Mr. Speaker, yesterday the government spoke with pride about what a great price it is getting for CN Rail shares and how selling them in foreign countries helped to increase that price. What really helped to increase the share price was the amount by which the government reduced CN's debt.
In committee the government talked about reducing CN's debt by approximately $1 billion and that very little if any would actually come from the Canadian taxpayer. In reality, the government reduced CN's debt by $1.4 billion, and all of it came from the taxpayer except for what can be realized from the sale of non-rail real estate assets with a book value of $235 million and no appraisal to the contrary.
This pay-down may well have contributed to the enhanced share price. However, if the government is going to use Canadians' tax dollars to enhance the value of shares, should it not have offered the first chance of those shares to Canadians? As it now stands, 40 per cent of those shares are being sold outside of Canada, despite the fact there appears to be sufficient interest inside Canada. If this government is going to continue to run huge deficits, at least let Canadians be the beneficiary of that debt.