Mr. Speaker, I will answer the first part of his question.
With regard to rail transportation, I hope that my colleague realizes that there is another staunch supporter of the railway system, the Bloc Québécois. I agree with him insofar as the rest of Canada is concerned, but in Quebec, the Bloc Québécois defends the railway system.
From the very beginning, when Minister Collenette tabled the bill—a bill pertaining to VIAFast and a high-speed train between Quebec City and Montreal and Montreal and Windsor—the Bloc Québécois has been in favour of the project. That is why we are supporting this bill today.
The New Democratic Party has tabled motions to amend or remove, among other things, clause 3 of the bill, which states that the Transportation Agency shall have five members. There were seven and that number has been reduced to five. The witnesses heard by the committee clearly showed that it was possible.
First, the agency has been working with five members for two years for various reasons, including the fact that other members were not replaced and budget constraints. We feel that it has been proven that the Transportation Agency can deal with the number of files it has with five members.
I regret that I must say that we cannot support them in that regard. We can understand the government's budget constraints. We can work with the government as long as the budget constraints are reasonable. In this case, we thought that reducing the number of members of the Transportation Agency from seven to five was reasonable. Obviously we will be voting against the NDP amendments.
I am also aware of the last part of the question posed by my hon. colleague, concerning problems facing the railway sector. Yes, there are some safety problems. Yes, trains are now too long. This bill probably should have had some provisions in that regard. Trains are now so long that, in certain areas of the country—including Quebec—it is difficult for firefighters and paramedics to ensure the safety of citizens because roadways are so obstructed that emergency service vehicles cannot get through. This could not be included in this bill because the government had not listed it and thus it would have changed the nature of the bill.
This issue was covered in the amendments proposed by my Bloc Québécois colleagues. Yes, we would have liked to ensure that emergency services were able to travel more freely. We would have also liked to be able to limit the length of trains. We must force the government to introduce another piece of legislation or introduce private members' bills, which we could try to have adopted here in the House. Nonetheless, the amendments we proposed would have changed the nature of the bill and therefore were ruled out of order. Thus, it was not for lack of trying.
I understand my hon. colleague's problems. Things are going so well in the rail sector. As I said earlier, they are making plenty of money. We do not understand why they have not resolved the noise problem. Nevertheless, we will have to address the issue of long trains some day, because they are creating problems in certain areas of Quebec.