The process for line discontinuance and transfer was established in 1996, and it basically is a time-geared process where if a railway has identified lines that it thinks it wants to get rid of, it identifies those lines in a plan, it publishes the plan, and that line has to be in the plan for 12 months before it can start any process.
Then the process is you advertise that it's available for sale or transfer to whomever wants to buy it, to continue to operate it, and then if someone says they're interested, that negotiation takes place and the law says it takes place during six months' time. They negotiate the sale, and if the sale goes through, that's fine, then there's a sale. That's how Mr. Allen's railway was established, presumably.
If no one comes forward to purchase that line, because they are marginal lines for the most part, then it has to be offered to the government in a series, depending on whether the line crosses a border or a provincial border. It goes to the federal, the provincial, and the municipal governments, and now it also has to be offered to urban transit authorities, where there is an urban transit authority, because they might need it for urban transit purposes.
If there is no one who comes forward and wants to buy the line, then the line can be discontinued. If it's a line that is identified as a grain-dependent branch line, then there is $10,000 per kilometre that is being paid to the municipalities through which that line runs. I presume the intent at the outset was that whatever traffic was operating on that line—in most cases it was very little—would now be shifting to trucks, to roads, and it was to help the municipalities cope with that process.