Everyone hear me yet? Oh, there we go. Okay, good morning. It's great to have everyone here. My name is Walter Spracklin. I'm the Canadian Head of Director of Research and Co-Head of the global industrials sector here at RBC Capital Markets. And I'd really like to welcome everyone on behalf of myself, Sabahat Khan, James McGarragle, Tom Narayan, Ken Herbert, all of our industrials analysts that are here today to bring these great companies in front of you. It's really a pleasure, and yes, a fun welcome. I think we have a video to run here too, so we're taking it up a notch this year. We've got a video, so why don't we say to everyone we run that one.
To thrive in a rapidly changing world, having trusted partners is crucial for navigating uncertainties and seizing opportunities. At RBC Capital Markets, we're committed to equipping our clients with the insights, advice, and solutions that need to stay ahead in this dynamic environment. Amidst macro uncertainty and earnings volatility, investors are increasingly seeking to discern both the opportunities and the risks for 2024 and beyond. Within Canada's industrial sector, companies are vying for position as underlying metrics begin to shift, while also safeguarding against potential downturns. These firms play a pivotal role in the North American economy, providing essential services ranging from goods movement to large-scale project execution. Despite enduring global shocks like COVID-19 and supply chain challenges, Canadian industrial firms haven't just adapted. They've thrived.
Looking forward, these firms must address ongoing macro uncertainty: geopolitical tensions impacting industrial activity, technological changes, effective labor pool management, operational restructuring, and positioning for the next stage of growth across their global footprints. Given the dynamic macro backdrop, M&A and consolidation will be crucial differentiators across various subsectors. Sound financial management and a proactive growth strategy will be imperative for success. And now, welcome to the RBC Canadian Industrials Conference.
Exciting today because we're gonna have 30 of Canada's leading industrials companies here presenting to you. And these are companies that from trains to planes, you know, from cars to trucks—I mean, they're companies that are in the forefront of Canada's economy. So it's a great opportunity to hear from these leaders as they present on their operations. We're gonna also hear about sustainability developments, and that's gonna be a very interesting session here at our keynote during our lunch where François Bélanger—who is the head of sustainability at CN—is gonna talk to us about some of the things that are putting CN to the forefront of the sustainability effort. So the next three days are gonna be very insightful, exciting. I hope you enjoy it, and we're gonna kick it off now with the folks from CN.
Welcome to you both.
Thank you, Walter. Thanks for having us.
Yeah.
Thanks for people in the room. I mean, the room is almost full, so turnover is great.
Yeah.
Thanks for people on webcast taking interest in our great company.
Absolutely. So Ghislain, I don't think many of them need an introduction, but he's Chief Financial Officer at CN. And to his left is Patrick Whitehead, who is one of the co-heads on the operations side. So Ghislain, I know, you know, we always start these sessions with a little bit more of an overview or a.
Yeah.
You know, a kinda top-down level. Why don't you give us a kinda lay of the land here for CN?
Yeah, perfect. So I'll give a few comments, and then I'll turn it over to Pat, and then we'll turn over to your, your questions of Walter. So maybe talking just a little bit about the business. I'm quite pleased with our performance in the first quarter. As, I hope a lot of you listen to our earnings call, we, we, in my view, delivered per plan. Even we did a little bit better than planned in the first quarter. When I look at the second quarter, I think our volumes are continuing to be quite strong. When I look at volumes in terms of revenue ton miles, they're up 9% quarter to date. When I look at volume specifically in May month to date, they're up 16%.
When I look at the various sectors, if you remember, Intermodal International, which was the weakest sector - and if you remember last year, we were entering into a freight recession quite deep and longer than we thought - I think the volumes are up, quarter to date, 26%. Grain is up - Canadian grain is up 25%. If you remember, we did not move grain all out in Q4 typically the way we do. Farmers and some of the grain companies decided to sit on some of the grain because they didn't like the world prices and market that was out there. So I think we're moving more grain at this time of the year than we would typically do. When I look at merchandise, it continues to be quite strong, 10% growth, quarter to date, mostly driven by P&C. The sector that's a little bit weaker is coal.
Coal, West Coast, is down on a quarter-to-date basis, but then it's up in May. I think this was more related to some operating issues that some of the mines that are on our line were having. I think that that's now behind us. I think that the coal, U.S., which is mostly thermal coal, continues to be soft. This is more demand-related, you know, in Europe. Some of the natural gas prices that are low is such that, you know, that demand is lower. But as you know, coal for CN is about 3% of our book of business. So it's not all that big. So listen, so far, so good.
