CONSERVATIVES SIDE WITH RAILWAYS AGAINST SHIPPERS Bill C-52, legislation to amend the Canada Transportation Act, was supposed to “level the playing-field” at long last between the railways and their shipper-customers. But as the Harper government forces its new law through the final stages of Parliamentary consideration, it’s proving to be a major disappointment from the shippers’ point of view. Nearly three years ago, a federal review panel found the railways were providing seriously deficient services to the shippers of agricultural commodities, forest products, minerals, fertilizers, chemicals, manufactured goods … just about every kind of freight moved by rail. Typically, shippers were getting what they ordered from the railways only about 50% of the time. The consequences were costly. So the panel proposed new legislation providing every shipper with the legal right to have a “Service Level Agreement” (SLA) with the railways. Each agreement would lay out the behavior that railways and shippers could expect from each other, and if either side failed to perform there would be enforceable consequences. To start with, the parties would be expected to try to negotiate a mutually satisfactory agreement, but if voluntary efforts didn’t succeed, the shipper would have the right to insist on binding arbitration. So far, so good. That’s what C-52 appears to do – on the surface. But the vast majority of shippers find this proposed legislation to be seriously deficient in two basic ways: (a) It fails to provide a clear definition of what constitutes adequate service and how any service failure is identified and measured; and (b) It fails to provide meaningful consequences – the railways would pay a modest fine to the government, but not liquidated damages to the aggrieved shipper. So C-52 does not level the playing field. Railways will continue to wield disproportionate market power because the shippers are largely held captive, without competitive alternatives and without effective legal remedies. After more than six years of analysis and debate, and despite a massive consensus among the shippers of almost everything, the Harper Conservatives are entirely indifferent to what shippers need and what their own expert panel investigated and verified. The shippers minimized their demands. They suggested a handful of eminently reasonable amendments to fix the two basic problems. But government MPs completely ignored them, ramming through their defective Bill without changing so much as a comma. It’s a serious disappointment. And once again, the railways win.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 12:53:42 +0000
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