Mr. Speaker, there is a well-established tradition in this House that when committees are organized, the majority has its say. That is a long-standing tradition.
As to working groups mandated to do certain things by political parties, they are a fairly common occurrence. There have been many examples in the past. When either the government or the opposition wants to study any given matter, they ask for advice on a politically-oriented base. Some members of the committee like the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River, who chairs the committee, are undoubtedly on the government's side. They have been assigned a certain job, so they are in a position to give useful and important advice to the government, which has to make a decision on the CP proposal, but also has to prepare other alternatives.
Several means are available to members of Parliament, for instance as members of House committees. If, as the hon. member just said, the transport committee was not able to examine this issue or if a majority had determined for any reason that the committe did not want or did not have time to do so, we had no choice but to proceed because we had to respond to the CP proposal.
I do not know whether the Bloc Quebecois or the Reform Party would have been willing to be part of a committee set up with a mandate from the transport minister, but it is not a kind of precedent I am ready to create because the House has its own mechanisms for examining issues that are deemed important. But political parties in this House also have the right to ask their colleagues to look into different matters in order to give advice that they consider relevant.
There is no duplicity in all of this. It is one way of doing things, and it has been around for a long time. I hope we will see in this exercise that Mr. Nault has already created an opportunity for all those concerned, members of Parliament included, to have an input.
One thing is clear. Opposition members have a golden opportunity today to express their views on the CP proposal, on the potential commercialization of CN, and on the status quo. They would be well-advised to use it to tell us what they think instead of reciting problems we have all been aware of for a long time and which we are attempting to solve.