Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think it's a cost-competitive environment. We need to be watching our costs, and I'm in the freight business, so the costs related to operations and fuel.... In some of the resource-based mining industries, we certainly see a little angst around the carbon tax. We see a lot of

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We have not had any of those discussions yet. We're pretty new. We'll have to take a look at what we can do, but there's nothing at this point.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  You've properly captured the visionary element of it. I tried to lay out a broad vision to you about the truly generational opportunity of building a cohesive Arctic strategy and infrastructure. When I look at Russia, I see 12 Arctic ports, six of which are rail-served, and 20% o

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We're quite hopeful that 2019 will be the first grain season. I think linkage from Peace River country on CN rail out to Prince Rupert on one side and out to Churchill on the other is going to be a really viable route for a northern natural resources, grain and mining products co

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  For sure. As you were talking to Matt, I was thinking about we currently have to employ some contractors to come in and do the emergency work, but we really need to partner with our first nations communities and our communities as a whole. University College of the North is a v

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In terms of having enough capacity to get our products to market, in the grain scenario today as an example, we're growing in yield and in crop size. Back in the days when you were working, the grain crop size was 28 million to 38 million tonnes. Our last harvest was 56 million t

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The grain crop is larger. Vancouver is bigger. Part of what we have in Thunder Bay is a different dynamic. You have the Great Lakes freight, but it's Panamax vessel freight in the world today. The vessel size is limited in Thunder Bay. It's actually a draft issue. It's a vessel

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm competing with other world ports, because if we rely on the Canadian ports that can't compete, we won't be in the game, actually.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  No, Canadian products won't be shipped. They won't be shipped because we won't compete.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We are now doing an infrastructure gap assessment. One of the things we did initially was that emergency repair between Gillam and Churchill to get those communities reconnected to the rail infrastructure. The very first thing to do is to assess the permafrost and the track bed s

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think we have to balance off the rail costs. From a west central Saskatchewan point to Churchill, the cost is much lower than the rail cost to Vancouver, and certainly much less than the rail cost to Thunder Bay and Montreal. From that perspective, when I look at the pipeline,

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll tell you what I think. What we're seeing is that as we continue to have the western Canadian grain crop grow, the peak shipping period of August, September, October and November coincides with the current shipping season in Churchill. We think it's going to be a very stron

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We were able to negotiate a contribution agreement with Western Economic Diversification. That contribution agreement is split into really two major buckets. The first bucket was a bucket of support that would be utilized for the repair of 29 washouts that were left from 2016, wh

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think that as a temporary measure, it's a necessary measure. Again, we have to re-establish the supply chains to ensure the availability of cost-effective food and basic essentials. Part of the supply chain efficiency is making it more available, and more availability and more

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The federal government showed a lot of desire, but I think it was very important that we found a commercially viable solution with true partnership and inclusiveness of the communities. Bringing 29 first nations communities together with the Kivalliq communities and with every si