Transport committee  The key point is that we don't set our rates as a function of the commercial rate, because there is no one commercial rate.

Transport committee  I guess I could answer by saying it wouldn't be problematic. We're a regulator. We're here to serve the Government of Canada as per direction received. From our perspective, we would be prepared to support that mandate or any other if it were given to us.

Transport committee  There's certainly no doubt that the more time, the more dataset you have, the better you are able to provide empirical evidence. I can't say to you definitively that's it's an absolute requirement in order to be able to affect our role in the system. What I can tell you is that t

Transport committee  Yes, and we're not actually even looking at the value per se. We're just looking at what it's done to the movements of grain—

Transport committee  —and other commodities. That's right. Certainly it has had an impact, but there's been a greater impact at the smaller distance levels as opposed to going as you approach 160.

Transport committee  They may characterize it as lost opportunity, by virtue of having to make their track available for another carrier's goods they're not able to set price, but we don't have any data in terms of what that would be. They might be tracking it that way.

Transport committee  We haven't, no, because it's not really our role to do so. Again, anecdotally, I don't think I'm telling any tales out of school—you've probably heard it as well—but certainly where rail meets marine infrastructure in this country could obviously use more efficiency and more supp

Transport committee  Academically, the answer would probably be yes, logically, if it works in one place it should work in another place. But the circumstances are different, both in terms of the volume of product that is produced in western Canada—particularly grains—and the challenge in getting it

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  There has not necessarily been a formal effort, but there is ongoing and iterative dialogue with both the shipper community and the carrier communities, so we don't lack for informal feedback. That's where I drew the comment I made earlier about the whole notion of what it's do

Transport committee  No, actually Transport Canada sets the policy direction. We answer their questions, when and if they're presented. They're operational in nature or data in nature. They may sometimes reach out to us and ask us what numbers we have or what our experience shows, but we don't have a

Transport committee  From our perspective, going back to our core mandates, one of the services we offer is level-of-service arbitration between the shippers and the railways, and that's very helpful. We're effectively a quasi-judicial body and an economic regulator, so once policy direction has been

Transport committee  Do you mind clarifying?

Transport committee  We certainly hear from the railways that intermodal connections are critical to them, and they leverage that quite significantly. Members will have seen railcars that move on truck beds and vice versa. The industry itself is seeking out those efficiencies to the degree possible.

Transport committee  With all due respect, that is a question ultimately for policy-makers to settle on. I think what we can say is that our experience shows that efforts that you put into ensuring the efficiency and intermodality of the system tend to have rewards. As Randy pointed out, it's an enti