Mr. Speaker, there is no question that the railroad has an iconic place in our history. It was the railroad that opened up this country, in the sense that there really were no roads to get across. People either went up a river or across a lake, and the railroad literally opened up the country.
We see it from that perspective. However, with VIA we see reduced service in New Brunswick. In my home region of Niagara, we do not have any VIA Rail service at all. It was cancelled. There are no trains from Niagara Falls to Toronto, or from Toronto airport, from which folks might want to go to Niagara Falls.
When sitting down and talking to the president of the Niagara Regional Tourism Board last year, I learned that the first question foreign-based travellers ask themselves after they have decided where they would like to go is whether there is a train. The thousands of offshore tourists who think of Niagara Falls, the wineries, and the casino as a destination ask, “What do you mean you don't have a train? If you don't have a train, we're not coming”.
We need to make the railroaders understand that not only does our economy depend on them and that they can help themselves, but that they can also help the greater economy. They need to get on with the business of doing that.