Saskatchewan gov’t sees rail merger as opportunity

Saskatchewan’s minister of agriculture is seeing opportunity in the recent approval of a move by Canadian Pacific Rail (CP Rail).

The company’s takeover of Kansas City Southern Railway has now been approved by the Surface Transportation Board in the U.S., meaning the two will merge and become known as Canadian Pacific Kansas City.

It would create the only single-line rail network linking Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

“We see some great opportunity, especially with companies trading into Mexico,” Agriculture Minister David Marit said.

“It just gives another opportunity for us to move our product out of this province without having to go east or west.”

Marit said Mexico is Saskatchewan’s fifth-largest trading partner and those numbers have been rising over the last few years, hitting $1 billion last year.

He said this is an opportunity for companies in Saskatchewan and Mexico to expand even further now that there could be a direct link.

“Those companies are doing business in all of Latin America, so now we have access to, I would say, probably in the neighbourhood of excess of 300 million people,” said Marit.

Marit didn’t have any concerns about the move distracting CP Rail from moving grain and agriculture commodities in Saskatchewan, saying it could mean the exact opposite.

And while CN Rail and the U.S. government had voiced some concerns about the acquisition reducing competition in the industry, Marit doesn’t share those concerns.

The deal is worth about $31 billion and the new merged rail line will operate 33,000 kilometres of rail and employ nearly 22,000 people.

— With files from The Canadian Press