Agriculture committee  That will mean major consultation. It's a very important part of that moving forward. I think where we are is very good. We don't have all the answers by far.

Agriculture committee  Yes, on producer car numbers, when we had the Wheat Board before the change in the marketing status, until producers found a different way to use the producer cars, we were doing between 11,000 and 13,000 producer cars per year. In the following year, until we find— First, to ship a producer car we have to have a buyer at the coast, so those relationships had to be built.

Agriculture committee  Yes. On our lobby day on the Hill yesterday, I know we were visiting Mr. Payne for sure and some of the other MPs around the table, including Mr. Eyking. We talked of transparency and great logistics systems. I think that's absolutely important. Every Saturday I get my marketing report on my desk and they talk of U.S. sales, out of the U.S.

Agriculture committee  Producer cars provide an option for a lot of producers. Where I am in east central Alberta, there's a line, Battle River Railway it's called, that runs from Camrose to Alliance through an area where there isn't a lot of service. It provides the producers along that line very close hauling distances.

Agriculture committee  It's very important to have this. The order in council needs to say that instead of just managing 11,000 cars, a percentage of them have to be producer cars. If there are x number of producer cars to be moved this crop year, and we have a number of how many we're looking at, we need to make sure that's part of that 11,000 and then make sure the railways look at those 11,000.

Agriculture committee  The bill talks about making sure that we have access to all corridors. Access to all corridors has to include the producer car shippers. They're not a corridor; they're not a specific spot. The corridors speak to areas in Saskatchewan. I think we have to work with the legislation to add producer car spots.

Agriculture committee  Shortage of cars.... I think sometimes there is a terrible shortage of logistics. In conversations we've had with the railroads, they have said that putting more cars on the railroads may be like adding more cars to a freeway like the 401 in rush hour. Are you going to get anywhere faster?

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and committee members. The issue with the bells here is much like shipping grain in western Canada: it's on; it's off; you never really know what it's going to be doing right through the whole system. We start our trucks; we're going to deliver grain Monday.