Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for presenting here today, and thank you to the committee for looking into this.
I did a short inventory of some of the challenges. The first time I ran into this was when I first toured the Port of Vancouver because of the removal of detector dogs. They would bring out a CBSA officer with a dog and clear a ship in three hours. They were getting rid of that, and it would sometimes take three days to get a ship done by hand without a dog.
We've heard testimony that there are issues with shipping containers. There are issues for the rail system itself. We also have a lack of infrastructure. We have a lack of competition, it appears, or at least a competitive spirit. We have a shortage of labour. I mean, it feels like we're trying to straighten out a plate of spaghetti. There are so many things that are taking place. How do we find a vehicle to get this taken more seriously?
We had in the past a white paper on rail. It actually led to a lot of condemnation of CP and CN, because they were described by some as having a culture of fear and intimidation in the workforce. That led to some changes. However, I'm wondering whether or not we need some other type of route to combine some of these things, especially given the testimony we've had about international behaviour and the data that's missing.
I'd like to ask all the witnesses for their input on this. Do you have any practical solutions for this committee going forward? We want to make some recommendations, as Mr. Sheehan has identified, and I'm looking to see if we can scope that down.
Maybe I'll start with Mr. Negad, my friend from Windsor. I'll give preference to the local.