That the House do now adjourn.
He said: I would first like to thank the Speaker for allowing me to bring this grain crisis to floor of the House of Commons tonight.
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for this evening.
Over the next four and a half hours, farmers and their families will be watching MPs debate the crisis they are facing, and the money they are losing. I am hoping that many other Canadians will also be watching, so that they can have an understanding of the crisis at hand on the prairies. We hope that following this debate tonight that we can see more action from the government.
We have been hearing from many farmers and farm groups from across the country of the frustration they are facing with delays in shipping and the money they are losing.
This last fall, in November, I visited Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. I witnessed firsthand the mountains of wheat, canola, and other crops that were building up outside of the grain elevators. I have seen the grain stored, not only in the elevators, but in machinery sheds and under tarpaulins.
At that time, many were very optimistic. The crop was good. The prices were good. They had customers. What more could one ask for?
I recall visiting Curtis McRae's farm in St. Andrews, Manitoba. He had over 30,000 bushels of wheat and 30,000 bushels of canola on his 5,000-acre farm; and it was a very impressive farm at that. He said that the local elevator was not taking any grain, as it was waiting for 600 cars to move the crop already at hand. That is just one example of the many thousands that we are seeing right across the prairies.
As a result, the prices started dropping. The prices have now dropped 40%. The problem is that there is no cost-benefit analysis and no business plan to manage the implementation of transportation. The even defended the railroad last fall, stating that the grain companies' performance was adequate. It clearly was not.
Promises were also made by the minister to bring forward new legislation to rectify the imbalance in the market power between the farmers and the railroads, to enable shippers to get a decent level of transportation service. Federal legislation introduced last June, the Fair Rail Freight Service Act, was supposed to deal with this situation. Well, it has not worked.
Many prairie farmers agree that the legislation needs to be amended to make it easier to hit the railroad companies with fines over these transportation bottlenecks. The current act is not effective.
We have to realize that over 95% of Canada's export grain is shipped by rail. Canada is the top canola producer in the world and the second largest exporter of wheat. We had over 100 million tonnes of crop out west this year. What a bonanza and opportunity we could have had, and there were customers for the crop.
When we look at the nation's two major carriers, CNR and Canadian Pacific, they say they are each providing 5,000 cars a week, and one is at 5,500 cars, to move the grain. However, that is not even half as much as we need.
Not only do we see this on the prairies with the railroads, there were 20 big ships waiting for grain in Vancouver and 5 ships waiting at Prince Rupert, the two grain terminals on the west coast, and that was on October 31. Today, there are between 30 and 40 vessels waiting to be loaded in Vancouver alone.
We can see that there is a big problem. We have the crop. We have the customers. We have the ships. However, it is just not getting there.
Ships have been idling for as long as six weeks in Vancouver, waiting for grain. It costs $12,000 to $20,000 every day in demurrage penalties. Who is going to pay for that?
I was talking to a farmer yesterday from Saskatchewan, and it is going to come right out of the farmer's pocket. That is who will end up paying for these delays.
Canadian-based grain companies have been charged more than $20 million in fees for delays at the port of Vancouver since August, according to the Western Grain Elevator Association. Some grain companies have sales for China, but they are not able to transport all their grain.
What has happened? What are all of the rail services being utilized for? They are being utilized for crude oil, potash, and other products. They are getting priority. The grain farmers are not, though, because there is no watchdog over the whole system. This is leaving as much as 3 million tonnes of grain stuck in the Prairies.
Canadian railroads shipped 34% more cars of fuel, oil, and crude petroleum in October. They are shipping more products than in the year before.
CP Rail reported a 19,900-car shortfall, according to a January service report. Outstanding grain car orders for CN totalled over 17,000, according to the January 17 report.
Let us look at some of the prices. Less than a year ago, wheat was selling for $9 a bushel; now, farmers are getting less than $4 for the same quality of wheat. That is less than half the price. The fuel costs are all the same, the seed prices are all the same, and the fertilizer prices are all the same, but let us look at the prices the farmers are getting—and those prices are only if they can sell it and get it to their customers.
The problem is not a lack of a competitive transportation system, but that the grain is in competition, as I said, not only with oil but also with potash and coal. These are other commodities that are taking up the rail space. They accounted for 54,000 cars in November. That is a big increase from the year before.
We have a loaded rail cars waiting at the elevators for up to 11 days. Then we have the demurrage fees, which I have already talked about, adding up to $20 million.
We look at all of these losses. What do they add up to? We are figuring out now that they add up to $1 million a day, all of which will come out of the farmers' pockets. Overall, they are losing $1 million a day. What does the minister do? He throws $1 million at the whole project for a study. It does not take much of a study when we call these growers from all across the country.
Let us have a look at some of the farm leaders across the country and some of the newspapers that we get in the Prairies. I will name a few of the farm leaders. I will quote what they say in some of the articles.
The first one comes right out of the Canadian Press. This gentleman is from Keystone Agricultural Producers. My colleague knows very well that it is the biggest agricultural organization in Manitoba. The article says:
Doug Chorney of Keystone Agricultural Producers said the backlog is so bad that mountains of wheat and other crops are building up outside jammed grain elevators.
As prices fall, farmers are wondering what good a record bumper crop is to them if they can't get it to market.
“There is grain in piles across Western Canada”, Chorney said from Brandon, Man. “This creates big cash-flow problems for farmers. We all have bills to pay”.
The minister came out and said that the government will give the farmers a small advance payment. The farmers have all these piles of grain, and the government is going to give them an advance payment. That has to be paid back. It is only going to be paid back if they sell their grain. I do not know where the rationale is, and I do not think that farmers feel any more confident.
That is in Manitoba. Let us move over to Saskatchewan.
Norm Hall is the President of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan. I will quote from the newspaper what he said about the legislation that the Conservatives brought forward in June:
Norm Hall, president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, said the Fair Rail Freight Service Act is just not effective.
He said the legislation needs to be amended to make it easier to hit railway companies with fines over transportation bottlenecks.
“There are no teeth...to make sure that it happens”, Hall said.
The legislation does include a provision for possible penalties of up to $100,000, but only if a government arbitrator decides a signed service agreement between a shipping company and a railway has been violated.
What is that going to do to make the rail service accountable?
That was out of Saskatchewan.
The Conservative members from Saskatchewan or the Prairies must have had an earful when they went home and were at the curling rink or hockey rinks over the last few weeks. It must be a hard go for them. However, there are answers and there are solutions out there.
Let me move over to Alberta.
Lynn Jacobson, president of—
:
Mr. Speaker, it is really important that we recognize the simple fact that Canada has the best wheat in the world, yet throughout the Prairies there is wheat sitting in bins. There is wheat covered by light plastic sitting in fields. Let us imagine the frustration of the farmer in the Prairies today, who has poured his heart and soul into producing the best wheat in the world, but the Government of Canada has not done enough to ensure that the wheat moves out of the Prairies to the west coast, where we have dozens of empty ships ocean waiting to receive that Prairie wheat.
How do we describe the feelings of the farmers in rural Manitoba, Saskatchewan, or Alberta, given their efforts not only to produce wheat but to contribute immensely to the Prairie economy through the thousands of jobs, both direct and indirect? If we try to get an understanding of how the farmer has been impacted, we would get a better appreciation of the negligence of the government in not doing what it should have been doing.
What we are debating today should not be any surprise. We had wonderful crops last fall. It is no surprise that we needed to be able to get that wheat to the ports. What has the government been doing to address that issue?
My colleague said it offered just over $1 million. One could talk about falling short on that front, but the biggest failure is the government not recognizing early enough the need to deal with the transportation and handling issue. That has to be the biggest disappointment for the farmer today.
I have had the privilege of being born and living in the Prairies. I go to the Prairies every weekend. It is my home. I have been on many different farms as a guest. I have been a passenger in some of the gigantic tractors. I remember driving down Highway 2 a couple of years ago late in the evening and seeing a sequence of 14 or 16 lights. It was combines working together to pull the wheat off the ground.
It is impressive to know that our product feeds many parts of this world. At one point or another, virtually any country that imports wheat has looked to Canada to provide it.
I can appreciate that the handling and transportation of wheat and other products are of critical importance and I do not claim to know all of the details of how that is managed. I look to individuals within my caucus, in particular my colleague from , who has time and time again raised this issue on behalf of the Liberal Party as the deputy leader. He is an individual who has served the Prairies, representing not only Saskatchewan but the Prairies as a whole to ensure we see the farmers' issues being brought to the House as often as possible.
Our former critics and the current critic are working with the . They have been saying that we need to bring this crisis to the floor in the form of an emergency debate. It does not happen very happen, where the Speaker acknowledges that what we have brought forward requires an emergency debate. We are pleased that via the Liberal Party critic we were able to bring this forward for debate tonight. At the very least, it is highlights how critically important it is that this issue be dealt with. It is a crisis. People do not have be in economic ivory towers to comprehend the situation and the degree in which intervention is needed.
