Mr. Speaker, on April 1, I asked the Minister of Transport a question about the relocation of the Lévis station. I pointed out that I was surprised that the station would be relocated to a point west of the Chaudière River, at least eight kilometers further away than initially planned.
In his reply, the minister seemed astonished by my question. On April 20, I decided to write him a letter to provide further information, and I would like to share some of what I said with the House.
In my letter to the Minister of Transport, I wrote:
First of all, I would like to say that, despite the answer you gave me in the House, I never told you I was happy that the Lévis station was being closed, since I have not spoken with you since February 20.
In a communiqué I issued that same day, however, I said I was pleased that you had excluded the possibility of having trains reverse over the Quebec City bridge to the Sainte-Foy station.
As for the rest, I was resigned to your decision, even though I knew it was not the best solution for the south shore, because you required that services be maintained at the Lévis station until a new station is opened on the south shore. At the time, I thought this station would be built on one of three sites previously recommended by the mayors of the RCM of Chutes-de-la-Chaudière.
A few weeks later, on March 21, 1998, we learned from the media in my region that Via Rail intended to build this station at least eight kilometres further away than the three alternative sites initially proposed and, worse yet, right in the middle of an industrial park where the environment was far from attractive.
Since the idea of closing the Lévis station first came out, stakeholders have always thought that a new station would reduce passenger traffic, because of the distance from the downtown cores of Quebec City and Lévis. In fact, a study done for Via Rail by SETRA in 1996 forecast a 28.7% decrease in passenger traffic.
Since you asked the Standing Committee on Transport to make recommendations to you on ways of making Via Rail's operations more cost-effective, I have trouble understanding how you could approve an option that would decrease its revenues and force it to spend additional money to set up a shuttle between this new station and the downtown cores of Quebec City and Lévis.
The Standing Committee on Transport was equally astonished on March 24 when members of the Coalition pour le maintien et l'utilisation accrue du rail gathered 11,241 signatures of people in favour of maintaining the Lévis station. The chairman of the committee, whom I may not name, because he is sitting opposite, had proposed to other members of the committee that this relocation be re-examined as part of a tour the committee was planning to make.
I am not the only one astonished by the Minister of Transport's decision. Members of the standing committee, members of the coalition, south shore mayors, and even the mayor of the municipality in which the new station will be located, Richard Blondin, also expressed their surprise.
I impatiently await the reaction of the parliamentary secretary who, I hope, will provide me with more valid justifications than those I received the other day from the Minister of Transport.