Thank you very much.
I find it interesting that we've heard from different organizations, obviously. Is there a safety fund set aside for the railway system that communities also feed into? If they do developments across tracks, and so on, everybody needs to organize and fund their little piece of that. Or is that just too “pie in the sky” and it's never going to happen?
It sounds to me as though there are some very distinct, great initiatives happening, because, as you can see in your charts, safety has increased, which is excellent. However, there still seem to be a number of gaps you've identified today, and thank you very much. I would strongly encourage each of you to go back and submit to us...because we are very serious about this study. We want to see results, suggestions, and solid recommendations that we can implement. So, please go back—because there's always a time problem here—and submit something in writing to us to further explore and expand on some of the comments you've made today.
There seems to be a real gap between the owners of the cars and the people who identify some of the issues, as both Mr. Dias and Mr. Stevens were saying. The inspections happen but then they're not followed up on, or because you don't own the cars, you're not going to do the actual safety or fix those cars. There seems to be this loose system in place, but nobody is actually, at the end of the day, fixing those cars; or, there's not enough money to fix those cars, because you rent them or you're on the rail system but you don't own the system. As for the ties or the railroad lines themselves, then you're going through communities that want access, and who's paying for that?
There seem to be a lot of players. I would say, to build on Mr. McGuinty's concept, that it's really not just the railroads and the unions. It's the communities and the owners taking a look at the whole infrastructure to see where the weaknesses are and where there can be improvements. Would you say that's true?