Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from the NDP, the member for Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys, for his very eloquent and pointed question. The real answer is to get opposition members into government. We could then solve these problems.
He is quite right. The problem is that the government right now is in a state of inaction. All it feels it really needs to do is keep the opposition fractured. What a sorry state of affairs we are in. What a sad reflection on the House when all the government has to do is behave like it is made of Teflon and try to keep the opposition fractured. This actually keeps our country far below what it can be. We should be doing much more and Canadians deserve much more.
The member brings up a couple of very interesting points. I know he has been working very hard for the people in his riding and is very interested in infrastructure. I have a couple of points to make on the issue of rail travel.
We should be doing more to encourage rail travel, which would take the pressure off the roads and lessen the damaging effects to the highways. We should also discuss the issue of subsidies to VIA Rail. VIA Rail is a mess and needs to be cleaned from the top down. It is a bureaucratic morass and needs desperately to be restructured to make it more effective.
On the issue of gas and taxes, essentially the gas prices that we see today are in large part a tax grab. The majority of the money we pay at the pump is actually taxes that go to the provinces and the feds. The feds are taking the bulk of that money, putting it into their pocket and spending it on issues that have nothing to do with the highways. Quite frankly, one wonders where that money goes.