Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear friend from Northumberland—Clarke. We worked together in an informal rail caucus to promote the use of passenger rail. It should be linked with affordable bus transportation. Most Canadians cannot afford to get from place to place on public transit, because it is so limited.
There are many great projects; I grant him that, and I would love to see them move ahead: an east-west, north-south electricity grid and an interlinked passenger rail and bus system. There are many projects in the national interest, but we do not know what they will be, and the factors in the bill are not requirements. We could have a great project that we all want to see go ahead or we could have a nightmare, and right now, there is no way to know the difference. We have to just cross our fingers and hope that the government's plans are good ones, because this, as the old expression goes, is a pig in a poke or a blank cheque. That is what we are passing when the bill is forced through.