Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for having me today. I did not join the Coalition of Rail Shippers, but I'm pleased to be with my colleagues from a range of sectors. I will take every minute that Mr. Facette has not used, if I could, Mr. Miller, and go through a quick presen

Transport committee  I'm joking. I run CN, which is the largest Canadian railroad, and I believe it is the true backbone of the Canadian economy. I believe the rail industry is absolutely essential to our country's prosperity. We have long distances in Canada to cover and rail is a very important pa

Transport committee  Could I maybe just shed light on the issue? Parties in a commercial agreement are free to come to terms on all aspects of an agreement. The same way that all the shippers cannot have an arbitrated solution with trucking, or an arbitrated solution with airlines, or an arbitrated s

Transport committee  It's quite simple. All transportation contracts, in all sectors, are reached without government intervention and without arbitration. The fact that we still have some residual regulation in the railway sector has to do with history. The fact that associations are asking parliamen

Transport committee  We lose it to trucks. We lose it to pipelines. We lose it to a combination of trucks and railroads. We lose it to other railroads. We lose it because we compete in every business we deal with. It only takes a regulatory lawyer like François to tell us that we are in a non-funct

Transport committee  [Inaudible—Editor]

Transport committee  All of our chemical companies are sharing the business between CN and CP. That's true of Dow. That's true of NOVA. That's true of every chemical company. I don't know that we have one that has 100% with one carrier, and more than two-thirds are served by the two railroads, and we

Transport committee  We almost joined the coalition.

Transport committee  I would tell you that if life were simple, maybe you'd be right, but the reality of a network business is that the devil is in the details. That is actually why asking an arbitrator, whether he's named by the CTA or whether he's just a lawyer on a roster of arbitrators, to try to

Transport committee  Actually, we have a commercial dispute resolution that's available to all our customers. They can opt in for any issues we have with them. We've made a commitment, as part of the rail service review, to make it available. They can use it. Some shippers would like it—

Transport committee  No, it's a commercial dispute resolution to resolve issues—

Transport committee  It is, yes.

Transport committee  I am concerned it will do the reverse. I am concerned it will stifle the innovation and the strong push for supply chain collaboration that we've seen over the last few years. Any time you create a mechanism that allows a shipper to have a commercial negotiation on the one hand

Transport committee  I would have told the railroads and the shippers that a good thing has been happening over the last three years and that we are making tremendous progress. We have agreements with ports, terminal operators, and several of our customers. We have service-level agreements. I would h

Transport committee  I can't satisfy Mr. Tougas, and it's very difficult to satisfy associations. But I have a great relationship with Mr. Lindsay, a great relationship with Bill Doyle, and a great relationship with the new CEO of Dow. I have a great relationship with our customers.