The Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan or APAS, Vice President Norm Hall was pleading his case to the federal government and to the railways in the summer, to be ready, if need be, to move a bumper crop from producers in Saskatchewan. He sent his letter to all parties on June 21st of 2016, doing his best to give the heads up that a large crop may be coming, and will need lots of rail cars to get to important ports, ensuring no hold ups or any backlogs which happened in years prior. 

When asked about how the rail companies did at moving this year's crop, Norm paused for a half moment, and said "They did, ok". Hall said as a whole it wasn't quite as bad as other big crop years within the past few years, but plenty of issues still remained. For starters Norm mentioned the Ag Transportation Coalition reports, which come out weekly, showing that CT rail was 5-25% of the time, behind CN rail and showing up late. Norm asked, if you were to show up on time 75% of the time for your boss, what would happen? He said this is unacceptable, and would not be allowed for normal, everyday people that go to work, so why should it be OK for the rail companies? 

Hall stated that the upcoming federal spring session will be monumental to ensuring producers have a fair shake at what does happen in future harvest times, especially if Oil and Potash were to make a big come back. One of the largest reasons the rail companies were as accommodating as they were with this years harvest, the 2nd largest on record, was the fact that Oil and Potash weren't needing rail cars like they have in the last few years.