We are looking to the government to come up with ideas. A Conservative member stood up and asked us for our ideas. I am looking forward to the government members coming forward and sharing their ideas. More importantly, I would like to hear what the government has done to date that should have prevented this from taking place. How is the government going to make amends to the farmers and others it has virtually destroyed?
It has been pointed out that there is a 30%, 40%, 50% loss of revenue. Those are incredible losses. Let us imagine having our own business that hit with a 30% to 60% loss of revenue, and the impact that is going to have. We already ask our farmers to work 7 days a week, 16 hours a day, especially at certain times of the year.
We are looking for the government to come up with ideas. The deputy leader of the Liberal Party has talked about the Fair Rail Freight Service Act. The Liberal Party has been talking about transportation for months, both inside and outside of Ottawa. We recognize the need has been there. My colleague made reference to the fact that he was out in the Prairies just last fall, talking about the piles of wheat that were accumulating back then. This should be no surprise.
We have to ask, why? Where has the government been? The government needs to start demonstrating that it really understand what is taking place and tell the farmers and others who are watching tonight exactly what it is prepared to do to resolve this issue.
A boat sits out in the Pacific Ocean, and every day it costs $15,000 for it to just sit there empty, waiting for the wheat. There is nothing like having a boat go into port, getting a partial deposit of wheat, and then having to go back out and wait for the same company to have another deposit delivered for transfer to the boat.
There is a coordinating element that has been lost. There is no doubt in my mind that some of the actions of the government have caused the problem. That is something I believe many farmers out west understand and will remember. They are watching what the government is doing.
The farmers on the Prairies are starting to lose confidence in the Conservative government in a significant way. We hope to continue to raise the issue, whether it is here inside the House or outside the House where the farmers are, in the prairie regions, and to talk and communicate.
The leader of the Liberal Party constantly tells us that he wants us to connect with Canadians. We are connecting with farmers and are going to continue to hammer home the message that the government needs to stand up and start taking responsibility and being more accountable to the farmers, especially on our Prairies. This is a time of need and we want the—
:
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.
[Translation]
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.
[English]
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 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.
:
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 and . 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 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 . 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 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.
:
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 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 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 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.
:
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on the urgent rail delay situation tonight, but I wish we were not here. I wish that we did not find ourselves here tonight with this problem of rail transport and all the delays. It is mind-blowing.
These lengthy delays and backlogs in rail transport have prevented thousands of landlocked western grain producers from getting their product to the market. Western farmers are coming out of a bumper crop without being able to move their product to the market. We need our railroad companies to be able to respond quickly to a bumper crop immediately after harvest. This will avoid the kinds of delays that we are seeing right now.
I have spoken to some farmers about the crisis and I am hearing that there are lot of things that are going wrong.
One, some farmers are telling me that grain shipments are not a high priority to rail companies, as oil, potash, and coal are. This is unacceptable. Rail companies cannot pick and choose their cargo. They are putting thousands of livelihoods at risk.
A farmer told me that his grain is not moving, but his neighbour's is. He explained that his neighbour had contracted a lower price with the rail company than he had, and therefore he was given a priority. If so, this is unacceptable as well.
Another farmer from Saskatchewan, Glenn Tait, talked about how the elevator companies are charging double the demurrage fees, and I quote:
The elevator companies will recoup demurrage charges from farmers by deducting this cost from grain prices.
When the Canadian Wheat Board looked after logistical matters, freight costs from the prairies to the western ports were in the range of $50 per tonne. Today, we are seeing costs of $100 per tonne or more deducted.
The total losses from demurrage alone so far are in the millions of dollars, money that will never be spent by prairie farmers or anywhere within the Canadian economy.
Western grain farmers are incredibly frustrated. They have done their part and have worked very hard to produce a bumper crop. Now they need the government to hold up its end of the bargain and get the railways moving.
We are in an emergency debate here tonight. All of this is because the government did not do its homework two years ago after it abolished the Wheat Board. It did not take the time to consider or develop a plan for transportation.
Back in 2011, the NDP warned the Conservatives that getting rid of the Wheat Board would mean putting an end to stability. For generations, farmers relied on the Wheat Board—
Mr. Pierre Lemieux: Dig that hole.
Ms. Ruth Ellen Brosseau: Mr. Speaker, I am not digging a hole. I am proud of it.
For generations, farmers relied on the Wheat Board to get the best possible price for their grain to support their families, but the government ignored the warnings from the NDP, other groups, and farmers themselves when they all went through this. The government refused to listen to the democratic wishes of prairie farmers, who voted in September 2011 to keep a single desk for their wheat and barley.
In the past, wheat farmers could depend on the Canadian Wheat Board to fight and to put pressure on the rail companies to get the grain to market. When the board had a monopoly on selling grain overseas, it also held considerable market influence. However, it is clear that smaller producers are being penalized under this new system as they carry less volume.
In a system that has to move around 400,000 grain cars in a year, there is absolutely no room for error or a shortfall when grain shipments are waiting at a cost of the thousands and thousands of dollars a day, a cost that is ultimately paid by farmers through a lower price for their product. We should be building up our agricultural sector, not penalizing it.
The suggested that farmers should be getting loans to tide them over. That is not very sound advice and threatens long-term financial health. This will only create another financial crisis in the future. Also, a five-year study on the source of the bottleneck is far too slow for producers, who need help right now.
I will mention that I will be splitting my time with the member for .
Kyle Friesen, from the Manitoba Pulse Growers Association, put it perfectly, and I quote:
We need to get the grain moving because many farmers may not be paid for last year's harvest until after spring planting.... This is already causing lost sales, things need to improve otherwise this will translate into a serious cash flow issue for farmers when they need to buy seed and inputs this spring.
Like every Canadian, grain producers have bills and loans due.
We need to do better to get the railways moving. Producers deserve better. This is obviously not an easy question to answer. There is no easy answer.
I urge the government to take action in a way that will help farmers' burdens now. The minister has pledged $1.5 million for a five-year transportation study. He has also committed to increasing the monitoring of rail companies. It is a good step. However, the minister needs to look at the issue closely. Both CP and CN have seen their grain revenues go up, even as the number of rail cars available to producers has decreased.
We are urging the government to increase pressure on rail companies, including with the implementation and enforcement of rail performance standards. It is clear that we need new communication protocols and consequences for non-performers when shipping deals are broken. We are also urging the government to ensure that export and vessel information is accessible to producers and that grain producers have fair access to rail infrastructure to move their product. The government also needs to develop a strategy for future rail service that accounts for sustained agricultural growth.
[Translation]
Grain producers across the country are frustrated by the difficulties they are having when it comes to transporting their crops. The problems they are experiencing are driving down the price of grain, and they are afraid they will not be able to transport their crops in the future.
Lynn Jacobson, president of the Alberta Federation of Agriculture, is asking shippers to increase their capacity in order to meet the demand. Farmers are afraid of being passed over in favour of other clients because of the price cap that the railway can impose on grain transportation. The problem is that the Conservative government got rid of the Canadian Wheat Board without coming up with a plan for shipping grain, even though that is something it could have avoided.
Now the is suggesting that farmers use cash advances and is proposing a five-year study on the source of the problem. What are farmers supposed to do in the meantime? Life goes on.
Like everyone else, Canada's grain producers have bills to pay and loan payments to make, and the banks will not wait for them. The government needs to take concrete action immediately to get meaningful results for farmers. The fact that hard-working farmers cannot ship their grain is completely unacceptable. It makes no sense.
We are urging the government to increase pressure on rail companies, including the implementation and enforcement of rail performance standards. We need a viable strategy for transporting grain by rail.
Farmers should not have to struggle with increasing prices. We need to take immediate action to find a solution and determine the root of the problem. Are oil shipments a factor? Why is there such a bottleneck? We need to find answers. Are the ports also playing a role in this issue?
The government has asked the railway companies to come up with solutions to deal with the backlog, but it does not plan on imposing penalties. Is the government going to just stand by and watch?
The Alberta Federation of Agriculture believes that railway companies prefer to do business with oil companies, not producers and farmers. CN responds that no oil is transported in the 5,500 cars reserved for grain each week. Everyone is passing the buck.
The NDP is urging the government to increase pressure on rail companies, including the implementation and enforcement of rail performance standards; ensure that vessel and export information is accessible to producers; ensure that grain producers have fair access to rail infrastructure in order to move their product; and develop a strategy for future rail service.
It is time to do something about this. The government could have prevented this from happening. Everyone has a role to play. It is not black and white. Tonight's debate is interesting and gives us an opportunity to learn things. We are sharing good ideas. I hope that we can soon resolve this situation, which is frustrating and painful for the farmers. They have worked so hard this year.
