Madam Speaker, I want to talk primarily about the public sector getting involved in the national transportation system and the concept of public-private partnerships.
In the last parliament I was involved quite heavily in transport. I was transport critic and did quite a bit of work with the transport committee. One of the big things that we were driving on at that time was public-private partnerships. It was a real goal of government to get the private sector involved more with the transportation network in the country and pair with them in order to get a better system going.
It is interesting because there are a lot of things right now in the country where we could be doing that, particularly in the transportation sector. Take, for example, VIA Rail. In the case of VIA Rail, it has always relied on massive government subsidies for its operation. Interestingly, in 1997-98 the subsidies dropped but the losses in VIA Rail actually went up.
Given that the government owns and operates VIA Rail, it is kind of absurd that it claims its subsidies have dropped while at the same time the losses of the operation go up. The government of course has to cover that.
The subsidies in 1997 were $212 million. The government dropped them to $178 million for 1998. Ironically, the losses went from $253 million to $261 million.
Interestingly, we have a really good private sector comparison that we can use. VIA Rail used to run a passenger rail excursion system in British Columbia called the Rocky Mountaineer. It was a concept that VIA said could make lots of money and it really wanted to get into this. VIA ran it for a time and had the ridership up to a little under 5,000 people in a season. It lost money at it, like it did with most other things it operated, but it still said that it was wonderful.
However, the government of the day, in a moment at least of wisdom, decided that VIA would have to cut some of its losses by selling off the Rocky Mountaineer. It put it up for sale, and along came the private sector, which said, “We think that can make money if it is run right without subsidy and we'll buy it”.
The people in the public sector actually paid good money to VIA Rail to purchase this company, to buy the rolling stock and to buy the passenger list, for whatever that was worth. There certainly was not a lot of goodwill, but they paid a lot of money in any case. They bought additional cars. They refurbished the old cars. They hired crews, provided nice, snazzy uniforms for them and trained them the way they felt people needed to be trained in order to provide the service that the public was really looking for.
They then spent a great deal of money advertising. They advertised in Europe and brought tourist dollars to our country. They advertised all over this country, in the United States and brought people up from there. They made arrangements with cruise ships to make it part of a cruise-land package so people could explore the beauty of this country when they landed in Vancouver on one of these passenger ships.
They had a struggle when they started. However, without government subsidy, they now carry over 70,000 passengers. They bring in an incredible amount of tourist dollars. They provide a lot of good, solid, sustainable jobs and they pay taxes. Rather than get subsidies, they pay taxes. It is a success story. It is a success story that could be repeated in the whole passenger rail system.
The owners of the Rocky Mountaineer also decided that they needed to be good corporate citizens, unlike VIA Rail. Wherever the Rocky Mountaineer goes it advertises, it leaves a good impression and it makes great brochures. VIA Rail leaves something too. It leaves raw sewage on the tracks everywhere the train travels. There is no containment whatsoever. It just dumps straight through.
We can imagine the horror of CN and CP Rail workers when they have to work on tracks that VIA Rail has been down. Heaven forbid that people should ever go fishing under a train trestle. They should make sure it is not one that VIA Rail travels on or they may get more than they bargain for when they take the old rod out and head for the water.
The Rocky Mountaineer said “We can't do that. There is no regulation that says we have to change, but we have to be good corporate citizens”. It began converting all the rail cars, and all the new ones that came that way. They came fully contained. One by one it began converting them over, with the most used first, and gradually completing its entire changeover by 1996, which cost a lot of money that it would have liked to have put into shareholders' pockets for profits, that it would have liked to have used for advertising, that it would have liked to have used to buy more rolling stock, that it would have liked to have used even to reward the workers, who made this system work, with better wages.
However, it said “We have a corporate responsibility. This is distasteful what is being done and we have to change it”, and it did. That is the private sector. VIA Rail said “If you want us to change, okay, give us the money. Write us another cheque for this”, because that is how VIA Rail operates.
The private sector can run a transcontinental rail system in this country. It will work.
I know the minister and even some reports that have been in the newspapers and magazines have said that the private sector is not interested because there is no money to be made. I do not believe that. I say that we should give the passenger rail system in this country a chance to enter the golden age without the use of taxpayer funds. It worked in British Columbia and it could work right across this country.
If the minister's answer to this is that there is no profit in passenger rail therefore the private sector will not be interested, then I offer this challenge. I will put together a series of proposals that will offer complete, unsubsidized rail transportation across this country. If I can do this, allow the transport committee to review the proposals and recommend a decision on the future of rail travel in this country. The private sector can do the job. We have to give them the opportunity.
I want to touch on airports because they are also part of our great transportation system, particularly in a country this size. It is the other side of privatization of sorts, community-owned small airports. They are operated like businesses, very much like the private sector would operate.
In 1995 the federal government decided that it was losing so much money on airports, other than a few money-makers like Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and a few others like that, that it wanted to get out of the smaller regional airports. It was losing money at virtually every one of them. It therefore went to the local governments and asked them to take over the operation of those airports.
The government said to the local governments “We know these airports are losing a tonne of money, but here is what we are going to do. We are going to make some changes and one of those changes is that we are going to change the requirement for on site airport firefighting equipment and personnel. You provide us with your plans showing how you will have a sufficient reaction time in the event of an emergency declaration and that you will be able to provide service to the airport and we will accept that”. All the communities did just that and the government accepted it.
The communities then agreed to take over the operation of those airports and turned them around. In Castlegar, my home airport, we were losing over $500,000 a year. That is a chunk of change in the grand scheme of things to the federal government, but for a small community like Castlegar that was a lot of money.
The community took on that airport and turned it around. It now makes a small but modest profit that continues to give it a little cushion and a nest egg in case there are some problems down the road. Interestingly, there happens to be some right now with all the airline upheaval that is going on.
The government is now making a move to reintroduce the very thing it cancelled. It is now saying that it will change the requirements on these small airports for the response time and that on site airport firefighting requirements will now be required. This is being done after the arrangement was made that the communities would operate the airports without this expense, and it is a tremendous expense.
I worked at airports for 22 years. Airport firefighters are trained, dedicated personnel. They are good people. However, in the 22 years I worked at an airport, I never saw an opportunity for them to save a single life.
This move by the government jeopardizes the financial sustainability of small airports throughout this country. Canada needs a better transportation network. VIA is financially unsustainable without the massive and ongoing injection of taxpayer money. The government must allow the private sector to do for VIA Rail what it has done for small airports. Ironically, what the government is doing instead is threatening the hard work that make community airports sustainable after decades of needing government subsidies. Two wrongs do not make a right.