Well, that's a hypothetical question. It's as if we go back to the 1990s, when we started talking about deregulating the long-distance telephone industry in Canada, which, as everybody knows, was owned by Bell Canada.
At the outset, if we focus on the issues that are at hand, the issue basically is to make sure we develop the proper tools to ensure that the complaints, the issues you've raised, Mr. Fast, are addressed.
We feel that final offer arbitration, commercial dispute resolutions, and the review of level of services, all the tools that are there, will ensure stability within the marketplace, will ensure stability in terms of the relationship that must be developed between the shippers, the producers, and of course the railways.
We are, of course, in a situation where, yes, you're absolutely right, we have two main owners of the railways in Canada. What we have to be able to do is put forward the best tools to make sure that, optimally speaking—and I come back to what I was saying to Mr. Jean previously—we remain competitive, we remain strong, economically speaking, and we continue on the trajectory that has been launched over the last several years; and that in terms of obstacles to seamless integration—I use the expression largely, but I use it also in terms of efficiency—we are able to find a proper resolution to that. What we are doing here today, I believe, will settle many, many of these issues.
I certainly have the privilege of listening to a lot of my caucus members, because we do have a strong representation from the western part of this country, who have expressed and voiced concerns over the last number of months that we do something, that we finally act on this issue, because, as you say, in many ways it is a situation where small communities do not feel that they are part of it. It is a lifeline to these small communities, and we have to make sure that these lifelines and these railways work efficiently and that they work cooperatively with the folks who are there.
I certainly want to thank you, and I want to thank the other members from our caucus for having so strongly defended this issue.