Mr. Speaker, the member and I have worked together a great deal on the whole issue of rail safety in the city of Toronto. We represent very similar ridings.
The member talked about the need to prevent accidents. He cited the Auditor General's report that really highlighted the lack of supervision and the lack of regulatory structure and enforcement to ensure that the public is protected with these major shipping routes of highly volatile substances, such as oil, going through our neighbourhoods.
It was in 1999 that the Liberal government amended the Railway Safety Act that really accelerated deregulation of the industry. It kind of took off like a runaway train. Later they brought in safety management systems that turned safety over to the companies to regulate themselves.
Can the member comment on how effective or ineffective this has been, and how he thinks we should deal with this problem in the future?