Manitoba cooperator

Page 1

Budget bust

Staying safe

Agriculture overlooked in federal budget » PG 3

Agricultural Safety Week targets older farmers » PG 29-32

SERVING MANITOBA FARMERS SINCE 1925 | Vol. 76, No. 10 | $1.75

March 8, 2018

2018 farm safety week focuses on senior producers

manitobacooperator.ca

Grain companies ask Ottawa to get grain moving again Elevators and farmers are suffering because grain sales were made on railway shipping projections that fell short

Canadian Agricultural Safety Week will place special emphasis on keeping older workers safe on the farm BY LORRAINE STEVENSON Co-operator staff

D

riving combine or truck into the wee hours of the morning never used to faze Paul Gregory. He knows he can’t put those long hours in anymore. See SAFE SENIORS on page 9 »

The railways say a tough winter has slowed grain traffic. Shippers say a jump in other cargoes has played at least as big a role in derailing grain traffic.   PHOTO: allan dawson

BY ALLAN DAWSON

Publication Mail Agreement 40069240

Co-operator staff

I

n the spring of 2014 Western Canada was suffering from a massive grain-shipping backlog and it’s happening all over again. On March 7, 2014, almost four years ago to the day, that backlog forced the federal cabinet to do something radical: order Canada’s two major railways

to transport at least 5,500 cars of grain a week totalling one million tonnes, or face fines of $100,000 per infraction. They’d been spurred to action by losses estimated to have cost farmers more that $5 billion. Bill C-30, the ‘Fair Rail for Farmers Act’ soon followed. It codified and added to the emergency measures in the order-in-council. However, the law contained a sunset clause and, after one extension, expired last July 31.

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The federal government assured farmers and grain companies Bill C-49, the Transportation Modernization Act, would soon become law, improving grain transportation. The bill is still before the Senate and impatient grain companies are demanding government intervention. “It’s pretty bad,” Wade Sobkowich, executive director of the Western Grain See GRAIN on page 6 »

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