Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to have another panel of witnesses before us on a very important topic.
When you listen to the testimony, particularly as we've heard today from some of the shipper organizations and from one of the railways, it's really a case of black versus white. You often wonder if the ships are just passing in the night.
The government obviously conducted a rail review process. The result of that process a couple of years ago was to agree largely with the shipper perspective that there was an imbalance, and that imbalance needed to be corrected. So we have before us Bill C-52, and we have six amendments to Bill C-52 proposed by the Coalition of Rail Shippers.
I have three questions in particular that I'd like to ask the shippers, perhaps the Mining Association, the fertilizer people, and the chemical people.
The coalition amendment number one talks about a better, clearer, more specific definition of what adequate and suitable accommodation and service obligations really mean in the language of the law. Those phrases, “adequate and suitable accommodation” and “service obligations”, have been in the legislation for a long time. There's still a great deal of ambiguity about what they mean, even after years and years of usage, so the shippers are suggesting an amendment to bring some precision to the use of that language.
If the amendment is adopted by the committee and by the government and by Parliament, you'll get the precision you're suggesting. What if the amendment is not adopted? Will the legislation fix the problem or will the ambiguity continue and the problem will not be solved? That's question number one. How vital is this amendment in providing greater definition of service obligations?
Secondly, what are the service levels you are experiencing now? When the rail review process was conducted a few years ago, they reported a pretty difficult situation. The information provided by Mr. Mongeau would suggest that some of those performance levels have improved, at least in the last two or three years. What is your experience right now with service from the railways? And when I say “right now”, I want to include specifically the period of time since the legislation was tabled. Have you noticed any change in the level of service that is being experienced right now?
My final question is on this issue of administrative monetary penalties versus liquidated damages. The legislation obviously provides for AMPs. It doesn't provide for an expedited way to proceed with actual practical damages.
If you have only the monetary penalties in the legislation and no access to liquidated damages, does that really fix the problem from the shippers' point of view? The AMPs money goes to the government; it doesn't go to you. So what's your preference in terms of remedy?