Finance committee  VIA Rail has actually increased their ridership over the last few years. I think they've done a really good job at increasing their ridership with what is fundamentally an older product. The number that really jumps out to me in all of this discussion is 82%. Currently, 82% of t

Finance committee  It's a good question. Thanks for that question because it allows me an opportunity to elaborate on that. First of all, you're never going to drive a train up to a Walmart store. You need trucks. What we're really talking about here is long-haul trucking. The trucking guys will t

Finance committee  What we're really asking for is a nudge in the right direction to solve this problem, and to see more of the local trucking happen and more of the long-haul trucking switched to rail. If we did that, we would see that it would ease up on some of the driver shortages. It would be

Finance committee  Is that in terms of our efficiency?

Finance committee  In terms of efficiency, we're very fortunate in Canada with our class I railways: we have really the most efficient railways in North America, and North American railways are seen as the most efficient freight railways in the world. They've transformed from what was previously ve

Finance committee  Thank you very much. Certainly, yes, there are probably more short-line railways in Saskatchewan, for example, than anywhere else in the country. All of the short-lines, you might know, belonged at one time to the class I carriers— just about all of them. They were spun off when

Finance committee  Some of them are owned by communities, for example, in Barrie, Ontario. Most of them are small to medium-sized entrepreneurs providing all kinds of services, parking cars, and doing all kinds of things to make a living.

Finance committee  We're proposing a couple of things. First, on the capital cost allowance, if we could accelerate that the way we've seen in other industries, companies would respond by investing in new track. Where you would really see a huge benefit is with short-line operators, because curre

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The Railway Association of Canada represents 50 freight and passenger railway operators, consisting of the six class I carriers including CN and CP, 40 local short-line railways, as well as passenger and commuter service providers, including VIA R

Transport committee  Madam Chair, I could add a few comments, if that's all right. I'm the chief myth-buster for the railway industry, and there was a significant myth that was perpetuated here, and I must address it. During 2013-14, there was additional grain—20 million metric tonnes of additional

Transport committee  I'll maybe start and then hand it over to James. My simple point was that there are additional provisions in this bill for recourse to the agency by shippers, yet there are already significant recourse mechanisms available to shippers. As stated by the president of the CTA a few

Transport committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. The Railway Association of Canada represents more than 50 freight and passenger railway operators composed of the six class I rail carriers identified in this bill, and 40 local and regional railways, known as shortlines, from coast to coast, as well as

Transport committee  On the question of petroleum being moved, I just did a little back-of-the-envelope calculation for what that extra grain crop was. It's 2,000 trains with 100 cars each. An additional 2,000 trains, with 100 cars each, was just to move the additional crop in that record year. A lot

Transport committee  I'll take two minutes, Perry, then you can take all the rest of the time. On the first point, as I've said, on the interswitching provisions, what my short-line members are telling me is that it's potentially harmful to them. I realize that if the rate was fixed temporarily, per

Transport committee  I think the most important thing to remember is that, from a grain perspective, all grain starts on a truck, and it is delivered to an elevator, to a point, by truck. Short-lines are competing with those trucks, but they're still accepting the product from a truck. For a short-li