Transport committee  Actually, Kasper Transportation in northern Ontario is an example of one that existed while regulations were still in place in Ontario. They went through the application process for regulated routes, whereas now Ontario is deregulated and it's a free-for-all, as I was mentioning

Transport committee  It's partly because of the timing. A large number of newer operators have entered since the end of the pandemic. Some people were keeping the powder dry. Those who were already in the market, out of a sense of a responsibility to the communities they served, carried on, but there

Transport committee  I'd love to take a run at that. One thing that happened when the railways in the U.K. were privatized, and therefore fragmented, was the resurrection of a 19th-century concept called a “railway clearing house”, which was a kind of non-profit co-operative among the carriers. It w

Transport committee  Absolutely, and you have one right here in the room with Rider Express. You have Onex Bus in southwestern Ontario as an example. You have a company called Book A Ride.

Transport committee  Actually, I'm not aware of any deliverable results of that task force. It is slightly before the time I became national president of Transport Action Canada. I was mostly working on advocacy in Ontario at that time. I am not aware of that task force having actually resulted in th

Transport committee  Yes, I would. DRL is a kind of unique situation, because the bus line actually replaced the Newfoundland railway. It was previously operated by CN. There is kind of a responsibility to keep that running that is separate from the other responsibilities in the network. For exam

Transport committee  Thank you for that question. The leadership has to come from the federal government, though not all the control. The way I look at this is that there's a great deal of difference between leadership and control. The federal government needs to actually put some effort behind its

Transport committee  That's inaccurate. As we've heard, this is not in the constitution of provincial responsibility. That is delegated. The federal government can re-issue the role of regulator, especially across interprovincial bus services, which is the whole national network. What gets cut in o

Transport committee  It's not great.

Transport committee  I apologize. Thank you.

Transport committee  I have one more sentence. We support the idea of the government providing financing that both private and public operators can access—possibly through low-interest loans, lease financing and tax relief on vehicles—and getting the HST off fares, for all Canadians.

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the committee for taking on this work. The closure of Greyhound Canada in 2021 was the end of a long saga of service cuts across the country. Transport Action Canada, an organization dedicated to researching sustainable public transportatio