I would be remiss not to tell you that with some of the labor uncertainty—and I'll give an update on this in a second—that currently exists, that, you know, some customers are thinking or starting to put some contingency plans in case there's a potential labor disruption or in case there's a potential strike. We do have visibility on bookings in Asia for containers that are destined either to Rupert and to Vancouver. And we can—we're starting to see some of this softening up. So we'll see, but like I said, so far, so good. The last thing I wanna say related to the business is in the second quarter, you can expect a fuel headwind, the same or similar to what we had in Q1, maybe a little less.
I mean, if fuel prices remain the same, I think we're looking at a potential headwind of about CAD 0.10 of EPS on fuel in the second quarter.
Sure.
or 140 basis points on oil.
Got it.
Maybe just to give a quick update on delivery situation, and then Pat will give a little bit more detail. We are actually at the table this week to talk to our unions. This is the TCRC, so this is the union that represents about 6,000 employees at CN, both conductors and locomotive engineers. The issues that we're talking to our unions about come out of some unintended consequences—it's tough for a French guy to say unintended consequences—unintended consequences of some of the work/rest rules that were implemented last May.
Sure.
Those relate to scheduling. Those related to crew availability. Those relate to the fact that these mandated rest rules now force employees to be more away from home terminals more often. Of course, they hate that.
Hey, can you explain that? 'Cause you were explaining that to me before. It's not an easy concept, so.
I'll let Pat give a little bit of.
All right.
This has to do with the reset and the clock.
That's right.
And all that stuff. I'll let him provide some details on that. And then finally, as you know, the current agreement is mileage-based. It's antiquated. It's been there for many, many years. And the new work/rest rule makes it such that with the reset of their clocks and so on, they actually make less money.
Yeah.
So, we actually made an offer to the union. The offer is posted on our website. You're welcome to go see it. We think that this offer would resolve most, if not all, of these issues. We're hoping—but we have an open mind, and we're, you know, we're working with the leadership and hoping to get—if it's not that offer, then it's, it's solutions that will be win-win for our employees and for the company so that we can continue to offer great customer service. Maybe the last thing I would say is it came to our attention that—and we talked about this at dinner last night—that the Canadian Minister of Labor has asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board for clarity on whether the movement of certain commodities would or could be deemed to be essential service.
So, there cannot be labor disruptions before the CIRB renders a decision, and there's no specific timeline as to when they will render the decision. In our view, this uncertainty is very bad for CN. It's bad for our employees. It's bad for our customers. And frankly, it's bad for the Canadian economy as a whole. Second, and the last thing I'll say before I pass it on to Pat is we're not against discussing or reviewing whether rail service could or should be an essential service. But you cannot look at this on a commodity-by-commodity basis. It would create a total operational chaos, and the system would come to a complete gridlock. So for us, this is an all-or-nothing when you look at, you know, whether it should be essential service or not.
Maybe on this, I'll turn it over to you, Pat, to give some details and answer Walter's question on home away from terminals.
Yeah, certainly. Thanks, Ghislain. And Walter, thank you, for having us. So I'll start with, as Ghislain said, we remain at the table with the TCRC along with the appointed conciliator, this week and next. And we will remain at the table, until we reach a deal. We are committed to the idea that our best outcome is a negotiated agreement that is beneficial for our customers, our employees, and all of our key stakeholders. And we will continue to work through to that end. I want to, and I want to address, though, head-on this rhetoric that's out there that CN is negotiating in this round on safety. And that is absolutely not true. And in fact, and that as relates to these work/rest rules that Ghislain talked about a bit. And I'll start there.
So in 2023, we had a stacking effect of the new work /rest rules, the new paid personal leave and sick days provided by the Canadian government, and a historical, decades-old collective bargaining agreement that also allowed for unavailable, some of it unpaid but unavailable, time. I'll address the work /rest rules first off. In fact, when these new work/rest rules came into effect last year, the average day for Canadian railroader went from a potential of an 18-hour clock to a 12-hour clock. We reduced the number of hours that could be worked in a day, the number of hours that could be worked each week, and the number of hours cumulative that could be worked each month, and required, which had never been done, two consecutive nights off within each week for rest.
