Mr. Speaker, I listened again with some bewilderment to the comments of the member of the Bloc and there are a few points I would like to make.
She says that the government has been foot dragging on the high speed rail issue. Quite frankly, given the statistics, given the financial prospect, the viability of high speed rail in the Quebec-Windsor corridor if I were having to pay the bill believe me I would be foot dragging as well. I would not want to get into it.
The member talked about the success of high speed rail in European countries. For many years the high speed rail system in Europe has been heavily subsidized by the governments where the trains operate.
This country cannot afford to get into more subsidization of crown corporations or transportation systems. We are subsidized to death. We have VIA Rail being subsidized with hundreds of millions of dollars. It is interesting that the chairman of VIA Rail, a person who is operating a company at a huge loss every year, absolutely dependent on government subsidies to keep his company afloat, is now advocating and promoting a high speed rail system.
At least if we had some sort of track record with the company he operates, his support would at least be somewhat credible. The hon. member has talked about the economic factor of high speed rail. There is no financial data that support the fact that a high speed rail system in Canada, in the Quebec-Windsor corridor, could even begin to be financially viable without continued heavy subsidization from the government.
I would like to talk about one other thing. Where are the customers going to come from? Let us say that they did start to attract a lot of customers. Someone in the transportation industry is going to suffer. Is it going to be the airlines? Are we asking the airlines to lose more customers who would travel on trains?
Statistics and studies have shown that the Canadian people have a tremendous love for their automobiles. We are not going to change this love for the automobile that the Canadian people have simply by putting a high speed rail system in. They are not going to overwhelmingly start getting out of their cars and flocking to a high speed rail system overnight.
If this government were to enter into this thing it would be like going to the store to buy a new television set when you have no food in the cupboard. That is the state of the economy. That is the state of this financial house in Canada. We cannot afford to even think of a high speed rail system at this time.