Harper Says Canadian Railways Under Watch Over Grain Shipments
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper indicated he is prepared to continue intervening in a railway system dominated by two companies in order to keep products such as grain moving for export.
The Canadian government won’t allow the country’s two major railways — Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Railway — to “dictate to the market what they think is satisfactory,” Harper said March 12 at an event in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, a province with a large grain sector.
Harper said he remains “concerned” even though the situation has improved.
“We’re going to continue to watch the situation that’s out there right now to make sure we don’t return to the crisis situation we had last year,” he said.
A bumper crop in 2013 and a cold winter that followed left Canadian railways pressed to move grain last year, leading the government to set minimum shipment levels and introduce fines if railways don’t meet them. Railways have “for the most part” hit those targets, Harper said.
“This is an unusual situation where in the marketplace you have two large suppliers, two big railway companies, where they have extraordinary market power,” Harper said. “We want to make sure as we go forward that we have legislation and we have rules that allow the grain transportation system, the transportation system more generally, to function in the best interest of everyone.”
Harper’s comments are the latest this week by government targeting the rail sector. On Tuesday, Transport Minister Lisa Raitt asked that CN officials be summoned to a parliamentary committee to explain a series of recent derailments, including trains carrying crude oil. On March 11, her department unveiled tougher proposed safety standards for tank cars carrying crude.