So, to the point on away from home terminal, if you think about an 18-hour clock for a train crew, they could work out of their home terminal to the next terminal. And as long as they had enough time to make that turn back in 18 hours, they could complete that tour without a stay in the hotel. Employees liked that. And it was very productive. We had to establish our operation, and we've been in full compliance with those work/rest rules since inception in May. So really, what is at issue in this negotiation is we are working to simplify that complexity of the work/rest rules, the additional paid sick and personal leave days.
And if you think about that 18-hour clock, that legacy agreement, there were mechanisms within that collective bargaining agreement to allow for rest when the potential for you to work 18 hours a day without a reset break and some of the other limitations weren't there. Those mechanisms were in the CBA, to allow for proper rest and time off. Those have all stacked on top of one another, which has had an impact on crew availability. We've worked through that. We continue to work through that. But that is really what we are working to simplify. And then I'll address, finally, I'll address the point of some of our commodities being deemed as essential. We run a network business. We do not run by commodity specifics. It is just not feasible for us to run one or a number of commodities. We run by origin-destination pairs.
That is how we manage our network. As Ghislain said, and I'll say it again, it's all or nothing. It's either all essential or it is not. Yeah.
We can't segment out certain commodities. So Walter, thank you.
Imagine that would be mayhem trying to pull apart a plane, a train to service just one commodity over another one. It would be quite something. So, what was interesting, Ghislain, is your comments about volume. Because when you reported your fourth quarter results and set your guidance in the, in back in January, you set out a mid-single-digit volume growth guidance. And that led to a little bit of, you know, consternation, a little bit of trepidation about whether you were setting expectations too high given the environment certainly didn't suggest mid-single-digit volume growth. But today, you sound pretty positive. And 25% growth in international automotives, no small amount. So it does seem that I just wanna confirm that you feel really good, it seems, about the volume outlook so far today.
Yeah. I think to your point, it was clear when we went out in guidance and we said mid-single-digit volume growth, call it 5%. I think people thought that we were banking on the economy a little bit too much. So we purposely went out and demystified this, where, you know, half of that volume growth will come from our CN-specific growth initiatives that are not necessarily connected to the economy. They're very client-specific. They're being delivered as we speak. We monitor them very closely. What I like about those is they're very diversified from a commodity and from a geographic standpoint. So if we're wrong on one from a negative standpoint, we may be wrong on the other from a positive standpoint. And you've got the law of compensating errors. So I'm quite comfortable there.
And then as you remember, Walter, we also said that there was 1% coming from the fact that we don't expect a West Coast-West Coast port strike. I know there's a little bit of noise happening there as well. But when you put that all together, then we're counting on the economy for maybe, you know, 1%-1.5%. And we're assuming industrial production to be slightly positive, call it 0.5%, versus the 2% that we were talking at investor day. So, I think right now, when I look at Intermodal, we're actually—and when I look at volumes, we're actually delivering per plan.
Sure.
I think when I look, and Stacy and I this morning, we were talking, when I look at the Rupert, what we've done quarter to date on an annualized basis, if you remember last year, we did 700,000 TEUs.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert has a capacity of 1.6. And we're actually tracking to be about 900,000 TEUs, which is slightly better than what we have modeled.
Sure.
When I look at Rupert, when I look at Vancouver, I don't know whether this will be sustainable, but Vancouver has been quite strong. I mean, when you look, we did 1.5 pre-COVID. Last year, we did 1.2. And Vancouver's actually, actually running today on an annualized basis at 1.5.
Yeah.
So better than what we have modeled.
Sure.
So we'll see whether this is sustainable. Obviously, the noise, whether it's some of the remnants of the port strike, there's still some noise related there.
Yeah.
The labor situation, obviously, is not helping. That's why we're hoping that, you know, this situation will be clarified very, very quickly. But like I said, so far, so good. When I look at the other sector that was, the weakest last year, as you remember, is lumber.
Yeah.
Lumber is basically stabilizing. We quantify this in terms of car orders per week, in terms of Centerbeams. These are like the sailboats that have all these bundles. In the trough last year in Q2, we were as low as 1,600 car orders per week. We finished the year around 1,800-1,900 car orders per week. I would say that we've been tracking quarter to date more in the 2,000 car orders per week. So slightly better than what we've modeled. So I wouldn't—I wouldn't say that we're way—you know, I wouldn't be overly optimistic. There's a lot of things that still need to happen. We're early in the year. But certainly, we're pleased with what we've done so far. And we're, we're pleased with what we're seeing.
