Transport committee  Thank you. I'll think about the second one, but I'd have to go back to when I first started in the sector side, which goes back to the mid-1970s when we had the royal commission on the cost of moving grain. There has been a process for some time whereby the outside organizations

Transport committee  That's correct. Even if we look at the example of indexing—the indexing provisions in sections 150 and 151—in that case, the agency brings affected stakeholders in on a confidential basis. Everyone has their chance to make their views known at the table, before they ultimately

Transport committee  Mr. Easter, if it isn't statutory grain, the provisions in the legislation seem to work very well for most commodities. There is an appeal mechanism through the agency if there is some disagreement relative to compensation on the cars. The complexity comes around the fact that

Transport committee  I can only speak to the maintenance issue because that's where we went through a fairly extensive study. It was not difficult to get figures from those that carry out maintenance on similar kinds of equipment throughout North America. In that case, I think we were able to come up

Transport committee  Well, Mr. Easter, there are a couple of issues there, I suppose. First of all, what it actually costs for the railway to maintain the cars is really unknown. Whether the railway has truly gouged the farmer or not, I'm not prepared to say. However, we do know that private shops t

Transport committee  Mr. Chairman, members of the Standing Committee on Transport, good afternoon. On behalf of the Farmer Rail Car Coalition, I want to thank you for this opportunity to comment on Bill C-11. The Farmer Rail Car Coalition, an organization comprising 17 farm organizations from the th

Agriculture committee  I would have to do an assessment, but we've always looked at it from the perspective of the current legislation when there was a reduction, so my quick assumption would be that it would be somewhat under, but very reasonably close to, $2 a tonne.

Agriculture committee  Mr. Anderson, I would just mention that in my previous life I was head of the Saskatchewan cars. Initially, if you look at the agreements, they are very much transferred--at least the Saskatchewan agreement--to the railways, which were not required to provide the maintenance info

Agriculture committee  They had an evergreen clause, which meant they continued. There were some clauses in our agreement under which we could jump out based on 90 days' notice, but for the most part they were ongoing. I think ours was a 12-month notification. You may recall the debate about the right

Agriculture committee  I was going to add that we did search the whole North American market, Mr. Bezan, and we're confident that this is about the right number. We went to at least half a dozen. One should remember that about 60% of the cars out there are privately owned now in North America. So it's

Agriculture committee  Perhaps I could summarize that. There are three options before us. The lowest cost for farmers would be the continued ownership by the.... Let me back up. It seems to me the government has addressed or is addressing the crucial issue that has to do with excessive maintenance cost

Agriculture committee  We're confident, based on our research, that our business plan would have been able to maintain the cars on a long-term basis for about $1,500 per car, per year. There is evidence throughout the industry. Whether or not the railways could match or exceed that is a question whose

Agriculture committee  I might add that the aluminum cars, which perhaps technically have a longer life, have become obsolete for two reasons. They're a smaller-capacity car, and there are some maintenance issues that are not being addressed. They'll either have to be scrapped or some fairly major inve