Interswitching refers to a regulation to ensure shippers located where only a single railway operates can access points that are not served by that railway. The issue is especially concerning for Canadian grain shippers because over 90 per cent of grain elevators are served by a single line.

The government recently announced it will run an 18-month pilot program to test the idea of raising the interswitching radius within the Prairie region from the standard 30 km, to 160 km.

The idea of testing the waters with a “pilot” was a compromise to bridge the gap between the two sides. But the only thing the two sides seem to agree on is that the pilot is a cop-out intended to punt the issue down the field and ask questions already answered.

Transport Canada already tried out the 160-km radius between 2014 and 2016. From the railways’ perspective, that program was sunsetted for a reason, and they see no sense in re-testing an idea that didn’t work.

“Now, the government wants to resurrect a policy it already recognized was a failure,” said Marc Brazeau, president of the Canadian Railway Association.

On the other hand, grain shippers saw the 2014 trial as a success, and they think the policy should have continued.

“I don’t know why we need a second pilot; it should have been made permanent right off the bat,” said Wade Sobkowich, executive director of the Western Grain Elevator Association (WGEA).

Keep an eye out for an in-depth look at the interswitching controversy in the next issue of the Manitoba Co-operator, where we will examine both positions in detail.

— Don Norman reports for the Manitoba Co-operator in Winnipeg.

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Bill C-47, the government’s budget implementation bill — which was first read April 20 in the House of Commons and got third reading in the Senate and royal assent on June 22 — includes amendments to section 127 of the Canada Transportation Act, extending rail interswitching radius within the Prairies to 160 km, up from 30 currently.

Interswitching rules commit one rail carrier to pick up cars from a shipper, then deliver them to another railway for the line haul — that is, if the point of origin or destination of a “continuous movement of traffic” within the Prairie provinces is also within the given radius of an interchange between two companies’ rail lines.

In other words, as the Western Grain Elevator Association — which declared its support for the provision in a release Tuesday — said, it “gives shippers in all sectors who are physically located on a single rail line, the ability to automatically seek competing service and rates from an alternate carrier.”

The 18-month pilot expansion “is expected to bring about an increased level of competition among railway service providers, and represents an incremental gain for supply chains and the Canadian economy more broadly,” the WGEA said.

The budget bill calls for the interswitching pilot to come into effect on the 90th day after the bill received royal assent — that is, Sept. 20.

The previous Conservative government had set up a temporary extension of the interswitching radius to 160 km in 2014, but that extension was sunsetted in 2016.

The Railway Association of Canada, which represents almost 60 railways including Canadian National Railway and CPKC, in March ripped the current Liberal government’s plan as a resurrection of a “failed policy” that was “misguided and harmful to Canada’s supply chains.”

A number of farmer groups disagreed, launching a campaign this spring called “Flip The Switch,” calling for the budget provision to be boosted even further to a five-year pilot and a 500-km interswitching distance.

The Flip The Switch campaign partners, in a separate statement Thursday, said they “look forward to working with the government over the next 18 months to develop a path that leads to the extension of the distance and the permanent integration of this policy into Canada’s transportation framework.”

For its part, the WGEA said Tuesday that when the 18-month pilot is done, it plans to ask the federal government to make the expansion permanent, “regardless of how often physical interchanges occur.”

The association said it would also ask for an increase to the radius, so as “to give all shippers at least one other competitive shipping option.”

The interswitching provision “recognizes that competitive tension is one of the basic tenets of a well-functioning marketplace,” WGEA executive director Wade Sobkowich said.

“Shippers prefer to use the rail carrier that services their facility first and foremost, however, the provision offers an alternative when service or freight rates are less than adequate.” –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The measure, part of this spring’s federal budget, essentially gives grain shippers a choice in which railway they deal with (as long as the competitor’s line is no more than 160 kilometres away). It means a railway would have to pick up the rail cars loaded by a shipper and ‘hand off’ the cars to the other railway.

“Extended interswitching is a vital tool for Canadian shippers that is proven to increase competition while lowering costs to shippers and consumers,” Alberta Wheat tweeted in support of the Flip The Switch campaign.

The wheat commission, along with Alberta Barley and Alberta Pulse Growers, has joined a dozen other commodity groups and industry organizations in the lobbying campaign. They want the budget pledge of an 18-month trial extended to five years, and the maximum distance for interswitching upped to 500 km, so it applies to the Peace region and the Carrot River growing region of northeastern Saskatchewan.

