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CRS 2012 HighlightsRail’s Position as aBackbone ofCanadian EconomyThe summit also served asa brainstorming session forthe best and brightest mindsin the Canadian rail industryto discuss timely technicaland commercial issues facingoperators, suppliers, customers,government and investors.In mid-October, key players in Canada’s railsector descended upon downtown Montrealfor the 2012 Canadian Rail Summit, Canada’spremier bi-annual rail conference hosted by theRailway Association of Canada.The event brought together some 300experts and industry professionals who sharedtheir ideas surrounding new technologies,research and development, capital investmentprograms and insights on accessing and buildingthe rail business in Canada.“We had an outstanding balance of voices atthis year’s conference,” said Michael Bourque,President and CEO of the RAC. “Every area ofthe industry was represented. We had membersfrom passenger and freight railways, and theshort line presence was excellent. It was alsogreat to be able to have the suppliers there,since the railway-customer relationship is soimportant to Canada’s economy.”Bourque said CRS 2012 gave key playersfrom across the industry a chance to liaise on avariety of subjects that will impact rail’s role inthe country’s supply chain going forward, onethat is increasingly important since Canada’s railnetwork moves more than 70 million passengersand almost three quarters of the country’ssurface goods each year.“It was great to hear from industry leaderslike Claude Mongeau from CN and Marc Lalibertéfrom VIA,” said Bourque. “Their voices gave agreat sense of where we are as an industry andthe positive direction in which we’re headed.”Laliberté, one of the conference’s keynotespeakers, spoke to a packed conference roomabout the initiatives that are transforming VIA,such as federal government-funded infrastructureinvestments, intermodality agreementsand service improvements in the busy Windsor-Quebec City corridor.“[The rail industry] is the backbone ofCanada,” said the president of the federal CrownCorporation.“Canada was created by rail and we still carrya lot of people and goods by rail today. I don’tthink the general population realizes that. Soit’s more and more important that we do thesesort of summits and also that we make sure thepopulation in general is fully aware of them.”During the two-day conference, attendeestook in several workshops under the theme“Building the Business of Rail,” aimed at highlightingdevelopments and areas of opportunityin Canada’s thriving rail sector. There were alsotours of Montreal’s VIA Rail Facility and the Portof Montreal, Canada’s number-one container port.The summit also served as a brainstormingsession for the best and brightest minds in theCanadian rail industry to discuss timely technicaland commercial issues facing operators, suppliers,customers, government and investors.In addition, the conference’s Trade Showallowed more than 30 exhibitors to showcasethe latest products and initiatives improvingCanada’s rail sector.Committee meetings were held behind closeddoors, but question-and-answer sessions duringworkshops made for an interactive dialoguebetween rail representatives.Attendees were able to get a sense of theexciting developments that are taking placeacross all sectors, said Jean-Paul Rodrigue, professorin the Department of Global Studies andGeography at Hofstra University, who deliveredthe conference’s opening plenary.“On a yearly basis, it’s not that often that youhave the opportunity to have a lot of peoplefrom the same industry under the same roof,”said Rodrigue, who gave a presentation entitled“Ten Global Trends Impacting North AmericanRail Freight Distribution, Revisited.” “You cantalk with those folks on an individual basis mostof the time, but having them all at once createsinteresting and positive effects.”Rodrigue added that for a complex industrylike the rail sector, trade conferences are useful40Interchange | Winter / Hiver 2012