Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to address this important issue today. It is important for a variety of reasons, and probably for me the most compelling reason is the fact that the municipality in which I live is impacted greatly by transportation problems caused by federally mandated facilities. Let me be more specific.
The first facility would be the Vancouver port at Roberts Bank in the municipality in which I live. This facility has a huge source of truck traffic. The port has grown dramatically in the last few years, especially since the completion of the container port.
When the container port was completed, it was estimated it would take about 10 years before it reached capacity. The fact of the matter is that happened in about three years, and there are now plans on the board to increase the size of the container terminal. With increased size, comes increased truck traffic and that truck traffic goes both ways. Trucks haul containers to the port as well as haul containers away from the port. All that traffic at some point traverses the municipality in which I live.
The second port facility that is worth noting is the Surrey-Fraser docks, located in the western end of the Surrey municipality adjacent to the Delta municipality.
Before I go any further, I should tell you, Madam Speaker, that I will be sharing my time with the member from Edmonton.
The Surrey-Fraser dock facility on the Fraser River is a busy port. Traffic there has grown immensely in the last few years, and all that is business which is good for Canada. Vancouver port officials tell us that every container arriving at the Vancouver terminal brings $1,000 of revenue into Canada. Much of that revenue is enjoyed by the province of British Columbia with a small amount enjoyed by the municipality of Delta. However Canada as a whole does benefit from this trade. The difficulty is the federal government is not paying its share for the roads needed to service these two ports.
In addition to these two ports, it should also be noted that traffic directed to the Vancouver airport, the second largest and second busiest airport in Canada, moves through the constituency of Delta--South Richmond.
These three major federal facilities cause huge traffic problems, not only in the municipality of Delta but also in the lower mainland of British Columbia. The federal government has not come close to paying its fair share of the revenues required to build infrastructure and to service those port facilities. The federal government seems to believe that its responsibility ends at the port gate, but that is not the case. Somebody, somewhere, has to provide the road infrastructure required to allow those ports to continue to grow and the revenue from them to continue to grow as well.
I will give the House an example of the type of problems caused in North Delta. In the area where I live the major road servicing the Surrey-Fraser docks is essentially a residential street but literally thousands of semi-trailers traverse that residential street on Route 2 in any one day. That truck traffic is continuous. They not only carry containers but they may carry dangerous cargo. We do not know. If there were an accident on that road, it is possible that serious harm could befall the residents of the area because the residential area is being use as a major artery to service the port.
The federal government has a responsibility for it. That port is federally mandated. All Canadians enjoy the benefits and wealth that come from the port's existence. In fact we encourage it. It is good for British Columbia and it is good for Canada to have that port, busy as it is, service not only Canada but North America as well.
What is the amount of money that the feds are spending? We are told that federal spending on roads and transfers to provinces totalled $118 million. Two and a half per cent of the amount that the feds collect in gasoline taxes was invested in roads. Only 1.7% of the amount that the feds collect in gasoline taxes and GST is invested in roads. That is a pitiful sum when we consider the revenues that are accruing to the federal government from these ports alone.
There should be federal money dedicated to improving the infrastructure in the lower mainland for the reasons given.
If we look back at 1965, when the Trans-Canada Highway as built, Ottawa paid 50% of the costs. Granted the Trans-Canada Highway was important to national unity. However I suggest that just as important as the highway was to national unity when it was built, an appropriate infrastructure in the lower mainland of British Columbia, which I represent, is just as important if we are to continue to see business develop based on the ports and the airport.
One of the further difficulties is the fact that the gasoline taxes continue to rise. In 1975 when Finance Minister Turner introduced the first federal excise tax on gasoline, it was 10¢ a gallon or 2.64¢ a litre. Today the taxes plus the GST average 14.79¢ a litre. That is 4.6 times the level that was paid when the federal gasoline taxes were introduced.
That is just unacceptable. That is a huge chunk of cash. It is a windfall profit for the federal government but the federal government is ignoring its obligation to make a substantial contribution to the infrastructure which services these federal facilities in my riding.
That is the key issue that has to be addressed. If there are federally mandated facilities, the federal government's responsibility does not stop at the port gate. It does not stop at the entrance to the airport. It must consider the transportation infrastructure that is necessary to allow that federally mandated facility to continue.
We just cannot haul huge rents out of the Vancouver airport or take huge tax dollars out of the Vancouver port without turning some of that money back into the infrastructure.
The money that is collected even now does not find its way into western Canada. In fact, 99% of federal transfers to provinces for road and highway development was spent east of Ontario. We have needs as well. I want to remind the House of our solution.
I want to quote the Leader of the Canadian Alliance. He said:
What we are proposing instead is that the federal government permanently vacate a portion of the federal gas tax, say three to five cents a litre, and allow provinces the option of collecting that revenue. In order to ensure that this money is not used for other purposes, the transfer of these revenues to provinces and on to municipalities would be conditional on signed agreements that these resources would be used for infrastructure.
I think that is a good suggestion.