Transport committee  That will be a decision for the government to decide.

Transport committee  I just wanted to clarify that our comments are directed only to federally regulated railways. We're not speaking to provincially regulated railways like in your province. Further to the comment just now on the certificate of fitness, that language is something that we've really

Transport committee  Just to finish the thought, the announcement that Minister Raitt made on the oil tankers sets up a potential model, where you have access and above that cap it's available. Consolidated revenue fund pays for it and then a levy is charged afterwards. There are options here on how

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  That's right.

Transport committee  Obviously, the risk profile is a key component to begin with. I think we all agree on that. In terms of balancing short lines and class I railways, we've said very clearly in our submission that they can't be the same level, that the economics of short lines are very different.

Transport committee  We know that short lines are key components of the entire transportation system, and if you listen to CN, they'll say “our short line partners,” so there is a shared responsibility across the transportation network. The class I railways need the short lines to deliver some produc

Transport committee  No, we don't have a firm timeline. Obviously, the CTA has a process it's going through and I'd imagine it would make sense to have the CTA conclusion and at least Transport's initial thinking happen at the same time. Otherwise, the CTA is going to be faced with some very uncomfor

Transport committee  Of course, yes.

Transport committee  This is exactly what the guidelines are about and communities that are doing it properly are having those conversations. When we first produced the guidelines in 2003, it assumed that all the development was happening in a greenfield setting. Where you can do a setback and a berm

Transport committee  There are two processes that have been happening. We have the CTA process to refine the day to day, which I think we all agree generally works, but could be tweaked. Then we have a challenging concept here of how to build a catastrophic regime and the kinds of questions we've had

Transport committee  There's a precedent here with the emergency response assistance plans system that places the onus for providing training, specialized equipment, and resources on the shippers because they know best about the specific characteristics of the product.

Transport committee  That's what our proposal has been. We're not the economic regulator and we don't deal with these kinds of issues either, but it makes sense that these are happening in the absence of that fund. It doesn't exist today.

Transport committee  This is exactly why we're saying that we need a catastrophic regime for the short line. There are two policy questions there. How do you bridge the gap between whatever level the CTA establishes for MMA, say $25 million, and the billion or billion and a half dollars that CN has?

Transport committee  Obviously we've been focused on making sure that the railways are doing appropriate risk assessment so that this kind of thing is minimized. Again, the ministerial order that was announced two weeks ago does look at a series of factors, including proximity and population density.