No, I don't agree with that statement. I was here when Mr. Patenaude made that statement. I know him quite well, as a matter of fact. He was very careful that he didn't indicate that any shipper had signed up for it. As I say, I don't know for certain, but as far as I know, no shipper has signed on to their offer of commercial dispute resolution.
I guess the politest way to say it is I would have a difference of opinion with Mr. Patenaude as to whether there are or aren't service problems. There are some statistical things out there that are available, and I will read one to you.
Canadian Transportation & Logistics magazine carries out a buyer trend survey every year of people who buy freight services by all modes. In this year's, they've just published the results. They asked shippers: for what percentage of your current rail shipments do you consider trucking to be a viable option? Forty-one percent of them said that of their rail shipments, zero were likely to be able to be switched to truck, so that shows how dependent a lot of people are on rail. Of those who did make a switch where they diverted traffic from railroad to trucking, 65% said the reason they switched was poor service by the railway.
We at CITA do a survey every year of our members, a benchmarking survey. The independent person who does this survey for us asks people to indicate how they feel about the various modes of transport that they use. We covered air freight, courier, marine, LTL or less than truckload, truckload, intermodal, and rail service generally. In the last three years—we've only been doing this for three years—air freight has come out in the “excellent” category two out of the three years, and rail's come in the “poor” category three out of three years.
There is statistical evidence. We would expect in any service review that is done as announced by the government, as Wade has mentioned, there will be data developed by the shipper community as input to that study.