Mr. Speaker, a couple of weeks ago I directed a question to the Minister of Transport. At the same time I advanced the thesis that since the government wished to privatize the CNR part of the railway system in the country, he should give consideration to offering that railway to the farmers of western Canada to whom the government has offered $1.6 billion as part of the Crow benefit buyout.
Since the value of the railway appears to be approximately that amount, it seemed to be a very good match. It would have saved the government a considerable amount in brokerage fees and so on. It would have left future prospects for the country much better off, given the users would be in control of at least one of the national railways and would therefore presumably operate it in a manner that permitted and encouraged the continued use and export of products over the rail lines.
I am aware the government is constrained by a report it had created internally by a subcommittee which was set up basically to respond to an offer by CPR to buy out a section of the CN track through northern Ontario.
The committee offered a solution called commercialization to which the minister referred in his response. I submit to the minister and to his department that the concept of commercialization, as proposed in the committee, is terribly out of date even though it is only six or eight months old because since that time the government has made its decision to give the payout of $1.6 billion to prairie farmers. That payout may be considerably less than what was required and what should have been made under the circumstances of the long term, in perpetuity commitment that governments made with farmers almost 10 decades ago.
However, the parameters have changed. The amount of money on the table is equivalent to the value of CNR. It would save the government a considerable amount of dollars in brokerage fees to perform the switch. Farmers who are not interested due to retirement or proximity to the other railway in owning CN shares could take them to the market and get rid of them. Perhaps other resource users such as the potash, coal, sulphur and wood industries would use the opportunity to buy shares.
A system of control to the users makes sense, given the new paradigm of globalism that has emerged with the various trade agreements under GATT, et cetera. If we are to have viable industries and viable communities in Canada, this completes the all too necessary link of control from farm to port or from woods or mine to port that is required. The commercialization option that was proposed by the subcommittee of the Liberal caucus is out of date and no longer applicable. I urge the government to
abandon it and to look at up to date solutions that will have a much better chance of long term viability.
I give the minister and his government the example of prairie grain elevators during the teens when government elevators were purchased. They were all losers. They lost money. The government decided to privatize them. The farmers took them over as a co-operative. By having control of the elevators they have subsequently turned a series of losing operations into a winning proposition and now operate two of the largest worldwide co-operative grain companies.
That same economic ability would apply in the case of the railway. CN is now a losing operation. They could turn it around and make it useful to the whole of the country.