Transport committee  I could take this one, and then maybe Norm could. We've definitely seen an increase in harvest volumes year over year. We have an upward trend. If you take a look at the last five years, we're now talking about a crop of 65-million tonnes being an average crop. Man, if we'd gotten that number 10 years ago, we would have been busting the rafters of our elevators.

Transport committee  Thanks. That's also a really good question. To us, it's based on the premise that we have to take a look at what's best for the Canadian economy, and what's best for the Canadian economy is to get products to the customers we have throughout the world. That's going to return as much value as possible to Canadians.

Transport committee  Thanks for the great question. It's something that we're a bit confused about ourselves. On one hand, we have a situation where both railways have said that they're concerned about extended interswitching because of poaching from the U.S. carriers into the Canadian marketplace.

Transport committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair and members of the committee. The Western Grain Elevator Association is pleased to contribute to your study on Bill C-49. The WGEA represents Canada's six major grain-handling companies. Collectively, we handle in excess of 90% of western Canada's bulk grain movements.

International Trade committee  The one caveat is, we have the capacity on the processing side; we have the capacity in the country elevator system; farmers have the equipment and the capacity on farm to produce and store it; and we have the ability on the port side of things; but we need to get the Canada Transportation Act figured out because that's really what we view as the bottleneck in the system.

Agriculture committee  I'm not sure how to answer that question, other than to say that either we have effective competition or we don't. If we don't have competition, we need to look at propping up the system to simulate what you would otherwise find in a competitive environment, and liquidated damages are a normal part of a normal functioning marketplace.

Agriculture committee  First of all, as you said, we're talking about a monopoly situation, or a duopoly situation, depending on how you want to identify it. Contracts that have dispute resolutions for liquidated damages between commercial parties in a normal functioning marketplace are not unusual, but you don't need legislation to support it because competitive factors are at play.

Agriculture committee  I want to make the point that we're talking about providing a more specific definition in the regulatory process to the word “operational”. If the committee believes that you can define “operational” in a way that includes penalties and potentially liquidated damages, then great.

Agriculture committee  Sure. At a high level, there are two elements that we need to make, that we're striving to achieve. One is to get as large a service pie as possible apportioned appropriately among the corridors. The second element is to hold the railways accountable to providing that larger pie.

Agriculture committee  Yes, that's a very good question. Thanks for asking it. We do not have any concern with our ability to unload railcars in each of the corridors. There's no issue as long as the railways provide the cars, the 5,500 cars or whatever amount is set. As long as they provide them in each of the corridors, then there's no issue with handling it.

Agriculture committee  Yes, I agree with Mr. Enns. I'll start with the planning in the fall and explain how that transpired, and then maybe bring that back to a discussion on the basis levels. What happened is that the grain companies started noticing that the crop was going to be very large, and they communicated this with the railway companies through meetings and presentations.

Agriculture committee  Okay. I think I answered his question.

Agriculture committee  Are you asking me to comment?

Agriculture committee  I think, if I understand the question, you're asking if the $100,000 is effective and if we have seen changes. As to whether the $100,000 is effective, it's hard to say. What we are seeing is a railway striving to meet the commitments that have been set before them. I don't want to speak for them, but I think they would strive for that, just because of the order, and so, $100,000—

Agriculture committee  Okay. We have seen improvements in service in the recent past. We have seen warmer weather, but I believe CN in the most recent week has moved around 5,000 railcars. They're on their way to hitting 5,500 and that's good. What's important is that we get the railcars to the corridors we need and the markets we need.