Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today in this House to bring attention, as the minister has, to national road safety week, to be celebrated in Quebec and Canada May 17 through 23, 1996. Since arriving in Ottawa, the official opposition has always made it its duty to support and promote issues around highway safety and safe driving.
I have listened to the federal Minister of Transport's speech with interest. We share his concerns, and we support his desire to reduce the number of motor vehicle accidents. We share his belief that improved safety is an excellent thing.
We were, however, a bit surprised to hear what the minister had to say on behalf of his government. Today he is trying to blow his own horn, to pass himself off as the great defender and promoter of road safety. As recently as last week, however, in response to a question by my colleague from Lévis on restoration of the Quebec bridge, he stated as follows: "The deterioration of the bridge, including the part on which vehicles drive, is due mainly to car and truck traffic- Motor traffic in the province of Quebec is the responsibility of the Quebec transport department; it is not a federal responsibility". Now today he is giving us a speech on road safety. We also need to see what that means in day to day reality.
The decrepit state of the Quebec bridge is beginning to be a threat to driver safety. The federal minister turns a deaf ear to any question of accepting his responsibilities and restoring the Quebec bridge, in conjunction with Canadian National and the Government of Quebec. We see this as contradictory to the speech the minister has just finished.
Where road safety is concerned, I would like to raise a constitutional aspect which is very likely to pose an increasing threat to the safety of drivers and the general public. As you know, the Canadian Constitution recognizes rail transportation as a federal responsibility, while highway safety within each province is a provincial one.
This somewhat artificial division poses serious problems.
As you know in rail transportation, the government's inaction has forced many businesses to use trucks rather than trains to ship their goods.
The same situation could well arise with the new policy of fees for coast guard services the federal minister of fisheries has just announced. All transportation sectors interact. The effect of the policy is to drive many maritime carriers to American ports, requiring goods destined for Quebec and Canada to be transferred by truck.
Because the federal government has failed to finance, manage and develop the rail system properly and because it is proposing an unfortunate policy of charging for coast guard services, private firms have found alternate ways to make their deliveries. The increased number of trucks on the roads of Quebec and Canada is largely the cause of the deterioration in the state of the roads, threatening public safety particularly.
The arbitrary division of powers in the transportation sector therefore prevents our having an integrated national transportation policy. With intermodality increasingly popular, the obsolescence of Canada's Constitution may well threaten our road safety. I think this is the message we must bear in mind during this national road safety week.
Of course we must support initiatives such as operation life saver, but we must recognize that, if transportation is to be modernized, Canadian and Quebec firms will have to acquire modern equipment and set aside the antiquated aspects of the Constitution to permit an integrated national standard on transportation and thus greater road safety.
In closing, I would repeat our support for National Road Safety Week and encourage everyone to drive carefully.