Mr. Speaker, I intend to hang no one. This is not about hanging anyone. What this is really about is to actually make sure we achieve the appropriate balance between the needs of our farmers who are facing excessive shipping costs through the system that we presently have.
I am talking about a deal that was negotiated over many years. The member himself, in the preamble to his question, made it very clear when he said that cabinet had supported the measure but that the Privy Council Office was opposed. In my understanding of the Constitution and the workings of the federal government, it is not for the PCO to tell cabinet what to do. It is for the cabinet to instruct PCO what to do. The Privy Council Office, as the department of the Prime Minister of Canada, is in no position to overturn a cabinet decision of this kind.
I think the minister has to come clean for us on this. The western farmers who have contacted me and many of my colleagues in our party are deeply disturbed by what they are seeing. They are asking how it is that they will save $2 a tonne, as the minister asserted only moments ago, by keeping 12,100 rail cars in the government's ownership. This again I find a little bit rich because the government, presumably, is a Conservative one. It speaks often about unfettering the marketplace. I am wondering how it is that keeping 12,100 cars in the hands of the federal government is not fettering the marketplace.