Transport committee  Thank you, Richard. As you noted, the key objective here is greater partnership between the railways and its customers. Close working relationships between our member companies and Canada's railways are not only key to our present-day competitiveness in international markets, b

Transport committee  The issue here is that we wanted consent—

Transport committee  I just want to clarify that in terms of the right to a service-level agreement, right now railway companies are offering service-level agreements on their websites, but they fall short of what shippers need. That's why we come back to the elements—

Transport committee  No.

Transport committee  You are correct. It does invoke that right, but whether it will be successful in generating improved agreement, that's where we disagree.

Transport committee  Two-thirds.

Transport committee  But that's not competition in other modes; that's just whether we have CN or CP.

Transport committee  But let me just clarify here that the two railways don't necessarily compete. Although we have interswitching regulations, they don't work all the time. So to say that we have the choice and one choice is better than the other, that would be—

Transport committee  You may.

Transport committee  When you do have two options, whether it be because you're within an interswitching zone, which is if you're within 30 kilometres of another line...under the regulations the competing railway has to quote a rate so that you can use that line to get to the other railway. Often the

Transport committee  I'm not going to speculate on that, but that's what our members tell us.

Transport committee  That's fine, thank you.

Transport committee  I don't know whether it's 95%. I can say that service has improved, but again I qualify that. The economy is not doing very well. Conditions are very different from what they were between 2005 and 2008, when we were having to slow down plants.

Transport committee  Are you talking about the review process, Mr. Adler, or about the writing of the legislation?

Transport committee  I think the review process was very well done. It came out with results that supported what we'd been saying for a while. Again, I just want to re-emphasize that what we're looking for here is sustainable long-term improvements in service. Looking at two months, looking at a yea