Mr. Speaker, if I may, I would like to say that, even if today is an opposition day for the Reform Party, the Bloc Quebecois is against this motion.
Essentially, the motion states that, in the opinion of the House, the government should provide the necessary leadership to develop a safe, seamless, integrated transportation system, by working in conjunction with the other levels of government and the private sector, to plan, implement and fund such a system.
This motion is not votable. If it were, we would vote against it.
The federal government does not have jurisdiction over all transportation infrastructures; it has jurisdiction solely over the interprovincial system. The federal government does not have to implement such a system everywhere for everyone. It would be far better off financing an infrastructure program to be implemented by the provinces. I shall have the opportunity to come back to each of these points later in my speech.
In the area of transportation, the federal government has totally abandoned the regions since it came into power. Urging it to play a lead role in this area is ensuring that the regions will be left out. That is the Bloc Quebecois position as far as this Reform Party motion is concerned.
There are different types of transportation: land, marine and air. When we speak of land transportation, there is the highway system and the rail system, VIA Rail included. When we think of the marine system, we think of Fisheries and Oceans, the Coast Guard, the St. Lawrence River, the St. Lawrence Seaway. When we think of air transportation, there is the entire Canadian aviation system.
In the 20 minutes allocated to me, I am going to try to develop each of these themes. Yes, land transportation is a federal responsibility; it has the responsibility to be directly involved in the maintenance of interprovincial highways.
In my riding, the riding of Charlevoix, Highway 389 links Baie-Comeau and Labrador. It dates back to the time of the construction of the hydroelectric facilities, Manic 2 and 3, Outardes 3 and 4, and Manic 5. After Manic 5, this highway was extended toward Labrador.
This means that, in the region of Fermont and Farley, a person can come back from Labrador right to Baie-Comeau. Labrador and Quebec's highway 138 are linked by an interprovincial highway.
I made a number of representations as the member for Charlevoix and the one responsible for that part of the road network. I made representations to the Minister of Transport and to the transport commission, with the support of the mayor of the Manicouagan RCM and of the Baie-Comeau chamber of commerce.
The minister replied that, unfortunately, he did not have any money left, that a financial restructuring was going on and that the objective was to achieve a zero deficit. This is why the SHIP program was abolished. That program had been established under the Conservatives. Its objective was to maintain and improve our road network, but it was eliminated by the Liberals.
I was listening to the minister. He has done all kinds of acrobatics to extol the virtues of his government, a government that axed all the programs. Whether it is VIA Rail, the interprovincial road network, the maritime or air transportation network, the results have been catastrophic for programs in the transportation sector.
Highway 138 is the only road linking Quebec City to the Lower North Shore region. Highway 138 stops in Baie-Sainte-Catherine, where it intersects with the Saguenay River, and vehicles must board a ferry owned by the Société des traversiers du Québec.
Recently, the Quebec Minister of Transport Jacques Baril commissioned a study, which showed that it a bridge could be built between Baie-Sainte-Catherine and Tadoussac for the modest sum of $370 million. I emphasize the word modest, because the federal government spent $2 billion to build a bridge between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. It spent $2 billion on a population smaller than that of the North Shore, with less development than the North Shore. The North Shore has all the natural resources, both forestry and mining resources. In short, everything comes in and out of our area by truck.
I believe that this matter needs to be a priority for the Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada, in Ottawa. Every time the federal government injects one dollar—I am again using the same example—if the federal government spent $2 billion to build the bridge between New Brunswick and PEI, 25 cents out of every dollar invested came from Quebec.
This means that $500 million of Quebecers' taxes went into the Prince Edward Island bridge. Since we have continued to pay our taxes to Ottawa, and will do so as long as we are not a sovereign country, it would therefore be a good thing if the federal government were to help the Province of Quebec with the project to build the bridge between Baie-Sainte-Catherine and Tadoussac. There is unanimity on this project in the Charlevoix region.
The minister of revenue spoke of the road infrastructure program. This is a desired program, of course, and one that should continue to exist. Unfortunately, what the minister has neglected to mention—and we know there are always two sides to a coin—is that he has put $2.5 billion into this budget over 6 years, which is $100 million for the year 2000. Yet, for three three or four years running they have been announcing that there would be an infrastructure program for this year, and this created expectations among the provincial premiers.
The premiers met in Quebec City to tell the federal government that it should put money into the highway infrastructure program. The government provides the funding for highway infrastructure and the premier of each province is responsible for administration of the program. The provinces should be running this program. Here too, we can imagnie what the expectations of municipalities were.
There are 52 municipalities and two Indian reserves between Petite-Rivière-Saint-François and Baie-Comeau in the riding of Charlevoix. If I take all the expectations and requests of the municipalities and RCMs from Petite-Rivière-Saint-François to Baie-Comeau, it adds up to more than $100 million worth of federal government assistance under the infrastructure program.
The $100 million approved for this year is for all of Canada. It is a drop in the bucket. It will create expectations and disappointment. There are mayors who have been given responsibilities by the federal and provincial governments; furthermore, some municipalities were asked to contribute financially to achieving a zero deficit.
Unfortunately, it is always the individual citizen, the individual voter and taxpayer who, year after year, watches his tax bill grow with no corresponding increase in services. It is the same for school boards. The provincial government cut their allowable expenses. The provincial government had to make cuts because Quebec had lost billions of dollars in transfer payments.
It wanted to transfer responsibilities to municipalities and school boards. The school boards, whose expenses did not qualify, were forced to levy a school tax.
