Ottawa Ontario - CP challenged Ottawa's Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act, which gives grain farmers and other railway clients the right to "interswitch" their goods between rail lines within 160 kilometres at a prescribed rate.
 
(The previous limit had been 30 kilometres.)
 
CP alleges that by following the stated intentions of Parliament without an independent review, the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) had allowed the executive branch to unduly interfere with its independence.
 
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) will review the extent to which administrative bodies must be free from such interference.
 
A sealing order is in place.
 
David Dias.
 
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Decision - 2 Jan 2015
 
Canadian Pacific Railway Company (CP) and Parrish & Heimbecker (P&H) were unable to agree on a price for the transportation of P&H's grain cars from the latter's terminal at Milk River, Alberta, to the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) at the Canada-United States border at Coutts, Alberta.
 
In light of this impasse, P&H applied to the CTA for an interswitching order which, if granted, would require CP to haul P&H's cars from Milk River to Coutts for the statutory rate of $315 per car instead of CP's commercial rate of $1,373 per car, a substantial difference.
 
The Agency considered the matter, and in Decision No. 165-R-2013, made the interswitching order.
 
CP was given leave to appeal the Agency's decision to this Court pursuant to section 41 of the Canada Transportation Act, S.C. 1996, c.10 (the Act), which limits appeals to questions of law and jurisdiction.
 
CP argued that the Agency erred in making an interswitching order because one of the conditions for the making of such an order, the presence of an interchange, was not satisfied.
 
CP argued that there was no interchange at Coutts, Alberta, because BNSF did not have a line of railway there which connected with CP's railway in Canada so as to be subject to the Agency's jurisdiction.
 
For the reasons which follow, I would dismiss the appeal with costs to P&H.
 
Read the complete decision here at the Federal Court of Appeal.