Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, members of the committee, for allowing me to present on behalf of the Prince Rupert Port Authority. This is an important piece of legislation and is of great significance to what we are trying to accomplish in Prince Rupert in terms of facili

Transport committee  I can. I'll mention our recommendations.

Transport committee  We recommend that the CTA first act as a gatekeeper and only refer a matter to arbitration if the railway and shipper have both demonstrated that they have made efforts in good faith to negotiate a service-level agreement by participating in a mediation facilitated by Transport C

Transport committee  I think we need to accept the fact that in some circumstances it won't be possible for a party to actually, in good faith, negotiate an agreement. In that sense, Bill C-52 does suggest a mechanism for resolving that impasse. I think what's missing is an interim step to facilitat

Transport committee  I think that's a role for—

Transport committee  No, not another study. Honourable member, I believe the CTA, for example, could take on that responsibility, which is to determine what steps have been followed by both parties to seek to negotiate an agreement and evaluate that. What I think should be avoided is a situation whe

Transport committee  Of course, any additional step is going to lengthen the process, but by not doing that you're really risking creating inefficiency in the system, which will represent a greater loss to the entire supply chain. With respect to shippers' concerns, one thing that puzzles me a litt

Transport committee  Mr. Daniel, with respect to the service-level agreements that we have in place at this time, the agreement that I would point to is between the port, CN Rail, and Maher Terminals, our container terminal operator. Now, the port doesn't have a contract with the railway. We don't r

Transport committee  There are performance.... I'm sorry to interrupt you; yes, there are. There have been established thresholds for railcar cycle time and dwell time and such other things that really affect the efficiency of the system. I think our principal goal, from a port authority standpoint

Transport committee  Mr. Daniel, I think there are performance metrics that are built into the service-level agreement that's in place between the port and Maher and CN. I would mirror Mr. Malec's comments that the key is to ensure that you have a consistent and fair way of evaluating performance. I

Transport committee  No. What I meant was we're not buying a product from the railway. The railway is not providing rail service to us.

Transport committee  We're a participant and we're a stakeholder in that service, so the railways have voluntarily entered into a level-of-service agreement with the terminal operator and the port. To be frank, I think the rail service review process was probably a motivator and encouraged railways

Transport committee  That's true. I suppose, to use a crass phrase, the meat in the sandwich is the railway, and the remedy for the shipper in that case is the railway. The railway, in turn, would then exert commercial pressure on the terminal operators to make their system more efficient so that the

Transport committee  In that sense it makes sense because it involves other parties, so long as the terminals, and the ports as well, have similar pressure that they can exert upon the railways.

Transport committee  Honourable member, I think we have to expect that the problems are not going to go away. Our goal is to increase the flow of Canadian goods and to expand Canadian trade. As a result, I think everyone will be pressed—port authorities, shippers, and rail operators—to continue to pr