Agriculture committee  In my part of the world, the farmers are already hauling huge distances. Some farmers are already hauling four hours one way to get to the high-throughput elevators. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your question, but if you start building the elevator....

Agriculture committee  Further to that, if the plan was 5,000 cars a week, the elevators buy grain to their expected level of service. They're only buying grain from the farmers up to what they can expect to ship. They're doing that, as far as I understand, based on their agreements with the rail compa

Agriculture committee  It's not really a conversation with my accountant. I took 2013-14 and saw how long the contracts got pushed back. From past experiences, I know that our service in the Peace Country can be pretty terrible. We can be the last that are cleaned out. I just don't leave risk on the ta

Agriculture committee  I think that if we can pass this bill with the amendments that we're pretty much recommending as a supply chain, we can go a long way toward fixing the problem. I sure don't want to be coming back here in four years. I was here in 2013-14. I learned those lessons really well, an

Agriculture committee  As well, we need to have other companies pick up the slack if the one company isn't performing. We think the competitiveness in the interswitch amendment is a big deal. It could really help this legislation work the way it's intended.

Agriculture committee  It was covered in a lot of the other talks. It's the reciprocal penalties and the interswitching.

Agriculture committee  It's stressful. It's really stressful, especially in the light that we.... I learned my lessons really hard in 2013-14. I planned my sales. I generally sell the vast majority of my crop in October, November, and December, in anticipation of moving it by March. I have to plan fo

Agriculture committee  We're in constant contact with our elevator agents and each other. I have a whole bunch of friends on Messenger, and we talk multiple times a day. We talk a heck of a lot about this, about the commissions, the press releases, the surveys. This is how we get paid, so it's a signif

Agriculture committee  I think Daryl is right. I don't think you can save this season. I don't think something like an order in council would necessarily be the way to go. There was talk about infrastructure spending earlier on today. If you want to spend money on infrastructure, send us down those r

Agriculture committee  Our priority is to ensure the ultimate passage of Bill C-49 in order to help correct the imbalance between the market power of the railways and shippers, and we would strongly advocate for the deficiencies in long-haul interswitching to be addressed.

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to appear today. My name is Warren Sekulic. I'm a director with the Alberta Wheat Commission. I'm a fourth-generation farmer in northern Alberta, and we will actually celebrate 90 years next year. I am here