Mr. Speaker, for several weeks, since before Minister Brassard made his decision known, people from the regions of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, Haut-Saint-Maurice and Abitibi-Témiscamingue and myself have been calling for a public debate on the impact of increased tractor trailer loads on secondary roads in these regions.
Jacques Brassard refused to provide CRD stakeholders in these regions with a 1991 study on a basic rail network for Quebec.
The stakeholders in these regions are concerned after we learned last week that Raymond Bréard, a former vice-president of l'Association du camionnage du Québec and current executive assistant to Quebec finance minister Bernard Landry, had spoken to Minister Brassard himself and to political officials in his department in support of large trucking companies in Quebec and Ontario, at the expense of Quebec rail workers.
That is a major conflict of interest.