Transport committee  My colleague Randall will speak in more detail, but I can tell you that the methodology that we use for determining the interswitching rates as well as for the maximum revenue entitlement, MRE, is pretty prescribed. The MRE is actually prescribed in legislation so I don't think t

Transport committee  While being respectful of the time, I think it's important to note that while we do have the obligation to review them every five years, there's nothing preventing us from reviewing at different periods, and certainly, depending on the outcome—

Transport committee  I will start with the second question. We will provide the exact figures to the committee later on because we do not have them right now. As I recall, over the past two years, as regards maximum revenue entitlement, I believe that companies earned more than the limit set by the

Transport committee  You caught me at a bit of a disadvantage as I wasn't there in 2013 when it happened, but I can assure you that there is a pretty robust and ongoing discussion amongst officials. We talk to Transport Canada officials at a working level on a constant basis. Obviously, the work betw

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Fred Gaspar and I am the chief compliance officer for the Canadian Transportation Agency and with me today is Randall Meades, who is our chief strategy officer. We are pleased to appear before you again and to answer

Transport committee  Madam Chair, the best way to put it is that it's really more of an attempt to balance interests. It's certainly not a priority from our perspective. What we're trying to do at the same time is enabling the operation of the railway in a manner that serves the broad subset of publi

Transport committee  As Randy indicated, a guide is published. We can certainly get you copies. The intention is to ensure that the municipalities and the provinces understand and take account of the operational and the economic impacts of what's being proposed and, obviously, from the railways' pers

Transport committee  It's intended to capture the road authority. Sometimes the road authority isn't necessarily the local government, for instance.

Transport committee  No. The dispute adjudication rules also apply with regard to the Railway Safety Act. All the requirements in the Railway Safety Act are captured by our dispute adjudication rules, so it allows parties to come to us to resolve any disputes that are addressed.

Transport committee  That's correct. Number one, it's important to understand that those are relatively new provisions that have come with the passage of the Safe and Accountable Rail Act just under a year ago. Certainly since that time, we have yet to receive any applications under that provision.

Transport committee  I trust that committee members will appreciate that it's really not in our purview to make recommendations in that regard. That said, what we do through our annual report is to publish what our operations have been. I think that what you'll see with regard to how we handle disp

Transport committee  Do you mean if works are delayed because of the dispute?

Transport committee  I'd have to get back to you on that. Maybe our dispute resolutions branch would have some information on that, but I don't know.

Transport committee  Okay.

Transport committee  There's a pre-application stage, before the application is submitted. That's really where we expect most of the work to be done, because that's where a lot of the issues get addressed through the development of an accepted plan. The accepted plan is defined as being something tha