I tell anyone who earns $65,000 a year and claims to net only $30,000 that he or she is mistaken. To determine what my net income is, when I do my income tax, I look at how much I earned, then I take my bank book and check how much I have left, because I pay not only income tax, but also federal, provincial, municipal and school taxes, not to mention the GST and the TVQ.
Over 60% of my salary is gone in taxes. I have a right to expect the federal government to give me something in return.
Why does Quebec want to separate? Why does Quebec want to achieve independence? Because it wants to control its own destiny, manage its own money and look after its own services.
Let us talk about VIA Rail. The Bloc Quebecois has a position regarding VIA Rail. The Bloc Quebecois is demanding that the report of the Standing Committee on Transport be complied with. The government must not act precipitously. It must start with a franchising pilot project.
Once that has been done, the Bloc Quebecois demands that the Montreal-Jonquière, Montreal-Senneterre and Montreal-Gaspé lines be fully maintained and that their maintenance be guaranteed for the future. To that end, the Bloc Quebecois demands that $170 million in government subsidies be allocated as a priority to the franchisees who make a commitment to operate the lines that are not very profitable.
The Bloc Quebecois demands that the allocation of lines be made in a balanced fashion, so that lines with a high potential for profits are not the only ones allocated, since it would leave those lines that are unappealing. The Bloc Quebecois will make sure that this government does not download its responsibilities onto the municipalities by overlapping on the basis of a partnership. It ought not, for instance, trying to hand railway stations over to municipalities against their wishes.
The Bloc Quebecois is very concerned about the fate of these 120 VIA Rail employees from Quebec and, considering their expertise, demands that they be hired on a priority basis by the new franchisees.
The Bloc Quebecois demands that the head office of a new VIA Rail remain in Montreal and that the Montreal maintenance centre remain opened and keep its staff. That is the position of the Bloc Quebecois with regard to VIA Rail.
I would also like to talk about the marine transportation system. Some mentioned the fact that we have such a system. The projects of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, who is responsible for the coast guard, fell through for the most part. I am referring to the Minister of Transport's policy regarding the privatization of ports. I am also referring to the privatization of the ports of Baie-Comeau, Matane, Rimouski and Rivière-du-Loup.
These ports are not profitable for the federal government and it wants to transfer these infrastructures to municipalities and RCMs. Municipal or regional taxes are not supposed to be used to maintain an airport or a port. The federal government brought these infrastructures into this world and maintaining them should be its responsibility. Now it wants to hand them over to municipalities. This makes absolutely no sense.
I think the federal government should retain ownership of these infrastructures, that is airports and ports, and ask local authorities to manage them.
When we say that the federal government's plans with regard to marine transportation fell through, let us not forget the infamous icebreaking project where the federal government tried to charge $68,400 in fees to ferry operators, shipowners, industries and the Société des traversiers du Québec.
In this case, we are inclined to think the minister was floating a trial balloon. Faced with opposition from the Bloc Quebecois, the shipowners and the industry, the minister caved in.
In a riding like mine, there are six ferries: the Île-aux-Coudres-to-Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive ferry, the Rivière-du-Loup-to-Saint-Siméon ferry, the Tadoussac-to-Baie-Sainte-Catherine ferry, the Escoumins-to-Trois-Pistoles ferry, the Forestville-to-Rimouski ferry, and the Baie-Comeau-to-Matane-and-Godbout ferry. Everything is dependent on these ferries and tourism development.
Now moving to the air transport structure, I could spend several hours on this topic. Air service in Canada is in a shambles. When the minister decided, last summer, to strike a deal with Gérald Schwartz, the president of Onex—who is a well known contributor to the Liberal Party—people in Quebec and Canada got worried. The minister said the goal was to reorganize the air industry. The deal with Onex smacked of influence peddling.
We went through a period of turbulence. The minister jumped without a parachute. How he was going to land was everybody's guess. This whole matter caused a lot of uncertainty and fear in the personnel at both Air Canada and Canadian. Inter-Canadian went bankrupt; it is no longer in operation. Faced with the uncertainty created among regional carriers, Inter-Canadian was grounded by a lack of passengers.
Airport privatization is a kind of Trojan horse, or a white elephant. It is not the regional administration's job to administer such an infrastructure. I have nothing against the management itself, but it ought not to own it. This is the case for the airports of Baie-Comeau, Forestville and Saint-Irénée. Let the responsibility be given to a local company, the municipalities or the RCMs, but it is the federal government that is responsible for these infrastructures and for transportation safety.
Hon. members will also recall that the federal government has given Nav Canada the responsibility to administer the airports and deal with their deficits. The Baie-Comeau airport had an annual deficit of $1.2 million. According to Nav Canada, it was going to deal with this, that it was a deficit problem. It closed down the control tower, and did away with air controller positions, as well as the fire protection service. This service was handed over to the Pointe-Lebel municipality's volunteer firefighters.
Today we can see that the Nav Canada cuts were to the detriment of the passengers. Last year, Nav Canada had a surplus of $65 million, which was turned over to Air Canada and to Canadian, the major carriers. Why was this extra $65 million not reinvested into airline safety? If they do not want to reopen the Baie-Comeau control tower and give us air controllers, let them at least give us FIS, flight information service.
Airport safety is of great concern to us, with the Air Satellite crash at Baie-Comeau, with Nordair at Sept-Iles, with another crash at Gaspé. There have been three plane crashes in eastern Quebec within eight months.
There is much I could say on this. I will perhaps have the opportunity to get back to it for questions and answers.
In my opinion, things are always done better if we do them ourselves. The federal government should remain the owner of the infrastructures, that is the airports and ports. The federal government would remain responsible for all of these buildings, these infrastructures, and the local administration would look after administering them.
