Ottawa Ontario - As Transport Minister Marc Garneau meets with provincial transportation ministers for a day-long meeting 28 Jan 2016, observers are waiting for the first review of the Canada Transportation Act in 15 years to be tabled in the House of Commons.
 
According to Transport Canada (TC) spokesperson Julie-Anne Codaire, a report was submitted to the minister on 21 Dec 2015.
 
It is to be tabled, and made public, within 30 sitting days of 25 Jan 2016, giving the department a deadline of 12 Apr 2016 based on the current House of Commons calendar.
 
Embassy has viewed a document indicating that the title of the report, as it was submitted to the minister, is:  "Pathways: Connecting Canada's Transportation System to the World".
 
The statutory review, launched by then-Transport Minister Lisa Raitt, "undertook a broad examination of how to ensure that the national transportation system continues to support Canada's international competitiveness, trade, and prosperity," Ms. Codaire wrote to Embassy in an emailed response.
 
"The government of Canada will carefully consider the recommendations contained in the report and any actions required to further strengthen the safety, efficiency, and competitiveness of Canada's transportation system."
 
Transportation systems employ hundreds of thousands of Canadians and are crucial to Canada's ability to conduct international trade.
 
"The good thing about this review is it does take it away from the political arena, and it's looked at hopefully in a very fair way," said Michael Bourque, the president of the Railway Association of Canada.
 
"My expectation is not that this report's going to come out with all sorts of magic solutions," he added, since the problems it's dealing with "have been with us for a long time and aren't going to be resolved overnight.
 
"I would expect it to be a fairly wide-ranging set of recommendations," Nick Mulder, a former deputy minister of transport, told Embassy.
 
Mr. Mulder said his confidence in the robustness of the review, though he hasn't yet seen it, stems from the effort that the review panel put into the review process and the track record of its chair, he said.
 
Mr. Bourque and Mr. Mulder were both speakers on a Hill Times Events panel on transportation in September 2015, where the review was discussed in detail.
 
The Other Emerson Report
 
The chair of the panel, David Emerson, was elected to Parliament in 2004, serving as the minister of industry under Liberal prime minister Paul Martin.
 
In 2006, when Stephen Harper's Conservatives were given their first mandate, Mr. Emerson crossed the floor and re-entered cabinet, serving as trade minister and foreign minister before leaving Parliament in 2008.
 
He chaired a review of Canada's aerospace policy in 2012 for then-industry minister Christian Paradis.
 
Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains referenced that report during a 18 Nov 2015 speech to the Canadian Aerospace Summit.
 
("I have the Emerson report on my desk. Rather than reading the 25 recommendations, I thought I would call Mr. Emerson instead," he said.)
 
"He's a very astute and intelligent and considerate person," Mr. Mulder said.
 
"I would hope that the government would take his recommendations seriously."
 
Others on the review panel were drawn mainly from the private sector, though it also included long-time public servant Marie-Lucie Morin, who now sits on Canada's Security Intelligence Review Committee.
 
Mr. Mulder called it a mostly "apolitical" group.
 
Grain Transportation Woes
 
A wealth of specific issues were to be addressed by this review, whether legislation and policy should be adjusted to support international competitiveness and economic growth, how "strategic transportation gateways and corridors" can be developed, and how safety concerns can be addressed are just a few in a list of nearly a dozen mandated tasks.
 
Some specific policy areas, such as transportation infrastructure in Canada's north and the transportation of specific commodities, including grain, are sure to be included in the report.
 
"Priority consideration" was to be given to grain transportation, "given the urgency created by the recent backlog in grain deliveries from the 2013-2014 crop year," the report's mandate states.
 
That priority made its way to the Liberal government's platform.
 
In Mr. Garneau's ministerial mandate letter, he was encouraged to lead a "full review of the Canadian grain transportation system," "in the context of responding to the review of the Canada Transportation Act."
 
A record crop in 2013 combined with railway congestion resulted in millions of tonnes of stranded wheat and canola.
 
Some blamed that backlog on the Harper government's dismantling of the Canadian Wheat Board, which came into effect in 2012.
 
The board could pool shipments and avoid logistical problems, proponents said.
 
Mr. Harper, who had long expressed his dislike of the board in public, made a spectacle out of the wheat board's death, with his government pardoning farmers who were arrested under the previous law at a media event in Saskatchewan.
 
Others, like Alberta's agriculture minister in 2014, blamed the railways for the backlog.
 
The Harper government introduced the Fair Rail Freight Service law, and even so some farm groups said the legislation didn't have enough bite.
 
According to the Grain Growers of Canada, 50 percent of Canada's grain crop is exported and 94 percent of grain exports travel by rail.
 
"Inefficiencies in the system are hurting the grain industry. Our trading partners have taken notice of our transportation challenges," the industry group's submission to the review panel states, blaming the system for shipping delays.
 
But the head of Canada's railways association takes issue with how much attention is paid to grain transportation based on figures from a year he calls an "anomaly".
 
Grain transportation became a "highly politicized issue" during the 2013-2014 year, Mr. Bourque said.
 
"We saw measures that were taken that, you know, were largely driven by politics and less by facts."
 
The grain crop that year was 20 million tonnes bigger than the average of 55 million tonnes.
 
The surplus required an equivalent of 2,000 trains with 100 cars each to transport it.
 
The winter was colder than average, requiring railways to shorten trains for safety reasons.
 
This combination is not something that would happen often, Mr. Bourque argued.
 
Grain quotas imposed by the government to reduce backlogs would've been met anyway, said Mr. Bourque.
 
"If there's a lot of people knocking at your door, as a politician, you feel like you have to do something. I'm not saying it was a terrible thing to do... It really just wasn't necessarily required," he explained.
 
Grain growers are important customers, he added.
 
"We delivered record amounts of grain that year."
 
Railways Dragged Into Pipeline Debate
 
Oil transportation is another issue that could be addressed in the report.
 
The future of pipeline projects in Canada was being questioned as the Liberal government announced a new pipeline review process 27 Jan 2016.
 
While pipelines aren't covered by the Transportation Act, that falls under Natural Resources Canada, Mr. Mulder said he thinks Mr. Emerson may include comments about how they affect other methods of transportation since they are a "big competitor" for the railway sector.
 
According to National Energy Board statistics, crude oil exports by rail more than tripled from 2012 to 2014 but still represented a fraction of total exports, with more being exported on water and the vast majority through pipelines.
 
The cost of transporting oil by rail is relatively higher, but it can provide a more logical option for companies operating in areas that aren't connected to a pipeline.
 
"We don't really see ourselves in competition with pipelines. We're complementary to pipelines," Mr. Bourque said.
 
"We often get dragged into this debate, but we're not going to displace the pipeline network in this country."
 
The derailment and explosion of multiple cars of a freight train carrying crude oil killed 47 people in Lake Megantic in July 2013.
 
It was the deadliest rail accident since before Confederation.
 
Mr. Bourque noted that regulations do not permit railways to refuse transporting dangerous goods.
 
He said rail has the same safety record as pipelines, "we both deliver our product to its final destination 99.99 percent of the time, safely."
 
Marie-Danielle Smith.