Mazier joins private rail crossings battle

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/04/2020 (2163 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A plan that will require farmers to pay for expensive upgrades to CP Rail’s private rail crossings across Canada has hit the political arena.

Dan Mazier, the Conservative member of Parliament for Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa, has written to federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau seeking some kind of relief for producers and other landowners.

For CP to arbitrarily tell farmers how much they will have to pay for the crossing upgrades and then tack on a $350 yearly fee for them to cross onto their own property “is totally unacceptable,” Mazier said Tuesday.

Those who have private rail crossings along the Bredenbury Subdivision rail line, which runs from Minnedosa to Bredenbury, Sask., received letters from CP that were sent out March 26. They have been given until April 30 to submit the paperwork or face the loss of the rail crossings, the letter stated.

The work is being conducted across Canada in stages and affects 8,887 rail crossings.

Federal legislation was passed in 2014 with regards to railway crossing safety and is to be implemented by Nov 28, 2021.

The letter sent out from CP reads in part:

“Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) has been reviewing their record files and databases for information pertaining to public and private rail grade crossings throughout Canada. This review has identified an incomplete number of records with regards to rail crossing user agreements between the private crossing owners and CP. … This letter is to inform you that the private rail crossing at the location described above has been identified as a rail crossing that is in use with no apparent agreement between yourself, the responsible crossing owner and CP.”

It later goes on to state: “Once the grade crossing compliance updates have been completed by CP Rail workforce, an invoice will be generated and sent you for payment instructions. Please note, if CP does not receive a response to this letter, CP may proceed with the closure of the noted subject crossing.”

In the letter he sent last week to Garneau and cc’d to Jim Carr, the special federal representative to the Prairies, Mazier said that in his constituency alone, various notices have indicated costs as high as $34,000 per private crossing with reoccurring annual costs for landowners.

“I am deeply concerned with the approach CP has taken by providing farmers with an unexpected notice, that requires significant thought and has such large financial consequences, in the middle of a pandemic and at the start of seeding season; an already stressful time for farm families,” Mazier wrote. “Furthermore, I am disturbed that CP would notify recipients of a 30-day deadline which gives landowners little to no time to get answers to the questions they seek. It is completely inappropriate that landowners were not part of a thorough consultation process and were not provided with all the information required to make a decision in their notice from CP.”

Mazier said he has reached out to CP Rail, requesting an extension of its 30-day notice deadline.

Mazier asked Garneau to extend the 2021 deadline and to consider working with CP to pursue a solution that does not include burdening Canadian landowners with such cost.

Mazier said Tuesday he had not yet heard back from Garneau nor CP Rail regarding his correspondence to them.

“To comply with Transport Canada’s Grade Crossing Regulations, CP is conducting a review of all crossings throughout CP’s Canadian network,” Salem Woodrow, CP Rail’s manager of media relations and community affairs, said in an emailed statement to the Sun. “All grade crossings are to meet the requirements of the regulations by Nov. 27, 2021.

“It is CP’s intent to work collaboratively with private crossing owners. In early 2020, CP began contacting landowners with private crossings with no agreement in place to determine who is responsible for the crossing(s) identified and establish information for the crossing requirements.”

» brobertson@brandonsun.com