Transport committee  This section is specific to the new service agreement provision—the right to ask a railway for one—but that provision makes a reference back to service obligations as being the service obligations in the common carrier obligations. So this would essentially be changing the defini

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  The department had issued some parameters for the intent of the bill before consultations began last summer. One of the things made clear in that document was that the new provision was not intended to alter existing provisions in the act. Certainly some of the points raised by

Transport committee  Absolutely.

Transport committee  The removal of the term “operational” certainly could have very unintended consequences from a shipper perspective, because it does, as Alain pointed out, allow for the possibility of the railway asking for volume commitments to be imposed on the shipper, or infrastructure change

Transport committee  Not to our knowledge, no.

Transport committee  Definitely. In fact shippers have told us that they hope they don't have to use this and that the legislation was structured in a way that there's a right for a shipper to ask a railway for a surface agreement. Essentially that's a commercial agreement. In the event that's not su

Transport committee  At the same time, the bill does allow for a process and gives the arbitrator a very broad scope to resolve service issues that are not addressed in a commercial negotiation. The way the bill is structured does ensure that when a shipper comes forward and says they can't get agre

Transport committee  I think the difference here is that even though this is an arbitration process, it is an imposed arbitration process. The idea of the parties agreeing to damages in a private arbitration, a commercial arbitration, is perfectly within their purview to do. In fact, we know that in

Transport committee  We are still working within the confines of legislation and giving instructions to a regulatory body to carry out something. In constructing the scheme of arbitration within the act, we consider the normal function of a regulatory body. A regulatory body providing for an arbitrat

Transport committee  Mr. Chair, is this question directed to the department?

Transport committee  There is. There's an administrative monetary penalty.

Transport committee  It's a mechanism whereby, if a shipper feels that an arbitrated service agreement that has been imposed under the auspices of the agency has been breached, then the shipper can come to the agency and the agency will investigate the alleged breach. If it finds that in fact there h

Transport committee  That's right.

Transport committee  Non-performance would in fact be penalized through the use of the administrative monetary penalty. These penalties are used in various statutes. The fact that they go to the government is a feature of administrative monetary penalty regimes. The focus is not on earning revenues