Representatives of the agriculture industry were in Ottawa on Thursday pressuring legislators to provide relief to grain farmers unable to access the money they need for the coming growing season. A lack of rail capacity means producers can’t transport last year’s crop to market to pay off that season’s input loans, they say. Agricultural Minister Lawrence MacAulay said he and Transport Minister Marc Garneau are urging the Senate to pass the legislation. “We put an excellent bill together,” MacAulay said, adding that he has told Canadian National Railway executives to fix the bottleneck as quickly as possible. The transport minister has repeatedly refused to split the bill’s sections in order to let the rail provisions pass more quickly.

Source: National Post March 01, 2018 17:03 UTC