Transport committee  My simple answer to that is yes. This act, this legislative package, is one of our key initiatives to deliver on the five themes you mentioned that are in the minister's vision. It does improve the travellers' experience. It does support trade corridors. It does improve security

Transport committee  The way the definitions are done is by the revenue they make with the amount of tonnage. If you have what I'll call a “holding company” that holds various railways that operate across the country, in some cases those railways may be under federal jurisdiction, and in other cases

Transport committee  The elements of Bill C-30 that will remain in place are the arbitration for level of service, and the operational terms. The agency was given authority to define those operational terms when the bill was first introduced, so that is one element that is there. The penalties for

Transport committee  We're not forcing anybody to carry anything here. The railways, among themselves, determine what arrangements they have with one another. Usually, the railway is carrying full one way and is empty another way, or sometimes they can bring back some stuff on the cars they've unload

Transport committee  I will ask Brigitte to answer. It's a hot topic right now, but I'll ask her to give you some context on work that's under way.

Transport committee  As we said, the agency will be getting authority to collect data on the performance of the parties involved in the air traveller experience. The agency will then get information. If there are too many complaints coming to the agency from travellers that certain airlines are not r

Transport committee  We already have them in the air sector and the marine sector. Actually, the regulatory environment there is done on an international scale through the International Civil Aviation Organization, which is located in Montreal. They have had voice recorders on the aircraft for decade

Transport committee  I will ask Ms. Diogo to talk about the situation in Europe, because we have looked at what is in place. Let me just say that our regulatory and operational framework is completely different from what they have in Europe.

Transport committee  As to the bill of rights, we have compared the current frameworks in the United States and Europe, and have taken the best from each of them. When we introduce regulations, we will look at what is in place in the United States, Europe and other countries and develop a framework t

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  That is correct. They do have access to what we call regular interswitching, which is 30 kilometres; that existed in the legislation before and continues to exist.

Transport committee  In fact, we're recommending some improvements to it in this bill, but yes, with the sunset, the extended interswitching no longer operates. That's why we're hopeful that this bill will receive royal assent so that long-haul can be put in place.

Transport committee  I'm going to ask Marcia Jones to take you through some of the high-level differences between the two and, as you say, we'll probably have more opportunities to get into detail on this.

Transport committee  In fact, we encourage negotiation on everything in rail, but the long-haul interswitching provision is that if they cannot come to an agreement, then they go to the agency. It's the agency that actually sets the rate for the portion of the route where the product has to be carrie

Transport committee  We have tried to balance the expectation of Canadians, when they pay for a ticket to go from A to B, and what the carrier is selling them. The challenge we have right now is that in many cases the consumer—the traveller—is not getting what they've paid for. We've made sure in c