It seems reasonable to talk about sidings. There is even a rumour circulating that GO Transit paid large sums of money to add not just one siding, but a third track, at the request of Canadian Pacific. After a short time, it removed one of the two tracks, reducing the corridor back to just two tracks, although there were supposed to be three.
Thus, legislation is needed to protect such investments, whether old investments made by the railway, known as legacy investments, or new investments such as those made by GO Transit.
I would like to add, Mr. Carrier, that my sympathy for railways is limited with respect to net values and so on, because the legislation was different for a long time. It was a means of abandoning and getting rid of unwanted tracks. We lost a great deal of tracks because of the old legislation.
Now that the net salvage value—if that is what you were talking about—must be appraised, this at least gives communities some opportunity to acquire tracks. This is why Mayor Jack Peake is calling for immediate action, not only to protect urban rail corridors, but also rural corridors.
From having worked on such issues with people from Gaspésie, in particular, and people from Vancouver Island, I think we need to be more strict, not more lenient. In any case, any time a railway is introduced for local purposes, this feeds the larger railway and the additional traffic brings in enough money to compensate for the money lost during the sale.
Additionally, when requirements are established, the railway company sometimes retains the track and makes money with urban transit authorities such as AMT or GO Transit. Thus, they are not exactly losers. You cannot imagine the sums of money they sometimes earn.
For example, on the west coast—