(Editor's Note: the following is an Open Letter to MP, Blaine Calkins)
Dear Mr. Calkins:
Last fall I had a visit with you, to warn of the imminent mistake the federal government was making, in pushing so hard for the passage of Bill C-18, against all normal cautionary parliamentary procedures. Mr. Calkins you have not taken those warnings to heart, and neither did any of your fellow Conservative Party MPs or Senators. In order to gain a real understanding of the issue, one must consider real life examples.
A very good example is the Battle River Railway, which runs from Alliance in Eastern Alberta, Northwest to Camrose. Over the past two decades about six out of every seven towns have lost their elevators, due to grain company consolidation, deregulation of grain transportation, the loss of the Crow Rate, and the loss of cooperatives. Besides higher freight rates and higher elevation charges at the bigger terminals, farmers have faced significantly higher trucking costs to deliver grain to elevators further from home. As a result, some farmers began to exercise their right to load rail cars themselves on sidings close to home. This activity was possible because the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) had the authority over Canadian National and Canadian Pacific to allocate cars to sidings where farmers needed them. Bill C-18 effectively eliminated that authority.
In 2003, farmers around the Battle River Railway started to form a co-op in order to organize the producer car loading, which has steadily increased ever since. In 2008, CN wanted to sell, or else decommission, the line. The local farmers were determined to not let that happen, so they did a lot of work to get the skills and knowledge to own and operate a railroad themselves. With help of all kinds of local people in their eight communities, they purchased the line for $4.3 million, acquired a locomotive, and formed the farmer owned and operated Battle River Railway Cooperative. In the 2010 crop year the Battle River Railway Cooperative generated $1 million in profits from elevation savings on the 800 rail cars they delivered, and $600,000 from blending activities, besides other income. Spurred by the new economic activity and profits, the small communities near the rail line have enjoyed a revival.
However, now with Bill C-18 passed, Prince Rupert Terminal has let the Battle River Railway Coop know that they will not accept blending activities from them anymore. Without the CWB's single desk authority, farmers need a contract with one of the grain companies, or other buyers, to sell grain. Why would grain companies offer farmers a price honouring the incentive for producer car loading, when the only alternative is to truck it further to the grain company's own elevator on the main track?
Mr. Calkins I want to publicly repeat our request to you here. How do you justify a political decision that eliminates benefits of $1.6 million to 100 farmers in eight small communities, without a plan that shows how they can recoup those losses or without any example of how else they can profit from your political decision? It is a huge blunder by you and your government to have passed Bill C-18, without having undertaken any economic analysis or developed a clear plan. You have used the so-called "freedom for farmers" mantra, at the same time as you have effectively taken real market power away from farmers and allowed it to land on the desks of the transnational grain companies.
Jan Slomp, NFU Region 7 (Alberta) Coordinator.
