Mr. Speaker, our government recognizes the rail transportation challenges faced this year by farmers and shippers of multiple commodities, including grain. That is why we took action to ensure that railways had a plan in place to recover their service levels and to get grain flowing to market. We wrote to the railways, requesting their plans for restoring service levels, and we have since sustained improvements in the system. We continue to monitor rail performance to ensure that service improvements continue and are sustained over the long term and that the farmers and shippers are able to get their goods to their consumers.
Last year we introduced Bill C-49, because our government is taking action to resolve systematic challenges, not just for this year but for the decades to come. Unlike the Band-Aid solution put in place by the Harper Conservatives, which had an expiry date, we put in place long-term solutions to address challenges facing the freight-rail transportation system and its users. We held extensive consultation with stakeholders from a variety of industries across Canada, including the grain sector. We listened to stakeholders, we heard their concerns, and we came up with a bill that responds to the needs of rail system users across the country. The new and updated measures in Bill C-49 would provide important tools for the grain sector and rail shippers. These include the ability to apply penalties to railway companies who do not fulfill their engagements. The bill also introduces long-haul interswitching, a measure that would increase access to rail services, increase competition among rail companies, and provide more shipping options for grain farmers.
With all these good measures that would directly help our grain farmers, I was disappointed to see that the Harper Conservatives, including the member opposite, voted against this bill. I hope that in future they will put aside their partisan games and work with us to better our transportation system for all our farmers.