“Extended interswitching is one of the only policy tools that has historically created competitive options for shipper business,” Wade Sobkowich, head of the Western Grain Elevator Association, said in a release.

“It offers an alternative service provider for single-served shippers which balances negotiations in a way that encourages better service or pricing for the benefit of entire supply chains.”

The railways disagree.

“Extended regulated interswitching is inherently inefficient because it introduces more operational complexity to the movement of railcars as it unavoidably requires additional hand-offs for railcars between carriers, which in turn causes increased cycle time,” CPKC, the railway formerly known as Canadian Pacific Railway, said in a response to the interswitching proposal.

“Overall, this slows down the entire rail supply chain and reduces capacity because it introduces inefficiencies that could otherwise be avoided.”

It typically takes an additional 24 to 48 hours for interswitching, the railway said, adding a move to 160-km interswitching in 2014 (that lasted four years) caused “significant harm to Canada’s supply chains.”

The alliance of grain groups calls this a “myth” on its website, arguing it actually improves efficiency.

“Extended interswitching will reduce congestion by moving traffic from a full capacity railway to a railway with excess capacity,” the website states.

And bringing a measure of competition to the country’s rail duopoly has been shown to cut freight bills, it contends.

“Data is clear that the increased competition from extended interswitching reduces costs for shippers who are using the rail network.”

The farm groups’ website also has an e-letter that producers can send to their MP. In addition to backing a five-year pilot and a 500-km interswitching distance, the letter urges the federal government to “invest in rural rail infrastructure that can accommodate larger trains to expand the use of interchanges.”

— Glenn Cheater is editor of Alberta Farmer Express.

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Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s budget, released Tuesday, laid out a list of investments to “further strengthen Canada’s transportation systems and supply chain infrastructure.”

A non-financial line item in that envelope calls for the government to introduce amendments to the Canada Transportation Act for a “temporary extension, on a pilot basis” of the interswitching limit in the Prairie provinces, to “strengthen rail competition.”

Interswitching rules commit one rail carrier to pick up cars from a shipper, then deliver them to another railway for the line haul. Federal rules generally allow grain elevators and other shippers to use interswitching for up to a 30-km radius.

Expanding that maximum radius, the feds said Tuesday, “would support competition among rail carriers by enabling rail companies to access tracks owned by another rail provider within the limit, under rates regulated by the Canadian Transportation Agency.”

The previous Conservative government set up a temporary extension of the interswitching radius, to 160 km, in 2014, to the acclaim of several crop commodity groups — but that extension was sunsetted in 2016.

The Railway Association of Canada said Wednesday the 2014 extension was allowed to lapse “based on results from a previous pilot and recommendations contained in an independent study” — a reference to a 2015 review of the Canada Transportation Act.

The RAC, which represents almost 60 railways in Canada including Canadian National and Canadian Pacific railways (CN, CP), ripped the current Liberal government’s proposal as a resurrection of a “failed policy” that was “misguided and harmful to Canada’s supply chains.”

“This policy will cause Canadians to pay more for virtually everything that moves by rail,” RAC CEO Marc Brazeau said Wednesday in a release, warning the policy “will incentivize congestion in our supply chains while disincentivizing private investment.”

“This pilot has been done before,” the RAC said, listing the impacts of “switching cargo multiple times” as slowing the movement of goods by one to two days, adding to greenhouse gas emissions and adding costs.

“The measures announced today will not improve the efficiency, capacity or reliability of Canada’s supply chains. They will do the exact opposite, as we saw under extended regulated interswitching that was in place from 2014 to 2016,” Brazeau said.

However, supporters of the 2014 extension estimated in 2016 that about 150 grain elevators on the Prairies were able to make use of interswitching with the 160-km radius, up from just 14 elevators previously.

One such supporter, Pulse Canada, in 2016 said freight rates were reduced on some routings, and that grain shippers were afforded more leverage in getting rail car capacity where needed, both as a result of the extended interswitching radius.

Gordon Bacon, Pulse Canada’s then-CEO, speaking in favour of extended interswitching in 2016, said that “in cases where railways have lost business due to competition, they are actively campaigning to get it back by offering rate reductions and improved levels of service.”

‘Down payment’

The RAC on Wednesday also panned another non-financial proposal from Tuesday’s budget — namely, for legislation that would ban the use of temporary replacement workers in federally regulated workplaces affected by work stoppages.

