Ideally, it would be nice not to have that hurdle in the front of this bill. It's great that you're raising that question.
It was on our long list of asks. It didn't make it on our short list. Getting it into this bill is one of the most important questions that I think needs to be looked at. There's a lot of burden up front, and preliminary proceedings would be quite significant. This is a core question.
I've already made the comment as well about some of the arguments that would go forward to say whether a company does actually have a contract. In this environment that we've been living in we have seen a significant dilution to what I would call a contract amongst our membership. I can't speak for the other members of this panel, but significantly in the forest industry, there's been a dilution away from what we hope the bill is referring to, which is more of a true contract between two parties.
While I have the floor on that point, I would also like to add the challenge that this bill creates for us and the dichotomy that we're struggling with. On the one hand, we want to prioritize commercial relations, but on the other hand, the introduction of this point around third parties seems to remove the boundaries of the negotiation of the commercial arrangement. I'm very confused about that. I would really like to understand why, when we are intending to support commercial relations, we introduce this concept of third parties that have nothing whatsoever to do with the commercial relationship between me as a shipper, or Brian as a shipper, and the railway.