SoVote

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Jun/8/23 10:28:35 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I want to drill down on something that is a widespread assumption without evidence, which is that the private sector is more efficient. I have been tracking what happened to my riding with the backup of freighters, as many as 27 at a time, all up the coast of Vancouver Island, all the way up to Ladysmith and Gabriola. It is very inefficient. Everyone loses. The grain shippers lose. The grain farmers lose, and people in my community lose. It did not use to be so bad. Members would never guess the law of unintended consequences at work here. What was the thing that changed, that made the shipment of grain so very inefficient? It was getting rid of the Canada Wheat Board. We did not know, at the time we were debating getting rid of the Canada Wheat Board, that one of the consequences would be that shipping grain would become a gong show. The Wheat Board used to organize the shipment of grains. Multiple farmers used to have the rails ready to go, and the grain was shipped more efficiently. Now we have a privatized system, and what is left of the Wheat Board is owned by Saudi Arabia.

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Context: House Hansard - 209 - Jun/8/23

Mr. Tako Van Popta

Jun/8/23 10:30:02 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands and I are just going to have to fundamentally disagree on that. If members talk to grain farmers in the Prairies, and I am surrounded by a number of them, they had a bumper crop, and the problem was getting the grain to port. There are not enough trains, not enough people working on trains and not enough railroad capacity. These are the problems, and this is what needs to be addressed. The government needs to get out of the way to allow private enterprise to solve the problem. It will do it.

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Context: House Hansard - 209 - Jun/8/23

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Jun/8/23 10:56:33 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, to my dear friend from Cariboo—Prince George, I give my deep sympathies for the struggle he is going through tonight. He has had more than his fair share of health problems in the last year, and this does not seem fair. To his point about access to rail and the farmers who cannot get the railcars needed to ship grain to port, the question for me is this: How is this a problem of over-regulation? This is a problem of greed at the corporate level by CN and CP. I swear to God that these guys seem to be surprised every year by the fact that, in the fall, suddenly there is grain to ship. I think they should see it coming by now. It is rather a seasonal event and quite predictable, yet they lay off their workers and use the cars for other things, and then in the fall, surprise, surprise, grain farmers cannot get their goods to market.

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Context: House Hansard - 209 - Jun/8/23

Mr. Dan Mazier (Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, CPC)

Jun/8/23 11:49:46 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, could the member expand a bit more on what impacts the transportation system had on the grain handling in 2013 and 2015 and how that impacted the farmers? That grain did not hit the marketplace in Vancouver until a year and a half later. Could the member comment on what negative impacts that had on farmers and on how this act would not react to that or solve those kinds of problems?

74 words

Context: House Hansard - 209 - Jun/8/23

Mr. Jeremy Patzer

Jun/8/23 11:50:18 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, one of the biggest problems at the end of the day is that it is always the producer who absorbs the costs. The shipper will pass the costs on to the handler, who passes them on to the producer, the farmer. Farmers are always price-takers; they cannot pass costs on to anybody. However, everybody always passes the buck and passes the dollar on, and it is the farmers and the producers who end up paying for it. When we saw those massive delays, the costs kept piling up, but who ended up paying more? It was the farmers. The quality of the grain that was being shipped was lessened; this was because of how much longer it took to get it somewhere so that it could be refined, dealt with and turned into the goods we need to consume. However, trying to get things dealt with in a timely manner is not addressed in this bill. Again, there are many upgrades that need to happen so that we can avoid catastrophes like what happened in 2013 and 2015.

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