Transport committee  I guess I could begin by saying I'm happy that we didn't score five out of five, because I don't think you can ever say that you're there. As I mentioned earlier, with our safety management system, we began our work in that area in 1998 and it's still in progress. It's still in e

Transport committee  It's quite possible that if this were to go through, I would be the individual. I don't have an issue with that; I'm not afraid of that. It's really what I do today. It's how I live my life at VIA Rail today. The only other individual who I think might be more interested in taki

Transport committee  Absolutely. Typically, at a private crossing, the driveway or the access road to the dwelling is not maintained as it would be for a public crossing. Snow removal may not be adequate either. So there is a whole other set of risks associated with private crossings. That's why it i

Transport committee  In the case of VIA, as I mentioned earlier, we have a relatively small amount of track, roughly 160 miles or so. The operating funds that we spend certainly pale in comparison to the freight railroads. I can say, though, that with the assistance of the economic action plan fundin

Transport committee  In fact, in some of the situations we've seen, the same dwelling has three or four crossings--the same dwelling. They are very willing to close a couple or three of those crossings, as long as they have easy access to and from the dwelling.

Transport committee  Absolutely. VIA has been working with its safety management system since about 1998. So certainly after almost 13 years of working with safety management systems we see the value of that approach. Obviously we would be more inclined to go in that direction.

Transport committee  Absolutely, it's the right thing to do. When you're carrying passengers at speeds of up to 100 miles an hour, safety is paramount.

Transport committee  Certainly we also are not concerned by non-punitive reporting.

Transport committee  I should contextualize this by first saying that we don't own a lot of track. We own roughly 160 miles of our own track. Primarily our operations are on CN and to a lesser extent CP track. Having said that, if you can close one crossing, two crossings, several crossings, it's t