Mr. Speaker, I regret that the Reform Party cannot endorse the amendment presented by the Bloc. We cannot support an amendment that would require railways to pay for the removal of hazards created as a result of the emissions of local governments. This defies natural justice. In that respect only we cannot support the amendment.
For example, if a local road authority allowed brush to grow wild on the approach to a railway crossing and then was forced to remove it, under the terms of this amendment, as I understand it, the railway would be required to pay for the work. That would be patently unfair.
If I have misunderstood the motion, I hope during questions and comments that will be brought to my attention. As I interpret it, this is simply wrong.
As far as the general question of this legislation is concerned, in my part of the country this entire debate is becoming moot or academic. The railways it would govern are disappearing thanks to the government's brilliance in writing the new Canadian transportation act. It is pretty hard to have a railway crossing accident where there are no railways. This is happening to us out there at a very rapid rate.
I am a little concerned that this bill has been fast tracked the way it has. Basically there is not much in the bill with which I could find fault. But it certainly is clear evidence of utter disorganization in the office of the minister that the bill has sat around for heaven knows how many weeks and all of a sudden it is being pushed through first reading, second reading, committee, report stage, bang, bang, bang, for no good reason that I can understand unless we are looking at prorogation.
The bill has been languishing over there in that tower. Now we have it here and we have to deal with it. The bill has not even been printed as reported. It is not even available online, on the net. Yet here we are debating the terms. It has not been printed as reported.
I suppose we could raise that as a point of order and create some disruption. I do not intend to do so but this is ridiculous. What is the hurry?
If I had not alerted some stakeholders to the fact that the bill was coming up in committee, they would not have had time to even think about preparing presentations. It caught them completely off guard. They had to rush to do what they had to do and they did it very well. Other stakeholders would have come forward if they had known what was going on. Perhaps I am impugning motive but the government did not care whether the public was aware of what it was doing so the word did not go out that committee meetings were to be held.
I have one example. The Canadian Trucking Alliance hired a prominent transportation consultant to review the bill, specifically the provisions related to crossings and the standards for construction or alteration of railway works. I presume since these guys do not work cheap it cost the association a bundle of money. The report will not be completed until Monday, December 7, which is too late to have any impact. So these people have wasted their time trying to get some input into the democratic process.
The opposition has not obstructed the bill in any way because it is in essence a technical bill. On the advice of various stakeholders we tried to introduce some minor amendments in committee but, as usual, the Liberal members lined up in lock step to stop us. Same old, same old. I sometimes wonder why we have committees when everything is done according to the wishes and whims of the minister. However, we are on the rails here. I am not going oppose the bill nor are my colleagues but we are getting sick and tired of this nonsense of being pushed around and bullied when there is no good reason for doing so.