Mr. Speaker, our colleague from the NDP has brought new elements into our debate at third reading. She proposed, among other things, that unused railway lines should be available to the public domain. I find that idea interesting since last summer I went from Montreal to Vancouver by train. I noticed how dirty and littered with all kind of trash and probably with creosote soaked lumber are the lands along our railway lines. I saw mounds of buckets which probably contained tar, which means that land is probably contaminated.
As far as I know, until now, nobody has said that there was a small environment aspect to the bill. However, I found that the idea of giving the lands bordering railway lines back to the population was a good idea. In fact, that has been done in the Laurentides area, where the grounds have been cleaned up. At the time, the municipalities paid for the decontamination.
Considering the contamination there is along the whole railway line, who should pay for the decontamination if we were to decide to give these grounds back to the people?
I am also thinking about Vancouver, where I saw the biggest storage ground for containers and trash. That was dreadful. I had never seen anything like that in all the other cities I went through.
Is there an environment clause in the legislation that would force the cleanup of the land bordering the river and the sea near Vancouver?