Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member and his comments on the importance of rail and the decreased utilization of rail in this country.
I think we should put this into perspective. Following the changes to the rail system, to VIA Rail, we cannot on the one hand chastise people for not using rail when in fact the service and the funding to that service have been radically decreased and the quality of the service not upgraded. Certainly the proposals that have been around for quite some time on a high-speed train in the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor clearly would serve a very important transportation service both for passengers and produce.
I was recently in Japan. While I realize there is a much larger population there, their high speed trains are utilized fully because it is a good service.
Certainly the whole question of transportation is a major one. One of the debates during the Canada-U.S. and NAFTA free trade agreements was the impact on transportation, a further north-south investment into transportation routes of all kinds as opposed to the east-west links which had provided to the regions of this country, our farming communities and communities in the maritimes and Newfoundland, a substantial part of the development of this country.
I appreciate the member's comments specific to VIA Rail as it is now, but would it not make more sense from the environmental and utilization of best technology points of view to look seriously at a high speed-train in large quarters with large population?