Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise to take part in this debate. I have been asking for weeks that an opposition day be devoted to railways. That is why I am pleased to enter this debate.
Before dealing with my main topic, I would like to respond briefly to comments the transport minister made in the House today.
First of all, the minister accused the official opposition of standing for the status quo as far as rail transport is concerned. In other words, the Bloc Quebecois would be in favour of the status quo in transportation, and more particularly in railways.
Let me emphasize that such is not the position of the Bloc Quebecois, and the minister knows it. His comments are sheer grand standing for the benefit of his constituency, and they do not relate in any way to the subject matter. Those comments demonstrate that this Liberal government does not take rail
transportation seriously. One clue to that is the comments by the Minister of Transport; another is that the government seems to rely only on the hon. member for Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine to respond to remarks by Bloc Quebecois members. He often seems to lead us off into debates that have nothing to do with the debate at hand. Clearly, the government does not take rail transportation seriously.
As my colleague, the hon. member for Beauport-Montmorency-Orléans pointed out this morning, the Bloc Quebecois has been asking for almost a year that the Standing Committee on Transport examine the whole issue of rail transportation. This has been denied us for all kinds of reasons, each one shakier than the other, and this means that after a year of Liberal government we are in a worse situation than before.
I can tell the Minister of Transport right off the bat that what the Bloc Quebecois wants is to know where the government is going in the area of rail transportation. His responsibility is to tell us what direction he is taking, what he intends to do after a year in his portfolio. We want the government to protect the interests of all Canadians, but more precisely, as far as I am concerned, the interests of Quebecers and particularly the interests of my constituents, severely affected by the decisions the government is taking in the area of rail transportation. I will come back to that.
We want a real public debate on the future of rail transportation. We want real solutions. We, in the Bloc Quebecois, refuse to identify as the only scapegoats employees of CN and CP and their so-called golden collective agreements. When you consider the perks given to the president of CN, which were mentioned by my colleague from Beauport-Montmorency-Orléans, and the outrageous benefit that a house represents, I think it is rather foolish on the part of the government to single out unionized workers for the lack of profitability of rail transportation in Canada, especially east of Winnipeg.
The reasons why I insisted for so long for a debate on this subject led me to wonder about the future of a rail network in Quebec.
And I will say right away for the benefit of the hon. member for Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine that my comments arise primarily from a concern about the future of the rail system in Quebec, linked of course, with North America as a whole.
I have been looking at the rail question for several months now, and have seen the threat of the slow but systematic destruction of its rail network looming over Quebec.
My riding, Mégantic-Compton-Stanstead, provides the perfect example of the sort of hypocritical manoeuvre the federal government is planning to carry out in Quebec. The abandonment of the line linking Sherbrooke, in the Eastern Townships, and Saint John in New Brunswick, is being threatened for January 1, 1995. This abandonment was ordered by the National Transportation Agency under the former government. I mention this again so that the hon. member for Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine will not have to rise in the House and blame the leader of the opposition for all the decisions taken since the beginning of Confederation.
This abandonment would be a real economic disaster for the Eastern Townships, with potentially devastating consequences for the entire area, and I would go so far as to say for the whole of the Eastern Townships.
And yet, while we are experiencing a crisis of major changes and drastic cuts in the rail industry in Quebec and in Canada, the Standing Committee on Transport-and I point this out again-has always systematically refused to look at the rail question, despite the repeated requests of the official opposition representative.
We are told that the committee must focus on the future of the aviation industry, the future of airports, and that there is therefore no time for the future of rail, an industry that in 1993 employed close to 50,000 people across the country. No time! The committee has no time! Realizing the ridiculousness of the situation, the Minister of Transport announced, last September 29, the creation of a task force to examine the possible privatization of CN.
But to make sure it would not interfere with schemes to dismantle the Quebec railway system, the minister took the trouble of appointing an all Liberal task force, with only one member from Quebec sitting on it. The minister need not worry; this task force is not likely to make much noise.
The question we must ask ourselves at this point is: why is the government so afraid of having Bloc members on this task force? Why have such a suspicious behaviour that resembles a conspiracy? Upon analyzing the whole issue, the federal government's sinister intentions in the railway system become clear.
I would now like to review briefly the events of the past year regarding the rail issue. The minister referred to it this morning.
First, there was the statement made by the CN chairman, Mr. Paul Tellier, in December 1992, who apparently wanted to merge the CN and CP railway systems. This period of a few months was referred to as the CN-CP operations consolidation period. For reasons unknown to us, since all was done in secret, this plan fell through sometime around June 1994.
