It's a good question. From a strategic standpoint, we have to understand that we're operating within global supply chains and that Canadian supply chains are competing with other supply chains. Everything is connected. The shipping sector is connected to ports and ports are connected to rail and truck. Grain companies are big and are big actors there. So we all need to work together.
One of the things that I find people don't understand well, and certainly people don't get enough credit for, is the precision railroad model that has been introduced into Canada. What's happening with short-lines is that they are increasingly working into that precision railroad model. There is, in fact, private sector investment that's looking for opportunities to enhance that connection, to bolt on a precision railroad model at the short-line level to the class Is. From a rail perspective, the productivity has been there, the investment has been there, the efficiency gains have been there, but for the other parts of the supply chain I'm not so sure that has happened. For short-lines, what they need is a little bit of help from government, quite frankly, because of this competition with truck, as I explained.
From a broader strategic standpoint, I think what we need to look at is that government in particular is a huge player in the overall transportation network. They own the ports, they own the bridges, they own the roads, they own the tunnels for the most part, and they are the regulator. They're the elephant in the room of the supply chain and they need to look at how they can incent additional investment.
You've seen in Australia, for example, that governments have sold ports. I took note of the fact that when they sold the most recent port some of the revenue from that is going to be used to close 50 railway crossings. Why do they want to close 50 railway crossings? It's because it's going to increase the fluidity on the rail network and it's going to be safer, because the safest crossing is one that doesn't exist.
So there is an important strategic standpoint.