Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Buggs, in response to Jacques, you kind of made it sound like you're operating at a competitive price and doing everything that you can to move grain. You kind of made it sound like the railways are doing farmers a favour. The fact of the matter is that on every tonne of grain you move, you make a profit. That's fine, that's fair, nobody's arguing about that. But from the farmers' perspective, in Canada versus any other country in the world, we average 900 miles from tidewater position. Farmers have no other options; there is no competition to the railways. You can't truck grain 900 miles and be competitive.
What's crucial to the farm community is that because there isn't competition and you're both operating under the revenue cap, you have to have an efficient operation. And I will admit that you've come some distance in that area, with better turnarounds and so on, from where you used to be. But there isn't any real competition to the railways from the farm community's perspective. So what's extremely important to the farm community and certainly to us on the agriculture committee is that any cost savings that are made do in fact go back to the farm community.
You guys are doing quite fine; they're not. Their costs have gone up in a lot of areas and they continue to creep up on transportation. That's why the FRCC was so concerned about wanting to take over the 12,600 cars, because they felt they could save the farm community $30 million. The reduction in revenue cap, if the $2 per tonne is saved, will make a difference. But that's a big if. It's “if“ you folks are going to transfer any other efficiencies back to the farm community. That's why we're concerned.
I have to ask Transport Canada about the return on capital. Do you have the figures, John, on what the railways are assured under the cap on return on capital?
I'll come back to my original question. Will we see those other two reports that will give us some data? I recognize it's old data, but the fact of the matter is I personally feel you have exploited the farm community on maintenance costs over the last number of years. I can't forgive the railways for that, and I can't forgive Transport Canada for letting them get away with it.