On the EPS guidance at 10%, you were talking as well that, perhaps there's a little bit of contingency in there in those numbers as well, about unexpected factors that you have put in there when you put your 10%. Is that a fair statement?
That's a fair, well, we did. I mean, we debated this internally. As you know, being Canadian railroad and the railroad of the North, we always model Q1. We modeled it differently because of winter.
Sure.
Now, when you look at what has happened in Western Canada for the last four years, there's things that have happened from an environment standpoint. So I think, you know, we debated. And I think it would have been prudent not to account for anything.
Yeah.
So we did account in our modeling for having some issues in Western Canada. And already, you can see some forest fires in the Fort Nelson. You all see this. Maybe, Pat, you wanna jump in. I don't think it's impacting us, as we speak. But it would have been imprudent not to model it anything. So we did model something.
Sure. And that, that leads to my next question to Patrick, is that you're—you know, you're bringing on some good volume. When we look at the first quarter, there was some, you know, some challenges with weather in January, but then a great February, and then a few challenges in March. Can you talk a bit about how you've, dealt with those challenges? And as more volume comes on to your network, what, what your capacity is to take on that new volume?
Sure. We, we feel really good coming out of the first quarter. I would say that, you know, one of the challenges we saw in addition to really significant weather issues in January and then again in March, as you said, a good February, was we got quickly into work block season. And to sum that up, you think about highway construction, very similar. You see lane closures. And in our case, in many instances, when we see a work block, it's on a single-track piece of railroad. So there is no route around it. And what we try to avoid is having those work blocks close together. And what we saw in the first quarter in March specifically was CPKC in the directional running zone between Kamloops, Kamloops, BC and Vancouver had a work block that was planned out for months.
We had an emergent issue on the next sub, some rail issues that we had to deal with. Not how we would have planned it, but it was an issue we had to address. That brought some congestion in that quarter, which is already very busy. Typically, you would separate those work blocks when you're doing it by plan. We had to address that. So we saw some congestion related to that, you know, starting and stopping the network on both CP and CN side in that directional running zone. But work block season comes and goes every year. So we'll—we will work through that. You know, we continue to invest in across our property. We've invested in 250 miles of double track since 2010. We've extended or built 40 new sidings.
We have a siding extension project just west of Kamloops, which is in the GIN, just short of that directional running zone with CPKC. That will help us to address volume and congestion between Kamloops and Vancouver. We continue to invest in our Edson sub, which is west of Edmonton, Alberta, which is really the gauntlet of our network. That is the busiest, the highest GTM producing area. We continue to invest heavily in that area. We also have some projects that we are investing in to further improve our advantage in Chicago on the former EJ&E property with some additional double tracks. We feel good about the plans we have to bring on the volume. We time very well. We time that investment with when we see volumes coming on board.
This is always.
I would say, I would say therefore, 'cause he's not mentioning it, I think he's sometimes a little sandbagger, but that we will deliver operating leverage in 2024. I think if you look at our OR last year, we were one of the best in the rail industry at 60.8. We're not gonna give out a number, but I'm very confident that we will deliver some operating leverage in 2024. We do, we purposely kept our train package the same last year, even when volumes were down, because we wanted to continue to have good customer service. So we do have some space on our manifest trains, and we intend to fill that up. So, stay tuned. But I'm confident that we will deliver operating leverage in 2024.
I'm glad to hear that because there's been a lot of questions around your mid-single digit 5% volume, 4% price, is 9% revenue but only 10% earnings. So I'm encouraged. I'll leave it at that. I'm just encouraged by what you said about operating leverage. Intermodal Prince Rupert, you mentioned that. And I thought it was interesting what you were saying about how the flows work on intermodal inbounds into Prince Rupert versus L.A. Long Beach and how congestion in all L.A. Long Beach, which is probably inevitable, is going to help you in Prince Rupert and perhaps get you back up to some of those pre-COVID levels in on the Prince Rupert road.
That's right. I think Rupert is the gift that keeps on giving. I think you will always see some short-term noise. But as we were saying last night at dinner, Rupert is a play to pick up some market share from L.A. Long Beach.
Yeah.
