Mr. Speaker, a trucking company in Winnipeg which carries Canadian mail is planning to reroute a significant amount of its traffic between Montreal and Winnipeg and Toronto and Winnipeg through the United States. Test trips are soon to begin with exact locations for refuelling laid out in detail to take advantage of savings in fuel costs.
This raises a number of issues. There is the issue of the higher than necessary cost of gasoline in the country and the government's refusal to lean on the gas companies to take less of a profit. It also shows how the free trade mentality has changed our ways, eliminating borders in our minds as well as on paper.
In a week when we are properly talking about our love for Canada, what are we to say of the fact that Canadian mail addressed from one part of Canada to another is being rerouted through the United States, thus eroding the tax and economic base that funds things like medicare?
If we want to be a country we should start acting like a country.