Mr. Speaker, I think it is imperative that we give credit where credit is due, and actually it was the shippers, who come in many different forms, who took the approach of lobbying all three political parties half a dozen years ago. They indicated that we needed to enact legislation that would allow for things like service agreements.
It is fairly widely believed that the field is not level in terms of shipping products throughout North America, particularly in Canada, where the scale has been heavily in favour of the rail. This is one of the reasons we had to have service agreements.
I have known for many years, and particularly the last three or four years, that the member for Wascana has represented the Liberal Party exceptionally well by applying pressure on the government to act on this issue.
The Liberal Party will support Bill C-52 to go forward, but I have a specific question for the member on the amendments that were brought forward. Why was the government not prepared to accept some of those amendments? The amendments would would have made this legislation that much stronger, and the bill could have received that much more support from the different stakeholders.