Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. I think one of the major pieces we were trying to help the government understand and get into the legislation was this whole idea of short-line railroads and producer cars.
I realize it is a little technical, but basically a producer car is a rail car into which the farmer loads the grain. He does not have to go to an elevator, but it is parked on the railroad siding. Short-line railroads are exactly that: short lines, which are short pieces of rail that are privately held and not run by the major railways. Those could have been a major component in making sure there was more of a competitive situation for farmers, because if a farmer loads his own car and sends it out to the Port of Vancouver, he is not paying the elevating charge to have it handled that he normally would.
I think this was a missed opportunity, but in life that quite often happens. My colleague and I, and our colleagues on the opposition side at committee, stressed the need for short lines to be involved and producer cars to be made available, because the stories we heard from farmers were that they were not available.
I think that was a missed opportunity for the government, which is why I said earlier in my speech that I would hope in future, when we are saying things that we believe are helpful and constructive, that the government actually hears what we are trying to say in a non-partisan way. We are trying to make this a better bill, because that is what it is about. We agreed from the beginning that we would work together.
However, my colleague has pointed out the short line and producer cars, which is exactly the piece that would have made the bill better, and it would not have been ruled out of order. It would have been a clear amendment. We lost that opportunity, but it does not negate the fact that we need to move this along because some of it will help farmers, not to the degree we would like, but at least it gets us moved down the field a bit.