Transport committee  Good afternoon, Madam Chair and committee. Thank you for inviting me to speak today, and for giving the western Canadian association our opportunity to input into the transportation modernization act. First, I'm thinking after listening this morning that this might be my last t

Transport committee  I sure can, yes. What it means, as I think other people have discussed, is that the rate will be determined by the commercial rates in place for that similar move today. If that similar move, as I discussed earlier, is $2,600 to go 100-and-some kilometres, the average of $2,600 w

Transport committee  You know, I think the encouraging part about today was that there was a lot of good discussion that, hey, everybody has to make a profit, but let's look at a cost-plus system that sets what that should be. There's the idea that “commercial rate” is sometimes short for “expensive”

Transport committee  We could start with that. When the meeting's over, we're going to go around and take a small collection to get us going. First, I'll start with why. I thought CN did a good job this morning of outlining why they want to get off some lines. I'm not convinced that those lines they

Transport committee  If I could just comment on the funding, we are on our own. We don't get a dime from nobody.

Transport committee  In Saskatchewan, especially with some of the short-line grain shippers, access to what was in Bill C-30 would allow some new businesses to take a look at our short lines as an opportunity to build on to give them access to other class 1s. The way it's structured right now, I thin

Transport committee  All our short lines are still connected to those federally regulated railways. That's the reason for our interest in rate structure. If that rate spread gets higher between our short lines and the class 1s, it's harder for us to compete. All we're looking at is this. The decision

Transport committee  Yes, I started with CN and was there for 22 years.

Transport committee  No. What I would suggest on the short line is.... I think we've been working with transport. I think it should be really based on.... A lot of our short lines do 10 miles an hour. We can draw pictures going that slow, never mind having a camera. The other point I would like to

Transport committee  It's probably about 98%. I'm embarrassed to say that out loud. The thing about our short lines is that our shareholders are the municipalities and the farmers we represent. That money is put right back into it. We don't worry too much about share price and profit margin. We worr

Transport committee  In some cases we've seen where maybe initially the short line bought into places. The oil boom caused a lot of people to change their minds. I think the class 1s had a couple of railways they wish they had hung on to. There are a couple in Saskatchewan that I think they would wan

Transport committee  One thing about it is that, if they took them back, they'd have more capital to put into them, but then the customer on that line would have to deal with, let's say, service.

Transport committee  Part of it was, I guess, because we try to keep our customers competitive. We really do what our costs are. The interesting part of that was that some of these rates that we're charging were originally set by our class 1 partners as our division, so that's all we ever got. Our

Transport committee  I knew you were going to do that.

Transport committee  Really, the theme of today from the get-go has been competition. For at least 12 of the 14 short-lines, this reduces that competition. In essence, it makes it more difficult for our customers to compete, and that makes it hard for the short-line. As I mentioned several times, ou