Thank you.
It's good to see everyone again. It's good to be back at TRAN.
I'm joining you from Prince Rupert, the westernmost terminus of Via Rail service. It's a spot that some of you visited on the port tour we did something like a year ago.
I also want to congratulate Mr. Lawrence on his appointment as the new transport critic. It's good to have him at this committee.
On this motion that's been put forward, I share my colleagues' concern about what happened. I don't think anyone wants to see situations of rail passengers being put in a really challenging situation, with limited amenities and a lot of uncertainty about when they're going to get home to their loved ones. It's good to hear a shared level of concern around the table.
When it comes to the details of the motion, I think there are ways it can be improved. Mrs. Romanado pointed out a couple of them. I certainly support the idea of hearing from passengers.
I am concerned about a couple of other aspects. One is that the motion states some facts that are currently unclear. It states that there was no food and no water. Now, I've had a chance to meet with Via Rail about this and be briefed, and they assert that food and water were provided, although not in unlimited quantities. I think we need to be careful about making claims or statements when the intention of this study is to figure out exactly what happened.
Similarly, I believe the second part of the motion, which condemns the government, would be more appropriate after we figure out what happened, what the limitations were, what the situation looked like precisely and what the government's role was.
I'm very curious to know, because this happened at Christmas 2022.... At the time, the transport minister put out a strongly worded statement, demanding that Via Rail get to the bottom of it and make changes. I'm curious what changes the government made in 2022 that could have prevented this from happening, whether those changes were effective and whether there were things that didn't get implemented. There are a whole host of questions we can ask to get to the bottom of whether this could have been prevented.
I think there are some unique challenges when you have a train stranded in the middle of nowhere. There are some unique challenges in getting those passengers to the nearest station and home to their loved ones.
I know that in the U.K., for instance, they have surplus equipment stationed at strategic points along the corridor for situations precisely like this so that the passenger service provider can go to the aid of a stranded train and push it to the station. We don't have that in Canada. We have a rail system that, frankly, is underfunded and doesn't have enough resources—