Farmer's augers fill a line of producer cars.

23 September 2011

Goodale Bill Would Protect Farmers' Producer Car Sites

Ottawa Ontario - Wascana Liberal MP Ralph Goodale re-introduced a private member's bill in the House of Commons this week to protect producer car loading sites across Western Canada.
 
"I put a (private member's) bill forward last year to better protect producer car loading sites", Goodale said in interview Thursday. "This is similar. I've simplified it a little bit, clarified a couple of points, but the essential elements are the same. It's an amendment to the Canada Transportation Act that deals with railway sidings upon which producer car loading sites are located."
 
Producer car loading sites enable prairie grain producers to load their own rail cars, rather than pay to use the grain handling facilities of private elevator companies. From over 700 a decade ago, fewer than 300 of the do-it-yourself loading sites remain in existence today.
 
Despite the dwindling number of loading sites, the number of producer loaded cars is up about fourfold in the last decade, to nearly 12,000 cars per year.
 
Grain companies don't want farmers loading their own cars because they don't collect any handling fees on that grain, and the railways have been trying to get rid of these sites.
 
Goodale said producer car loading sites are threatened by a loophole in the Canada Transportation Act that allows railways to abandon sidings after giving 60 days notice. He said the act has an "elaborate procedure" for the discontinuance of branch lines, but not sidings.
 
While the vast majority of prairie grain is handled through the conventional elevator system, more than a hundred years ago the Supreme Court of Canada gave farmers the right to order and load their own grain cars as a "safety valve" against commercial exploitation.
 
"The history goes back to 1906. Grain farmers thought they were getting hosed by the railways and hosed by the grain companies," Goodale said. "And they said, rather than going through a grain company, why can't we load our own (grain) and avoid all the grain handling tariffs?"
 
Goodale is proposing changes to the Canada Transportation Act that would lengthen the notice period from 60 days to three years, ensure a hearing before the Canada Transportation Agency, require the railway to prove that the closure of a siding is in the public interest, allow other parties to buy and operate the siding, and compensate municipalities when a siding is closed.