Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House this evening to speak to another issue in Lac-Mégantic that is near and dear to my heart. This time I am going to demonstrate another kind of enthusiasm, because I am confident that the federal government is going to confirm any day now that Lac-Mégantic will be getting a rail bypass.
In my speech earlier I had the opportunity to talk about a company called Tafisa. It uses the rail line in Lac-Mégantic to ship about 50 rail cars full of composite wood products every week, products destined for markets around the world.
Unfortunately, we have a problem in Lac-Mégantic. The problem is that the rail line continues to go through the heart of downtown Lac-Mégantic, even after the tragedy. This means that the people of Lac-Mégantic, who are trying to heal after the events of July 2013, feel as though they are reliving the tragedy every time they hear the train.
We are in a tough situation, because we cannot expect the train to stop running. It is crucial to Lac-Mégantic's survival. These days, however, the train is also Lac-Mégantic problem. We have been asking the Minister of Transport questions regularly here in the House.
In January, the Prime Minister was in Sherbrooke and had this to say to the people of Lac-Mégantic: “Together with the Minister [of Transport], I am committed to expediting the process to the extent possible in order to help you.”
Yesterday, one month later, the Minister of Transport said, in response to a question, “...it is important to expedite the process, and we are working as a team to figure out how to do that.”
One month later, they have not yet figured out how to do that despite all the resources currently at Transport Canada's disposal.
How is it that a prime minister tells the people of Lac-Mégantic that they will do everything they can to help them, he tells his transport minister to expedite things and, one month later, the minister tells us that they are working as a team to determine how they can speed things up?
Once again today, the Minister of Transport answered a question I asked him with lines we have heard a lot:
...this work is done together with the Province of Quebec; AECOM, the company that conducted the study; and also with the town of Lac-Mégantic and Mayor Cloutier. We have begun this work. We want to do it in a responsible manner. We understand the situation in Lac-Mégantic. I visited the town three times. We want to expedite the process and we are doing everything we can to do so.
I would like to see those words translated into action. We have had a month to work on this. I would like those words to turn into an announcement for the people of Lac-Mégantic, an announcement stating that the government will keep working to expedite the study and confirming that there will be a Lac-Mégantic bypass.
I do not just want details about how they plan to proceed. Yes, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport and everyone in Parliament said it is important to proceed. Can we get an answer about whether there will be a Lac-Mégantic bypass? We want that answer to be yes.