Consultation on commercial market factors to be considered in determining fair and reasonable interswitching rates

Background

On October 9, 2025, the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) issued its decision in Canadian National Railway v Canadian Transportation Agency, 2025 FCA 184, allowing the Canadian National Railway Company’s (CN) appeal of Determination R-2023-237 (the 2024 Determination) setting regulated interswitching rates for 2024. The FCA set aside the 2024 Determination and remitted the matter to the Canadian Transportation Agency (Agency) for redetermination.

Further to the FCA’s decision, the Agency intends to proceed with the redetermination of the 2024 Determination and of Determination R-2024-181 (the 2025 Determination), as well as the determination of regulated interswitching rates for 2026, taking into account the direction provided in the FCA’s decision.

Pursuant to section 127.1 of the Canada Transportation Act (CTA), the Agency is required to determine regulated interswitching rates for the upcoming calendar year no later than December 1 of each year. Given the short timeframe until the statutory deadline for the 2026 rates, the Agency will issue, no later than December 1, 2025, a determination setting interim regulated interswitching rates for 2026 in accordance with the Agency’s existing methodology. The Agency will then take into account the FCA’s decision in a final determination of the 2026 regulated interswitching rates to be issued subsequently.

To that end, the Agency is conducting a public consultation process and inviting interested stakeholders, such as CN, Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited (CPKC) and shipper organizations, to provide submissions on how commercial market factors should be considered in the determination of regulated interswitching rates. In particular, the Agency is seeking views on the following questions (taking into consideration the text, context and purpose of sections 5, 112 and 127.1 of the CTA):

• What are the commercial market factors that the Agency should consider in its determination of regulated interswitching rates? Provide data and a rationale for your response.
• What additional data should railways provide in order for the Agency to consider these market factors? Provide a rationale for your response.
• What weight, if any, should the Agency give to commercial market factors in its rate-setting methodology? Provide data and a rationale for your response.
• What methodology should be used to apply these weights to calculate interswitching rates? Provide a calculation and a rationale for your response.

Following these consultations, the Agency will issue a final determination for 2026, which will include how it has considered market factors in the setting of the interswitching rate. The Agency intends to apply these considerations in the redetermination of the rates for 2024 and 2025.

How to Participate

You are invited to respond to all questions, or simply those that are of interest to you or your organization. Your answers will help the Agency decide how to incorporate commercial market factors into its rate-setting methodology for regulated interswitching and to redetermine the 2024 and 2025 rates. Your submissions can be sent to ferroviaire-rail@otc-cta.gc.ca.

Submissions by mail can be sent to:

Secretariat, Canadian Transportation Agency
60 Laval Street, Unit 1-117
Gatineau, Quebec
Canada J8X 3G9

Please note that mailed submissions must be postdated no later than March 6, 2026, for the first round of consultations, and no later than May 7, 2026, for the second round.

If you wish to submit a video due to accessibility issues, please send an email to ferroviaire-rail@otc-cta.gc.ca with the subject line “Video“. We will contact you to coordinate your submission.

Submissions will be posted on the Agency’s website in the official language in which they were received, along with the name of the individual or the organization represented.

Confidential Information

If you believe that part or all of your submission should be treated as confidential, you must file two versions of your documents:

• A public version of the document from which the confidential information has been redacted or blacked out; and
• A confidential version of the document in which:
  • each page is marked “CONTAINS CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION” at the top; and
  • on each page, you highlight, or otherwise clearly indicate, the confidential information that was redacted or blacked out in the public version.

The Agency will post the public version on its website and keep the confidential one for internal use only. However, all submissions are subject to the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act. The Agency will protect the confidentiality of your information in accordance with those Acts, but may be required to release information if it does not fall within the legislated exceptions and is requested under those Acts.

Reference materials

• Letter decision – Determination of the 2026 regulated interswitching rates and redetermination of the rates for 2024 and 2025
• Railway Interswitching Regulations
• Canada Transportation Act, sections 5, 112 and 127.1

Initial public submissions