Transport committee  I'm with the grain industry, so I'm not very familiar with coal terminals. I've not heard of coal terminals being converted to be used for grain. I'm really out of my element. I don't think I can answer that question right here on the spot without doing some research.

Transport committee  I guess we draw a differentiation. There's a chain of relationship between terminals and their employees, and terminals and the port. There isn't, necessarily, a direct linkage between the unions and the port itself. Maybe I'm wrong about that. That was an immediate and initial

Transport committee  That's a good question. I don't really know how to answer that question. I can tell you that our primary concern is the increase of having seats on the board that represent local interests primarily. That's where our concern is focused. We haven't considered the question you're a

Transport committee  Definitely, but I don't have the numbers in front of me. Not only grain but much of the product—especially the bulk product—that goes through the port of Vancouver originates in the three prairie provinces, and some in B.C. as well. When we're taking a look at governance of the p

Transport committee  Ports are there for the national interest. That needs to be maintained. With this change, there's too much of a local focus.

Transport committee  I would first point out that most other major ports in the world have direct users sitting on their boards of directors. They seem to work well, because those who use the port are the ones who know best about operating the port and the decisions that need to be made. Are you goin

Transport committee  No, I wouldn't. The users are employees of grain companies and terminals. In other sectors, it's the same thing. There's a collective bargaining process to address those types of issues when it comes to employment. The terminals themselves are the drivers of the economy. They'r

Transport committee  In principle, we do have a concern. We've had some major disputes with the port on some cost items. I can't speak specifically to Global Container's comments, but I can say that.... For example, the letters patent of the Vancouver port authority require it to set rents based on

Transport committee  Bill C-33 doesn't include dispute resolution with the port authority, so it doesn't. It's a bit of a stretch for us to say that there is proper dispute resolution in the rail sector, because if there was, we wouldn't have the rail problems we have today. We are definitely pursui

Transport committee  The primary example of that we have is Roberts Bank T2 and the fact that it was developed without a proponent. It was the port authority itself that made the decision that it needed to develop T2 Roberts Bank and to incur costs associated with that. Infrastructure is required to

Transport committee  We don't see that in this bill. What we see is legislation that intends on addressing symptoms rather than root causes. We have, for many years, been advocating for improvements to the Canada Transportation Act to create an environment where you have more of a balance between r

Transport committee  Thanks for that. I wanted to talk about blockades and work stoppages. The one positive note we have about the bill is the proposed amendment to section 107, which gives the minister the power to direct a port to stop unsafe activities. That relates, we think, to blockades. That

Transport committee  I wouldn't agree with that. The impact is that we're replacing a.... When grain terminals receive grain from railcars, we don't necessarily know which train is showing up when, so they need to be nimble in their ability to manage vessel traffic in order to get those trains unload

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. The Western Grain Elevator Association is a national association of grain companies. We handle in excess of 90% of Canada's bulk grain shipments. Today, I'll highlight our views and observations on Bill C-33 in the context of th

Transport committee  Those are all awesome questions, and I don't know the answer to any of them. We've never been against a reasonable rate of return to the railways for proper investment in the system. The devil is in the detail on those types of things. We would want to spend a lot of time working