Mr. Speaker, I express my appreciation for being given the opportunity to comment on federal support for VIA Rail.
The Reform opposition motion before us condemns the government's actions with respect to a number of its transportation policies. I do not have the time to get into all of them but I want to spend a little time speaking about our government's support for VIA Rail. The motion is another indication, especially by the Reform Party, of how out of touch it is and how little it understands about the country.
Over the past two or three decades Canadians have supported their national passenger rail service. For the Reform Party to suggest in its blue book platform that VIA Rail should be privatized, which would mean the abandonment of VIA Rail services to hundreds of communities across the country, surely does not point to a national party that supports the needs of the passenger transportation of the country.
There is something bizarre about the motion of the hon. member for Kootenay West-Revelstoke. The Reform transport critic said on June 4, 1996, as reported in the Hill Times : ``I have agreed with the concept behind all the government's transport bills over the past two and a half years, with the sole exception of the Pearson airport cancellation bill''. We have heard this song and dance before with regard to Pearson. He said on June 4, 1996 that he supports all policies, save and except that one of the government, but his motion today condemns what the government is doing.
I like the member for Kootenay West-Revelstoke. He has been a very active member of the transport committee as I and my colleagues have been. For the most part he puts forward some very positive viewpoints and has been in agreement with the government in most cases. I find rather bizarre that all of a sudden today he decides that he is against everything he stood for just the other day.
Liberal governments of the past and of today are governments that supported passenger rail service. When the Tories had power for those gruesome eight years and put this country through pain, it was the Liberal Party from 1988 to 1993 that fought for the retention and enhancement of VIA services.
The government believes that every community needs a national passenger rail service. It also recognizes that the transportation system needs to be an affordable, integrated and efficient system.
Everything we have done since 1993 was to put in place certain efficiencies that do not destroy the transportation systems but enhance them and ensure that Canadians have them, not only businesses but people who rely on our transportation services.
I compliment VIA and its employees. They have not had a very good time since 1989 when Mr. Mulroney and the Tories slashed the VIA network by 50 per cent.
In 1993 the government had a deficit to deal with. It had to impose certain cutbacks on VIA as was done with other departments. What was made clear, thanks to the hard work and dedication of the men and women who work for VIA, the management and employees, was that they were able to do so without cutting one service to the country in the past three and a half years even though their subsidy levels were falling by over $200 million. They did that in a very pragmatic, orderly way making sure that VIA service was available to Chatham, Toronto and all other parts of this great country.
It is also clear that VIA remains committed to looking for opportunities and efficiencies to enhance services by working with their workers, by working with communities and by working with
other partners. It is looking for the opportunity to better serve Canadians from coast to coast with the best passenger rail service.
It has moved to improve the attractiveness of rail service by making certain infrastructure upgrading to permit 100-mile per hour operation of trains on the Montreal-Quebec routes and 95-mile per hour operation on the Toronto-London-Windsor route. The Montreal-Senneterre, the Montreal-Jonquière and the Jasper-Prince Rupert train schedules were revised to provide daylight services for local residents and development of tour packages.
To reiterate, VIA is always looking at ways of enhancing its passenger base. VIA has worked at combining a series of fare increases with special promotion fares and plans to develop year round markets for its services.
As a result of these service initiatives revenues have increased by 26 per cent and the number of passenger miles increased by 16 per cent between 1990 and 1996. Over the same period the number of passengers increased by 5 per cent. The higher increase in the number of passenger miles is because the average trip taken by each passenger increased from 221 miles to 246 miles between 1990 and 1996. It is further indication that Canadians support and want passenger rail service.
The best measure of VIA's success has been the steady increase in its cost recovery levels. Something we would expect from every corporation and in all our operations is that they move toward cost recovery. Between 1990 and 1996 the cost recovery ratio increased from 26 per cent to 44 per cent. This marks the first time ever that VIA's cost recovery has been over 33 per cent.
Under the National Transportation Act, 1987, the government subsidized the operation of three uneconomical passenger services because it believed in treating all regions of the country in a fair and equitable way. Therefore the railways that the government supported and continues to support, the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway, the Algoma Central Railway and the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, is a further indication of its commitment to passenger rail service.
The new transportation act was passed by the House within the last year. It states that the new Canada Transportation Act maintains the government's commitment to remote areas along these routes by having the Minister of Transport enter into special agreements with the railways to provide financial assistance but to give them greater autonomy in how best to provide those services.
It is clear and I do not know why the Reform Party does not get it. The country is a national federation, a country where we need national infrastructure. VIA is the national passenger infrastructure to provide services across the country. Four hundred communities depend on passenger rail service. For Reformers to suggest in their blue book privatization and the depriving of Canadians of passenger rail service, or for them to suggest in their platform book, their new fresh start 1995, the total disbandment of the transportation ministry and the $750 million, indicates that they do not believe in the national government having any role in national transportation.
This is bizarre. I have listened for the last few hours to the Reform Party suggesting that we ought to do more. The fact is that the government is doing more. I do not understand how Reformers can stand and say we should be doing more when their blue book and their fresh start say that we should be doing less or should not be involved at all.
In conclusion, we continue to believe in VIA. We continue to believe that there are opportunities to have VIA work in a most efficient way and to ensure that Canadians have passenger rail service from VIA. We ought to continue to support VIA in its attempt to modernize and in its attempts to provide more service. VIA ought to be given the mandate and the opportunities to enhance its passenger ridership in all parts of the country.