Mr. Speaker, this week the transport minister announced a funding package of $400 million to improve and modernize VIA Rail's infrastructure and rolling stock. This is great news for rail passenger service in Canada. Indeed, I hope that it will lead to new infrastructure to make riding the rails more convenient and more attractive to those in the southwest part of the national capital region.
For at least a decade the idea of constructing a combined VIA Rail and local Ottawa-Carleton transitway station in south Nepean has been around. Unfortunately, every time the regional municipality went to talk to VIA Rail in the past, the railway was always pleading poverty, that it had no capital funds. This is no longer the case.
It is my hope that VIA Rail will give very serious consideration to this combined use facility. It could be a wonderful showcase of a multimodal transportation facility combining bus, automobile, heavy rail and eventually light rail facilities.