Transport committee  Yes, it's a backstop. The fundamental point is that the forest industry believes in commercial relations but we do not experience them on a day-to-day basis with the railways, as the situation is today. We're hopeful that the legislation moves us forward. We're prioritizing three asks of you today that take it that much further forward in terms of our having a tool in our toolbox.

Transport committee  If I could intervene, any form of improvement from added competition will be highly applauded by the shipper community. We need more competition. We don't think it's going to correct the problem 100%, but it will move us forward. You asked about the quality of the service we're facing, and in my spastic moment, I lost that point.

Transport committee  I'll make two points, if I may. The first point is that I'd be very careful on how I defined confidential contracts. What we experience is a strong creep, albeit the latter is perhaps an insufficient word to describe it. Would you consider an email from the railways telling you that this is your confidential contract to actually be a contract between two willing parties, or a product of the monopolistic situation we're facing?

Transport committee  I would just add that we have been spending a lot of time on this issue. We look at the impacts on the companies we represent. It's in the tens of millions of dollars in the forest industry. We add up all of the bits that Wade was talking about and it translates into—I'm just talking about one sector—tens of millions of dollars.

Transport committee  Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here. I very much appreciate the committee's efforts to review this bill. As Bob Ballantyne has already stated, we, as shippers, remain united in the need for this legislation. I'm here today representing forest product shippers from coast to coast.