Mr. Speaker, several issues were put forward. If high speed rail in this part of the world, as opposed to the west where I am from, is a very good proposal, then I would suggest that if the private sector wants to carry it out, that is fine.
It has to be recognized that government can no longer do these things. It has to be recognized that the federal government is now borrowing money from foreign lenders in order to maintain the operations of government. The country cannot afford these large projects.
Where can we go with our national rail system? We have an example of what happened in New Zealand when it privatized its railroad. The railroad went from being the least efficient in the western world to the most efficient. That changes the economics of many of the branch lines and so on. It does not necessarily mean that every remote branch line will become economical.
As a matter of policy, in a country such as Canada we are in all likelihood going to continue to want to have some of those remote lines. We can do that through incentives or through negotiation.
Whether we are going to do this under the umbrella, whether it will be one large rail system or whether it will be broken up I suggest is more a matter of private sector economics than it is a matter of government policy, or at least it should be. It is very difficult to say which is the better way. It will be a matter of financial accident in a sense as opposed to a master strategy.