Mr. Speaker, I imagine that you are not surprised to see me using the adjournment debate to try to get an answer to a question I have been asking for many moons. In fact, it has been longer than that because we can now count how long I have waited in years. Moreover, I am not the only one waiting. I keep coming back to this because not only does everyone in Trois-Rivières agree on this, but everyone in the Quebec-Windsor corridor is waiting for a response from the Minister of Transport. After spending $11 million on studies, the minister is still unable to tell us anything about the government's plans or directions.
To illustrate, last month, at special meetings held by the UMQ in Trois-Rivières with a special committee of elected members committed to determining how we might develop rail transportation in Quebec and Canada in the years to come, the invited guest was the Minister of Transport. We were obviously pleased that he was there, since we took his presence to mean that we would finally find out his vision for developing passenger rail service in Quebec and Canada.
No such luck. During his speech, the minister told us yet again about how important safety is to him. Far be it for me to diminish the importance of transportation safety in any way, but the question remains: How is it that after all this time the minister is still unable to give us at least a hint about his plans for the VIA Rail high-frequency train project?
The UMQ president expressed this hope, which I will now reformulate as a question: If nothing else, will the Minister of Transport tell us whether his development vision includes a high-frequency train along a corridor dedicated solely to passenger transportation?
As a supplementary question, the UMQ and I would also like to know if the current government will actually fund a high-frequency VIA Rail train, or if this will merely be an election promise that would end up putting off indefinitely this long-awaited project, despite the community's unanimous support.
I am using this adjournment debate to try to get an answer because, the last time I asked the question, the government once again changed the subject and talked about VIA Rail's fleet renewal. Obviously, we applaud that initiative, even though we have serious concerns about the fact that the government is giving VIA Rail $1 billion as part of that renewal without including a clause that would guarantee jobs for workers here, which would have made it possible to build on and maintain our existing expertise.
My question is this: is there an interest in passenger rail? Is there an interest in VIA Rail's project? Will the government soon make a funding announcement or will we once again have to wait for an election campaign announcement?