Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to have a chance to participate in this debate. It is an issue that all Canadians, regardless of where they reside in Canada, feel that parliament should have had quite some time ago.
I want to take this particular moment to commend the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester for his work as transport critic in actually raising this particular issue and bringing this debate to the floor of the House of Commons today.
Mr. Speaker, I know that you understand this particular issue as I do. When it comes to long range planning, whether it is on transportation issues, environmental issues, climate change, or the development of tax policy or trade policy, the government is absent in terms of actually having a long term vision, regardless of what the actual topic might actually be. Whether it is the need to develop an implementation strategy for the Kyoto climate change, whether it is planning in advance to avoid a pollster strike which we had just a few years ago, or whether it is the same kind of vision that we actually had when we were in government with respect to trade—our trade with the United States was around $90 billion each and every year and today we trade over $260 billion each and every year—it was that kind of long term planning for which this government is absent.
What all the provinces have been advocating for quite some time is to have some federal leadership with respect to a transportation policy for this country. One of the greatest challenges that a country as complex and as large as Canada is, is the geography from coast to coast to coast. The size of this country gives us as a nation an immense amount of challenges that we have to recognize. It was the same kind of challenge and vision that actually built the railroad that we have from coast to coast. Now we need to take that vision that we had for the 19th century and put it into a 21st century context.
The transportation challenges that we have right now in this modern, globalized world is that we need to be able to move our goods and our people from point to point in rapid fashion in order to stay competitive, to be able to function as a modern country and to maintain our place in the global economy.
We know now that the stresses of our cities, which have changed just over the last two or three decades in the population growth, whether it be in Vancouver, Halifax or Toronto, is that from an urban planning and an urban transportation perspective the federal government has a role to help maintain that public transport infrastructure so it does not wear down our roads and wear down our other infrastructure so that we spend so much money in maintenance. More importantly, we need to encourage and have modern up to date transportation policy so that people can commute to and fro from our cities which would actually put less stress on our infrastructure and less environmental pollution with respect to smog or that of climate change.
The government went to Kyoto in 1997 to establish and agree to a target and a timeline without any consultation with the provinces, the municipalities or Canadians in terms of accepting a target to reduce greenhouse gases by 6% below 1990 levels by the year 2008 to 2012 with no plan on how to do that.
One of the things the government should be doing, and with what I call no regrets, things that we should be doing for many reasons, whether it be human health, smog or just saving money on urban infrastructure, is to develop a sound urban transportation policy. The federal government has a role to work with the provinces and municipalities in that particular fashion.
I also want to comment on some callous remarks that were made by the Minister of Transport earlier today to the member for Cumberland—Colchester and to the member for Saint John. When it comes to an airport perspective in the province of New Brunswick, he said that he would let market forces decide what happens in terms of the principal airports between Saint John, Moncton and Fredericton.
We can let market forces actually make that decision to some degree or we can do what the Progressive Conservative Party wants to do and our transport critic wants, which is for the federal government to demonstrate leadership for the maintenance of those three airports or to actually develop a vision in terms of what air transport policy should be in the province of New Brunswick, but not from a top down perspective by waiting to see what happens or letting the chips fall where they may.
The government should be working in conjunction with the province of New Brunswick, with Premier Bernard Lord and with the municipalities that are serviced by those three cities to determine what the best thing would be to do, as opposed to just ignoring the remarks by the member for Cumberland—Colchester. At a minimum, the government should be stating that all three airports will be maintained in their present fashion unless the federal government provides some vision that the province, the municipalities and all citizens in southern New Brunswick could actually concur with.
We need to upgrade our transportation system because it is deteriorating. We do have challenges today that we did not have a few years ago. The member for Cumberland—Colchester showed me statistics from 1993 and the number of accidents involving dangerous goods was approximately 250. Today, on average, each and every year there are almost 450 accidents involving dangerous goods. I maintain that because of our growing economy, our growing population and the growing stresses in our transportation infrastructure that these kinds of things are bound to happen unless we actually make the investment in our rail systems, our trucking system and our roads, including the Trans-Canada Highway. We are bound to have these kinds of accidents time and time again unless we actually modernize our infrastructure to maintain the record growth that we have had.
The provinces have stated that the government's policy with respect to transport has been inconsistent, unco-ordinated and perhaps, above all, reactionary.
If we look back to the airline merger, everybody knew that Canadian Airlines was in financial trouble and that it was about to unfold but instead, the federal government allowed the market forces to decide the airline's fate. In some communities for a number of months transportation strategies were causing an immense amount of problems with respect to air transport and being able to move people the way that we wanted to do.
I would also maintain that when this government took office in 1993 the revenues for the Department of Transport from fuel taxes and user fees, whether it was leases on airports or whatever, were essentially equal to its expenditures. Right now the Department of Transport takes in $3.9 billion more each and every year from resources, such as fuel taxes and leasing fees. I guarantee that the provinces are not getting anywhere near that kind of return on their highways.
At a minimum, the federal government should be dealing with these four particular issues: first and foremost, working in collaboration with the provinces to develop a national transportation strategy for highways; second, having a clear vision in terms of urban transportation; third, working with the municipality so that we can develop the infrastructure for public transport; and fourth, to recognize that the transportation strategy that it has will assist in its strategy with respect to greenhouse gases and climate change.