Transport committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. Thank you. I want to begin by saying that safety is of the utmost importance to the railway industry. Our members are committed to safety and are constantly looking for ways to improve their performance whether it's thr

Transport committee  Let me start with that, since there are a number of short lines in our membership. I want to assure you that we asked ourselves all of those same questions after that terrible accident. That's one of the reasons we have instituted a new measure where we will require a commitmen

Transport committee  Thanks for asking that question, because I think there has been a lot of misunderstanding around this. I was quite close to it, because I was involved with Transport Canada, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the fire chiefs, and the industry in putting together the agree

Transport committee  It wasn't so long ago that the RCMP foiled a plot by al-Qaeda agents in this country to blow up a VIA train. We shouldn't take it for granted that because we haven't had a serious security incident in this country lately it isn't an ongoing threat. We would jeopardize our trade

Transport committee  I am going to answer the questions about the Auditor General's report in English, and afterwards, I am going to ask the CN representatives to reply to the question that concerned them. I'm going to answer the Auditor General question, and then CN can answer the question for the

Transport committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Michael Bourque, and I am president of the Railway Association of Canada. I'm delighted to be here with my colleagues from CN and CP. Our association represen

Transport committee  I would rather just proceed [Technical Difficulty—Editor], if it's okay with you.

Transport committee  The other related issue that was brought up is the condition of cars. The rail company doesn't load the car; the customer does. Often there is damage done to the car, and then it goes to the next destination and the railway is responsible for it but it didn't do or know about the

Transport committee  If you were to talk to most of the customers of the railways, you'd find that they would acknowledge that service has improved. I'm not saying that if we were sitting here five years ago, I wouldn't have an argument. But over the five years service has improved, and I provided so

Transport committee  Yes, sure, they'll be on the record. Anything you want, statistics-wise—

Transport committee  Yes, like freight rates, for example, they are available. We'd happily provide it. The RBC survey, yes....

Transport committee  The way I look at it is that there was an evolution. It was only 18 years ago that CN was privatized from a crown corporation. We forget that. That's a tremendous transformation in less than 20 years. As Shauny was saying, the focus on precision railroading was a focus on cutti

Transport committee  Well, I love the term “precision railroading” because—

Transport committee  I am going to answer in English.

Transport committee  What I was trying to communicate in the remarks of mine that you just cited is that many of the people whom I had spoken to about this potential legislation were frankly outraged that the government would step into an area that was working in a commercial context. In particular,