seeding and planting season. Farmers were very concerned that they were not even going to get their crops in. In fact, I received phone calls from farmers who were concerned that they would not get their crops in the ground and did not know how they were going to handle their cash flows throughout the summer if they did not.

It turned into great growing conditions, a great summer. Of course, Saskatchewan always has good summers, and I would encourage everyone here to come visit this summer. There are great lakes, and there is great golfing, and everything else. There was also a great growing season in Saskatchewan. In the fall, farmers were looking at their bins, looking at their combines and smiling. They were harvesting. Some of the guys were taking the wheat right off the combine. In fact, I know one farmer who delivered 50 semi-loads of wheat off the combine, something he could never do under the Canadian Wheat Board system.

I think farmers started to realize just how big this crop was and started to understand that it was amazing. We are starting to see crop yields, for example, in canola of 65 bushels an acre. It used to be, when I was farming—and I know the member for Red Deer would agree—that if farmers said they got a 40-bushel crop, it was pretty good. If they said they got a 50-bushel crop, people would look at them a little cross-eyed and say they were feeding people a line. If they said they were getting 65 bushels, people thought they were crazy.

This last year, more farmers told me they got 65-bushel to 70-bushel canola crops. The reason is the genetics they are getting thanks in part to the funding this government has given to plant breeders and through the different growing associations to help them select the proper traits and get the proper seeds and genetics in the ground so they can get these high-yielding crops.

Farmers had this great crop. In October and November, the rail system seemed to be functioning fairly normally and looked like it was moving. In December, it all fell apart. In January, it got even worse. We know it is cold in December and January, but we are used to working in the cold. There are a lot of guys who work in the oil patch in -30° or -40° weather all the time. Cold definitely could be a factor for sure if safety is an issue, but the reality is that we are used to shipping and doing stuff in the cold.

What was happening was that the system was starting to show the strain coming upon it. The system could not handle the increasing growth in western Canada. It could not handle the grain, it could not handle the potash, it could not handle the coal, and then it started to ship oil. Oil capacity also increased over this time, which our speaker from the NDP, the agriculture critic, highlighted quite correctly.

It is ironic that the NDP are complaining about oil, when if we wanted to help capacity on the rail, we could put the oil in a pipeline where it belongs. The NDP should support the Keystone and gateway pipelines, which would free that capacity up so we could ship more grain and more products from the Prairies to the west coast.

This is conundrum that we are dealing with. This is the kind of scenario that I was dealing with when talking to farmers in October and November. A couple of things were happening in October. Farmers who were contracting throughout the summer were hedging on locking in the prices. They would go to deliver that contract, and the grain company would say, “Well, wait a minute. The rail did not show up. There are no cars. We did not get our cars this week, so we cannot take delivery of grain. We are going to have push your contract until next month because we cannot take delivery of that product”.

The farmer is sitting there. He has told his banker about the contract. The banker knows about it. The farmer has his cash all figured out. He is going to pay his bills based on the terms of the contracts being honoured. However, when the rail does not show up, what does he do?

When I farmed, I can remember this scenario happening many times. The rail would phone ahead and say they were going to have cars showing up on Friday and that the grain company would have to load them over the weekend so they could be picked up on Monday. In fact, I had a scenario on my own farm where we loaded about six Super Bs on a Saturday and shipped them 200 miles to an elevator. I had them there on Monday morning at eight o'clock, only to find there was no capacity because the train did not show up. Then what do you do?

I know our members talked about the Canadian Wheat Board and how it would be the saving grace for this scenario. The reality is that it would make it worse. Let us look at what is going on in the rail freight system at this point, and I will use the example of oats. Oats does not belong to the Canadian Wheat Board. Right now, oats going to the United States is well behind where it needs to be. The mills in the United States are screaming for Canadian oats, and farmers have some of the best oats in the world. What is going on? The rail is not delivering our oats. It is amazing.

It is oats. It is non-board crops. It is coal. It is a variety of things that are affected by the lack of rail service we are seeing from CN and CP. That is affecting the economy of Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba. We need that rail to perform.

