Transport committee  Trucking can be much more expensive. It depends on the length of the route. It's also not as safe. Trying to move the kinds of volumes that we would move across the country by truck would just be uneconomical, and in some cases, with some bulk commodities, it's just not feasible at all.

Transport committee  It may be better if I ask my colleague to answer your question, since he deals directly and daily with railway companies. I think he could give you a specific answer.

Transport committee  Absolutely. I think that's absolutely critical; otherwise, we really are operating in a bit of a vacuum. We don't know where the pressure points are.

Transport committee  First, I should just make the observation that we have members with mines that have no railways at all, so investing in infrastructure, which we're seeing particularly in northern Canada by this government, is very much supported by our sector. I should acknowledge that. Otherwise, I would make most of the points that Joel just made.

Transport committee  As you rightly noted, this is the third time in four years that I'm appearing before a transport committee on a proposed bill to address these types of issues. I would make the following observation. My sense is that through this bill, which is the most comprehensive attempt to get at these issues, the witnesses and the shippers are becoming more focused in their recommendations, because this bill is actually making a serious attempt to address the issues.

Transport committee  Thank you very much, Chair and members of the committee, and clerk and fellow witnesses. It's a pleasure to be here. My name is Pierre Gratton. I'm president and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada. I'm joined by my colleague, Brad Johnston, whom I think you met yesterday. He is the general manager of logistics and planning for Teck Resources Limited and is someone who works with the railways on a daily basis.

Natural Resources committee  That's exactly what the Canada Mining Innovation Council is doing. It's working with suppliers and with other service providers to help generate the kinds of solutions we need, whether those be electric vehicles or new water treatment systems. It's things that can help transform.

Natural Resources committee  Sure. I should put it in some perspective. We're used to being the number one jurisdiction, so maybe our standard is high. Our chief competitor for a lot of the mining commodities is Australia, and that's who we're losing ground to. We're still competitive with the United States or Mexico or Chile.

Natural Resources committee  What's happened with the regulatory reforms is that we went from having 6,000 or so projects subject to environmental assessments to fewer than 100, and they're almost all mining projects. Mining is pretty well the only sector left that's reviewed by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

Natural Resources committee  Actually, Ontario is heading towards having surplus power, so I don't think there's going to be a lack of power to support electric vehicles. I'll add one other point as an example for the north, similar to the previous topic. Agnico Eagle, which operates the Meadowbank mine in Nunavut and has a new project under way called Meliadine, has indicated that if there were an infrastructure bank, there's a run-of-river project that they would likely finance.

Natural Resources committee  I am personally not aware of new studies specifically with respect to the Ring of Fire. I wanted to flag to this committee, though, that there is a model from Alaska that we have brought to the government's attention to address the infrastructure deficit. For the last several decades, Alaska has had an infrastructure bank, which has been a tremendously successful economic engine for the State of Alaska.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, members of the committee, Clerk, and fellow witnesses. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today and contribute to this important study. I'm Pierre Gratton. I'm the president and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada, representing Canada's mining producers.

Natural Resources committee  I'll make two comments. One is to respond to your opening comment, and Claire might add to this. It would be fair to say that we are almost there. This is Canada on the cusp of demonstrating incredible global leadership. This legislation goes a long way and is largely faithful with the recommendation.

Natural Resources committee  Yes. That's right.

Natural Resources committee  I would just note that this particular aspect wasn't addressed in our work with Publish What You Pay and Andrew's group; I keep forgetting the name since they changed it. We are actually new to this issue. It's really been only since the legislation was tabled that we have identified this as a problem for us.