Thank you very much.
The issue is that often when we look at one statute, in this case Bill C-11, we tend to look at one problem. If we stand back and look at a broader concern, we could be parochial and say, “If it doesn't go by rail, it's going to go by road; fine by us.” At the same time, we have a lot of social concerns. We have concerns about clean air. We have concerns about using things environmentally correctly. We have all sorts of broad social concerns.
We also have issues where, in other parts of Transport Canada, different regulations and different acts permit different ways of marshalling that, quite truthfully, we've had concerns about for safety and other reasons. They tend to make things a tad noisier. We don't like the squealing of large trains going around bends, but we permit the trains because, for the economy, we just have to have them.
So the only concern I would raise is that it's not the issue of reducing noise. People have a right, and I think as a society we should stand up for that right, to have a certain quality of life, and that includes not being harassed by screaming noise. But quite often with government, and especially with regulatory bodies, the right hand is doing one thing and the left hand is doing another. One says we don't want noise, the other one says it's okay. One says we don't want marshalling yards close to cities; if that means there are going to be more trucks, fine. The other one says we don't want pollution, we want to have more efficient use of stuff.
That's why I say that when we go to the regulatory thing, if parliamentarians retain some kind of control and handle on it, we can actually have a holistic solution. When we just look at one thing in isolation, we come up with one answer. From our perspective, if you look at it in a global way, you end up with a simplistic solution that may in fact....
Would people like a little bit more noise and a little less pollution? This is the type of thing we have to weigh. I'm looking forward to things like the Clean Air Act coming forward so that we can discuss them.
Thank you.