Let us look ahead and look at what is happening on the Prairies and at the growth that is happening in Saskatchewan and Alberta. I will use the example of the genetics and corn. It used to be that 10 or 15 years ago, if someone said they were going to grow corn in Saskatchewan, people would raise their eyebrows. I know the member for Red Deer would agree with me. They would say “Oh, you are nuts. You are not going to grow corn in Saskatchewan”.

However, the new genetics are lowering the heat units in corn. We are going to start growing corn in Saskatoon. That is very amazing. Corn is a nice crop to grow. It is high value. It is a good profit crop for farmers.

One of the problems with corn, though, is that it has four times the volume. Let us think about it. Where we are shipping one tonne of wheat right now, we are going to be shipping four tonnes of corn. How do we handle that?

I will give the minister credit. As this was happening and we started to recognize the problem of the rail not doing its job, what did the minister do? The first thing that the minister did was to bring all the players together, sit them down in a room, and ask what they were going to do to fix this. He put them together and asked what the problems were and how to fix them.

He sent them out to create solutions. They should find the solutions. It is the responsibility of CN and CP. The minister did his job. He put them in the room with grain growers and grain companies and asked them how we make this work. He said they had to get the farmers' grain shipped to market. That is the first thing that he did.

The second thing he did is that he went to the producer associations. He funded them, to the tune of $1.5 million from us and $1.5 million from them, to look at the future of transportation and what we needed to make sure we do not lose markets as we get new trade agreements, such as TPP and CETA, and agreements with Korea and other countries that may be coming down the road.

They are going to look at this in the future. They are not looking at it today. I do not want people to think that $3 million is supposed to solve this month's problem and next month's problem. It is meant to make sure we do not have the problem reappearing next year and the year after, and 5 years and 10 years down the road. It is to make sure a system is put in place that can handle the growth we are going to see in the grain sector. That growth is coming very rapidly.

Again, let us give the government credit; it is looking forward. It is saying there is a problem and bringing the players together to figure out how they can think through the situation to make sure the problem does not repeat itself going forward, and to make sure we have the proper capacity to handle the growth in the commodity sector in Saskatchewan.

It is a very wise and bold move, something that none of the opposition members, when they were in government, ever did. It is nothing that the NDP ever talked about. The NDP would want to take a fist, a hammer, and a sledge, saying, “We will go pound on the pipe and get some grain to the port”. That is not going to work.

The government has to work with the players. It has to have a reasonable approach about how to move more grain to port. The politics have to be put aside in order to focus on the problem.

It is interesting. As we look forward, I am very excited. I come from a province that is growing. I come from a province that was a have-not province. It came under all sorts of nationalization in the 1970s, with potash. It chased away business investment. It was a province where our kids would have to leave in order to get a job. Now my province is totally the opposite. I am in a province where the potash sector is growing like crazy. The province is taking all our kids back from Alberta, from B.C., and Ontario, because we need them. We will take many more. We will take immigrants from the Philippines, because we need people. Our biggest hindrance to growth in Saskatchewan is people.

With all this growth and all that is happening, if we do not see growth in our rail sector and our transportation and logistics, it is for not. With all these trade deals that we are doing to allow our farmers to access higher value markets, if we cannot get to market in a timely and accurate fashion, they are no good. We need to have this vision in our transportation system. That is one thing that, again, I give the minister credit for. We needed to see some visibility in what they can actually do.

I spoke before about the grain companies taking contracts for October and November. To be fair to them, they have no clue about what each other is doing. I might take a hundred tonnes, and the member for Red Deer takes a hundred tonnes, and then the member for Calgary is going to take a hundred tonnes, but the rail system may only be able to handle 150 tonnes. However, all of us expect to ship all that grain in one month. Therefore, what we need to do is put some visibility and some monitoring in place so we can see what is going on in the rail system. We need to know when we are making out that contract that it is a reasonable timeframe to deliver in or that the capacity is full and it has to be moved into the next month.

Those are the types of things that the minister has been working on, and I give him credit. He introduced some monitoring announcements today in Saskatchewan, again, giving us visibility so we can understand what the problem is and address the bottlenecks to move forward with something that works for everyone in the shipping sector.

