Clearly we will always do what we can to make sure we serve the customers and not shut down a port. By using managers and retirees, you know...who knows what will happen in the future? That's one of the issues, obviously.
We also have unionized clerks who prepare waybills and customs documents. They're not necessarily highly skilled people, but you cannot send a train out of Halifax to Chicago without doing the customs work. That would be an example of where you want to make sure those trains can get through the border. I can load containers in Halifax, stop at the Canada-U.S. border, and not get through because I don't have customs documentation.
So I'll come back to my point. I have listened to quite a few of the hearings, and I think the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and other chambers in Canada have clearly said that you have to think beyond the railway here. What are the customers' needs here, and how do we make sure that the customers are served? Small businesses are customers of the Purolator business as well as CN, and those customers also require that we move their goods to market. It would be somewhat difficult to explain to a customer in Halifax who needs one container moved that we can't move their car through the customs border because we're missing documentation.
I think it goes to the point that this system is not broken today. We had a strike of the CAW in February of 2004, the first railway strike in the last 20 years that did not get solved by back-to-work legislation. After a 30-day strike they came back to work. We operated the railway. We served our customers. The parties came back and signed a new agreement.
You know, it does work. Last week the CAW, who two years ago were on strike, signed a new three-year agreement.
So my comment to you is that I don't think the provision under a federal statute requiring that we have the right or not to use replacement workers is required in the current environment in Canada. With all due respect, I do not share your view that small businesses aren't impacted by this. They are.