Agriculture committee  Good morning. Thank you very much for this invitation to appear and discuss aspects of the supply chain. The Canadian National Millers Association is a national industry association representing millers of wheat, rye, and oats, principally, with small quantities of other cereal

Transport committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear. It's greatly appreciated. We are very happy to be here after requesting to be here. The Canadian National Millers Association is Canada's national not-for-profit industry association representing the cereal grain milling industr

Transport committee  I think the amendments that have been proposed by the major grain supply chain stakeholders have been very carefully considered based on a great deal of experience. I believe they are worthy, have merit, will improve the efficiency and the responsiveness of the system, and speak

Transport committee  Just a quick comment. Trucking is not an alternative to moving grains out of Prairie provinces into processing facilities anywhere else in Canada. It's impractical for reasons of costs, in addition to those of logistics.

Transport committee  The just-in-time delivery aspect takes place at the milling and beyond stage. Before that stage there is some latitude in milling establishments, provided that the pipeline or the flow of grain is continuous and as anticipated. The milling industry can't deliver just-in-time if t

Transport committee  I would add that growers have spoken today about the future, and the future for producers of all crops including wheat is that the crop genetics and agricultural practices will see a continuous line of growth in the commodities that need to be moved. In contrast, we're not goin

Transport committee  I'll try to take as little time as possible. Essentially, in order to serve customers in the milling industry well, you don't need just one type of wheat of a particular origin, you need a number of them. You have to have an inventory of all of those at all times. You can't hav

Transport committee  To comment on long haul, it was a disappointment that the extended interswitching rates were not extended, and others have expressed that before this committee, I'm sure—I read a couple of the submissions. There has also been an observation that there is a prerequisite in order t

Transport committee  Frequent, no, but it's not unheard of, however. I think what you've touched on is very important. We're going to have a bumper crop every year from now on, and we're going to have weird winters a lot more often than we've had them in the past, based on our experience of recent ye

Transport committee  Very few, in fact. I can't think of a case in point. Most milling establishments that are of some age have been situated predominantly close to the populations as opposed to in rural parts of the country. The majority of milling capacity is close to the population in the eastern

Transport committee  Are you talking to me?

Transport committee  Railways used to own milling companies and big milling companies. I have just come from our annual conference from a hotel that used to also be held in part by railways. Those integrations were gone decades and decades ago. We have just had a meeting for the first time in my 28

Agriculture committee  Thank you. Last week before the transport committee I spoke about just-in-time delivery. My apologies for being, almost, quite late. Thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee. To date, our association has not prepared a formal submission. My comments today a

Agriculture committee  Practice is always important. Go ahead, please.

Agriculture committee  Nationally, the industry has about 53 milling establishments. I should have said that the companies mill wheat, oats, and barley into wheat flour and other mill wheat products like oatmeal. Of the 53, our members account for 29 or 30 establishments. The other 23 are typically ver