OTTAWA (Sept. 5, 2001) — Canadian Trucking Alliance chief executive David Bradley said a proposed five-year, $2-billion federal government investment in Canadian Pacific Railway Co.’s intermodal service in Ontario “is just another attempt by the railways to turn back the clock to the days of railway subsidies.”

The CTA today asked federal transport minister David Collenette to clarify a Global News report that Ottawa is considering pumping funds into CP Rail’s Expressway roll-on/roll-off intermodal service, which operates in the Windsor-Montreal corridor. Shifting more freight from the highway to the rails would relieve congestion on Hwy. 401, the railway argued.

Bradley said the story yesterday “is creating confusion and concern” in the trucking industry. “A few months ago, transport minister Collenette asked our industry to join him in developing a ‘blueprint’ for transportation in Canada,” he said in a statement issued yesterday. “In light of persistent rumors suggesting that Transport Canada is pushing for rail-friendly subsidy programs, we’re left wondering whether the minister’s mind is not already made up.”

The minister “owes the men and women who work in the trucking industry some assurances that their taxes aren’t going to be used to
put them out of a job,” Bradley said.

The report was met with surprise at the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, which is responsible for transportation planning in the province. The Ontario government has been lobbying the federal government for more funding for transit projects and highway maintenance.

Road users in Ontario pay nearly $2 billion dollars in federal fuel taxes each year, virtually none of which is returned to the road transportation system.

Ironically, a recent Transport Canada study on Ontario’s surface transportation network found that, in the Greater Toronto Area, even if the railways were able to achieve their hoped for market share of intermodal traffic, the impact on highway capacity would be minimal.