Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the witnesses for coming back today.
I'd like to begin with an estimation that APAS calculated: Farmers in Saskatchewan paid more than $36 million last year in carbon taxes to ship their grain by rail, and they're on track to doing $57 million this year. From your own reporting, CN determined that the carbon tax charges last year were $128 million and CPKC's were $102 million. I'd ask you to table with the committee, if you would, how much of those last two numbers were carbon taxes charged to grain shipments. Can you also estimate what carbon taxes have been paid since 2019, and as the rate is forecast to increase through 2030, could you table with the committee your estimated carbon taxes?
That said, I will shift gears a bit. There's an expression that comes, I believe, out of California, that goes, “Whisky is for drinking and water is for fighting over”. It's a bit early in the morning for whisky, so let's talk a bit about water. What was the federal change, in either policy or legislation, that prompted both railways to no longer consider themselves subject to the Ontario Drainage Act?
Go ahead, Mr. Harvey.