A call by groups representing grain, canola and other cereal producers across Canada is still raining down on the country’s railway companies as shipments to export ports continue to not meet expectations.
The largest of those voices is from the Grain Growers of Canada (GGC) — which represents more than 50,000 grain, oilseed and pulse producers — with its president not only chastising Canadian Pacific (CP) and Canadian National (CN) for the lack of response to the concerns, but for how weak the excuses have been to the issue overall.
“Despite assurances that they were prepared, railways seem to be caught off guard by cold weather. Grain farmers remember the 2013/14 grain shipping crisis, and this year is threatening to be a repeat,” said GGC president Jeff Nielsen in a release.
The issue came to a head on Feb. 26 when Neilson and other industry stakeholders held a news conference in Ottawa to lament the poor levels of service from the Canadian railroads — noting statistics from the Ag Transport Coalition (ATC) that showed only 38 per cent of car orders were filled during the week of Feb. 12 and just 17 per cent of grain orders were delivered by CN, a historic low for the company.
Following the charges, both railways reacted spouting statistics to show grain is moving while also blaming near-record grain volumes and poor weather conditions.
“For crop year to date (Feb. 28), Western Canadian bulk grain moved on CN’s network is three percent below the prior three-year average,” explained Kate Fenske with CN’s media relations department.
“We recognize sustained, low temperatures in Western Canada, together with high demand across all commodities, have had a real impact on our performance and the service we’ve provided in recent weeks. As weather improves, which it has started to do, our performance will improve.”
Meanwhile CP media relations spokesman Jeremy Berry stated shipments were up over last year, even with the larger crop.
“On top of the increased crop size, weather and other challenges have created issues for the entire transportation supply chain over the last couple of weeks. These short-term challenges are episodic, not systemic and we expect our network to improve with improving weather conditions,” said Berry.
Both CN and CP added the companies are hiring more employees as well as trains to their operations in order to get more grain moving.
The latest ATC figures show the better weather combined with more efficient work by the railroads has improved deliveries, with about 56 per cent of car orders filled the week of March 7.
However, that isn’t good enough for the GGC, which is hoping the senate will quickly push through Bill C-49 that is intended to help modernize the transportation of grain as well as impose financial penalties on railways for not fulfilling their commitments on car order delivery.
To further push the point of how important the bill is, Nielson appeared in front of the senate transportation committee recently to layout what quick passage through the senate would mean for farmers.
“The number of unfulfilled deliveries has also grown and farmers have no recourse. The bill would allow reciprocal penalties on shippers and also the ability to access inter-switching to ensure delivery if one railway can’t,” Nielson stated.
The legislation, which has been stalled in the Senate since last fall and, aside from the financial penalties, would also see railways have to issue a public report annually on the movement of the previous season’s crop along with a winter weather contingency plan.
There was one consequence to come from the situation, CN wound up apologizing for the lack of performance and ousted its CEO earlier this month.