Madam Speaker, I certainly want to zero in on what the hon. member had to say about grain transportation. I want to assure him that not only in northern Saskatchewan, northern Alberta and northern Manitoba is this a concern. It is a concern right across Canada.
I come from a constituency which grows a lot of wheat. The farmers there will openly tell you that they have been betrayed on three counts. First, they were betrayed when they got one year's free freight out of the Crow rate. Second, the practice of the grain companies and the railway companies getting together to plan the mass rail line abandonment is a betrayal of the farmers. The third betrayal is our inability to go to the railways and say “Your cost of operating is 50% what it used to be, or it certainly will be. We are not going to be talking about freight increases, we are going to be talking about freight reduction”.
Would the member agree with that?