Thank you, Madam Chair.
I really did want to ask Mr. DeJong a question with respect to multimodal strategies and program integration, but apparently he's not here. I'm going to attempt to ask you three the question, and hopefully you can help me out.
As you may know, I had the privilege yesterday on behalf of the committee to table a report essentially moving toward a Canadian transportation and logistics strategy. In the process of authoring that report, we recognized strategic areas in our travels throughout Canada, essentially located in the Niagara and Vancouver and Seattle areas. I learned a lot. As I said earlier, what we learned most was the identification of those strategic trade corridor areas within the nation.
With that said, Niagara was identified as a strategic trade corridor. Within the Niagara region, as you can well appreciate, over time there are areas that were identified under official plans at the municipal level allowed to grow in an industrial manner, but over time, they became more of a residential area that is attached to an industrial area.
Right now I'm working with one situation in the city of Thorold, where we have a shunting yard that is literally right next to a water course, an aquifer, as well as a residential area. I have received a lot of, not only complaints, but also concerns with respect to safety in that area because of what's being shunted by trains and, of course, what those trains are carrying. There are concerns relative to noise, safety and so forth, which I'm sure you can well appreciate.
How do I successfully facilitate with, in this case CN, a solution to relocate that shunting yard? By the way, it was relocated from another area, and then the problem just moved to that area. How do I successfully facilitate with that partner, CN Rail, a more appropriate area of relocation for the shunting yard?