Sure. I have just a couple of quick remarks on mining and rail generally. Too frequently, and recently especially, rail issues in this country have been falsely characterized as a dichotomy between grain shippers and the railways, and I think we need to move past that. The reality is that non-agricultural resources, minerals and metals specifically, represent over half of the total rail freight revenue, so if we see a precipitous decline in the volume of minerals and metals shipped, then the railways system itself will start to suffer. You would not be able to ship grain at the discounted rate at which it currently is shipped with the MRE without having a robust demand for traffic from other products, so we need to change that channel. That's the first thing I would say.
The second thing I would say is that there is an imbalance between shippers and railways in the rail freight market. I think that's a challenge with respect to the way in which some decision-makers approach addressing the issue. What I mean by that is this. Shippers are at an imbalance relative to the position that railways have in the rail freight market, so when you approach a piece of legislation to address an imbalance, you cannot take a balanced approach to the legislation.
I think in recent years, not just with respect to Bill C-49 but also with respect to previous attempts by the former government to address this issue, there has been this tendency that if we're going to do something for shippers, we also need to do something for railways, and if we're going to do something for shippers in this respect, then we need to make sure we have a balanced outcome. If you have a balanced bill, you will persist in reinforcing the imbalance between shippers and railways in their relative positions in the rail freight market. In this respect, I think what is really needed to address this imbalance is a greater level of political will and courage. I think that's a really important piece.
You asked me for a bit of information about the data regime. You will hear shippers and railways make a great number of claims. Shippers will say that they are not getting the service they need and that they are consistently being dismissed. If they're a captive shipper, they will say their service is such.
The reality is that we don't have any means of assessing the veracity of those claims. Railways consistently year over year come out and say they are spending 20% or 22% of their revenue. Do you know if that's enough for those companies? Should it be more? Does the system demand, based on traffic requirements, a greater level of investment?
The reality is you don't know. We don't know. Transport Canada doesn't know either. The only way we are ever going to get a clear assessment of what's actually happening in the rail freight market is if we get a really robust data transparency regime that allows us to understand where the traffic is moving, at what time, and with what commodities; where the investments are going, and whether they are going into the U.S., into Canada, into new developments, or just into maintaining existing infrastructure. None of these questions will we be able to answer until we get a very clear, data-driven picture of what's actually happening in the rail freight market. That picture would inform decision-makers such as you with a greater ability to delve into specific solutions where they're needed.