I have a couple of comments. First, in terms of capacity, there are places on the network that are at or very near capacity, but certainly there are places where the rail network is not at capacity. In regard to the new container terminal that has opened up at Prince Rupert, CN has indicated that they have a fair amount of capacity in that line at least as far as Edmonton. I think there's capacity from the port of Halifax to central Canada.
Certainly the CN-CP main lines through the mountains from Vancouver are pretty much at capacity and they have been spending money on that, which I think they did and will continue to do because there's a demand and it's in the interest of their shareholders that they service that.
So that's one thing. The other thing they have been doing is more co-production agreements, and these are good. They get together, for example, down the Fraser Canyon, both railways. CN and CP run on CN in one direction and on CP back on the other, and that's a pretty tough piece of railroading there, in the Fraser Canyon.
So things like that are good. Things like that, of course, don't cost a lot of capital money. But I think to some extent.... Well, I guess “blackmail” is a little bit too strong a word, but on the issue about whether they would have the same incentive to invest if these changes are made to the act, I guess that remains to be seen. I would be very surprised if it changed anything.
I notice that in the most recent issue of the Canadian Pacific employees' magazine they were big about a substantial investment they have made northeast of Edmonton, near Fort McMurray. They've invested quite a lot of money in building new track. They've done that when this bill has been in play, so I think as long as the market is there and as long as they are making a lot of money, which they are....
I think CN and CP, the railways, told you this the other day. The investment community tends to look at operating ratio. CN has driven their operating ratio down, I think, to the low 60% range. The operating ratio is the operating expenses on the numerator and operating revenues on the denominator. That's probably about the lowest among the big class one railroads in North America. CP's is pretty good as well.
So I think this bill will probably have some impact on their revenues in total, but I wouldn't think it's going to change their operating ratios very much.