Mr. Chair, as I have already indicated, what the main estimates will show us is that aviation safety decreased as a result of a transfer of the airports capital assistance sub-program. It is not because of what the member said.
In terms of any reductions in either marine safety or in rail safety, they have all been administrative matters. They have nothing to do with safety. We would never cut inspector positions as a result.
With respect to rail safety, we started in 2007 on this path by studying rail. We are the ones who brought forward amendments to the Railway Safety Act. Yes, they were passed by everybody, but we moved them forward because we wanted to make it a safer system, recognizing it is safe. In fact, it has been quoted as being safe even by the former member for Trinity—Spadina, who said, “Shipping materials by train are...very safe and the record is really quite good”. She said that in October 2013, recognizing that the system was safe, and I agree with her on that topic.
We want to make it safer and we are reacting to what the Transportation Safety Board is indicating to us as it unfolds what happened at Lac-Mégantic.
We have indicated protective directives need to be in place on sharing information with municipalities to deal with first responder issues.
We also made a protective directive with respect to prosper classification, knowing that this crude oil in particular was very unique and very different in the way it reacted.
We also directed, through a protective direction, to require shippers to develop ERAPs for the flammable liquids that I noted before. I have set up an ERAP task force. I have reached out to industry. We have had working groups.
We have been on this issue since we became government. We have never relented on this issue. We absolutely believe in the health and safety of Canadians. We will do all we can to ensure that Canadians are safe and that we get our goods to market at the same time.