So when L.A. Long Beach has issues and congestion issues, then it makes a lot of sense for the boat to stop in Rupert and discharge all the traffic that goes to Mid-U.S., Chicago, Detroit, and the likes. And then the boat has to go to LA Long Beach anyway. But they go there for just the local traffic. So, you know, Rupert has a capacity—you know, an exponential benefit to be able to expand. I mean, when you look at it, it's, you know, like, we're just doing 900,000 TEUs as we speak. It's got capacity of 1.6. It's shovel-ready to do another 200,000 TEUs.
Yeah.
Then the Port of Prince Rupert Authority have the land to build another terminal.
Yeah.
So this is a long-term play for us. And then I would say that, you know, I'm guilty of this, is we have a tendency to talk about Rupert and intermodal. But don't, don't, don't forget that Rupert is becoming a multi-commodity terminal. I mean, we have two propane terminals, one from Pembina, one from AltaGas. We just signed a multi-year deal with, with AltaGas. You know, and there's, you know, grain is going up there. Coal is going up there. There's other developments. There's a logistics part that's being developed.
So to us, with Rupert, what we have to do - and you know this, Walter, 'cause you've been following us for quite a while - is we've gotta be very disciplined on how we grow our Western franchise to make sure that we don't get too much excited about a lot of volume coming at us to the point that we can't bring that top-line growth to the bottom line. We were very explicit in our investor day that we were gonna be disciplined. We are very disciplined in how we look at that business. Now we look at it, Pat is there at the operating exec committee level, which I facilitate with Tracy, now Rémi, our new marketing person, and Derek.
We are making sure that when we look at business or when we look at contract renewals that have the lane in Western Canada, that we do have the track capacity. But also, we do have the crew capacity. And we, we have the resources so that we can provide great customer service. And we can make sure that we can bring that top-line growth to the bottom line. I think that's the key. And then we're pushing Rémi and the marketing team to densify Eastern Canada and the South because that's where we have, we have, we have capacity. I'm happy to report that we've started to move some lithium from Northern Quebec. There's some electric vehicle plants that are, at least it's more long-term, that are being looked at.
Ford announced that they wanna build an electric vehicle plant in Bécancour, which is just east of Montreal, west of Quebec City, right on our line. There's a North volt as well that's being looked at in Saint-Basile-le-Grand, which is where Foley and I play golf.
Okay. Yeah.
I'm good friends with Minister Fitzgibbon. He's quite excited about this. So that would be right on our line. But these are more long-term. But what I'm saying is the fact that we have these opportunities that are diversified is good news. 'Cause remember, there's only three ways to grow volumes as a railroad. You either grow with your customers. And we're blessed because we have the network of the North. We have better access to Canada's natural resources. So you grow with your customers, or you convince somebody to build a plant on your line, and therefore, you've tied them up for 30 years. Or you grow through extending your network reach. And the STB has spoken that you will not be able to grow your network reach through acquisitions in terms of Class I consolidation. That will probably not happen.
There are some Class IIs out there. We're just looking to get approval on the STB for the Iowa Northern that will be great for us. But not big enough to move the needle. How you grow your network reach is through partnership. And as you know, and I've talked publicly about this, I'm quite bullish with our Falcon service partnership that we have with UP going to Mexico. I think that, if we do this right, and I'm confident we will, then we will be able to get long-haul trucking, long-haul trucking, 1,200, 1,300, 1,500 miles back on the rails. That makes a lot of sense.
There's two points you brought up that I wanna, but before I do, there's five minutes left. There's a Slido code, QR code there if you wanted to ask a question. We can also go old school. You can flag me. I'll certainly repeat the question into the mic as well. So, please have a look at that. Patrick, two, two questions for you there that Ghislain brought up. Earlier was operating leverage. I want if you could talk a little bit about some of the metrics as you're seeing them evolve in terms of velocity and so forth. Could you talk to us about how CN is doing this year in terms of those metrics?
But also touch on as well some of these partnerships and UP and the Falcon service is kind of interesting because it's almost a surrogate for M&A. If you can't do M&A, then you do the next step. And this could be the next step. And I'm just curious your thoughts on integrating that kind of thing with another railroad and the challenges there. Two questions.
Okay. Well, I'll start with the metrics.
Yeah.
I would say that as you look at all of our metrics, the health of our network metrics, we focus on our train speed, car velocity, terminal dwell. All of those metrics are trending above double-digit improvements, or near double-digit improvements, with the exception of destination train performance. I'll focus on that because I'll tie that back into some of the work block discussion and the crew availability discussion. So as we look at that, it was very much focused in the areas where we had those work blocks going on. So I think about it, our network is three regions, east, west, and south. East and south were exceeding expectations, double-digit and above in most of those metrics, including destination train performance.
