Canada’s high-performing freight rail system has among the lowest freight rates in the entire world – lower than the U.S., other western countries in Europe, Japan, and India. Canadians rely on an efficient and competitive freight rail system with industry-leading safety performance, high levels of private sector capital investment, pioneering innovation, and a cost-competitive transportation service.
Read the full study here and learn how rail is delivering for Canada.
Railways are a backbone of Canada’s economy.
Rail’s dependability and reliability form strong links in global and domestic supply chains. But moving a trading nation like Canada forward doesn’t happen by rail alone.
Getting goods from producers to consumers requires collaboration across supply chains.
Moving vital products like fuel and food and consumer goods like cars and TVs to where they need to be involves many partners.
Canadian railroaders nurture these relationships, support innovation, share data, and find solutions. That’s how commodities and consumer goods get where they’re needed, when they’re needed.
Canadians expect that when they buy something, they’ll get it. When they produce something, they trust it will get to market.
Railways operate 24/7/365 and uphold their end of the bargain to deliver for Canada and Canadians.
In conversations about supply chains, #RailMatters and #FactsMatter. The facts are:
- Canadian railways are reliable supply chain partners transporting approximately $350 billion worth of goods to market each year.
- Canadian railways invested more than $20 billion in supply chain fluidity and rail capacity over the last decade. That’s roughly 20 to 25 cents of every dollar earned that was reinvested year after year.
- Rail traffic increased by 25 percent over that time, a growth rate double that of Canada’s economy overall.
- Canadian railways’ safety records are the best in North America, while our freight rates are among the lowest in the world — 18 percent lower than in the United States and at least 45 percent lower than in other industrialized countries around the world.
- Working collaboratively with supply chain partners, including customers, railways have transformed grain shipping. Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway are delivering on their grain plans while also moving other vital commodities and consumer goods.
- Railways’ massive investments in track, vehicles, people and technology have made rail a key economic driver, not a bottleneck.
- Canadian railways are already among the most regulated entities in the country. With today’s inflationary pressures and economic headwinds, the last thing our railways need is a regulatory environment that creates supply chain slowdowns and barriers to private investment.
- Keeping our freight rail system healthy and strong will help move Canada forward.
- To truly improve Canadian supply chains, we need fact-based action.
- Every supply chain player — including grain producers, shippers and port terminals — needs to work together to develop solutions that encourage investment and improve Canada’s global competitiveness.
Canada’s railways are proposing real solutions to the problems that exist in Canadian supply chains. Click here to learn more.