JOC Staff | Dec 11, 2012 12:35PM EST
Denis Lebel, Canada’s Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, and Gerry Ritz, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, today introduced the Fair Rail Freight Service Act bill to give companies that ship goods by rail the right to a service agreement with railways.
The bill would also create an arbitration process to establish an agreement when commercial negotiations fail.
It is part of a key commitment following the recommendations made by the Rail Freight Service Review Panel in 2011, the government said, which encouraged the use of bilateral service agreements between shippers and railways as an effective way of bringing more reliability to rail service.