Madam Speaker, I would like to say to my new friend from Skeena—Bulkley Valley that I was a little underwhelmed with his speech.
I know members of Parliament who have come from that area and Mike Scott comes to mind. He came here and represented his area. Considering that this is an issue that has direct relevance, particularly to Prince Rupert and secondarily to Kitimat, I am surprised that the member did not have more facts and figures, and was prepared to stand up more for his constituency.
We heard again and again all of the platitudes and NDP bromides, but we did not hear anything specific from him for his constituents. Even the previous member, Andy Burton, would come here and act in a very solid way for his constituents. I wonder if it was the fact that this bill only came down last week and perhaps the member did not have time to get all of his facts and figures together. However, surely to goodness, we should be hearing specifically about how many millions of dollars are going to be required in Prince Rupert for the facilities. What are the facilities going to be?
He should be talking about the upgrading of the rail links, the fact that the tunnels are going to have to be made larger for the double-stacked containers, and the pipeline that is currently being considered. What will that mean to the people of Kitimat? I say with the greatest of respect that I was quite underwhelmed with the member and the way that he just did not represent his constituents.
I wonder, though, if he would care to comment on the fact that of the $590 million announced by the Liberals, up to $125 million over five years in transportation infrastructure is earmarked, but in fact $90 million of that is going to be used for construction of the Pitt River bridge. Although millions of dollars have been announced, in fact what we require in British Columbia is at least $5 billion not $590 million.
Again, speaking of underwhelming, certainly the resources that are being brought to this question by the Liberals are indeed very underwhelming and represent, at the very best, only a down payment in what we are going to require in British Columbia.