It is interesting when members talk about the changes in Canadian Wheat Board. I know exactly what the Canadian Wheat Board would have done in this scenario with a record crop. The member for Malpeque also knows what it would have done. If a farmer had theoretically contracted a hundred tonnes of crop to the Wheat Board, it would have taken four tonnes and shipped it. It would have said, “The rest of the grain is yours, Mr. Farmer. You can carry it until next year or the year after. I know it is nice, hard, great durum, and it looks really beautiful, and I know that in Italy it is worth $9 a bushel. But you can sell it in feedlot alley in Lethbridge because we don't want to sell it for you”. That is what the Wheat Board did.

There is another thing that is interesting with the Wheat Board being gone. In talking to farmers, a lot of them are very tech savvy. If one were to go on Twitter with a lot of farmers, they are using it to market their grain. For example, if they see a price across the line in North Dakota or Montana, they are taking advantage of that. They are putting it on Twitter and comparing that with each other. They are looking for logistics and alternatives, which they could never have done with the Canadian Wheat Board. They would not have had those options of looking for other alternatives for markets.

There is another thing that we need to look at as we go forward and we increase our production capacity in the Prairies with higher yields. We need to create an environment so we are processing more of that product. We need to make that product into other things rather than shipping the raw goods. We need to have a strategy on how we are going to move forward on that. The reality is, if we want good competition for rail, put it in a cow, or a pig, or bread, or put it into something that is manufactured. That is great competition for rail. Domestic processing makes a lot of sense, and we need to figure out a strategy and move forward on that. I know the minister is talking about that right now.

As we look back at this year, one thing that has to be stated very clearly is that CN and CP have dropped the ball. We can blame the weather. We can look at other issues around CN and CP, but there is no question about it. They have not read the market right in Saskatchewan about what is going on in western Canada. As the NDP agriculture critic stated, if they are dropping locomotives and cars, they obviously do not have proper vision on what they are going to require for moving our product to port in the upcoming years. That is why the service level review that is coming up in 2015 is going to be so important. That review will look at what is happening right here and now, and that will be a factor in the outcome of that review in 2015. We need to make sure in that review that the railways are held even more accountable for what they have done this last year because it has cost farmers a lot of money.

The impact has been very severe. I will give a few examples. I was talking to a guy by the name of Chad Doerksen. The base price on his oats is too high. He ordered 90 producer cars to ship his oats into the U.S. The producer cars are sitting in the CN's yard in Saskatoon and he only has 13 of them so far. Another example is a farmer from Melfort who was supposed to load 70 producer cars. The producer cars were actually on the next spur and he could not load them because he was not on the right spur.

Those are the types of idiocies we are seeing from CN and CP that need to be corrected, and it is up to the railways to correct that. They have to understand what the waiting is costing that farmer. Time is money. While they think that extending the shipping season over two years might be great for shareholders, it does not work at the farm gate. We have to make sure that stops and does not move forward.

In summary, there are a lot of things we could talk about in regard to changes in the agricultural sector, but there are more people wanting to be farmers today than there has been at any time in history. There are some challenges. There are some growing pains. However, in the same breath, this is a vibrant industry that sees a lot of opportunity.

Talking to hog producers this year, with CETA coming into effect in the next year or so, one of the producers said that finally in the hog sector there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It is so important that they get market access for our hogs. Farmers are excited about it. They see some future in it.

If we look at where the beef sector was four years ago and where it is today, and we look at the price of cows and calves and meat, the minister has been very aggressive in opening up markets around the world. It is very interesting that the markets he is opening are very different, but it works very well for Canadian beef producers. Some parts of the world like tongues, hooves, and different parts of the animals, where another part of the world wants steaks and ribs and short ribs. For example, Japan has basically taken all the short ribs we can produce because they like our beef.

We have lots of opportunities, and I give the minister credit because he has been very aggressive in recognizing the importance of trade to the agriculture sector. We are a trading nation. We grow more than we can ever consume in Canada. We need to make sure we can get that product to port, so we need effective rail from CN and CP.

In closing, I want to commend the minister for all the work he has done. He has had many long days working with farmers, with the industry, and with the railways to ensure we get some answers and some movement on that. I know we will see some success as we move forward, but just like anything else, it will take some time.

The sector is strong. Farmers are vibrant. We will move on and get through this. We also know that what we look back on was something that was far worse.