Madam Speaker, I rise today as a result of a question that I asked the transport minister a number of weeks ago with respect to the Trans-Canada Highway. I am concerned primarily about the stretch of road that goes through my constituency from Revelstoke to Field. For the most part the highway is not a divided highway.
Recognizing that this is a national issue, I have an immediate local perspective. Of the 15 million vehicle movements on the Trans-Canada Highway in the area of which I am speaking of, there were 150 fatalities. By comparison, on the Coquihalla Highway, which was constructed in 1986, 25 million vehicle movements had unfortunately 66 fatalities. One fatality is too many, but the point is that 15 million movements have 150 fatalities for a two lane road while 25 million movements have only 66 fatalities for a divided highway.
The federal government has a responsibility here because it enacted a policy over a period of time that had a direct impact on the number of vehicles on the road. When the highway was first built in the sixties there were only 1,500 vehicle movements a day. Today, on an average day, there are up to 10,000 vehicle movements per day.
Under this government, much of the freight that used to be on rails is now on trucks. As a consequence, the number of 18-wheelers using that road has multiplied tenfold. This has equaled a ramp up in revenue to the government. The government presently takes $700 million a year from the province of British Columbia in federal excise tax.
The government tells us that it does not believe in designated spending but it seems to me that the finance minister believes in designated collection. When he increased the federal excise tax by 1.5 cents he said that he needed to collect more money to help do away with the deficit. There is a little bit of a dichotomy here where he says on one hand that he does not believe in designated spending but that he does believe in designated collection. I wonder about the sincerity of that statement because now that the deficit has gone why has the extra 1.5 cents per litre not gone?
Indeed, the excise tax is simply a cash cow that is collected from the trucking companies, automobile companies and, ironically, also from the rail companies for the freight going back and forth through the province of British Columbia.
I would like to do a reality check on what we are looking at in my constituency. In the Kicking Horse Canyon, which is just east of the town of Golden, it would cost $5 million to straighten out a 200 metre stretch of road. One million rock bolts would need to be put into Heather Hill, which is west of Golden, because there is an unstable mountain. There is already an ongoing slide occurring on that mountain. In spite of the fact that the slides have already started to come down this year, there is still no medium or long term plan.
There is a federal responsibility here that was recognized back in the 1960s when the Trans-Canada Highway was initially constructed. The average cost of constructing the highway across Canada in 1960 was $100,000. The cost was $1 million through British Columbia, ten times as much money. As a consequence, the funding arrangements were taken into account at that time.
The people of Revelstoke, the people of my constituency and the people of Canada are demanding that the federal government come to talk about this issue with a big fat wallet.