Opinion
This op-ed was submitted by Eric Harvey, president & CEO of the Railway Association of Canada
As they have year after year, Canada’s railways continue to deliver for the agricultural sector during the 2024-25 crop year, transporting grain and other products to destinations across North America.
Canada’s major railways have made significant investments in infrastructure, equipment, and people to provide the capacity to move grain and other products to markets over the course of the crop year. That is the commitment made to all rail customers and exactly what Canada’s railways are doing.
Recent comments from the Ag Transport Coalition (ATC) (“Canada’s agriculture future depends on fixing rail service failures,” RealAgriculture, March 13, 2025) about grain service provided by Canada’s railways inaccurately portrays the performance of the railways and the grain supply chain during the current crop year.
We were disappointed by the unfounded allegations, and the tone of their comments, particularly at a time when the facts clearly demonstrate grain volumes transported have exceeded recent averages, despite a series of challenging interruptions overcome by Canada’s railways during the 2024-2025 crop year.
Additionally, the recent trade policy measures imposed and threatened by the U.S. administration call for all Canadian industries to work together in support of our economy. Pointing fingers with inaccurate, misleading information and calling for more regulation that would hinder the success of our supply chains is not the pathway to more growth.
As the following graph shows, Canadian railways have consistently transported more grain this year than the average volume moved in the last three years. In fact, through the first 33 weeks of the crop year, they have moved 19% more grain this year (37.7 MMT v. 31.6MMT) relative to the three-year average.
The ATC analysis focuses on weekly order fulfilment: an unreliable, inaccurate metric that does not account for any context in the complex grain supply chain. This metric is not a proxy for overall supply chain performance. Weekly order fulfillment carload data reported by many agricultural political associations, such as the ATC, does not account for supply chain interruptions, delays, and shipments into longer-cycle pipelines and destinations that affect the number of cars available to load each week. This metric does not account for the performance of the grain customer loading at origin and unloading at destination terminals, which is a critical factor in assessing overall supply chain performance. For example, during times of inclement weather in Vancouver, if the grain terminal at the Port is slow in loading grain onto vessels, it will delay the cycling of that railcar back to the in-country elevator.
Importantly, order fulfillment data also does not reflect today’s commercial relationships between railways and their grain customers, nor the capacity that grain customers purchase from the railways. Years ago, grain companies expressed their demand to railway companies by ordering a specific number of cars each week. To assess service, the actual number of cars spotted by railways were then compared to these orders. This approach had many flaws, primarily because orders were often inflated and represented an inaccurate level of demand.
Things have dramatically changed in the Canadian grain industry since 2014, when the ATC was established. Today, more than 85 per cent of the grain transported by Canadian railways is transported under dedicated train programs where the customer locks in capacity and then chooses the origins and destinations for their dedicated trains each week. This commercial system provides many benefits to Canada’s grain companies wanting greater certainty about the capacity purchased from the railway and the service they receive.
Volumes moved this crop year have exceeded volumes moved in recent years and, in reality, Canadian railways have adjusted their service to move the larger 2024-25 crop, consistent with their grain plans.
ATC falsely suggests Canadian railways deliberately reduced service. The graph above shows three instances where service dropped below the three-year average:
- The railway labour disruption in August 2024, which interrupted rail service and supply chains across the country
- The Port of Vancouver labour disruption in the fall of 2024, which had significant impacts on supply chain capacity and performance
- The prolonged period of extreme winter conditions in February across much of the country, which affected the performance of the grain entire supply chain, and other transportation networks
These three events had tremendous, immediate and cumulative impacts on daily operations of overall supply chains, but the ATC never acknowledges that. In February, weeks of extreme cold temperatures required adjustments to operations to maintain safety, specifically when temperatures drop below -25 degrees Celsius; a train’s speed length and weight must be reduced.
Attempting to discredit Canadian railways in absence of objective basis, is troubling and undermines the united front we as Canadians must present to have a chance in withstanding the current trade war.
As an organization funded by public money from the federal government, we trust that the ATC believes in a strong collective Canadian stance on the international stage. This should be the focus of the Canadian rail and ag industries.
