Calgary Alberta - The Harper government, which has demonstrated wisdom in many matters, such as a preference for tax relief over expansive, expensive government, and a robust foreign policy that recognizes the importance of standing united with other liberal democratic countries, has veered far from the sensible mark on one significant file.
 
The federal Tories' overt interference in the day-to-day operations of the Canadian National Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway is very much King Canute-like, suggesting the government feels that it can command nature.
 
As most people on the Prairies and beyond must now know, farmers across the Canadian West have had some difficulty getting their grain to market.
 
This is in part because of near-perfect growing and harvesting seasons last year, which produced a record, bumper crop.
 
In fact, as the Western Producer wrote last September, "bumper doesn't cover it."
 
The anecdotal reporting was confirmed in later 2013.
 
As Statistics Canada wrote in a December note, "Production of most field crops increased in 2013 compared with 2012 as yields reached a number of record highs. Both canola and wheat production reached record levels in 2013."
 
Statistics Canada detailed the crops' results last year:  Nationally, canola production increased 29.5 percent over 2012 to a record 18 million tonnes, the result of a record average yield.
 
Wheat farmers saw record wheat production of 37.5 million tonnes, a 38 percent increase over 2012, and due both to extra harvested areas and yields that were up by over 25 percent in 2013 when compared with 2012.
 
Barley production was up, as were oats, soybeans, and corn, though some of the record crops extended into Ontario in addition to the Prairies.
 
That was the reality on the ground in 2013.
 
Such figures are important to grasp because record crops have to go somewhere, and it obviously matters if grain can be shipped to markets in a timely manner.
 
That brings up the Canadian National Railway, and the federal government.
 
The federal government privatized the CNR in 1995, under the justification that, as a state-owned company, it was by nature inefficient and needed to be subjected to market forces.
 
Given that intent 19 years ago, it is not at all clear why the federal government now believes politicians in Ottawa, with nary a rail conductor or rail executive among them, know how to run a railway, including telling the company how much grain to ship and when.
 
The federal government has introduced its Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act, which aims to get grain moving to market quicker by demanding minimum shipment levels from the CNR and CP.
 
As CNR has pointed out at length, this past winter has been exceptionally, bitterly cold.
 
That forced the company to slow down trains, much in the way automobiles on the highway should slow down in hazardous winter conditions.
 
Do anything else, and one risks a pile up on the highway, or in this case, the company would risk a train derailment with all the danger for staff and shipments that implies.
 
Combine the cold winter with last year's perfect and superb harvest, and delays were and are inevitable.
 
Also, there are only so many grain elevators and only so many port facilities for use, especially given the recent port strike in Vancouver.
 
All of it adds up to backups, blockages, and delayed grain and other shipments.
 
The federal Conservatives are wrong here, and in their more sober moments, they must know that a piece of legislation cannot wish away the past and present forces of nature, nor the backlog such events created in the national railway transportation system.
 
After all, even King Canute, in commanding the waves to obey him, was only making a point to his underlings:  even a Danish king could not actually command the forces of nature.
 
And neither can federal Conservatives.

Author unknown.