Mr. Speaker, in the fall of 2016 of the Liberal mandate, the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities undertook a study of Bill C-30 and held a number of meetings on the merits of these measures and whether they should be allowed to sunset. The vast majority of the testimony heard was supportive of maintaining the 160-kilometre regulated interswitching limit. That is why the committee's first recommendation was the following:
That the Canadian Transportation Agency retain the flexibility provided under the Canada Transportation Act by the Fair Rail For Grain Farmers Act to set interswitching distances up to 160 km, in order to maintain a more competitive operating environment for rail shippers with direct access to only one railway company.
The current government ignored the committee's main recommendation. Basically, what the government is proposing with this new legislation is to replace 160-kilometre extended interswitching with the creation of a new long-haul interswitching on hauls of up to 1200 kilometres or up to 50% of the length of the entire haul. Shippers would be charged the regulated interswitching rate for the first 30 kilometres of the haul and then a rate determined by the Canada Transportation Agency, which would be determined on a case-by-case basis based on the price of a similar haul for the remainder of the distance to the interswitch point. Shippers would only be able to interswitch at the first available interswitch point within the zone. What the government has done is effectively taken a little-used existing remedy called a competitive line rate and renamed it long-haul interswitching.
When Bill C-30 was first introduced, there was universal support among shippers for the extended interswitching. The recommendation from stakeholders was to retain the interswitching distances up to 160 kilometres in order to maintain a more competitive operating environment for rail shippers with direct access to only one rail company. Again, the Liberals went through the motions of appearing to consult, and once again deaf ears prevailed.
To make up lost time and opportunity, the transport committee began special hearings on Bill C-49 in the week prior to the House's return from its summer recess. A total of 44 hours of testimony from dozens of stakeholders and expert witnesses was heard in each of the sectors touched by Bill C-49. Also on record are briefs and letters consisting of thousands of pages of data with more than 100 suggested technical amendments from those whose lives and livelihoods would be affected by this bill. From these incredible witnesses, there was unanimous agreement that Bill C-49 was a good start and that, if their suggested amendments were made, the bill would actually accomplish its stated objectives.
After only giving two weeks to review this mountain of information, the Liberal members of the transport committee defeated more than two dozen reasonable technical amendments. Again, these amendments were suggested by a wide range of stakeholders and experts and were written to make the act a workable solution for all involved.
Once again, the Liberals have a skewed definition of consultation—in other words, they pretend to listen and then blah blah blah—and prove again that it is only a buzzword that they used to get elected. With the introduction of long-haul interswitching, the Liberals sought to create their own solution to a problem that had already been addressed with a reasonable Conservative solution. In the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act, the previous Conservative government created a regime of extended interswitching that worked so well in the prairie provinces that shippers of all kinds from across Canada requested that it be extended to the entire country. Instead, the Liberals are committed to their complicated, inefficient long-haul interswitching regime that has such poor conception and so many exceptions that it would be basically useless to many shippers.
For example, a minor technical amendment proposed by both Conservative and NDP members of the committee would have changed the wording of the provision to allow the first interchange point to be in the reasonable direction of the shippers' destination. Under the legislation as it is, shippers may have to send their products potentially hundreds of kilometres in the wrong direction to reach the nearest interchange point, increasing their costs.
What happened to this very reasonable amendment? The Liberals defeated it. They ignored the advice and recommendations of even the the most competent, experienced, and concerned Canadians in regard to extended shipping lines.
Canadians have been ignored by this Liberal government. The laudable and credible efforts of Canadians to contribute in meaningful ways to improving the weaknesses of the Liberal legislation have again fallen on the deaf ears of the government.