national
farmers union
WASKATENEAU, Alta- The National Farmers Union believes farmers should know that the person Minister Collenette chose to head the Estey implementation process is the same person who worked tirelessly to terminate the Crow Rate.
On May 12, 1999, Transportation Minister David Collenette appointed Arthur Kroeger to facilitate consultations on implementing the Estey Report. In 1983, Arthur Kroeger was Deputy Minister of Transportation under Transport Minister Jean-Luc Pepin when Pepin abolished the 86-year old Crow Rate. Kroeger had worked tirelessly for the previous three-and-a-half years to pave the way for that change. A Feb. 3, 1982 Western Producer article stated: "More than any other bureaucrat, he [Kroeger] provided the information and support which transport minister Jean-Luc Pepin needed during the long campaign to convince cabinet it [the Crow Rate] should be dealt with and to convince the West that change was inevitable and necessary."
That article also stated: "For Art Kroeger, ...the freight rate debate has been more like a three-year obsession. He was the prime bureaucratic mover and Crow change salesman within government, collecting data to bolster his case in favour of the need for change and then endlessly arguing its merits."
In 1982, Kroeger stated: "In the hierarchy of farm costs, transportation costs are not very large." (W.P., Feb. 18, 1982) In that article he pointed out that "grain transportation is 5.1 percent of an average producer's total cost of production."
Today, transportation costs are 19 percent of an average producer's cost of production (and handling charges take another 7 percent). Freight rates rose quickly with the abolition of the Crow Rate: from $4.85 in 1983 to almost $36.00 today (Saskatoon example).
"It is clear that Mr. Kroeger failed to understand the huge negative impacts that the changes he championed in 1983 would have on farmers. Farmers today are enduring the lowest net income levels since the depression, due in a large part to increases in transportation costs. It is clear to the majority of farmers that Kroeger's current initiative will be just as costly," said NFU President Cory Ollikka.
The NFU has pointed out to Minister Collenette that a railway costing review and productivity-gain adjustments to freight rates could decrease farmers' costs by an average of $5,000 per farm. Further, the government could estimate railway costs and have freight rate reductions in place by the beginning of the next crop year (August 1, 1999). This alternative is far superior to implementing Estey's recommendations.
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