Thank you for that.
Just keeping on that, I think that's a perfect example of where one issue in the supply chain lies that was brought to my attention. I've been working on this rail file for quite a while. I kind of inherited this when I became an MP. It was explained to me pretty succinctly. In the shipping industry, nobody owns the oceans or the Great Lakes, per se. In the airline industry, no one owns the air. But the rail lines are owned by rail companies.
Here's where the quagmire is: That line was owned by CN. They allowed it to degenerate to a place where, quite frankly, they didn't want to operate it and they didn't want to invest in it. You know, it was one of the.... They don't own the rail line, this company wants to operate on it and they were all doing this. How can the rail industry take a little bit of ownership on the infrastructure that they do own? It's very important.
Lora, I comment on this particularly because we can bring that stuff up to a level where freight can operate on it. However, as you've noted in your remarks, we want to see more passenger rail. Passenger rail needs a newer level, a bigger level, of what rail lines are doing so that they can operate at a speed, between, for example, Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie, that would allow for passenger rail. Freight operates on a level that is at a lower speed, but if you want to get passenger rail, you'll have to see the infrastructure on the rail lines, privately owned, pick up.
Is there an interest by the rail carriers? I've heard not—that they don't want to be in passenger rail and they only want to do freight. Could you please just explain to the committee what I've heard over the last few years and what exactly the rail industry is doing about passenger rail?