Transport committee  It's going back to what it says in the agreement and what the standards are with respect to car quality. If that's addressed in the agreement and then not respected, whether or not there's been a breach is something the agency could assess.

Transport committee  The intention behind the administrative monetary regime was to provide a mechanism to provide accountability.

Transport committee  The particular factor, if you will, that the arbitrator will take into account is one of several factors intended to recognize the fact that shippers are different from one another, and that the circumstances and needs of shippers will differ depending on their unique situations.

Transport committee  The list of factors that an arbitrator must consider captures the individual shipper's needs. It also captures the fact that the railway is obligated elsewhere in the Canada Transportation Act to provide service to all shippers. The goal there is to ensure that the arbitrator is really considering the individual shipper's requirements and also taking into account the fact that the railway has a broader obligation to provide service to all shippers.

Transport committee  No. The government was very clear in launching the consultations to draft the new provision that there would be no change to the existing provisions of the act.

Transport committee  Rail rates are generally set by the railways. They are published in a tariff. At the same time, very often there are confidential contracts where a shipper and a railway will negotiate a rate that is different from the rate in the tariff. In the grain sector—and this is the only sector where it applies—there is a revenue cap on the total revenues the railways can earn from the movement of grain in a calendar year.

Transport committee  You could have multiple breaches. Again, it's the arbitrated service agreement, which will differ from shipper to shipper, that will lay out the framework for what service obligations the railway has to that shipper. There are details, such as that the service will be on a certain day, at a certain hour, and in there is how they will get along in the event the railway cannot provide service, if there's been an avalanche, or whatever.

Transport committee  I'll start with the last question, and raise a couple of points. The agency will be reporting on the use of the provision, so certainly in its annual report it will be providing a sense of the number of arbitration cases it is seeing. In terms of the use of arbitration agreements, certainly the department and the minister interact frequently with railways and shippers, and we get a good sense from them of changes that are happening out on the ground.

Transport committee  The way the bill is drafted is very much consistent with the other sections around rail service in the act. There isn't a really detailed description of what service is in practice. I would refer you to section 113, which is essentially the main provision that railways are obligated to provide service to shippers.

Transport committee  The decision was to follow the same approach with the new provisions as exist with the existing provisions on service in the act, to keep the language at a fairly high level.

Transport committee  The intention is to make that report, the grain supply chain study, public.

Transport committee  The commodity supply chain table is something that the department intends to get up and running this spring. We've been doing some work on preparing for that. The intention is to reach out to the stakeholders to actually form the group in the coming weeks. On the supply chain study, the study is just about final.

Transport committee  I really can't give an exact date. I know that we expect to have a complete report around the end of the fiscal year, so around the end of March. If it will be, you know, final-final at that date, I don't know, but we do expect it to be pretty close to completion by then. It will be the government's decision on when exactly it's ready to release it.

Transport committee  Certainly, we could expect that the commodity supply chain table would provide a forum if stakeholders would like to address issues that are raised in the grain supply chain table. It's certainly the intention that the commodity supply chain table would cover the grain sector, as well as several other commodities, so that would provide a venue for addressing some of the issues that we see in that study.

Transport committee  The monetary penalties?