The RAC said a ban on replacement workers would mean rail service “will be disrupted more frequently,” strikes “will be more common and will last longer” and federal back-to-work legislation “will be required more often.”

Tuesday’s budget also earmarks $27.2 million over five years starting in 2023-24 for Transport Canada to establish a “Transportation Supply Chain Office.”

That office, the budget said, would “work with industry and other orders of government to respond to disruptions and better co-ordinate action to increase the capacity, efficiency, and reliability of Canada’s transportation supply chain infrastructure.”

The budget noted the measures announced Tuesday “are a down payment on Canada’s National Supply Chain Strategy,” which the government said “will be released in the coming months and will be informed by the recommendations of the National Supply Chain Task Force report.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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CP moved 25.8 million tonnes of western Canadian grain, grain products, soybeans and non-regulated principal field crops during the 2017-18 crop year. That’s a one per cent increase from the previous crop year and one percent greater than CP’s three-year average.

Canadian National Railway shipped four per cent less in 2017-18 than it did in the previous year, with 24 million tonnes carried.

Higher-than-expected yields and cold weather caused grain backlogs in the early part of 2018. Cold weather forces the railways to run shorter trains.

The railways are under increased scrutiny this year following the federal government’s passing of the Transportation Modernization Act earlier this year. The Act contains provisions to allow long-haul interswitching, requires railways to file winter grain movement reports and changes maximum revenue entitlements (MRE), a pricing structure that sets out what railways can charge to ship grain.

Another aspect of the Act which will impose financial penalties on railways for failing to deliver on promised service will take a year before a process can be established to hear complaints and administer rulings.

Neither railway responded to interview requests in time for this story.

In a report to federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau, CP published its plan for the upcoming shipping season. It expected the western Canadian crop to come in at 70.8 million tonnes. With carry-over stocks from the 2017-18 crop year, the system will move about 83.4 million tonnes this marketing year, said CP. That is five per cent larger than the previous five-year average.

Those estimates can vary wildly once the harvest starts to come off, CP’s document stated. Last year’s crop was originally estimated at 65 million tonnes, but ended up at about 71 million, a difference of almost 10 per cent.

“Our agricultural shippers have needs that are unique within our book of business, and we believe an ongoing dialogue with those companies is essential to understanding and meeting their needs,” Joan Hardy, CP’s vice-president of sales and marketing for grain and fertilizers, said in a news release. “Our plans for moving this year’s crop reflect that.”

CP said it plans to supply 5,500 hopper cars each week to meet grain-shipping requirements through autumn, until the Port of Thunder Bay closes for the season. After that it is aiming to supply 4,000 cars per week.

CP said it has more than 700 employees that are currently being trained and it expects to have more than 100 remodeled locomotives added to its fleet by the end of summer.

CP added it planned to spend in excess of $1.55 billion to replace track assets and upgrade its network.

Both railways said changes to the MRE enabled them to invest more into their grain-handling assets.

CN said it planned to have 1,000 new hopper cars in place over the next two years, 200 new locomotives over three years and about 1,200 new locomotive conductors. It also embarked on a $3.5 billion capital spending plan.

— Terry Fries writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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Wade Sobkowich, executive director of the Western Grain Elevator Association, said despite the heat stress that has hit many crops this year, grain companies expect this year’s overall crop to be roughly equivalent to those of the past two years, when shipping backlogs were an issue.

“There’s been a lot of heat stress but we’re still seeing a crop size that is going to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 70 million tonnes, 71 million tonnes. So, it’s still a very sizable crop in Western Canada.

“We’re still talking about the new normal here; what is a very large crop in Western Canada.”

He said it remains to be seen whether provisions in the new Transportation Modernization Act (formerly Bill C-49) will benefit shippers.

Some of the provisions in the act will be in place, Sobkowich said. Those include long-haul interswitching, requirements for railways to file reports on winter grain movement and changes to the maximum revenue entitlement (MRE), which sets down a pricing structure that railways can charge to carry grain.

However, a key aspect of the transportation regulatory changes made this spring — the provision that allows for reciprocal penalties for service failures — will not be available this crop year. That’s because a lengthy process is needed to establish what service contracts should look like and what the penalties should be.

“That’s something we hope will be in place for the 2019–20 crop year,” Sobkowich said.

