Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank my colleague for having raised these fundamental points.
The first point I would like to talk about is that of railways that cut municipalities in two. We have this problem in Farnham. This structural problem the city has is very hard for everyone, and has been for years, since the trains bang into each other and move back and forth day and night, around the clock. In the daytime, when we want to get across the city, we have to wait 20 minutes before we can do so. Access to ambulances and other vehicles is also more difficult then.
In my opinion, there should be incentives for there to be alternatives for getting across town. Moving the rail yards costs a lot and does not always correspond to the needs of the yards. We cannot instal them hundreds of miles away or even a few miles away. Sometimes this is not consistent with their needs. I think there should be bypasses, overpasses or raised crossings to have access from either side, without affecting the trains.
As far as the matter of the times rail yards are used is concerned, that is very complex. It would be a good idea of course if this were mentioned in the bill. But to my mind that cannot apply to all rail yards, since some of them need to operate 24 hours a day.
I think that if we instal hybrid locomotives that do not produce noise, if we put up sound barriers and if we set speed limits for coupling railway cars, the noise level of the trains will go down in decibels. This decibel standard would help us to achieve these results, even at nighttime, in some cases. Actually the rail yard at Farnham operates mainly at night since the trains leave early in the morning. In fact, they work 24 hours a day there. That would place enormous pressure on the company and would force it to work just in the daytime.
In my opinion these things have to be considered case by case. Still, if we are talking about a decibel standard, I think this problem would be settled for all rail yards across Canada.