CPR president claims government biased against rail

VANCOUVER, (Nov. 22, 2002) — Canadian Pacific Railway President and CEO Robert Ritchie, stood up in front of the Western Transportation Advisory Council recently, and claimed that government policies consistently discriminate against the railway industry, resulting in loss of economic growth for Canada.

He cited fuel and property tax policies as examples of how governments discriminate against rail and routinely favour other modes of transportation like trucking. He says those who ship by truck do not have to pay through their truck rates property taxes for using the highways, and the fuel tax truckers pay helps to improve and expand the highways they use. He continued by saying the taxes railways pay are not put back into the rail network.

Truckers and motorists, however, pay close to $2.5 billion in fuel taxes in Ontario alone, while less than 4 per cent of that is put back into highway infrastructure.

Addressing provincial ministers of Transportation, Ritchie asked: “Do you see yourselves as ministers of Transportation or as ministers of Highways? As matters stand today, it is my distinct impression that public roads and highways are your primary focus.”

In the absence of fundamental taxation and regulatory reform, Mr. Ritchie said he has been advocating public-private partnerships as a way to create a more level playing field, and called on the public sector and the railways to invest jointly in projects to provide services with public benefits.

Ironically, when speaking about biases towards certain transport modes, Ritchie neglected to mention the highly-regulated pollution and emission performances by trucks, while no such rules exist for locomotive engines. Nor did he discuss the repeated pronouncements by Transport Minister David Collenette on future plans to shift more freight onto rail, and discussions to subsidize CPR’s Expressway intermodal system with taxpayer dollars.