Then, and it is still on the table, CP Rail presented a bid to purchase CN assets for $1.4 billion.
A few weeks ago, Bloc Quebecois members have met with senior CP executives to clarify the contents of the proposal put before CN management and government authorities. We came out from this meeting with more questions than answers.
As I said earlier, we are particularly concerned about the fact that the federal government seems to want to divest itself of assets that belong to the people of Quebec and Canada as a whole. Regarding the CN railway system, we must bear in mind that this is a public company. Therefore, CN facilities across the country belong to the taxpayers of Quebec and Canada.
We are very concerned that a private company like CP could buy this system and then do whatever it feels like with it. This is the main criticism we, the Official Opposition, are directing at the government.
As we said in our motion, which refers to the government's lack of transparency on this issue, we find it unconscionable that the government is making decisions on the future of the public rail system, at least the part belonging to CN, without the people-or at least the socio-economic stakeholders-, the Official Opposition and the Reform Party being consulted on and participating in the upcoming decision on the future of the rail system.
Regarding the sale of facilities to CP, we will need much more information and many more assurances from the government if it wants us to approve this deal.
Most of the Quebec portion of the CP line from Saint John, New Brunswick, to Sherbrooke goes through my riding of Mégantic-Compton-Stanstead. This line belongs to CP. For several years now, we have witnessed CP's "demarketing effort" to discourage potential industrial clients from using their services, as well as the difficulties experienced by local people. Their attitude seems slightly different today since CP needs people's support to buy CN-But when we see how difficult it was in the past to obtain information from CP, we are entitled to ask ourselves what will happen when this company takes over the whole network in Eastern Canada, and especially in Quebec. It would take compelling arguments to convince me that this is a good deal.
I would like to say a word about the federal government's criteria for assessing the networks to be abandoned or sold off.
Everyone agrees that the two main criteria are profitability and the public interest. Everyone also agrees that east of Winnipeg-and this is not partisan separatist talk, because it affects Ontario and the Maritimes as well as Quebec-profitability is the criterion used by the National Transportation Agency to decide on the future of a railway or branch line.
How can local people show that a rail line is profitable? I would say that they almost have to prove it foot by foot and not for the whole line. I will just give an example to illustrate what I am saying. The rail line which concerns me, the one from Saint John to Sherbrooke, has a client about 10 km west of Sherbrooke called Eka Nobel. This company alone does over $3.5 million of business with CP every year to move its merchandise.
When the time came to consider the profitability of the railway east of Sherbrooke, this customer located 15 km west of Sherbrooke was not taken into account. This shows the ridiculousness of such a situation where figures are made to say what one wants them to say.
For the future of railways in western Canada, public interest is the criterion used. To prove this point, and no one can challenge this, I take the subsidies for shipping western wheat; for the current year, about $600 million of our tax money will be used to pay for the transportation of wheat in the West. There is no equivalent in eastern Canada. This policy is a double standard which obviously puts rail service in eastern Canada at a disadvantage.
To conclude, I would like to say a word about the future of rail transport, since this morning, the minister-as I said and repeated earlier-accused the Official Opposition of wanting to maintain the status quo. When my colleague who spoke just before me talked about a moratorium on abandoning rail lines throughout Canada, and especially in Quebec, the reason we are asking for a moratorium is not to maintain the status quo but to let the local and regional stakeholders and the Government of Quebec meet with representatives of the federal government to discuss alternatives. Alternatives exist. Later today, some of my other colleagues will talk about short lines, which Quebec law encourages and permits. To establish a short line, the local community must take charge.
One of the problems the railway system has to face is the loss of interest of the population these last few years. There are several reasons for this change of attitude, including the fact that the railway companies, the CN and the CP, have chosen to keep their operations secret. Because of the way the CP handled things in my area, potential users no longer want to do business with this railway company, and our people lost interest.
So, we need to hold a real debate. This is why I hope the speeches made today in this House will not close the debate on the railway system, but rather launch a truly public debate on the issue, a debate in which the government and the opposition should take part and make their position known, to reassure the population that the railway system will be maintained and expanded throughout Canada.
On a more specific note, I want to say that in Quebec and in my riding, there can be no economic future without a profitable railway system, and such a railway system can obviously ensure economic development and also be financially viable. To do so, we need the co-operation of all the people involved. This is what we, in the Bloc, are trying to do and we can only hope that the government join us in our efforts.