Both national railways have announced capital spending programs designed to help avoid a repeat of the recent grain backlogs.

Sobkowich said it’s difficult to say what effect those changes will have until the busy shipping season arrives.

“Rail service now is pretty good, but it’s always good this time of year. What happens after the harvest comes off, that is the most important time.”

World demand for Canadian grain, pulses and oilseeds runs in earnest from mid-September to April — and that’s when when railway performance will be judged, he said.

Global trade disruptions this year could make the situation less predictable for grain companies trying to assess market risks, he said, but grain movement is fairly stable.

“That doesn’t have much of an impact on movement, though, because they’re going to move as much as they can during that peak period.”

Sobkowich said the premium markets will remain off the West Coast and grain shippers will still use terminals there as much as possible.

Most grain shipper members of the WGEA have signed onto shipping programs with one of the railways, he said, but only because they see it as better than having no agreement at all. Over the long term, they want reciprocal agreements with service standards and penalties, he said.

As well, the WGEA would like railway grain service plans filed with the federal government to be based on actual car delivery targets, not maximums.

The railways have promised a maximum of 5,500 cars per week until the weather gets cold, then a maximum of 4,000 cars per week.

Sobkowich said he’d rather see minimum guarantees from the railways with the expectation they would then strive to beat those numbers.

“We’ll see this year. They’re promising the same numbers (as last year). Maybe they’ll come closer to meeting these numbers, we don’t know yet.”

This summer, Canadian National Railway (CN) budgeted $3.5 billion in capital spending to upgrade its locomotive fleet, rail cars and improve track.

Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) promised to have 15 per cent more locomotives available to haul grain this autumn and is investing $500 million on new grain cars. It hoped to have 500 in place for this crop year.

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Bill C-49, the Transportation Modernization Act, passed third reading in the Senate on Tuesday following a 41-31 vote to approve a message that the Senate “does not insist on its amendments” to the bill. The bill now goes for royal assent.

C-49 imposes data-reporting requirements on railways, sets up rules for long-haul interswitching between railways and allows shippers to seek “reciprocal” financial penalties in their service agreements with railways.

The bill also brings soybeans under the maximum revenue entitlement (MRE), a regulation which caps the annual Prairie grain freight revenue each of Canada’s big two railways is allowed to keep.

An omnibus package updating air and rail regulation, C-49 was introduced in the Commons in May last year by Transport Minister Marc Garneau and has been a political volleyball since March, when it passed the House of Commons but the Senate returned it with proposed amendments on March 29.

C-49 went back to the Senate earlier this month with the government’s agreement on certain changes supported by the ag sector, but not on other Senate amendments.

The Senate on May 10 again returned the bill with amendments to the Commons, which sent it back May 11 with a message that the Commons “respectfully disagrees” with two remaining amendments on which the Senate had insisted.

Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay tweeted on Tuesday that C-49’s passage in the Senate is “wonderful news for Canadian grain farmers and a great day for Canadian agriculture!”

C-49 “will improve the long-term competitiveness of the grain supply chain and it is welcome news that these measures will become law,” Jeff Nielsen, president of Grain Growers of Canada, said in a release Tuesday.

“We look forward to using these new tools during the next crop year and in the future to help prevent another grain backlog across the Prairies,” GGC vice-president Art Enns said in the same release.

The Canadian Federation of Agriculture in late April had warned that new rail legislation must be in place by Aug. 1 or “farmers risk another uncertain shipping season.”

Alberta’s wheat and barley commissions warned earlier this month that even when C-49 is passed, a lag time of several months remains before certain provisions can be enacted. “This process adds even greater risk of not having competitive measures in place prior to the new crop year.”

Several farmer groups in early March publicly pressed for quick passage of C-49, criticized Canada’s big two railways over “steadily deteriorating” levels of service during the winter months, and warned that the grain industry was going the right way for a repeat of the freight logjam of 2013-14.

“Once again railways are proving that they can’t be trusted to move our grain and proving why the grain industry needs tools to be able to hold the railways to account, or at least to be able to take our business to another railway,” GGC’s Nielsen said at that time.

Not all ag groups were on board with the idea of C-49 as a cure for grain shipping woes. The National Farmers Union in early March said the bill “weakens the railways’ common carrier obligations to the point it may become almost impossible to find that a railway is providing insufficient service.” — AGCanada.com Network

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Senators on Thursday afternoon passed Bill C-49, the Transportation Modernization Act, on third reading — but with several amendments proposed Wednesday by the standing Senate committee on transport and communications. The bill now goes back to the Commons to seek approval as amended.

