Mr. Speaker, I will indicate at the outset that the Canadian Alliance is supportive of the bill. That does not mean the bill is perfect. We feel that the bill is a half measure. The bill deals with the important issue of highway safety in the country and that is a worthwhile area for public policy and for government to be involved with. I will spend some time talking about the role of the private sector in this whole area and also about the areas the bill missed the boat on.
I would like to acknowledge the improvements I have seen in highway safety because of innovation by the private sector. My learned colleague mentioned anti-lock brakes. Anti-lock brakes were developed in the private sector. The government was very quick to pick up on that, take credit for it and make a regulation. However, anti-lock brakes were developed by the industry before government even thought of them. The area of airbags is another area where the industry was away ahead of government. As well, the reliability of motor vehicles on our roads today is far superior to that of the vehicles we had 20, 30 or 40 years ago and there are more innovations on the way. Fuel economy has improved tremendously and from an environmental standpoint that is good.
Why has industry been able to improve the safety and quality of motor vehicles? Is it because of government regulation and bills such as this one? I think not. It has more to do with a competitive global market in which industry cannot stand still. Industry has to constantly improve its products. Improvements also have a lot to do with something called ISO, the international standard that assures quality in parts and in the system of putting products together. ISO probably has a lot more to do with safety than any bill that this House could pass.
I raise these issues to acknowledge the private sector's contributions to improved safety on our highways.
My learned colleague pointed out that there has been a massive move into truck transportation in Canada. For the most part, the reason we have had a massive movement into truck transportation in the country is the government's failure to move on modernizing our rail transportation system.
The government has had two excellent reports on rail transportation, the Estey commission and the Kroeger report, but has been very slow to respond to those reports and modernize the rail system. A lot of shippers are being forced to use the highways and to use trucks. From a safety standpoint I would suggest that there are a lot of products being moved by truck that should be moved by rail. There are hazardous products out on congested highways such as the 401 highway and if there is an accident there is a real problem.
Rail is a much more suitable means of transporting a lot of these goods, but because of our reluctance to modernize our rail system a lot of shippers are forced into shipping by highways whether they like it or not. In that respect government is the problem, not the solution.
That brings me to another point. I am sure that if you asked truckers or people who are on our highways a lot what their single biggest safety concern is today, they would say it is the highway system, the roads they have to drive on. The roads are falling apart. They are full of holes.
Anyone from my part of the country who wants to take a summer trip to visit relatives in Ontario or Quebec, unless they have their heads screwed on wrong, will find the first interstate in the United States and drive through the U.S. to get to Ontario or Quebec. They do not use our national highway system because the roads are just not that good.
That raises a point. The bill misses a very important angle. The government collects $4.5 billion in fuel taxes. Approximately 5% of that goes back into our highway system. That is not the policy in other countries. Other countries have policies whereby fuel taxes are reinvested in infrastructure and highway systems. The U.S. is a good example. That is why it has its interstate system and a good highway system. However this government refuses to deal with that problem.
I want to raise another point. There is a philosophy that is far too prevalent in the government, which is that the solution to a problem is more government, more laws, more regulation and more bureaucracy. The government thinks that is the way to get results. It has been my experience and the experience of many other people that if we want results we need a plan, teamwork, co-operation, vision, management and enforcement.
The government is too quick to create more bureaucracy, more laws and more regulations. It forgets about all the other components that make for good public policy. The government's attitude is that if we wanted a Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup next year we would pass a law saying it is the Montreal Canadiens' turn to win the Stanley Cup. It would pass a law in the House of Commons and dictate that result. We know that is not how the world works.
If we want a result we have to manage that result. Passing laws will not solve a problem. Last week there was a good case in point. Everyone in the House basically got up in support of the feel good motion about safe water in Canada, but no one in the House addressed the real question, which is how we are going to get modern water treatment systems into all the communities across the country. The assumption of course is that if the federal government passes a law, we will solve the problem. If we look at the fisheries, we see that we have more people in the fisheries department than we have fishermen, I think, and look at what has happened to our fisheries. If the federal government is so darned good at water, why are most people, even aboriginals on their reserves, reluctant to drink tap water? Reserves are an area that federal government has had jurisdiction over for 125 years.
However, that is the government's approach: more government, more regulation and more bureaucracy. The government thinks that if we get enough of that sort of thing in place somehow through the vast weight of the state we will get some results. I think there is a better way of doing things and I wish the government would start to look at it. The auditor general has been pointing out for eight or nine years now that the government just does not get results. It comes up with these feel good bills and laws, passes more laws and regulations and hires more bureaucrats, but the results are not there. In fact, sometimes they are counterproductive, but I guess it makes my colleagues on the other side of the House feel good at night because they say all these warm, fuzzy things in the House about safety and so on.
In conclusion I would say that the bill is a half measure. If we expect government to have regulations, laws and bureaucracy in place, the Liberal government is strong in those areas. It knows how to do that and thinks that the more laws, regulations and bureaucracy we have, the better things are. However, in a lot of the other areas the government is deficient. The biggest single deficiency in the bill is the biggest safety issue we have in highway transportation in the country: the state of our roads.
My colleague from the government side pointed out that there has been a massive movement of transportation on our highways, especially extraprovincial. That is a federal area, if I understand my law correctly. When we move into extra-provincial issues, that is federal jurisdiction.
Where is the government's commitment to building our highway system and getting it up to high standards? In the bill there are high standards for motor vehicles, the operators and everything else, but it completely misses the roads on which these vehicles have to drive. It has not done a darned thing about them. It runs away from that.
If the water safety bill ever becomes law, I am sure the real omission in that area will be that the federal government will just not put the money into it. I recall the government moving into the health area, which is a provincial jurisdiction, with the five principles of the Canada Health Act and all the rest of it. However, how much funding does it provide? It provides something like 13% of the health care budget. This is a bad habit of the federal government. It intrudes into an area, passes laws and then does not provide sufficient funding to make the plan work. The thing then falls off the rails, so to speak.
We support the bill but we are not enthusiastic supporters. It is a typical Liberal half measure. The Liberals always lean toward more regulation, more government and more bureaucracy and forget the other things that are required to really manage a result. If we do not have those ingredients, we will have limited results from the bill.
