Mr. Speaker, most of the amendments appeared in the Order Paper for the first time yesterday with the notice of intention to bring this bill forward. It has been quite a scramble with 82 amendments to come up with some reasonable debate for today. We still have to sort through many of these. We want to make sound judgment decisions on these, not snap decisions. I do ask your patience as I am sorting through these.
With regard to Motion No. 2, I do support this. Basically it brings an old and acceptable definition of a federal railway into the new act. I see no reason not to go with that.
With regard to Motion No. 28 and moving onward, I will pass over some of these very quickly because they require little comment. On Motion No. 28 I do not believe there is any justification for this. This we will not be supporting, nor will we be supporting Motion No. 29.
In the case of Motion No. 29, and this will come up often under several of the motions by this member, this is inconsistent in my opinion with the intent of the bill. The hon. member did appear at the odd committee meeting. I recognize he is not a member and that he has other obligations, but various parts of these things were discussed at length in committee by all the parties present.
Unfortunately he seems to be either missing part of it or by not taking part in the actual debate and participating did not understand the intent of what this bill is all about.
With regard to Motion No. 30, also made the member, I will be supporting it although I think it could have been better defined. It is an improvement over that section of the bill nonetheless.
Now we get into a mixture with the hon. member from the Bloc Quebecois. Motion No. 31 is a reasonable proposal as it deals with rail abandonment and I do not have a problem with it.
On Motion No. 32 from the hon. member from the NDP, once again this goes completely against the widely accepted abandonment policy this bill has attempted to bring in, one I have support.
There was a bit of controversial discussion of this during our hearings at committee, but I think the explanation was well given. Most of the witnesses who came before the committee did accept this.
With regard to Motion No. 35 presented by the minister I believe all parties are in agreement with this motion and that it should pose no difficulty.
With regard to Motion No. 36, of course I will be supporting. It was put in on very sound information; I put this motion in. We believe this provides reasonable protection for the interest of utility companies.
We had a lot of input on this. I have spoken with several of the hon. members from the other side. This is where I hope we do not get into what we have found in the past where individually they all agree with our position but collectively they vote opposite our position.
I hope they will give this due consideration and in the end decide to vote with the interests of the public. This is not in the interest of one or two companies. This is in the interest of the general public, the interest we are trying to protect with this motion.
Likewise, Motion No. 37 continues the same.
My hon. colleague from Okanagan Centre mentioned Motion No. 38 with regard to the Liberals' indication that they are not supporting Atlantic Canada with Motion No. 25, for which they have already indicated no support. This motion asks for a provision to continue the CN line from Montreal to Halifax for a period of five years.
Under Bill C-89, the CN privatization, I brought this up at the committee level. I asked for a 10 year of continuance at that time. The port authority from Halifax came forward and made a very sound and logical argument as to why this should be considered.
This is not something that goes against anyone. It is simply an assurance that they will have a period of time to get financing for the necessary infrastructure improvements for post-Panamax vessels in place with an assurance that there is a rail line in place to carry their goods to central Canada and the American mid-west. With the use of the CN line and the Sarnia tunnel the port of Halifax is superior to anything in the New England states or in New York.
We are moving to a deregulatory privatization or commercialization of the ports coming up very soon in the new year. The former Minister of Transport put us on notice of that in December.
For an investor to look at the port of Halifax which under this new act will have to find money in the marketplace without government guarantees, any wise investor will say: "What guarantee of return do I have on this? What happens if that line is taken out?"
During committee study on this the head of CN Rail, Mr. Paul Tellier, came before us as a witness. He is required under this new act, when passed, to put out a three year outline of any line he proposes to sell off or abandon. I said: "If you are to project for three years obviously you have to look beyond that, four or five or possibly beyond that. I ask you now in keeping with that, can you tell us if you have any plans over the next five years to abandon the rail between Montreal and Halifax". His answer was an emphatic no. It is not a hardship on CN.
Some hon. members opposite, particularly when I raised this on Bill C-89, said: "This is unbelievable, the Reform Party interfering in the private marketplace by trying to put a restriction on a private company what it can or cannot do with its rail line".
Not only the Liberals but all governments for the past 80 years have interfered with the marketplace with CN Rail. It has caused most of the problems that we now have in our rail industry.
It is unreasonable after 80 years of interference for the government to arbitrarily cut the string with no transition period. A five year transition period is incredibly minimal, does not hurt anyone, does not hurt CN, and does not cost the government money. This is a win-win situation. I hope this time hon. members will support Atlantic Canada and give it this necessary provision so that
Atlantic Canada can become a shipping giant on the North American east coast and also a big boon for CN. It guarantees that traffic having come into Halifax must then be shipped on a Canadian rail system. I seriously ask them to consider their position on this one to make it non-partisan to support Atlantic Canada. All of Atlantic Canada will be watching.
Moving on to Motion No. 39, this motion by the hon. member from the NDP attempts to subvert the main purpose and intent of this bill. It carries on through Motions Nos. 40 to 55. Each of these in essence are amendments which attempt to defeat the entire bill.
I suggest to the hon. member that these are not supportable. He can vote against the bill as we may depending on what the Liberals do with certain very controversial clauses in this bill which we will be debating later on. However as the bill stands, I will not support these motions.