The challenge we saw was navigating that weather in Western Canada and some of that, the work block season. Overall, network is running very well.
That's great.
To just lend a point on operating leverage, yes, there while we are up in train load and train length, there is still opportunity to grow into our merchandise package. We have said though previously, we have had to add some train starts back to accommodate the intermodal volume that we've seen from the West Coast, which is a good news story as well. Similarly, our bulk franchise, we run our bulk franchise very, very large trains. There's not much opportunity there without some changes to the receiving customer at the port or the loadout at origin to enhance the size of our units, our bulk package.
What about the few you wanna say? A few points on the Falcon, on the Falcon side?
Yeah. So I would say that, the way I look at that is, that's the future.
Yeah.
It's a product that we believe in. Tracy Robinson, Jim Vena support, we had supported right from the top. And just as important, it's supported at the ground level, the people that are making those connections every day, getting that Falcon delivery into our account and getting it into destination. You know, we have a competitive product that can and will take trucks off the road. And that service is it, it really is a joint it is a partnership. We look at it as, you know, we are just as invested in UP's performance, getting it to Chicago, as we are in getting it to final destination. The operation is really clicking. It's working well. The interchange works. And we're delivering a good service. I think there are more opportunities and more partnerships like that in the space.
We need to continue to grow them.
Last question I'll have before we end it here is really on technology, Patrick. I mean, I remember asking railroaders 20 years ago about technology. And it and as you know it is exciting stuff. I remember Positive Train Control was a big thing when we saw it coming. And now, and now or distributed power was a big thing when it was coming. Now, Positive Train Control's opening up the door to new avenues of automation. So perhaps you can touch a little bit about on how you see that that playing out over the next 10-15 years.
Sure. I'll start with, you know, one of our favorite technologies, which is our ATIP car.
Yeah.
Our autonomous track inspection. So the number of defects that we are finding from a geometry perspective for the geometry of the track, it far exceeds what the human eye can do. So we are finding and fixing more defects in the track structure than ever before with a human. We also are able to use that and leverage that data for the, the long-term planning we're doing for our network. So we're really invested in that. Our portal for our, our mechanical wayside portals, you know, in high-resolution images of cars going by at track speed where we can build out algorithms off of. There's a bolt missing. There's, all these things. We don't have to slow trains down. We don't have to have a human crawling around in the snow, looking up underneath the car. And we can find, infinitely more defects and fix them.
Our take on it is the folks that are out there finding these defects. When they do find them, we wanna use the technology and turn those into folks that fix the defects that.
Right.
The technology finds. Then I'll wrap up with a little more controversial answer to the question. Everything that is necessary to run a train with a single person or autonomous is in this industry. PTC is a component you mentioned, Trip Optimizer or another, train handling, locomotive deployed software is out there. And Rio Tinto in Australia has proven that you can you can run heavy-haul trains with single person or autonomous. I, I don't see a regulatory environment supportive of that in the near future. But I'm hopeful that in, in my time left in the in the industry that we see that.
Quick closing remarks?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Maybe just quick closing remarks. So I think listen, I've been around, as a lot of you know, for quite a few years. I've seen the good years. I've seen years that were a little bit more challenging. I'm very bullish on CN. I'm bullish on the fact that our operating model is very clear. We run those trains on time. I'm very pleased with Tracy. She's doing a great job. I think that she's made some tough decisions on some of the team, making sure that we have the right individuals in the right spot. And you would be surprised how that makes a big difference. I think that people have a smile on their face. We have a great board. We have great expertise on our board as well. So the team is gelling.
I'm very happy to have Rémi join. He's got big shoes to fill in Doug MacDonald, but I'm confident that he will, and you will get to meet him eventually. And you'll see, you'll be hopefully as impressed with him as Pat and I and the rest of the leadership are impressed with him. And I think the team is gelling together. And as you can see, we are teasing each other a little bit here. We're having fun. So I think that CN is in good faith. And I hope that, and I'm happy. And thank you for being shareholders. And if you're not, you should run and call your broker and buy some shares.
PRBC broker.
PRBC.
Ghislain, Patrick, thank you very much for your time.
Thank you very much.