Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
This is the Railway Safety Act, so we're talking about safety and we're trying to ensure the railways can provide a safe corridor.
To give you an example, I'm from British Columbia. I was one of the directors of the Union of BC Municipalities. We are on the main line of CP Rail. The Trans-Canada Highway goes right through our community. There was a provision that any land-use applications within 1,200 feet of the Trans-Canada Highway had to go to the province for their review.
So I can't see how this is any different. This is a rail right-of-way. The railroad has taken on the responsibility and liability for the safety of their right-of-way. It's just natural that they would want to be notified if, for instance, the municipality wanted to put a school close to a railroad right-of-way all of a sudden. That wouldn't make a lot of sense. I know that municipalities operate and plan their communities better than that.
I could understand if you felt that the 300-metre distance was too much or too cumbersome, or else you would insist that the railroad had to have a response time in the application. I always found that the problem with the province was that it took literally months to get back to us to give us their okay on these applications. I also found the railroad is quite slow in responding to municipalities.
I can understand if you approach it in that way, but I don't think that's necessarily a good practice not to let the railroad understand the land use along the corridor and what your decisions are.
How do you feel about that?