I'd like to go back a little bit on the car spotting. If I look at a couple of our operations out in the field, just to put this into context and to pick up on what Wade was saying, there's a demand out there, according to industry, by customers who, thankfully, are demanding Canadian grains and oilseeds and special crops on a daily basis. As companies, no doubt we're very competitive in trying to capture those opportunities and meet the market needs of the end-use consumer.
We are informed by our carriers that they understand what the demand is, but here is what we're going to get. Reluctantly, we have to accept that. In a competitive world, there are formulas. I'm not going to claim to be an expert on this, but there's an allocation process that has set out a certain number of cars for a given day. As Wade was saying, on a Thursday or Friday we've asked for, say, a 100-car unit to show up at our door. We get our employees in place. Sometimes we have to hire extra staff, and sometimes we have to ask people to work on a Saturday or Sunday. To some of us it might not seem like a lot, because I'm sure all of us have to do that every now and then, but for some of these employees, working on a Saturday or a Sunday to load a car, when those cars don't show up, or shows up on a Sunday late, two days after the fact.... Then you have 24 hours to load that car. In the context of, say, a 100-car unit--Wade, correct me if I'm wrong--that's about 14 minutes per car.
Safety is of utmost priority to us, but I can tell you that as employees sit around on a Saturday or a Friday night waiting for cars to show up, they do get a little frustrated. They get a little angry at management, but we tell them to wait. Then the cars finally show up, and then we say, oh, by the way, you have about 14 minutes per car to meet the obligation; otherwise, we lose our incentive or get penalized. Then we bust our butts to do that--sorry to be so blunt--and then sometimes the cars don't get picked up after the 24-hour period is done.
That's the point we find ourselves at. In answer to the question of the committee member about the delays or lack of cars, politely, I would almost say we should ask the carriers why there are delays or why there is a lack of cars, because I can tell you that out in the field we have an elevator and we're waiting. We've requested; we know what we've been allocated, and we know what we've been told is supposed to show up on a given day, and that's all the control we have. We're supposed to do our job when those cars show up, and when we don't, we're penalized.
That's about as blunt as I can get.