Mr. Speaker, public concern regarding the future of VIA Rail service in the Sarnia-Toronto corridor continues to rise. A number of mayors and municipal councils have expressed concern following the release of certain internal documents attributed to VIA management.
The transport department has done nothing to deny or disavow such information. It is indeed ironic that in this time of heightened emphasis on infrastructure our most elementary public service, that is intercity rail service, is overtly and benignly discouraged by government.
If Canadian National can charge its other customers using rail service at the same rate that VIA pays, CN would have an income of $30 billion per year and not the $3 billion per year it had last year.
I call on the transport department to order Canadian National to charge VIA a rail usage charge based on reality. Indeed VIA receives federal subsidies which flow through to CN because of this unilateral usage charge.
Let us make some sense of VIA by rolling back track rental rates to a realistic number based on real market value numbers.
I call upon the department to make economic and environmental sense and to guarantee passenger rail service to both urban and rural Ontario.