Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Outremont for being generous in his treatment of this bill by recognizing the challenges that my city shares with his city of Montreal in terms of rail safety. In both of our cases, the railway was put through the very heart of our cities back when it was a logical and reasonable thing to do in 1882 or 1885. Now, in the context of rail safety, a real safety liability exists in both of our cities.
I note that many American cities are taking proactive steps to get the rail marshalling yards well out of the city for two reasons. First, as the freight has been forced from the rail onto trucks, often the most dangerous freight is still on the rails, that is chemicals, oil, et cetera. Spills do happen in the inner city of Montreal and the inner city of Winnipeg. Explosions do occur in both cities.
Would my colleague encourage the government to consider revitalizing the Railway Relocation and Crossing Act, which exists as legislation but which has been dormant for 15 or 20 years. The federal government used to pay 50% of the cost of rail relocation if a municipality applied to the federal government for assistance.
Would the member agree that we need to tear up the tracks in inner cities? Does he agree that the federal government should revitalize the Railway Relocation and Crossing Act?