Mr. Speaker, on June 12, I asked a question to the Minister of Transport regarding railway safety, following CN's decision to close the Joffre shop, in Charny. I am concerned because before this decision, there were three shops that repaired and maintained railroad tracks in Canada.
It was suddenly decided to concentrate these operations in Winnipeg. Since CN was privatized last year, I was concerned about the issue of safety and I told the Minister of Transport that it was asking a lot from a single shop located in Winnipeg to look after all the tracks in Canada, as far as Halifax. The minister said that he had reviewed the situation, that there would be no problem and that it would be safe.
On March 28, 1995, the daily Le Soleil published the findings of a study on the state of railroad tracks in Quebec. In our province there are three to ten times more problems than in other regions of the country.
For example, and I quote from the story published in the daily Le Soleil , ``For trains starting in the Quebec area, including Ottawa, but stopping before the Gaspé Peninsula, railroad inspectors counted 51 defects per 100 miles or 160 kilometres of main railroads owned by CN. They counted 31 per 100 miles of main railroads owned by Canadian Pacific. CN owns more than 80 per cent of the tracks''.
As I was saying, elsewhere it is up to 10 times less. In spite of this, CN decided to set up the only repair shop in Winnipeg.
I take advantage of the fact the minister is here. Now that he has been informed of the situation since last Thursday, I ask him if he can table reports that the railroads had improved over the last year, on which to base his claim that there is no threat to safety in Quebec. I would like the minister to tell us about these reports or, better still, to table within the few next days the reports on which he is basing his claim that railroads in Quebec are in top condition.