Thank you to our ministers for appearing today.
With respect to the idea of penalties, I presume, Mr. Chair, not only are the complaints from shippers not something new—they've been complaining about railways since Confederation—but if the idea of penalties was so simple and so popular, it would have occurred a long time ago, presumably.
The Canada Transportation Act, for example, is not new. It certainly isn't ours either. It was brought forward under a previous government and this issue has not been addressed there. I presume that's because, while it may be popular, it's not necessarily simple. I think the approach of having this done under review is sensible.
We did take a look at this with respect to Bill C-52 at the transport committee. There were a number of issues raised at that particular time. I guess what we're driving at is the difference between penalties for failure or breach of obligations versus liquidated damages.That's where the nub of this issue broke down in the committee.
Our government, of course, with Bill C-52, put in place the administrative monetary penalties to deal with issues of breach of service. The liquidated damages in commercial contracts are actually uniformly dealt with in courts. Is that not the case? Right.
In fact, it's difficult to presume a full range of potential penalties for a full range of potential situations and then enshrine all that in a piece of legislation. I think that's the issue of what I understood in your statements earlier today. Is that a fair enough assessment?