This is a question that came up in discussions previously. Does Canada need something that the U.S. has that we don't have? There are a number of factors that say, yes, we do need it. To answer the question from Madam Block, yes, we need it urgently.
The United States has a number of factors that assist in transportation issues. One is that industry and people are much more consolidated and concentrated. When it comes to our business of chemistry, their resources—natural gas, petroleum products, and others—are located much closer to coasts. Texas is on the coast. Louisiana is on the coast. It's easy to get stuff to market, and especially through barging.
In Canada we have tremendous resources, largely in the petrochemical industry concentrated in western Canada—specifically Alberta—and there is something called the Rocky Mountains between Alberta and the west coast that prevents our moving any volumes at all by barge.
Canada is, then, a different marketplace. We have much longer distances to market, and in our case fully 60% of every tonne of product that we move goes across the border into the U.S. Those are long distances. Our industry, like many, is deeply interconnected. Volumes move between Alberta and Texas and back into Ontario, and even into Mexico, on an ongoing basis. That is not going to be accomplished by moving millions of tonnes of product by truck.
We have to make the system we have.... If we want the economy to be strong and to attract investment into our sector, we have to make sure that the economy is working as efficiently as it can in all areas. What you've heard regularly from the stakeholders who have been here is that the rail freight market has not been efficient and competitive for many years.