Thank you, Chair, and guests, thank you very much for coming.
We heard quite a bit this afternoon about the situation out in the prairies. When I was out there last fall, there was nothing better than seeing farms with good crops. The prices were good and everything looked good. I think if this committee were to visit them now, we'd find a bunch of angry farmers out there.
The reality we're hearing today is that this could be a norm. Allison, I think you mentioned how our farmers are doing a great job with new varieties. This could be a norm. This could be the normal crop that we're going to have in the future. Then for that to be a normal crop, I think it was mentioned there could be 20 million tonnes carried over? This is unbelievable.
I guess it has been brought up again and again that there are no teeth in this railroad act, and because there are no teeth, the railroads are not really taking the government seriously. When you look at the U.S., somehow there's an understanding that the U.S. government has teeth, whether it's a hidden threat or whatever, and the railroads take them seriously.
I'm afraid that these rail companies are not going to switch overnight. They're not going to switch over the next couple of weeks because either they have commitments from other products or they're not going to bring in new locomotives overnight.
Sometimes I'm fearful that maybe some of their locomotives will be heading south more. What's stopping them because many of them have lines down to the United States? So you know, it could get worse unless that stick.... The NDP said we need that stick and they have to be fined millions of dollars if they don't do their job.
I wanted to talk a little bit more, Mr. White, about something I think you alluded to. You mentioned frameworks and various things, but you know, unless somebody says, “Okay, guys, the boats are waiting out there and it's going to cost the railroads a million dollars a day”, unless they hear that or know that, the railroads are not going to change. I don't see them changing. I think that's my first question. What is the stick going to be, and how much should it be?