Mr. Speaker, the hon. parliamentary secretary and I worked collaboratively and had very co-operative debates on this issue back in October 1997. I will admit that he has a sincere interest in terms of advancing this file.
The motion calls for the commitment of the government as a whole to address the issue.
We are not even going to argue what particular initiatives have to be taken. We have put forth some very constructive suggestions and we are challenging the government to say “This is what we are capable of doing”, as opposed to “This is hands off. What we have now in terms of our national shipbuilding policy, in terms of tariffs, in terms accelerated depreciation is all we are going to do”.
As far as rail car initiatives are concerned, whatever is competitive for the rail car industry should be afforded to the shipbuilding industry as well. However, it has to be done by revising Revenue Canada leasing regulations concurrently with accelerated depreciation.