President's Message

This is my first President’s Message as the new President and CEO of the Railway Association of Canada. I have spent the last 12+ years in the chemical industry, most recently as VP, External Relations with the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada. Like most manufacturing industries, the chemical industry relies on rail to ensure its global competitiveness. For a large petrochemical facility, rail is an integral part of the production process and a disruption, such as a rail strike, leads to a shutdown of the facility. Global competitiveness is not something that we can take for granted- companies fight to maintain their competitive status every day. As a key partner for manufacturers and producers in Canada, it is our job to keep getting better: more efficient, quicker and more reliable and of course, competitively priced.

The Canada of the future will be served by a highly integrated logistics network that includes shipping, ports, terminals, railways, trucking and others: one that is capable of delivering goods efficiently, allowing industries to compete globally. The future will see a greater use of technology to track goods, cross borders and guarantee security in ways that we can only imagine. Governments play a role in safety and security, with overarching regulatory and legislative frameworks. However, to realize this future, business needs to be able to innovate, to work together with customers to solve problems and above all, to move quickly. To become the supply chain enabler that will be the envy of the world, all parties must collaborate in the marketplace using negotiated agreements between parties. These commercial partnerships, facilitated through investment, continuous innovation and productivity improvement, will help to drive our country’s resource producers and manufacturers to new markets.

Rail is a Canadian business success story: we currently have the most productive railways in the world. To become the best in the world, rail companies have had to make significant changes in a short period of time. Some of these changes have impacted the way customers do business because of the evolution to scheduled rail service for freight. In some cases, this caused challenges and difficulties, perhaps just short of resentment. However, rail companies have heard their customers and applied the same effort and focus to meeting or exceeding customer expectations as they have applied to their own operations. There is still some work to do, but most customers have signed agreements or contracts based on these expectations.

There are some who have called on the government to re-regulate the rail industry. This is a backward step that will lead to additional cost and a reversal of innovation and productivity. Perhaps because of our great history, we look at the growth of the rail business and of the nation with a different eye than most. We know that railways in Canada were built on collaboration. Taking the longer view, we know that the course we are on to building an even better system for moving people and goods in Canada is the right one.

The work in nation building is continuing: with manufacturers, port authorities and other parts of the supply chain working together to build the most sustainable infrastructure and globally competitive logistics network in the world; with cities building commuter rail to ease congestion and clean our air; with tourist railways showcasing our great country and as our intercity passenger railway link communities with faster and more frequent service. Great Canadians have played a tremendous role in launching railways and building our nation and it is a thrill for me to tell their story.

Michael Bourque
President and CEO
The Railway Association of Canada