Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
We now move on to the whole issue of the transport agency and amendments to that. The issue is whether or not it is wise to reduce the agency from seven members to five members. Given the additional tasks that we are giving to the agency, it would seem to be prudent public administration to ensure that we continue to have the same size of agency. But one weakness that has obviously been identified is the fact that the agency doesn't necessarily have the representation from across the country that's required.
When we talk about things like railway noise or other issues of that nature, they're very regional, and we believe it would be important to have representation from right across the country. That's why we're proposing here that we would continue with a transport agency of seven members, one of whom--the chair--would be in the national capital region, and the other six of whom would be within the six regions of Canada, in the Atlantic provinces, of course,
in Quebec, in Ontario, in the Prairies, in British Columbia and in the territories. Representatives would be on site and would actually be able to do the work in their respective regions. That would allow for better representation and greater capacity to fulfill the mandate given to the Agency. That is why we are proposing to increase the number of Agency members to seven and spread them right across the country.