That is correct, and the rail companies could invoke their obligation to protect their financial health in order to stay in business and could pretend that it would cost them too much to reduce the noise. They could also maintain that they are obliged, for very special operational reasons, to generate much more noise. The railway companies could in effect hide behind that sort of language, so that no solutions are brought about and they continue to make as much noise as they want.
It has to be said that before 1999, no one — and certainly not the people of Oakville — knew that there was such a regulatory vacuum and that the railway companies, in fact, were not concerned with the noise problem. Today, when faced with this regulatory vacuum, we say to ourselves that if we are going to amend the legislation, we might as well give the bill some teeth, so that the legislator can intervene. The laws are more iron-clad in Europe. And yet, that is where the rail sector is the most developed. These constraints are therefore not a handicap.