Transport committee  It's Transport Canada, without a doubt.

Transport committee  Yes, it's of our own making. We used to have extensive interswitching that would allow for a shipper to pick up the phone and request the service without having to make any applications, go through any red tape, or ask for anybody's permission, and the rate was regulated, so yo

Transport committee  I am not certain if we had a representative there. I would have to check back.

Transport committee  Obviously, from those comments, you can realize that we held out great hope for the amendments that were made. Unfortunately, the impact of what I think the minister, the department and many shippers had hoped would happen simply has not come to pass. An example of that is our s

Transport committee  Instead of embedding reciprocal penalties into service-level agreements, we would put them directly in the regulation. In other words, if the railway promises to deliver 100 cars to Weyburn, Saskatchewan to load a train, and they don't show up, then they pay a penalty—as we do fo

Transport committee  I can take a stab at that question. It's equally critical for the fertilizer sector and for farmers who are relying on rail for both the export of their grain products, as well as incoming shipments of fertilizer. Many people might not realize that in Canada, of course, we're pl

Transport committee  I was going to answer your question to say that any event that resulted in any sort of disruption or stoppage to one of two of Canada's national railways is a catastrophic event, frankly, for every single sector in the country and in particular for the grain sector. There are ce

Transport committee  Thank you for the introduction, Mr. Chairman. Canada's bulk grain shipments make up roughly 20% of total railway volume and revenue each year, making WGEA members some of the largest single users of Canada's railways and ports. For decades, our industry has faced challenges in

Agriculture committee  I'm really glad you brought up roads, because that's one of our concerns. Hopefully rail service will improve over the coming weeks, but the challenge is that there are going to be weight restrictions and road bans starting in April. Not only that, my colleagues here are going to

Agriculture committee  They're really challenged.

Agriculture committee  I would just like to add to that, if I could.

Agriculture committee  With the ability to continue to innovate and adopt new technologies at the production level as well as the handling and grain processing levels, we definitely see the potential to reach those levels. In terms of our ability to deliver on that, there are still a lot of question ma

Agriculture committee  There is an extraordinary amount of interaction between the shippers, the customers, and the railways on projecting what future volumes are going to be, both at an individual company level as well as at a group level. Recently we've had one of the railways interacting with the cr

Agriculture committee  I think there's always a desire to see that sort of a discussion take place and be able to reflect on opportunities to do better. We'd certainly welcome that. I don't think it always happens. I don't know that the door was always open to do that, but I don't see any reason we wou

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much for the question. We know it's an issue with our customers internationally because a number of the commodity associations nationally that are responsible for canola, wheat, and pulse crops go around the world when there's a new crop that comes out and discus