Grain Growers of Canada, responding Thursday to the Senate’s adoption of the bill, described it as “imperative” that the Commons quickly pass the amended C-49.

Alberta’s wheat and barley commissions, in a separate release, also called for the Commons to pass the amended bill “as soon as possible so that passing the bill does not drag into the summer months.”

The Commons is currently adjourned until April 16.

“It’s clear the Senate heard farmers’ voices and did its job and provided sober second thought,” GGC president Jeff Nielsen said in a release.

C-49, as amended, “will provide meaningful tools that the shippers need to hold railways to account, increase competition and bring better rail service to the grain industry,” he said.

‘Reasonable direction’

Among its amendments, the Senate transport committee on Wednesday voted to add soybeans to the list of crops covered by the maximum revenue entitlement (MRE) — the so-called “revenue cap” which limits how much revenue Canada’s big two railways can keep from handling certain bulk crops.

The committee’s amendment strikes the words “except soybeans” from the “beans” portion of the schedule of MRE-covered crops.

The committee said Wednesday its amendments also grant “own motion” power to the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) to “proactively investigate whether a railway company is fulfilling its service obligations.”

Further, the committee said, its changes offer “greater transparency” for shippers seeking final-offer arbitration to challenge rail freight rates.

The committee also called for an amendment to “give farmers better access to long-haul rail interswitching so they can more easily get their goods to market.”

Interswitching rules commit one rail carrier to pick up cars from a shipper, then deliver them to another railway for the line haul. Where such rules today allow interswitching only within a limited distance from a shipper’s facility, C-49’s “long-haul” interswitching policy would allow shippers to apply for an interswitching order from the CTA.

The committee’s amendment tightens up C-49’s wording to allow a shipper to apply for long-haul interswitching, not only if the shipper has access to just one major railway’s rail lines at the point of origin or destination, but also if there’s access to only one railway’s lines in the “reasonable direction” of the traffic to be shipped.

‘Current backlog’

Prairie grain farmers in several regions have seen “significant” delays this year, the Alberta commissions said. In the poorest weeks, they said, rail car fulfillments have dropped to the “critical levels” seen during the major backlog of 2013-14.

“The legislation likely won’t fix the current backlog that farmers have experienced in several areas this year, but we are extremely pleased to have mechanisms in place that will help avoid this issue in the future,” Alberta Wheat Commission chair Kevin Bender said.

“Farmers rely almost entirely on freight rail transportation to move our products to our international customers and this legislation ultimately strengthens Canada’s position as a major grain exporter,” Alberta Barley chair Jason Lenz said Thursday in the same release.

Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, in a separate release Wednesday, called on the federal government to require Canada’s big two railways to pay demurrage costs stemming from the current rail backlog.

Demurrage fees, charged by shipping companies to producers for each day vessels sit empty at port, are currently being docked from farmers’ grain revenue at between $11,000 and $13,000 a day, given the 30-plus vessels now parked at West Coast ports, APAS said.

“Given that the railway companies are responsible for these delays, APAS is proposing that in any week that grain shipments fall below 85 per cent on hopper car deliveries, both railways share the cost of demurrage,” APAS president Todd Lewis said, asking that such payments be made retroactive to Jan. 1, “when the problems became severe.” — AGCanada.com Network

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Representatives from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Grain Growers of Canada, Keystone Agricultural Producers, Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, Alberta Federation of Agriculture and B.C. Agriculture Council went public with a “unified message” for “urgent action” by Parliament to pass Bill C-49.

Introduced in the Commons last May by Transport Minister Marc Garneau, C-49, the Transportation Modernization Act, passed third reading in the Commons in November and has been parked at second reading in the Senate since December, when it was referred to the Senate standing committee on transport.

The bill imposes data-reporting requirements on railways, sets up rules for long-haul interswitching between railways and allows shippers to seek “reciprocal” financial penalties in their service agreements with railways.

The groups warned Thursday that the major railways’ shipping performance has been “steadily deteriorating over the winter months,” noting Canadian National Railway (CN), during the week of Feb. 11, “only supplied 17 per cent of rail cars ordered by grain companies.”