:
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to follow the deputy critic for the New Democrats. She does a fantastic job on behalf of our producers in Canada, and I wish to thank her for her remarks today.
It is my pleasure in the House as well to share my space with the NDP critic for agriculture. It is hard to follow in his stead, because he knows this subject very well.
I am a third generation prairie product, having been born in Edmonton, as were my parents, but back before that, all of our family were farm stock. We were proud farm producers, and I grew up visiting family farms with my father.
In my earlier career, when I ran the Environmental Law Centre, I was made an honorary member of the Preservation of Agricultural Land Association. I have felt absolutely obliged since to stand up, at any opportunity I have, on behalf of our producers. I am very proud of them. Despite how the government often speaks of how our gross domestic product is based on fossil fuels, our farm products, in fact, are a major part of the revenue of both this country and my province of Alberta.
At the outset, it is important to keep in mind that railroads are under federal jurisdiction. The government has a popular refrain. Any time we raise any issue in this House, whether it is education, health care, or the environment, the Conservatives say it is a provincial jurisdiction. This is one area where they absolutely cannot raise that defence. This is absolutely under federal jurisdiction, and the Conservatives have the power to act. It is up to the government to choose to intervene and to act, or not. To this point in time, a study has been proposed, but no specific action.
If I could remind the members of the House and those who are following the debate, to the credit of the Speaker, he agreed to the need for this emergency debate this evening, and that is because three million tonnes of wheat and canola are sitting stranded in the Prairies. We are told that railway congestion has resulted in millions of dollars in demurrage penalties for grain companies unable to load ships in a timely fashion. Many farmers have willing buyers and no way to deliver the product, so understandably, many grain producers are speaking out and are calling for action by the Government of Canada. That is why, as members of Parliament, we are standing up and echoing that sentiment and are asking the government to respond to those requests.
As my colleagues have mentioned, the government has taken a number of measures. It killed the Wheat Board, contrary to calls by many producers that they depended on the Wheat Board in exact situations like this to look after their interests. When those grains were pooled and could be delivered to any elevator, we could have avoided, at least partially, this problem.
The government also, of course, shut the gates on the prairie pastures. Why is that significant? It is because many of the prairies' small and medium farmers are having to sell off their herds, and they will be relying 100% on the grain crops. They are needing to get this grain to market all the more so they can afford to buy seed and plant the crops this spring, which is not that far off.
This is an emergency. The government has spoken loudly for other sectors. It has spent hundreds of millions of Canadian tax dollars trying to get export markets for our fossil fuels. Where is equal enthusiasm for this sector of our economy? They say that they will do a study, and maybe five years from now, they might have some ideas, and maybe they can take some action.
I do not really see equivalent action from the government in standing up for the agriculture sector. I hope from the debate today, we will see a little bit more action on exactly the kind of proposals the farmers have brought forward and that many reviews proposed, as I understand it, as far back as 2002.
The delay is not because of a failing of the producers. They have forwarded the contracts. The delay is because they simply cannot get the rail companies to deliver their product to the port. The reality is that producers are now receiving less than half the value under the agreed upon contracts.
This is really serious, because I have heard member after member from the other side stand up tonight and brag about the bumper crop this year. The bumper crop this year did not arise because we killed the Wheat Board. The bumper crop arose because of good growing conditions. I am told by the producers that Statistics Canada initially forecast a much lower crop.
However, they were able to—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Ms. Linda Duncan: It is okay, Mr. Speaker. I will try to speak above the heckling going on from the other side. They just do not want to hear the truth.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Ms. Linda Duncan: Mr. Speaker, I should know that they like to bully, particularly when the women stand to speak. Therefore, I will just continue speaking, because I am proud to stand up for the Prairie producers.
The reality is that the farmers are not receiving fair return on their product. There are a good number of measures that the government could be taking. As has been mentioned previously in the House by the NDP agriculture critic, the rail review report by Justice Estey, in 2002, recommended open access of rail lines, and a number of members this evening have spoken about that, encouraging the government to pursue that more thoroughly.
Of course, we are shipping our bitumen by rail through those lines, all the way to the United States. Why on earth can we not also be pursuing, with equal energy, the potential use of those lines to get our grain to market?
Other recommendations have been suggested tonight that have been recommended by many producers and others.
Previously, there were shared lines between CP and CN. Perhaps that is a solution.
There is potential for short lines. Obviously that means that other Canadian investors have to invest and get those lines up and going. I know that a number of former members from this House are working on exactly those kinds of lines and other ways to get grain product out.
Again, there is the potential use of U.S. lines.
One of the matters brought to my attention this evening was by Humphrey Banack, who is the vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. His concern is that there was a lot of a hullabaloo when the government passed its Fair Rail Freight Service Act in June 2013. That act was supposed to resolve the issue about negotiations between the producers and the shippers. Their concern is that the minister promised that he would resolve the matter of this dispute sometime back, and still they are waiting, yet all the minister has done is propose further studies. Therefore, they are calling upon the government to step up to the plate to deliver on those promises and actually establish a rotation process but ensure that penalties are imposed on the rail companies when they do not actually deliver on those contracts that are entered into. They say that has a significant impact on them.
They still remain optimistic. They are hoping, as a result of the emergency debate this evening, that the might move on that promise.
Again, absurdly, the government is standing and bragging about the bumper crop. This is part of the so-called problem. We have this bumper crop and, for whatever reason, the two major rail companies, CN and CP, are simply not providing the cars, even the number of cars they promised to provide, the initial lower estimates.
We need them to step up to the plate. We are proud of our grain growers and we want to make sure they not only get their crop there in time but that they get a fair price.
Disappointingly, this evening, we have heard, time after time, the government members saying the real culprits here are the unions. I defy the government members to tell us why it is the union members' fault that this product is not getting to market. I know that a good number of rail workers were let go. We know that there are far fewer rail cars now available, that the current president and CEO of CP has significantly reduced the number of cars available. We are also well aware—and this matter is being discussed in the House and well into the future—that there are many cars now being dedicated toward the shipping of bitumen. In fact, in Alberta, we are gearing up with two major terminals that are going to be providing 24-hour loading of bitumen to be shipped along lines.
This question arises: What is going on between the shipping of products such as potash and grain vis-à-vis the shipping of bitumen? Do we have an issue where the federal government should be intervening on behalf of our farm growers?
In closing, I would like to say that the government has been given a lot of options this evening on specific actions that could be taken. I know that the grain growers look forward to action on one or all of those.
I welcome questions.
:
Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity this evening to speak to this motion. It is important that the players in the grain transportation system explain, identify, and work with the government to improve our grain transportation system.
As I think everyone is aware, Parliament just returned from our winter break. One of the first items of business we undertook was establishing committees, including the agriculture committee. I am very pleased that I am now a member of that committee.
The member who brought forth this motion can be assured that it is a priority for committee members from our side to make sure we get to the bottom of this transportation backlog. We will be asking hard questions to principals in charge, in order to get some real answers to determine real solutions to a real logistics problem.
That having been said, and as my colleague from has mentioned, I am a grain farmer, although my wife does most of the work. I would like to explain a little about what it is like on the farm and give a bit of a farmer's side of the story.
We start off by seeding our grain in the spring. We are making decisions based on the situations we see in front of us. We are watching our crops grow. This year farmers knew that it was going to be a record crop. Decisions were then made about extra bins, grain storage bags, how much to store in the ground, and the amount to sell straight off the combine, either directly or with some fall contracts or other contracts that we would have throughout the year.
After they have secured safe winter storage for the grain they have, farmers look to the next off-farm opportunities to deliver. That means we do not want to be delivering in -40°, as we were often told to do under the previous system. Certainly, the other time we would be called to haul grain would be when the spring road bans were on or when we were trying to put our crops in.
Farmers recognize that, for cash flow, the other opportunities they have are agri-invest and also crop advance opportunities. We have heard comments about cash advances, but this is something that farmers have as a tool and the government has as a tool if farmers find that this particular situation that we have continues. The point is that we knew the yields, we analyzed the risks, and we took action.
The next part of the supply chain, during fall delivery, was a change of attitude on grain elevators, especially in Alberta. They made calls to organize daily delivery times, which was a lot different from normal practices, but it worked well as truckers hardly had to wait in line. In the past, they could be sitting for an hour when companies just gave a generic call to haul.
Obviously when the elevators are plugged, though, everything stops. As I said earlier, farmers make decisions on their part of the distribution system in conjunction with the grain industry.
Let us talk about the next part of the system. As those trains roll through the Prairies, did no one notice the bumper crops that existed? Where was the planning on the part of the rail companies? What coordination was there between the grain company sales, the rail company car spots, and the efficient ship-loading at the ports? These are questions that will be asked of those involved in the grain logistics system.
