Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to congratulate the member for Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière. This is a very important motion and what the member has outlined in speaking to his motion is exactly the same problem I face in my riding in east Vancouver.
To go back into the historical record, the previous member of parliament to my predecessor, Margaret Mitchell, who was elected in 1979 and whom I am sure some members remember as being a very outstanding member of parliament, took up this issue way back in 1979 and into the 1980s in terms of constituents in east Vancouver who were severely impacted by the incredible noise from rail yards along the waterfront on the port of Vancouver lands.
The issue the member has raised is something that has been ignored for a very long time. As the member of parliament since 1997 in east Vancouver, I have written countless letters to the Minister of Transport, to the Canadian transportation authority and I have sent copies to the committee. I have raised this issue again and again to try to get some relief for residents who cannot sleep at 1 a.m., 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. as a result of the switching yards and train shunting in east Vancouver.
After hearing the member from the Canadian Alliance, this is not an issue where somehow we are against rail transportation. I would agree that rail transportation is a very exceptional mode of transportation, particularly in an age where we have to be very concerned about emissions into the environment. The people in east Vancouver who have historically lived next door to an industrial port and have had trains going by their houses for decades, do not deny the right and the opportunity for those rail operations to be operated in a way that is efficient, businesslike and so forth. However the reality is that for rail yards, which are adjacent to residential neighbourhoods, there have to be particular precautions put into place to ensure that the daily and nightly lives of local residents do not become completely disrupted. That is why I support this motion.
In my riding people like Shane Simpson, Barbara Fousek and Jim Campbell have spent thousands of hours dealing, in this case, with the CPR trying to get it to understand and be sensitive to resident concerns about noise. I will quote from one of the many e-mails that I have received from Mr. Campbell, a local resident. He said:
Shunting 100+ car lengths at a slow speed means residents endure 10-20 minutes of screeching, grinding and then diesels howling to move the sheer weight of the load.
Imagine that taking place every night. Imagine coming home from work after a long day and going to bed. All people want is to go to sleep but they awake every hour or so, perhaps several times a night or a week. When that happens people end up suffering from sleep deprivation. It begins to affect not only the health of individual families but also of the whole community.
In the case of east Vancouver there have been several local committees such as the Wall Street and Burrard View Residents' Association, for example, that have banned together to take up this issue. They have put forward numerous submissions to the Canadian transportation authority only to find that the CTA now claims it has no responsibility in this area, and I find that very shocking.
We followed very closely the situation in Oakville. I even spoke to the government member of parliament for that area. I was very interested to see that the residents of Oakville, which is a very affluent community, had hired some pretty hot shot lawyers to take on the CN company in that case. They won and then, as we know, the appeal was thrown out.
It was interesting to hear the parliamentary secretary speak behalf of the government today and leave the impression that everything is A-OK, that there are joint initiatives and a dispute settlement mechanism and that mediation services have been offered. If that is the case I can tell the House that they are not working, because obviously there are communities across this country that are still suffering very badly as a result of excessive noise from diesel engines, from shunting and switching and from engines being turned on and off and so on.
If the parliamentary secretary is correct that the minister is prepared to come forward with some amendments to the Canadian Transportation Agency and that there may be some legislation, this is something that is long, long overdue, because the current processes in terms of dispute resolution simply are not working. In my opinion, when there is a flurry of complaints the rail companies, in our case the CPR, may respond to them and may provide some temporary relief, but the fact is that over the long term the situation does not change.
I would also like to address the fact that the parliamentary secretary has kind of sloughed this off and has said that it really is a local problem. I am sure he knows that where these rail tracks and the switching and shunting that is taking place are in a port area or in an area of federal jurisdiction, it is very difficult for the municipality to apply the noise bylaw. We have gone this route in Vancouver. The residents went before Vancouver city council to try to get the noise bylaw enforced. The parliamentary secretary says this is a local problem and that is where complaints should be taken, but I can tell him that the residents have received no relief there.
I want to reiterate my support for the motion. I actually went out on the train tracks with local residents, with the CPR, and we actually drove in a car along the tracks to look at the situation firsthand. I was really quite disturbed by the lack of any sort of process or any sort of facilitation that would resolve the problems these residents are facing.
I too wish that the motion were votable. It would have been a very good motion to have as a votable motion. Based on what we have heard today in the debate and based on the experience across the country, I implore the government to listen seriously to these complaints and to understand that the lives of local residents and communities are being severely disrupted.
We are not talking about a low level background noise like a freeway. We are talking about, in the case of east Vancouver, noise levels that are up to 100 decibels. It seems to me that this is completely unacceptable in an urban environment. We have regulations about airports. No one would expect people to live right next to a runway and hear the decibel levels of airplanes, but when it comes to a rail line or a shunting yard where this kind of activity, which is as noisy, is taking place, somehow all of a sudden there is an absence of any federal regulations that can deal with it.
In regard to the responsibility of the CTA, it is a glaring omission to somehow slough this off. Again I want to implore the government and the minister to take their responsibilities seriously and ensure that amendments are brought forward if the motion is not voted on today. We want these amendments brought forward as quickly as possible so that the CTA will have authority to unequivocally deal with these rail companies. Maybe these companies are busy doing other things and do not think the complaints of local residents are important, but I want to say this: They have a responsibility to act in a neighbourly way. They have a responsibility to act in a way that is sensitive to the needs of local communities, just as local communities are very sensitive to the fact that they have business to do. This can be a win-win situation if only the Liberal government would bring in these amendments and make it clear that the CTA must act on these complaints and must take responsibility and provide relief to the people of east Vancouver and other affected communities.