Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
Witnesses, thank you for being here today and for giving us a very wide perspective on the challenges facing your industries. I share your concern, as does this committee, over the high rise of the Canadian dollar insofar as it affects your industries and many others.
Specifically regarding the question of the valuation, could either one of you, or both of you in fact, give us an idea, in terms of employment, of just what the transition from a 65-cent to a 90-cent dollar has meant for your industries in terms of layoffs? That would be the first question.
The second one would be how your industry has responded to enhance productivity, to make the kinds of purchases that were suggested by the Bank of Canada some weeks ago as a way of offsetting or compensating.
I would like to ask you a final question, Ms. Morgan, if I could. You talked about the need for more competition in the rail industry, but you seem to be suggesting that as a result of the placement of your associate members, in terms of the international picture--they're relatively small in terms of scale--you weren't yet afforded an opportunity to delve into where the Competition Act falls short. But do you not see a bit of a contradiction? If you're asking for permission for your industry to bulk up and create much larger organizations to meet with international competition--which I think the Competition Act currently gives you--why would that not be a problem when there is in fact, as you suggested, concern with respect to the rail industry as far as its bulking up and its near monopoly?