Several years ago, Transport Canada established a Commodity Supply Chain Table (CSCT) to understand the dynamics between shippers and carriers, (primarily the railways), with a view to providing useful information for the government to set freight transportation policy and to assist in improving rail based supply chains.
The latest initiative of the CSCT is the development of a forecast for the recovery from the COVID-19 shutdown of the Canadian and global economies and in particular, the potential impacts on domestic rail freight and trucking service.
- Transport Canada is developing this forecast in three stages.
- Transport Canada initial forecast, presented by video conference on June 22.
- Obtain input from the shipper community followed by a second CSCT video conference in late July
Obtain input from the railway industry, followed by a third and final CSCT video conference in late August.
At the CSCT video conference of June 22, Transport Canada presented its initial forecast.
The Transport Canada initial forecast can be found at the red bar below. It is on 22 slides and provides comments on the impacts of the economic shutdown on the various transportation modes and then looks at possible recovery forecasts, both short and long-term, and also looks at possible regional impacts.
This appears to be a well-researched document and a useful initiative. We have offered to have FMA and its members meet by video conference with Transport Canada officials in early July to provide FMA member input.
We would encourage FMA members to review and develop comments on the Transport Canada document, from the perspective of your individual companies. In addition to the videoconference with Transport Canada officials, if you wish to provide comments to Transport Canada on a confidential basis, that can also be arranged.
Once a date has been set for the FMA-Transport Canada video conference, we will inform the membership.