We will solve this problem. However, for now what I would like to do is speak about where Canada's grain industry is going. Canada's world-class grain industry is a strong driver of the economy and jobs. In 2012 Canada had its best export year on record for the agriculture and food industry. There was a new record, $47.7 billion. For 2013, we are likely going to approach $50 billion.
All of the top exporting sectors come from the Canadian grain industry: wheat, canola seed, canola oil, soybeans, and pulses. That is total exports of over $20 billion, driving jobs and growth across Canada.
Grain and oilseed farms account for the highest share of total Canadian farm asset values, representing over 44% of total Canadian farm assets, and account for about 60% of all farm cash receipts. To maintain this incredible momentum, the government has embarked on an ambitious plan to modernize Canada's grain sector, and the timing could not be better. We are coming off of a record harvest, global demand is growing, and the FAO estimates that the world will need a billion tonnes more of cereals over the next four decades.
To help meet this new demand, we have a new open market for wheat and barley in western Canada. The record harvest clearly demonstrates that the end of the old single desk two years ago has reinvigorated Canada's grain industry. In the second year of marketing freedom, farmers planted two million more acres of wheat, and I would be happy to talk about how important marketing freedom has been for our farm. Decisions are ours, and as I mentioned earlier, a dropped ball by CN and CP would hit just as hard or worse under the single-desk buyer. We would just be hearing excuses from them instead.
A Canadian Federation of Independent Business survey found that the vast majority of its ag members, over 80%, are positive about the impact of marketing freedom on their operations. This is why young farmers are coming back to the farm. They are making marketing decisions from the combine, and this is going to continue. Yes, bumper crops are now the new normal. A fellow farmer 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....
The person who said that was Gary Stanford, president of the Grain Growers of Canada.
That said, we understand farmers' frustration with a system not moving grain fast enough to keep up with the demand. The government has taken steps to improve the performance of the entire rail supply chain to help farmers get their crops to market. These include, if necessary, taking action to protect Canada's economy and grain farmers by introducing legislation to get CN Rail back on track if that issue does materialize, which we have heard some good news about tonight; investing $1.5 million in a Pulse 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 will create a process to establish service agreements; investing $25 million to support grain shipments through the Port of Churchill, which, of course, had record shipments this year; implementing marketing freedom for western Canadian wheat and barley growers, allowing decisions to be made by individuals, who now have a vested interest in all parts of their own operations.
The government is also working to help solve the challenges of the supply chain by bringing industry groups together through fora such as the commodity supply chain table, a crop logistics working group, and value chain round tables to facilitate comprehensive industry-led solutions that are suitable for all players. These are the people who have their finger on the pulse of the commodity supply chain.
We have further acted to respond to earlier recommendations of the crop logistics working group by pursuing enhancements to the grain monitoring program to improve the frequency of reporting, and committing to providing an ongoing forum for representatives across the industry to discuss improvement throughout the entire supply chain. This crop logistics working group was created to drive new efficiencies in the system, and we are already moving forward with some early recommendations. The working group provided a useful forum for industry to exchange views, build consensus on priority areas, and identify future opportunities to improve supply chain performance. Its work will complement the government-funded study of the grain supply chain, which will also identify ways to improve the efficiency and reliability of the system.
To bring more predictability and to clarify the system last year, the government passed the Fair Rail Freight Service Act. The act creates a process to establish service agreements and ultimately encourage commercial solutions between shippers and railways. Transport Canada has committed to establishing a commodity supply chain table where supply chain partners can discuss issues, including the grain sectors.
I would like to talk for a moment about the Canada-Europe free trade agreement, the comprehensive economic and trade agreement. The government will continue to work toward a modernized grain sector that has the tools to solve issues commercially and is well positioned to continue to drive the Canadian economy. The discussion this evening speaks to that as well.
A prime example is the historic trade agreement in principle between Canada and so many other countries, but specifically the European Union. Once this trade agreement is fully implemented our farmers and food processors will have virtually tariff-free access to half a billion consumers. This is a remarkable achievement when we consider that currently only 18% of EU agricultural tariffs are duty-free.
Our agriculture industry here in Canada will be the only one of all the G8 countries to have preferential access to the EU. As Grain Growers of Canada said recently, this trade agreement is opening up a new frontier for Canada's grain industry.
Our top three agri-food exports to the EU are soybeans, durum wheat, and non-durum wheat. Europe has a grain deficit when it comes to feedstocks, both for livestock and for the biofuels industry. So we really have the opportunity there to start shipping products to them.
The Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance is estimating there will be new grains and oilseed opportunities in Europe of $100 million a year. On wheat, tariffs of up to $122 a tonne will be gone once this deal is fully implemented. At a wheat yield of one tonne an acre, that is $122 an acre. On barley, tariffs of up to $120 a tonne will be gone once the deal is fully implemented. On processed pulses and grains, tariffs will disappear as well, and they start at over 7%. It is the same story as well with canola oil, whose tariffs now exceed 9%. Canola growers alone are looking at $90 million a year in new sales to Europe, including the biodiesel market. Our pulse producers are estimating a new market of up to a million tonnes in Europe for them to use as healthy ingredients in a whole range of processed foods. Of course, our pork and beef producers will also win with an estimated billion dollars a year in new sales, which is good news for our grain sector as well.
Let us talk about some of the great initiatives in agriculture that will help guide them. In terms of non-tariff barriers to trade, the agreement will establish mechanisms allowing Canada and the EU to address issues of importance to our agricultural exporters, such as technical and regulatory co-operation, promotion of efficient science-based approval processes, and co-operation on low-level presence of genetically modified crops.
The agreement also includes new mechanisms for preventing and resolving trade challenges related to plant health and food safety issues. The remains committed to developing a policy to manage low-level presence in grain, food, and beef, and we continue to work with our trading partners and domestic stakeholders to develop an approach that is predictable, flexible, transparent, and proactive.
Canada also launched a global LLP initiative via a group of 15 countries committed to developing international solutions to LLP, with the goal of minimizing trade disruptions. Likewise we remain committed to implementing UPOV '91, with a view to stimulating investments, innovation, and growth in the agricultural sector.
We are focused on international standards on maximum residue levels for pesticides, which can also act as a non-tariff trade barrier for Canadian exports.
The reform of the Canadian Wheat Board and European trade agreement, as significant as they are, have essentially launched us into an active agenda for modernized grain policy, expanding markets and moving the markers on innovation.
We are pushing ahead with our aggressive trade agenda in key markets like China, and through the trans-Pacific partnership, negotiations with Morocco, and the talks with some 50 other countries that are under way with key customers around the world.
The is also committed to continuing our modernization agenda around the Canadian Grain Commission, building on our first round of reforms.
We will also continue to focus on improving the supply chain through a number of initiatives, including encouraging Transport Canada to convene the promised supply chain round table to squeeze inefficiencies out of the supply chain.
Our strong innovation continues. Under Growing Forward 2, we are investing over $70 million in grains, oilseed, and special crop research clusters and projects. That includes the wheat cluster, backed by shared government-industry funding of over $25 million. All of the clusters continue to do a tremendous job of bringing everyone to the table to set common directions and achieve common goals.
There is also the $97 million Canadian Wheat Alliance . The alliance is a five-year partnership with the University of Saskatchewan and the National Research Council to develop elite new wheat varieties. The goal is to kick-start wheat yields by an estimated 10 bushels an acre, increasing producer revenues by close to $5 billion over the next two decades.
As we have learned from the clusters, collaboration is key to moving the yardsticks forward on innovation. Ensuring that farmers continue to have the latest tools at their disposal will take greater emphasis on public-private collaboration and value chain partnerships, such as what we are discussing tonight.
Meeting the new global demand for grains will take investment from government and industry. At the same time, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada remains committed to core research while partnering with industry to get new tools out the door. A good example is the recent discovery by scientists of three genes resistant to Ug99, a potentially devastating wheat stem rust. The discoveries coming out of this research will protect farmers' livelihoods and food security in Canada and around the world. We have already invested $13 million in the fight against this disease, plus an additional $1.6 million under Growing Forward 2.
The new variety registration system is also tied in closely with our innovation capacity. We are committed to working with industry to develop a system that facilitates increased innovation and productivity, reduces the time it takes to get varieties into the marketplace, and delivers on the performance demands of our farmers and the quality and consistency demanded by our customers.
Looking ahead, the Canadian grain industry will certainly continue to play a vital role in creating jobs and economic growth. Of course, there are challenges. That is to be expected for an industry that is in an expansion mode. We are addressing these challenges by working closely with industry and calling on all players, including the railways, to step up their game.
The time is right for the Canadian grain industry to capture new opportunities in burgeoning markets that are looking for healthy, nutritious foods more than ever. The government will have to continue to work with the Canadian grain industry to drive transformative change and lay down the conditions required to unlock the sector's full economic potential.
:
Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by stating that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member of Parliament for .
