Mr. Speaker, ever since the Minister of Transport announced the appointment of Mr. Justice Estey to do a review of the grain handling system, the CPR and the CNR have been issuing a blizzard of notices of discontinuance of rail lines. They are trying to get in ahead of the deadline.
If they are allowed to continue this, breaking the spirit of the Canada transportation act, if not the letter of the law, by the time Mr. Justice Estey gets his report in there is not going to be much left to report on because they will have chopped up piecemeal the entire rail system.
My question for the minister is will he use his ministerial powers to have a moratorium on rail line abandonments until Mr. Justice Estey has concluded his work?