Mr. Speaker, I was wondering if the previous speaker could tell us why the Liberal government waited for 18 months before introducing this very minor piece of legislation which is going to have a great effect on the way we ship grain around on the prairies.
He mentioned that he could only see that we were going to save a little time and a little money. He forgot about efficiency and I think he forgot about straightforward common sense. I cannot imagine why we would be moving grain to Thunder Bay and back again for 16 months before this government gets around to doing anything after "W5" highlighted the program and basically acted as its eyes and ears.
What about fairness? The Minister of Finance tells us he wants to be fair. Why should the Canadian taxpayer be paying taxes to move wheat to Thunder Bay and back for 16 months while this Liberal government sat around saying there is no problem with the way it spends money in this country? It took a television program to point out to the government that it was a ludicrous waste of money. The Reform Party is saying multiply that a thousand times. We have identified $10 billion in savings, this being one.
I would like to ask the hon. member why the government has waited this long to save this amount of money when it could have been done a year ago and we could have been further ahead.