I am pleased to rise to speak to this motion in the House. It is a motion that many people in my constituency and in my part of the country feel strongly about.
Before I talk about where I come from and how important rail transport and its connection is to both the agricultural industry and the northern economy, I want to comment. There are some moments we have in the House where time and space seem to collide. We swear that what we are hearing we have heard before, and we swear that the problems people are talking about are what people predicted just a short while ago.
Here we are debating an issue that farmers across western Canada said would happen. Despite the rhetoric of the Conservative Party, farmers across western Canada and across the country know their land. They know the reality of their communities and the economy around them better than any of us.
What did farmers across the country tell us when the spotlight was on them as the government ran roughshod over their voices to dismantle the Canadian Wheat Board? They told us that they were getting ripped off by rail companies. They told us that they were working hard to produce a product of the highest quality that they could ship around the world, something they continue to do. They told us that they knew from development in communities around them, whether it is southwestern Manitoba, across Saskatchewan, or in Alberta, that oil and gas was ramping up and that rail lines were increasingly being taken up for product that was not theirs. They were facing immense challenges as a result. They were saying that their voices, whether it was on the Canadian Wheat Board, or on any other decision that affects them, needed to be at the centre of the decisions being made.
That is the last thing that the government has done. There are many across the aisle who have spent many years working hard as farmers in the agricultural industry, something that we all respect. However, what I do not understand is that many of those members of Parliament, whether or not they have an agricultural background, stand up and profess to talk about communities in western Canada. What they are not doing is speaking on behalf of the people who are saying they need help and support. Farmers across western Canada have given, as they do every year, everything they have to produce what they need to live, to provide for their families, and to grow their communities. Unfortunately, the player at the table who is letting them down, who has the power to make a difference, is the federal government. It is the very same federal government that is made up of members of Parliament who claim to represent their interests.
I believe there is a map in the Prime Minister's Office and on part of the Prairies there is a lot of blue colouring that says “taken for granted”. There is no debate better than this one to show how the government takes the west for granted. It takes for granted the people who work hard to give back, who have helped build our country through the agricultural sector, given Canada the great name it has in terms of its grain exports, and who simply want a fair deal.
This has a domino effect. I can speak to this as the member of Parliament for Churchill because I know the way Churchill has been impacted by the government's wrong-headed and corporate interest-driven decision to dismantle the single desk Canadian Wheat Board.
Churchill is a community that has a very diverse history, but one of its pillars is the port. This is a port that is a gem for northern Manitoba, for my province, and really for our country. It is the only deep water seaport in northern Canada. As an unfortunate result of climate change, there are some opportunities for increased trade through that port, as it takes longer for the ice to freeze in the fall.
There are many opportunities for investing in this port. We could be looking at how to grow linkages between Churchill, other northern countries, and countries around the world.
One of the staples that has gone through Churchill for decades is grain. The Canadian Wheat Board, as it did for every port, coordinated to the nth degree the kind of traffic that would need to go through Churchill and every other port. It chose Churchill because it was the fastest and cheapest way at that time of year to get to certain countries. It was not cheap so that it could be good for the Canadian Wheat Board; it was to save money for farmers. It was to save them money and save them time in terms of not having to decide where and how they would ship their grain. It looked out for and had the backs of farmers in western Canada. The moment the Conservative government dismantled the single-desk Canadian Wheat Board, it let Canadian wheat and grain farmers down.
In Churchill, we know that the government's ironic decision to subsidize trade that goes through the port has made for a superficial bump in the traffic going through there. This subsidy, as members know, will be over in five years, by 2017. In fact, people in Churchill, and I was just speaking to the mayor a few days ago, are very concerned about what lies ahead for this community and our region.
Churchill, of course, is affected by the fact that the single-desk is gone, but it is also affected fundamentally by the fact that the Conservative government fails time and again to project and realize a vision based on Canadians' interests and the interests of people living in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, whether they are related to the agricultural industry or any other industry.
The domino effect extends to other industries. When rail cars are not available for farmers, they are increasingly not available for other industries. For example, our region also depends on forestry, which is another sector that has suffered deeply under the current government's reign. Most recently, Tolko, a successful forestry company in our region, announced that it would be laying people off temporarily. Why? It is because it cannot ship its product. It has produced far too much, and there are no rail cars to ship it out.
It is not that the product is not in demand. In fact, it is industrial paper that is very much in demand around the world. The company has global exports. It is not because the product is not of high quality. In fact, incredible research and cutting-edge technology have gone into producing it. The reason people are losing their jobs is that they do not have access to enough rail cars.
During this debate I have had a chance to hear great stories from the other side and very positive remarks about the hard-working farmers across our country. I cannot help but think of the people who right now are struggling because they have lost their jobs. They know that what they produce they cannot send elsewhere. They do not know what they are going to be able to save this year. As a result of the Conservative government's inaction, they do not believe that the situation will get better next year.
We are not just sitting here until midnight to talk at each other. We are here to call on the Conservative government to make a difference and to stand up for farmers across western Canada, western Canadians, and communities like Churchill, The Pas and many of the communities the Conservatives represent.
We call on the government to listen to the people across western Canada and to sit at the table to engage rail companies to stop ripping off farmers and western Canadians. We call on the government to make a difference on behalf of a part of the country that deserves to have proper representation.
:
Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to speak in support of the motion before this House.
Like my colleague, I think that when we have these emergency debates it is an opportunity for all sides of the House to work together on an issue that we realize is urgent. I hear so much about real families. There are real families hurting right across this country. It does not matter whether they are in Newfoundland or Vancouver.
Today, let us focus on the farmers. We live in a huge country. Our geography is truly inspirational. It is our western provinces that grow the majority of the grain and the pulses. I was surprised a few years ago when I found out how much of our grain is exported to feed many corners of the planet. Members might be surprised to know that 40% of our pulses grown in the Prairies are exported to China and India. That took me by surprise. I did not know that.
We are talking here about the people who grow grain for us for domestic consumption, who help create a trade balance, and who also help to feed the rest of the world. It is embarrassing how badly our farmers feel they are being treated by the government.
I am not going to revisit the Canadian Wheat Board. I think what we are beginning to see are the very results that were predicted by people on this side of the House when the government was so adamant about dismantling a Canadian institution, one that served the Canadian grain growing farmers well, for its own ideological reasons. The decision was not based on what was needed by the farmers, but on the government's own ideology. The government absolutely rammed that through.
Today we are here to talk about how fast, or if ever, this grain can be moved. What we are hearing from the farmers is that they have a massive crop. We should be celebrating the fact that we have this massive crop. Most countries would be celebrating. However, our farmers cannot celebrate because the grain is not moving.
The government is very fond of signing international trade agreements. However, unless we have the infrastructure in place to move the goods within Canada to get them to our ports and out of the country, it begs the question of how serious we are when we sign those agreements or whether we are selling people a bill of goods, so to speak.
I live in a port city, as members know, and I have the honour and privilege of having Deltaport in my area, as well as Port Metro Vancouver. I have had numerous meetings with transloading companies, and they tell me of the challenges they face. I have spent time at a number of these different companies to see how the port system works and how the goods that arrive from the Prairies then get moved out through our ports.
There are huge challenges facing the ports in Canada at the moment. Many of them are aggravated by a transportation of goods to the ports, in this case through the railway system. I found out, for example, that when rail cars filled with grain arrive at the transloading company, they have 24 hours to empty them. If they do not, there is a fine, and the fines are quite hefty. I was surprised.
However, if CN Rail is late by two days, or a day or even a week, there is no penalty for CN Rail. The penalty is borne by the transloaders. They lose in many different ways.
First, they pay a penalty to CN Rail.
Second, if they are expecting an arrival of goods and they do not arrive, they are paying their truck drivers. The truck companies, the owner-operators, as well as the transloading companies, lose double, then, as well. They have people there ready to unload the grain, bag it, and then ship it out. Guess what? They are paying those people while they are waiting for that grain to arrive. What they go through is famine to feast. That is no way to run a business. They hire staff, expecting goods. They do not arrive. Guess what? They still end up having to pay some staff. The truckers, the owner-operators, end up being big losers in this, as well.
We really need to address this issue in a very serious way.
The farmers on the Prairies have grown this magnificent product that is quality product, grains and pulses, that the rest of the world wants to purchase. However, here is the sad part. We do not have the infrastructure in place. Surely there is an easy way of getting rail cars. Surely the government can work with CN to work through all of those things.
Instead, we are in a situation where the farmers, after a magnificent harvest, are now saying they are going to be broke; they have not been paid, because they do not get paid until that grain gets moved. That is a serious problem for us. We need to know that it is the farmers who suffer, the transloading companies, and the truck drivers, and there is a whole chain where the costs are downloaded, and they are heavy costs.
