Way back in the 19(mumble, mumble)s when I was a stellar cub reporter for the Fernie Free Press, the first national story I reported on was the Crow Rate.
The Crow Rate, for those under a certain age and even some over that age, was a historical piece of legislation dating back to 1897. OK, your eyes are glazing over already, but bear with me, there is a point.
The Crow Rate, or Crowsnest Freight Rate, was a rail transportation subsidy benefiting farmers on the Canadian Prairies and manufacturers in Central Canada by rate requirements imposed on the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) by the Government of Canada in exchange for financing and other benefits.
It was spurred on by the explosion of mining activity in the Kootenays. To thwart American rail lines pushing north (starting to see where this is going), the powers-that-be proposed a rail line from Lethbridge, Alberta, through the Crow’s Nest Pass, to Nelson, B.C.
The CPR needed government funding and concessions for the construction of this rail line, and the negotiated agreement between the CPR and the Canadian government was contained in the “Crowsnest Pass Agreement” dated September 6, 1897. The Crow Rate was born.
Flash forward almost 100 years and the Elk Valley coal mines were suffering. Contracts with Japanese steel mills were expiring the Japanese either didn’t want to renew or were driving rock-bottom prices. Interest rates were in the double-digit range, so investment was tough too.
Somewhere along the line, probably because coal and other minerals mined in Kootenays started to move west rather than east, the Crow Rate wasn’t being applied, even though it was still in effect for Prairie farmers.
Someone, not sure who, but someone came up with the idea that if the Crow Rate was applied again, East Kootenay coal could be shipped to Ontario steel mills instead of Japanese ones. That would also mean the Ontario steel mills could use the higher-quality B.C. coal and not depend on the lower quality U.S. coal.
Suffice to say it never happened. The federal government of the day didn’t like the idea of subsidies and neither did the CPR.
So here we are (mumble, mumble) years later and we’re talking about increasing inter-provincial trade as a way to combat Donald Trump’s threat of 25 per cent tariffs on all things Canadian.
While the Crow Rate, which was officially dropped in 1995, wasn’t technically a trade barrier, it is still an example of how Canada doesn’t always think nationally first.
Alberta premier Danielle Smith, at best naïve but likely delusional in her belief diplomacy will appease Trump, makes a valid point. She bemoaned the federal dismissal of the Northern Gateway project that would have provided the Alberta oil industry with more markets other than the U.S.
My old boss, David Black, much to the derision of the powers-that-be, wanted to build a refinery at Kitimat to refine that oil in Canada so we could add value here rather than there and meet the federal ban on shipping heavy oil off B.C’s coastline.
The Energy East pipeline is another kiboshed project which would have sent Alberta oil to Ontario and Quebec rather than to the U.S.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a big pipeline proponent all of sudden nor do I think resurrecting those projects will help us now.
The point is we are facing a very real economic threat from the United States. We have to look at things through the lens of what benefits Canada as a whole, not just what benefits a specific region or the shareholders of companies that, more often than not, are American.
Shipping B.C. coal to eastern Canada made sense decades ago and it makes more sense today.