Page 20 of your report, Ms. Burr, talks about the positive train control systems. It says:
Positive Train Control (PTC) systems will integrate ICT, train positioning systems and connectivity between locomotives, signals, switches and operation centres to control train movements with safety, security, precision, and efficiency. This will significantly reduce the probability of train collisions, casualties, damage to equipment and over speed accidents
I notice that the positive train control technology has been on a U.S. wish list since 1990, then in 1994, and again in 1997. They were pushing the rail companies to adopt this technology voluntarily, and of course the train companies didn't want to. Then they had a horrific train crash that killed 25 people in 2008. Since then, Congress has made it mandatory and has given the companies until 2015 to put the system in place.
It is costly. In about 15 minutes we will learn from the Transportation Safety Board on the costs of the crash, but whatever the cost may be, we don't know whether positive train control would or would not have assisted.
When there is a technology that you know of from your policy shop, and you know that it helps and you've seen other countries using this technology, how does the policy get translated into a submission, perhaps to the transport minister or the deputy, that would then turn it into a regulation so that something like the positive train control would become a reality?
Do you also look at the cost? If we say positive train control should be mandatory and it we know it will take five to 10 years to phase it in, do you estimate how much would it cost VIA and all the other smaller train companies? Do you do the cost analysis also?