I hear a lot about business sense and being good economic managers, from the other side. Good economic managers would address an issue like this, because here is a Canadian product that other countries want to buy, but we cannot get it to the port in time. It is our Canadian companies, the transloading companies, as well as the truck drivers, who end up being the victims and who end up suffering.
Truck drivers go from having days of famine to having days when they are told there are not enough trucks drivers and more trucks are needed.
Also, the ports themselves find it difficult to make the kind of plans they need to make to ship the goods out.
Sometimes members think that maybe we are just making all this stuff up. However, let me tell members that we have been hearing from some of the farmers and grain growers themselves. A flax farmer in Central Butte, Saskatchewan, says that free trade is no good if we cannot get the product there.
I come from a farming background in my ancestry, not that I have ever farmed myself. I have not, but my grandparents and great-grandparents did. One thing I know about farmers is that they are blunt and to the point. I think there is something significant to be learned from that.
Here is a quote from the Manitoba Pulse Growers Association president, Kyle Friesen:
We need to get the grain moving because many farmers may not be paid for last year's harvest until after spring planting.
How many members would like to wait six months or nine months before they get their pay, as members of Parliament? We would not.
This is already causing lost sales. Things need to improve; otherwise, this will translate into a serious cash flow issue for farmers when they need to buy seed and inputs this spring.
Also, it absolutely harms our international trade. What kind of credibility do we have when we do not have the kind of predictability we need for the transportation of our grains and pulses from the fields right to the ports and to the countries that have bought them?
Rick White, general manager of the Canadian Canola Growers Association, had this to say:
The big question now is, are they going to be able to get enough grain delivered into the system to pay off the advance prior to the deadline?
Farmers who are growing grain and are helping in our trade balance are being punished. If we want future generations to remain in farming and to utilize the wealth of our land, then surely we have to have an infrastructure in place and we have to ensure that they are remunerated at the right time and in an appropriate manner, that they are not left begging and wondering whether they are going to be able to feed their family, whether they will make it into the next year, and whether their grain is going to rot.
:
Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be here tonight to take part in this debate. It is very unfortunate that there is a need for us to be here once again discussing slow rail movement. I have been here in Ottawa about 20 years and I have been through this discussion on slow rail movement and problems with rail movement a number of times.
In my life as a farm economist and a farmer before I went into politics, I went through this same situation many times, and I want to say that it hurts. It is hurting farmers now. Many in our caucus are still involved in farms. I am very much involved in a farm. This slow rail movement has hurt me personally in a very serious way. It has hurt the ten farmers, mostly young farmers, who rent land from me on a crop share basis, meaning that I pay part of the expenses and get a part of the crop. Every one of them is being affected in an extremely negative way by the slow rail movement.
The situation certainly is a very negative, unfortunate situation. We would all love to see it solved once and for all. It simply probably never will be, but I know that our government has done a lot of things that will help and have helped, things that have led to really good rail movement over the past few years.
I want to start by talking about the situation.
In western Canada we have a very unusual situation in that 85% of many of the crops we grow are exported. That is extremely unusual. The only other countries that might have a similar situation are Australia and Argentina, but most crops in Australia are grown within 200 miles of the coast, and Argentina as well certainly does not have the kinds of distances that exist in Canada in moving grain to a port so that it can be exported to the world.
In Canada a huge percentage of the crop goes to export. It is our only market. The shipments must travel extremely far, well over 1,000 kilometres, and 1,500 kilometres in some cases. Such distances make this a very unusual situation, and one that is really difficult to deal with.
Railways have been making record shipments of grains and all other commodities over the past few years. In fact, CN is really to be commended up, at least up until the last few months, for increasing its shipments of almost every commodity over the past four years. There was an increase each year over the preceding year. It is to be commended for that. It has done a great job. It has turned what was an average railway into probably the best railway in North America.
However, that does not let it off the hook for what it has not done over December and January, because that has hurt our farmers in an extremely real way and in a very damaging way. It has hurt them because they are not getting the income because their commodity is not moving. It has hurt them even more because the situation has driven prices down quite dramatically. I would argue that some of the grain companies are taking unfair advantage of that situation: they know this grain is not being moved to the coast, so they are paying less than they otherwise would if grain movement was better. That is a huge problem.
In fact, one of the young farmers who rents land from me called me tonight after this debate started. He said that he had phoned a couple of grain companies today to price some of the wheat he has to sell. He received an offer for April of $5.35. This is soft white wheat, so it is the least expensive type of wheat and is usually used for ethanol. In today's conditions, that price is not too bad.
That was a shipper 20 miles west of his farm in Saskatchewan. However, 20 miles south of his farm, the price offered was $3.50 a bushel. He told the guy he had been offered $5.35 just 20 miles west and asked why the guy was only offering $3.50. He was told it was because management had told them not to offer any more because farmers were going to be desperate and some of them were going to take it.
If that is happening, those grain companies are dealing unfairly. In a normal marketplace, I would say that it is the market, but it is not a normal marketplace when farmers and grain companies are held captive to a railway. I say “a” railway because in most cases farmers only have one option. They can choose either the CN line or the CP line that runs near their farm. They really only have one option.
It is not a free market, and that allows things to happen that really should not. That is why there is a place for government to be involved. The minister has been very much involved. He has been involved in this for months now. We knew mid-summer that we were going to have a huge grain crop. The minister started working with all of the parties involved back then. Clearly the railways did well in the first couple of months of the crop year, early in the harvest. I do not have the exact numbers for December and January, but I know that shipments have been way off, and the minister has been working on that.
The members across the floor talk about the five-year plan to fix the system. Quite frankly, that is a long-term plan. The minister has been working on a short-term plan as well. I am confident that we will have results from that. It is too slow for me. It is too slow for other farmers. However, it is certainly the best that we could expect.
I would argue that the is absolutely the best that this country has had in decades, and I do not say this only because I am a Conservative member of Parliament. He is on top of these things. He is working for farmers. He is opening up new markets for farmers, which is extremely important, particularly with the huge increase in crops we are growing. We saw that this year, and I think we will see it for years into the future. The minister is doing an excellent job.
Having said that, I encourage farmers to continue to push the railways, the grain companies, the ports, and the government, to do more, and to do it more quickly, because what is happening now is completely unacceptable.
I am not here tonight because we are talking about an issue that is near and dear to my heart. I am here for this one thing that I have to do. It is really rich to me when I hear the members across the floor in the House complaining about slow rail delivery. Some have even complained about the increase in delivery of crude oil by rail. It is true that this has tripled just in the last couple of years. In fact, it may have tripled this year over last year. The members are complaining about that at the same time that they are doing everything to block new pipelines from being built. They should take some of the blame for this situation, and there is no way around that. They are blocking the pipelines. If oil is not being moved by pipelines, it is going to be moved by rail.
Rail is competing with grain movement and that is a problem, although I do want to give the railways credit for increasing delivery on all commodities until this last couple of months. They have to get their game together. CN has done a great job over the last four years. CP is starting to get it together, and that is encouraging. We, who move commodities so far in this country, really do depend on the railways to get our bulk commodities to market. There is no other choice. I would like the members across the floor to give that some serious consideration.
How bad are things? I have already explained an example about one of the farmers who rents land from me, and that kind of tells the story.
Some of the members try to talk about ending the Wheat Board monopoly. The Wheat Board is still there. Farmers can still ship to the Wheat Board. Some try to say that ending the Wheat Board monopoly has somehow exacerbated the situation. It is just the opposite.
I have watched these problems over the years, first as a young lad who grew up on a farm, then as a farmer and a farm economist working with farmers on marketing. This is not anything new, but it does not make it any easier.
How bad is it? It is bad. It is a problem, and it is depressing prices. What I am most concerned about is how bad it is going to be in March and April, as farmers are planning what to grow next year and the bins are still full.
I have wheat, oats, and even canola in long, white bags out on the ground. I even have canola in bags because I cannot move it. It is a huge problem. What am I going to do? More importantly, what are the farmers who farm my land going to do? I just get a third of the crop. They get two-thirds. I pay one-third of the expenses. They pay two-thirds. What are they going to do as they move up to seeding time? They are facing a huge problem, especially when they talk to the grain companies and the grain companies say they cannot contract this year's crop until next fall. Not only may the bins still be full, but a lot of farmers are not even sure they are going to have the temporary storage emptied by that time. That can lead to an awful lot of problems. That is how bad things are. It is extremely bad, and that is why it has to be dealt with.
However, I do give the a lot of credit for what he has done, and I give my colleagues a lot of credit. We have dozens, I do not know how many exactly, of members of Parliament on this side who represent rural areas. We represent most of the rural areas in the country. There is a reason for that. We understand farmers. Many of us either are or have been farmers, so we understand them. Of course we are not going to let things go bad for farmers. We are going to do everything we can to make things better and do it as quickly as we can, not only because we have a vested interest but also because our neighbours and friends are farmers. Our constituents are farmers. We are doing all we can, and I do think we have done quite a bit.
