Mr. Speaker, this is an interesting evening talking about VIA Rail and the amount of money requested by the minister as opposed to a reduction that has been agreed upon by unanimous vote of the committee to reduce the budget by $9 million.
Later tonight we will have a confidence vote on this because the minister has said that this will not stand. He wants full funding which would amount to approximately $266 million. The committee reduced it from $266 million to $257 million. I am just rounding that off. What is a million among friends, as the Liberals would say. It is a reduction of $9 million or about 2.95%.
This is typical of the government. We have all party committees and this all party committee was unanimous in its decision to reduce the budget. That not being good enough for the minister, he decided to take it back to the House of Commons and then force all the Liberal members to get up and support his position to overturn the all party committee. This is typical of the heavy handedness of the government.
One of the reasons the committee chose to reduce the minister's budget by $9 million was simply because he never explained the need for an increase. In other words, the government does not have a plan of action to spend the $266 million. In fact if he had a plan, the committee would have approved it.
We can talk about the politics that are playing out within the Liberal Party on the committee, the Prime Minister's loyalists versus the member for LaSalle—Émard who is the next Prime Minister in waiting. I guess that is a reality being played out at the committee level. The fact of the matter is the committee made that decision. That is why we have committees. Members use their best judgment, and the minister has come into the House and has used his heavy hand.
That is the same heavy hand that his predecessor used in the House, a man by the name of Doug Young who was transport minister at one time. I just want to remind members of a story. I think we have an understanding of the need for rail service in the country. We know it is not cheap to have a transportation system in a country as big and diverse geographically as Canada.
However the Conservative government restored VIA Rail in Atlantic Canada when it came to office in 1984. The promise made by the Mulroney government at that time was, use it or lose it. In Atlantic Canada we used the rail service. We had a direct route from southern New Brunswick right through to Quebec. In fact the line used to come right through from Saint John to McAdam, New Brunswick, almost in a straight line as the crow flies. It was the shortest route to central Canada, with the line across the State of Maine and into to Sherbrooke, Quebec, and on to Montreal, Ottawa and so on.
People like myself, and the member for Saint John who fought tooth and nail for VIA Rail before she came to this place, had the best rail service we ever had during the period between 1984 and 1993. In fact VIA Rail built a new terminal in Saint John, New Brunswick to service its clients, the customers.
When Doug Young came to office, he took a hatchet to it to get even with the member who won the seat for the Conservatives in Saint John, in fact one of only two members in the House at the time. He put Saint John, New Brunswick on the chopping block. We have never had rail service since.
Since the days of Sir John A. Macdonald, members of Parliament have in their back pockets a VIA Rail pass that allows us to travel between their constituencies and Ottawa. That is just a little perk that members of Parliament are given. However none of us in Atlantic Canada, in the southern part of New Brunswick can use it.
If I get on the VIA Rail line today in New Brunswick, thanks to Doug Young I have to go from St. Stephen, New Brunswick to Saint John, New Brunswick by bus to get to Moncton, then get on the train. If I use that route, after 12 hours of travel, I am further from Ottawa than when I left home. Does that make any sense? That is the Liberal way: destroy services in rural areas.
The weakness in the budget the minister has presented is no attention has been paid to the rural areas of New Brunswick. What he did was take his ham hand, the toughness that he sometimes displays against his own members, and basically warned his own member in Thunder Bay, Ontario, who happens to be the chairman of the committee. He said that if he did not do things his way, he might lose the contract the government has issued to a company in his riding to restore rail cars.
That is the threat the minister uses over his own members. Is there any wonder the committee would vote against the request for an extra $9 million? Some of the promises he made at the committee, $9 million simply would not cover. The fact of the matter is he does not have a plan to spend the money. If he did have a plan to spend the money, he would have looked at those regions of Canada that badly need service, those regions that he, his predecessor and the government he represents, the Liberal government, took away in the first place.
We will not be supporting the minister's request for extra money because he has no plan for spending the $257 million that he presently is getting. It would be a mistake by the House to give him that extra $9 million. Let the actions of the committee and the vote on the committee stand. That is why we have them.
When the government whip is running around at committees to ensure there is full attendance on these various committees, we can now understand why government members are reluctant to attend their own committee meetings. Because the government will come right back to the House and overturn decisions that have been made democratically at that committee.
If we want to reform this place and turn it around so members do mean something when judgments are made and decisions are made, let us start right here tonight and say no to the Minister of Transport on the request for that extra $9 million.