Mr. Speaker, certainly I do not know the details of those agreements. No doubt there is some justification for Quebec receiving more. It is a much larger province with its economy being that much larger. I am sure it was prorated on an equitable basis. If it was not, I would ask that the member submit the figures which show that it was done on an inequitable basis or in preference of one province over the other.
The bigger issue in rail transportation is that the federal government continues to want to highly regulate and micromanage every aspect of the rail economy when it comes to grain transportation in the west. I am not sure what the major use of rail transportation is in the east. Certainly logging is a major issue there and mining is coming along with the nickel mines. Railways are important in the east too.
It is a matter of the government making sure that the marketplace is free to work in the manner in which it was meant to. It should not be artificially designed through freight rate subsidies to help one region over the other. That probably did not occur with Quebec and New Brunswick.