Back in about mid-August, the Prince Rupert Port Authority had a meeting in Edmonton to which I was invited and which I attended. I talked to top people from CN Rail and the Port of Prince Rupert. The Port of Vancouver had representatives there too. I talked to representatives of some grain companies that handle this grain. I told them all that we were going to have a huge, record crop this year. I asked them if they were going to be able to move it, and they all assured me that they would.
Quite frankly, they have not delivered. I am bitterly disappointed that they have not delivered. The is in the process right now of getting the real answers as to why they have not delivered and is strongly encouraging and pushing the railways, the grain companies, and the ports to turn that around.
One of our members earlier talked about the Port of Churchill and was complaining about what is happening there. The Port of Churchill is actually one of the bright spots. Grain movement last year in Churchill was 51% higher than the year before, so it is one of the bright spots, although grain movement has been increasing year over year. CN has been doing its job and CP is getting a lot better as well. There is some hope. The capability is there. The railways and the port authorities assured me that this can happen. CN, of course, is increasing capacity by getting more locomotives and by more double tracking, which is a key part of what makes things move faster. CP is starting to move in that direction too, but I would argue they are a lot slower.
What are the solutions? I wish I could say we could take that big stick that some of the members across the floor were talking about and have things fixed next week. Well, I agree that maybe a big stick is necessary, but I still do not think we are going to have things fixed by next week. It is going to take some time. My hope is that over this next month there can be huge, record rail movement and that we can at least see a light at the end of the tunnel and that the light will not be a locomotive coming through the tunnel with no grain on the train. Anyway, that is a little convoluted, but it is late at night.
My hope is that next month and the month after that, we will see record movement and catch up on some of what did not happen in December and January.
The railways and grain companies have not been performing, and that is not acceptable. What has our government done over the past few years to help prevent a situation like this? We cannot prevent it: we do not run the railways or the grain companies; we do not own the railways or the grain companies.
I believe a New Democratic member suggested earlier that the government should buy the railways and control them. To be fair, I might have misunderstood, but that is what it sounded like. I do not believe the NDP would propose that because it is outdated, something for the last century. I hope I did not misunderstand what the member was proposing.
That is clearly not the solution. The private sector is involved but the government does have a role to play. The federal government regulates the rail industry in this country, and rightfully so. That is the lever we have. That is the big stick.
I hope by some strong negotiations, by some quick discovery as to what the real problems are, that we can move this along and be in a much better situation a month from now and in the month after that, so that farmers can at least go into seeding with a good handle on what will happen. They can then base their seeding decisions on that. Some people who do not understand the farming business at all have asked me why farmers would seed a crop if they are not going to make a profit next year and their bins are full.
I talk to constituents on a regular basis. The young fellow who phoned me tonight said that he had pencilled it out and is going to lose money next year on his grain. Does that mean he should not seed a crop? No, because he has to cash flow payments on his land and equipment, even if he does not seed a crop. These are huge payments, so he has to seed a crop. With the way things look now the best he can hope for is to minimize his losses. In business that is one of the toughest things to learn. It is tough to acknowledge a loss. Sometimes that loss can be minimized, but take it and get out the best way possible. In agriculture, who knows?
Next summer farmers can see what is happening around the world. Prices could be up again, but perhaps not like they were last year. Farmers could be in a much better situation, but that is unpredictable. I am not going to stand here tonight and say it is going to happen, but it is a possibility. In the meantime, we need the grain to move. We need more certainty so that farmers seeding a crop can at least know what they are facing. That is absolutely critical. That is why our government has been working so hard on this.
In June 2013 we passed the Fair Rail Freight Service Act. That legislation gives shippers the ability to deal with a railway company that is not performing. Am I going to stand here and say that it is working for grain farmers right now? No, I am not. It is not working the way it should be working and we have to fix that. Things are obviously not perfect, so we have to fix that.
It was a very important change that we made that has helped a lot of sectors, and it will help the grain sector in the future. But it does not solve this problem; it has not prevented this problem. We will see. Maybe grain companies can use this. Maybe farmers can use this to help deal with the situation, but I am not counting on that.
I see that my time is almost up. I have rambled a bit here tonight but I am summarizing some of the things that are important after having listened to the debate tonight. I do want to give farmers some hope. I do believe that a month from now, and two months from now, things will be better than they are now. That would be a positive situation for farmers.
I will be meeting with two groups of farmers on this exact issue this weekend. The meetings have grown from two to three farmers to more than 10 in each group. They are going to give me some advice, which I will take to the . My colleagues are doing the same. I look forward to some good things happening in the next few weeks.
:
Mr. Speaker, here we are again debating one of the many issues in which the federal government has lacked leadership. The Conservatives try to make Canadians believe they are good economic managers but they have continued to sweep things under the carpet or turned a blind eye until a crisis occurs.
On this particular file, it is extremely disconcerting that the Conservative government eliminated the Canadian Wheat Board without ensuring that there would be an efficient plan for grain transportation. It did not make this a priority.
[Translation]
In the past, wheat farmers could depend on the Canadian Wheat Board to fight and to put pressure on the rail companies to get the grain to market. When the board had a monopoly on selling grain overseas, it also held considerable market influence. In a system that has to move around 400,000 grain cars in a year, there is absolutely no room for error or a shortfall when grain shipments are waiting at a cost of thousands of dollars a day, a cost that is ultimately paid by farmers through a lower price for their product.
[English]
The commented last month that in his opinion the railways were doing an adequate job of moving crops to market. However, thousands of farmers, agricultural experts, and newspapers across western Canada are instead pointing to deep and fundamental flaws with the grain transportation system after the loss of the Canadian Wheat Board.
Now the is suggesting that farmers apply for advances and proposes a five-year investigation into the source of the problem. However, Canada's grain producers have bills and loans that are due now. The government must take action to get the railways moving.
The lack of leadership from the Conservative government with respect to grain farmers will mean that farmers will likely continue to see lengthy delays and backlogs in rail transport that will prevent thousands of western grain producers from getting their products to market. On this side of the House, we fully understand the frustration of western farmers.
It is not just the grain farmers who are frustrated with the government's lack of leadership when it comes to rail. Let us look at the frustration being felt by the residents of Oba, the tourist lodges, businesses, municipalities, and economic development offices, from Hearst to Sault Ste. Marie, because of the Conservative government's ill-thought-out decision to cut approximately $2.2 million in subsidy to CN for passenger service on the ACR line. This is the Algoma Central Railroad line, which recently saw CN announce that without the subsidy it could not continue to maintain the current passenger service. CN told the people around January 24 that the service would end as of March 31. This has also raised concerns that the freight service may also be at risk.
Again, when we are looking at the wheat farmers, they are concerned about their freight services, as these people are as well.
Particular to the ACR passenger service, let us look at the short-sightedness of the Conservative government. It is obvious that, just like the wheat farmers, the government never considered the economic impact of its ill-thought-out decision, nor did it care to consider that it would basically leave the residents of Oba stranded. They only have access to train passenger rail or an industrial road, which at times is impassable and is around a two-hour drive to Hearst, if they can take it.
I forgot to mention that I will be splitting my time with the member for .
On that note, when it comes to rail transportation, the government's action on this file reminds me of a similar situation that occurred last year with respect to another mode of transportation, the Chi-Cheemaun Ferry on Manitoulin Island. It became a showdown between the government and the province. The impact on tourism was quite great for Manitoulin Island. Although the ferry ended up running, there was a delay in the tourist season for some of them. People cancelled because they could not rely on the ferry.
Now the government is choosing to attack the economy of northern Ontario again, especially the tourism economy, from Sault Ste. Marie to Wawa to Hearst.
I will read something from Tatnall Camp. I have had massive emails on this, and it is all about rail. Whether it is freight or passenger, I think it is important for us to raise the issues here in the House.
This is about Tatnall Camp. Cindy Lebrun and her family have written. They are very concerned, because March 31 is coming up very quickly. They are afraid that their tourist resort will be severely impacted, as 98% to 100% of their business depends on rail. They say:
The vast majority of our guests are railroad travellers that would never want to fly. 100% of our freight arrives by railroad.
She goes on to say:
If this train goes under, our business and all of our investments both past and present will be gone. To hear this news is completely devastating and lacks any Federal promise for our future and also the economic boost businesses like ours provide to the local communities nearby over the long term. My brother and I are one of only a handful of up and coming entrepreneurs under 35 years old in the community of Wawa, and we have a one of a kind train-in destination product that will continue to sell as long as the railroad is here.
Just as we are trying to entice young farmers to take on farming, these are young entrepreneurs who are looking at the tourist industry. They are relying on rail for their business, and all of a sudden, things are being ripped out from under them.
