Thank you very much. I appreciate your being here.
As was mentioned earlier, trade is such a critical component. We've known since 2013 that things were going to get turned around, and things are going in the right direction, but it doesn't seem as though some of the logistics in CN and CP have kept up with that.
You spoke to transparency between the company, Transport Canada, and the customers. As a farmer, I have both CN and CP going right beside me, and there are issues. Elevator agents are concerned. Producers are concerned. We even have municipalities that are concerned when you start taking lines out and all that shipment then ends up being on trucks rather than on railcars.
The other issue is that they're again starting to look at moving trains intermodally. As soon as that happens, we find out that CP has raised the cost of intermodal transport by 10%—at least, that's what we were told, so the question might be whether or not that is true.
Just to comment on the demurrage issues that we have, that cost is going to the farmer. We've talked to elevator agents who are given four or five different times that the train is going to come. They're the ones who are going to call the farmers and say, “Well, here's when you're going to have to be able to deliver your loads and have this opportunity.” That's where the frustration comes from. We can talk about how it has to do with weather and it has to do with other issues, but it doesn't seem as though that plan is getting down to where it has to go.
Therefore, my basic question is this. We know that it's so important, and we have lumber, fertilizer, and oil products, and just a moment ago the concerns about not having pipelines were mentioned. You can't run lumber down a pipeline, and you can't put barley down a pipeline. How are you going to bring all of these aspects together so that the person who is ultimately really depending on this—not the shipper, but the farmer—is going to be looked after?