The GGC, in a separate release Monday, cited data from the Ag Transport Coalition, showing CN and Canadian Pacific Railway’s (CP) car order fulfillment at 38 per cent of demand during grain week 29, the week of Feb. 12.

“The majority of farmers are restricted to only one available rail company for shipments, leaving them no options other than to watch while their grain sits unsold,” the groups said Thursday.

“Despite assurances that they were prepared, railways seem to be caught off guard by cold weather,” GGC president Jeff Nielsen said Monday.

“Once again railways are proving that they can’t be trusted to move our grain and proving why the grain industry needs tools to be able to hold the railways to account, or at least to be able to take our business to another railway.”

Extended interswitching, introduced in 2013, allows shippers to get a competing railway to haul their load if it’s within 160 km of an interchange with that railway. C-49’s provisions for “long-haul” interswitching would allow for distances up to 1,200 km, or 50 per cent of the total haul in Canada, whichever is greater.

“No other sector would stand for the poor service that the grain industry receives,” Art Enns, GGC’s vice-president, said Monday. “But no other sector is at the mercy of the railways the way the grain industry is.

“What’s worse is that the railways continue to penalize the grain industry when there is a slippage in performance, but there is nothing we can do when the railways only show up a third of the time they’re needed.”

The groups noted the Senate is now “considering amendments to the bill that will make it more meaningful,” but said farmers now “need the Senate to complete this review quickly so that the legislation can be moved through the House and implemented before spring seeding begins.”

The current lack of grain movement, they said, “is putting hard working farm families in a position where seed, fuel and fertilizer bills must go unpaid and where they do not know if they can make rent and mortgage payments.”

“We have to get this legislation,” APAS president Todd Lewis told the Senate transport committee on Feb. 14. “Sure, it has some wrinkles and some warts to it, but overall we need to see this bill passed so that we can get on with negotiations and try to get a better system.”

APAS members, he said, “are saying, ‘Let’s get on with it so we can start negotiating with grain companies, see how these new measures are going to affect our service and hope it improves.'” — AGCanada.com Network

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Bill C-49 passed its third reading in the House of Commons Nov. 1 and is now off to the Senate for review. The bill is meant to amend the Canada Transportation Act, which includes rail transportation.

The Alberta Wheat Commission (AWC) was vocal in its pleasure to see the bill pass its third reading, stating in a news release, “The legislation marks a milestone for the agriculture industry, paving the way for mechanisms that will result in a more efficient and accountable rail transportation system that meets the need of Canada’s growing grains sector.”

AWC is particularly happy to see reciprocal penalties introduced, as the organization has asked for them in the past.

“It brings back a measure of accountability to both sides of the ship or railroad transaction. Not only is the shipper responsible to load the cars on time, now the railroad is contractually obligated with penalties to pick up those cars and deliver them on time as well,” said Kevin Auch, chair of AWC, in a phone interview.

AWC is concerned about interswitching, which is where traffic is transferred from the lines of one railway company to another. The new bill sets the distance for it to happen at 30 kilometres, a previous bill had increased the distance to 160 km from 30 km.

“(The interswitching provisions) didn’t make it. But hopefully the government will monitor how the legislation’s working in the future and if there’s things that need to be changed they will be responsive to that as well,” Auch said.

The Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP) in Manitoba are concerned about interswitching as well.

“I’m worried that there’s going to be certain shippers, especially the short-lines, that will fall through the cracks on this,” said Dan Mazier, president of KAP.

While Mazier said KAP is pleased to see the bill making it to this part of the process, the group is concerned and will be reaching out to the Senate.

“We want it passed so we can get some legislation in front of it and start dealing with the regulations. But on the other hand there is some things that are happening in the industry we’re already seeing that aren’t boding very well for the movement of grain,” Mazier said.

The Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) are happy to see the bill moving forward.

“There was a period of time here between the combination of the last bill and the measures that were put forward that we’ve had a bit of a gap so we’re glad this has been passed,” said Todd Lewis, president of APAS.

Lewis is hopeful if the bill does get passed it will help. He said currently there are concerns with rail movement for this year’s crop which he thinks would be less likely under Bill C-49.

It was reported CN is delivering cars at 51 per cent, which is causing clogs for grain movement.

“We’re already behind this year so hopefully anything we can do to get better service and continue to get service that’s what we need to see happen,” Lewis said.

When contacted for the story CN did not have a comment about the bill passing its third reading in the House of Commons. A spokesperson stating only that CN is paying attention to the progress.

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