She goes on to say:
We are not the only train-in business on Oba Lake and there are numerous other interests who are served by this railroad (cottage owners, trappers, local citizens, other tourist Camps, canoeists)
Municipalities are also going to be affected. There is a big ripple effect. Let us not forget that some of the effect happening because of the removal of the subsidy by the government, which is a mere $2.2 million, is also impacting the Conservative riding of Sault Ste. Marie. I hope that the government is going to look at the need to find that financing to give back to CN to put that passenger rail back in place so that it does not end.
The other thing is that the government actually invested in a revamp of passenger cars just recently. Now it is saying, “Sorry, no more cigars”.
The letter goes on to say:
...we have an increased number of reserved and confirmed guests and this upcoming season is looking even better than the last....
Our reservations are completely in jeopardy as well as our ongoing marketing investments.
They have been marketing for quite some time. Given the fact that the dollar has now gone down to about 90¢, it was going to be a prime time for them.
I have another letter from Betty, who talks about the impact:
How many FEET of track would this maintain in southern Ontario [for this amount of money] and yet it was sufficient to maintain over 300 miles of track in the north.... Where was the consultation with those directly impacted by such a decision, before they potentially remove their business livelihood.
When we are looking at the particular situation we are talking about today, we see that the government has no national strategy when it comes to rail, whether it be freight or transportation, and none at all for the short term or long term, not for farmers, not for passengers, not for tourists, not for jobs, and not for the economy.
On that note, I just want to reiterate the request we are making. What we want is increased pressure on rail companies, including through the implementation and enforcement of rail performance standards. We want the government to ensure that export and vessel information is accessible to producers, that grain producers have fair access to rail infrastructure to move their product, and that a strategy for future rail service that accounts for sustained agricultural growth is developed. That is on the agricultural piece.
On the passenger side, I think the government has to be really serious to divest our economy for tourism, for municipalities, and for Canadians as a whole. I would ask that the government find the money to reinstate the ACR line as well.
:
Mr. Speaker, it appears that I have the bedtime story slot in tonight's emergency debate, so I will get right to it.
There is a grain farmer out in Hanley, Saskatchewan, tonight who cannot get to sleep. Let us call this farmer Ryan. He is tossing and turning in his bed because he is worried that he is not going to get his commodity to market. He is not the only one. There are farmers all over Rosedale who are worrying tonight.
It has been a cold winter—colder than Mars, some say. All Canadians know that cold winters mean big heating bills, so Ryan is worried about the bottom line. He is not only worried about getting his crop to market; he is also worried about the bottom line. He is worried about the heating bill and all the bills he has to pay. He is worried about his credit cards.
Ryan and his wife and family have been on that land for several generations now, so they know that land. They invested their money this year to expand their grain drying capacity. They put the money in, and they expected and hoped that the system would function so they could get their product out and export it and get their money.
Ryan is in bed tonight. He knows that his three kids are growing up. They are getting older, and soon he will have to send them to the city to go to school, which will be more cost.
He is adding it all up in his head tonight, and he is thinking about all of these figures and the money going out and not coming in because he cannot move his product, because of the backlog. This backlog could turn a bumper year into a bust year for Ryan.
Members from the other side know that guys like Ryan are the backbone of the Prairies. They work to the advantage of Canada and they feed us. Ryan knows where the problems of the backlog started. He is the expert in all of this, not any of us in this room. It is Ryan who has been working the land from year to year and from generation to generation. His family knows.
To begin with, one of the problems is the monopoly of the railways and their willing partners in government to protect this monopoly and its privileges. That is part of the problem. About 30 years of deregulations have led to this logistical mess. No, we are not going to solve it in the next 24 or 48 hours, because it is the product of 30 years of deregulation.
Ryan has heard 30 years of promises. He has listened to his dad grumble about different governments, the Liberals, Reform, Alliance, and Conservatives. He has even heard his grandfathers grumble about the CCF. No one here has their hands clean. We are all responsible for taking care of Ryan and his family, and other families like his.
Ryan's MP in the 1990s was not even a farmer. He was a lawyer. When he sat in this place, he did not represent farmers' interests. He helped CN to privatize and was beaten in the 1997 election as a consequence. Ryan's dad hoped that the Reform Party of Canada would improve things. It is part of the reason that Ryan, when he got to voting age, voted Conservative. However, he now knows that these Conservatives are the same as the Liberals were 20 or 30 years ago. He sees his member sit behind the and he realizes that she is more of a banker than a farmer. Otherwise, she would do something for him. He knows that his member is a good person, but he is disappointed in her.
Ryan believed that the government was going to take care of this problem with the Fair Rail Freight Service Act that was passed last year, but he now knows that it will not, because on TV tonight he heard Norm Hall, the president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, say that the Fair Rail Freight Service Act passed by the Conservative government was not working and should be amended. That is what we said. That is what I said in this chamber, back in May. Ryan turned off the TV and he rubbed his forehead, which is what any Canadian would do when he realizes that he is hearing another broken promise.
I doubt that Ryan will be voting Conservative next time. Norm Hall has suggestions for amending this problem and solving it. He said that the incentives for grain companies and railways to voluntarily negotiate shipping service agreements have not worked and that we need to put responsibility on the railroads. If there is inaction, there need to be penalties. The government needs to penalize the railway companies when they are not responding to the incentives that the government has put forward.
A review of the legislation of the Fair Rail Freight Service Act is up for 2015. Another member in the House, from the government party, suggested that we move up the review to this year, perhaps, to see what the problems were. We said back in May that there were problems, and those suggestions fell on deaf ears.
It is good to hear that government members tonight are saying maybe we should move up this review process earlier than 2015. When CN privatized in 1995 through the Liberal government's CN Commercialization Act, it had clause 16 that stated more or less that the railway and other transportation works in Canada of CN and all corporations associated, any corporation that evolves out of CN, are declared to be “works for the general advantage of Canada”.
Grain farmers like Ryan work for the general advantage of Canada as well, and it is time government stepped up to the plate for guys like him and not just for the shareholders of CN and CP. The government could provide low-interest cash advances so that farmers can meet their obligations to their financial institutions, because they are worrying. They have loans that are coming due that have to be paid. Their crops are not getting out, so they do not have the money to pay them to meet their obligations.
The government could also ask or work with the financial institutions to extend the terms of the loans of these farmers, to help them out, to give them a hand up, and to help them out in this crisis they are facing.
There are things the government could do and should do for western farmers. We are certainly hoping that the government is thinking about farmers like Ryan tonight, farmers in Saskatchewan, in Manitoba, in Alberta, and all over the country, who are tossing and turning because they cannot move their product to market.
We hear a lot from the governing party about the fact that they are speaking for real western Canadian families, but we know that they have to make that distinction between real western Canadian families and fake western Canadian families, because we know that in their caucus previously they have had members who say they live in Saskatchewan when they actually live in Toronto.
Throughout this emergency debate, I find it very rich and disappointing to hear criticism from the Conservative government that we do not actually understand the needs of western farmers because we do not live there, when they actually have members in their caucus who did not actually live on the Prairies but pretended that they did. We should not be pointing fingers.
The other thing that bothered me tonight about the governing party is that it blames the backlog on unions. That is just preposterous. Any western Canadian farmer knows that the backlog was not created by the teamsters. They know that, so it is ridiculous to divide workers and farmers in this country when we know that we have to work together to solve these problems. Western farmers do not want to hear us having these divisive little fights about unions and farmers. They want to see us work together to solve these problems.
I have not heard a lot of solutions. I did try to help the government on May 29. I spoke on the Fair Rail Freight Service Act, and I put forward the things that the Western Canadian Shippers' Coalition wanted in terms of service agreements. What I was given in terms of an answer was that the government could not actually implement these because they would be a nuisance to the railway companies and it had to be somewhat fair.
Now we are seeing the effects of not including the Western Canadian Shippers' Coalition's suggestions in that legislation. Farming organizations are saying we have to put those amendments in. The legislation is already passed. I have heard government members saying, yes, maybe we do have to amend this, maybe we do have to review it earlier. If we had done that back in May, maybe we would have avoided these problems.
I am not saying the Wheat Board was God's greatest gift to western farmers, but when we make a radical change and we eliminate something, we have to actually plan what the out-rolling of production will be after that body is eliminated. We always talk about how the government is incrementalist, but when it came to eliminating the single desk, it was not incrementalist at all. It made a radical move, it did not plan properly, and it did not listen to western farmers and their suggestions on the problems that would come out of it.
During the Keystone Agricultural Producers convention in Winnipeg in January 2012, farmers talked about all these problems. These were farmers from the Prairies getting together and talking about what the problems of eliminating the single desk would be. They talked about it. I am sure the government heard them. I do not know if it listened properly. However, it did not take into account those suggestions when it came to drafting its legislation, and here we are with a crisis.
We have to find solutions for these farmers, for guys like Ryan, who cannot sleep tonight.