Plain and simple, I think you need to give the power back to the government. I think you need to revise the legislation. Just because it's legislation.... Yes, it's grandfathered, but it's archaic, and it makes no sense to me that we have the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to protect our rights on every level, to make sure everybody is equally protected, yet a rail agreement cannot be changed to reflect a changing society.
I would say that this is why we elect leaders. You're all leaders; your people all trusted you, not the other person; they trusted you, and this is your chance to really be a good exercise in democracy.
I want to point something out, though, about this yard that's very interesting. When I moved here 17 years ago—I hope you'll give me some lateral movement on this—I called the city planner and I did my homework. A lot of people were like, “Well, you were dumb enough to move by a rail yard.” No. When the vendor sold, he said that no trains went by. I saw the fence in Mr. Penn's backyard, which is six feet tall, and I called the planner at the time, and I asked if that was going to work. She said, “Based on our sound studies....”
I'm going to paint you a picture here. From my doorstep to the rail line is about 510 feet. Separating us is a rail line that is above grade, that's above the fence. Not only that, in the forest that separates us—and there's not much of it with 500 feet and another row of houses—all the trees shed their leaves in the winter, so there is no noise barrier. It leads me to believe.... CN was consulted in this process before the subdivision went in, as was the city and MOE. CN promised that if their traffic went up 4%, they would introduce more or improve noise mitigating measures.
That tells me one thing. When you look at the layout here, that's conservation land beside the track. Where were they going to put the noise attenuation measures? They never expected to increase 4%. I just connected the dots sitting here. I'm like, why would they have allowed it? They were either going to go by the legislation, or the function of the yard has changed, and they pretty much put a circle into a square hole, and that's how we've ended up at this meeting today having this uncomfortable discussion with you guys and hoping that we can effect change. I hope I shed some light.