Mr. Speaker, the operating agreement between the Grain Transportation Agency Administrator, Canadian National Railways and Canadian Pacific Ltd. is not available for tabling at this time.
The government is currently in the midst of structuring the process by which it will dispose of its 13,000 hopper cars, which are governed by the above mentioned agreement. As part of this process, discussions with the railways about revising the operating agreement are currently ongoing.
Public release of this document at this time may well harm the government's ability to negotiate fabourable revisions to the operating agreement, ultimately resulting in a negative impact on the possible value it will get for its hopper cars.
As the document is a private agreement between the railway companies and the government, the companies' views were sought on this matter. They have expressed similar concerns about the tabling of the agreement at this time.
I therefore ask the Honourable Member to withdraw his motion.
(Motion agreed to.)