Mr. Speaker, like my colleague the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, I too would like to congratulate my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois. The Canadian Alliance does understand that the responsibility of every member of the House is to truly respect our fellow citizens and their concerns, not necessarily only the concerns we care about.
Just like my Bloc Quebecois colleague, I am sure that all members who have trains going through their ridings have had calls from people angry about the noise coming from this means of transportation. It is very important that a voice be heard in the House regarding this problem.
I want to tell my Bloc colleague that the Canadian Alliance favours free votes on private members' bills. My views on the topic will not necessarily sway all my colleagues, when the time comes to vote on the motion.
The motion we are debating today from my colleague from Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière says:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should amend the Canada Transportation Act and the mandate of the Canadian Transportation Agency to give the Agency the additional responsibility of protecting public health by controlling noise, emissions and vibrations caused by rail cars being moved on the tracks and in the rail yards on interprovincial lines.
Moving rail cars in yards and shifting the rail cars makes a lot of noise. This is part of the cost of doing business and it is an unfortunate reality. It is impractical and unrealistic for railway companies to erect noise barriers around every action that they do in their rail yards.
To assist in avoiding future proximity problems associated with noise, the railway industry itself, outside of government mandate, has developed guidelines regarding and requiring vibration, noise and safety mitigation measures for new development along railways rights of way.
Since the mid-1980s, guidelines have been integrated into the development approval process in certain Canadian provinces. However beyond this there are no broadly accepted standards or guidelines through which parties may seek direction or resolution of emerging issues.
Consequently, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, which represents over 1,000 municipal governments across the country and the RAC, the Railway Association of Canada, which represents 55 freight and passenger railways operating in Canada, agreed at a meeting in Hamilton on May 31 of this year to “pursue a good neighbour approach to preventing and resolving disputes” according to the railway association's press release.
Instead of more rail regulation from the Canadian Transportation Agency, the Railway Association of Canada would prefer to work with municipalities to address “proximity issues and guidelines to be developed jointly on such matters as land use, noise levels and emissions”, as stated by Federation of Canadian Municipalities CEO James Knight in a press release that he sent just following the meeting and the agreement.
Development of these guidelines will involve consultation with the railway industry, municipal governments, the property development community, transportation planners, acoustical consultants, related industrial concerns and other specialists and academics in the area of industrial proximity.
This is the exact sort of thing that the Canadian Alliance often champions. Here we have a situation where there are local concerns and local problems happening literally in people's backyards and local municipal governments responding directly with the industry without having the big iron boot of the federal government coming down on top of it and expanding the current leviathan state which takes away the powers from municipalities and citizens to react to local concerns with local measures that make local sense.
Rather than dumping more regulation on railways as Motion No. 493 recommends, the voluntary good neighbour approach between the railway companies and over a thousand municipal governments is already underway, including identification of the right and assessable contacts in municipal government, railways and open communication. A proactive approach beginning with municipal land use approvals based on sound planning principles is an effective tool for prevention of future disputes and complaints. Likewise, future railway operational planning would also seek to prevent future disputes and complaints.
Both the Railway Association of Canada and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities agreed on current options and best practices for mediation or dispute resolution, both at the local level and where necessary on a more formal level on a broader scale.
The Railway Association of Canada recognizes that the rail industry itself needs to be more sensitive to community and residential realities because Canada has become an increasingly urbanized country, which is common sense.
However the railway association also points out that Canada's economy is the most trade dependent on the planet. The Railway Association of Canada's vision for the future:
--is based on safe, secure, reliable rail corridors that carry both freight and passengers, reduce congestion and pollution. That will add to Canada's overall competitiveness, and Canadians' quality of life, because governments won't have to invest billions of dollars more in building new road systems, as they did in the past.
It is interesting that the motion we are debating on, and I understand will be voting on, proposes that railroad emissions be regulated. However Motion No. 493 was probably drafted without consideration of the fact that Canada's railways were on track to Kyoto compliance voluntarily. They produced 3.5% fewer greenhouse gas emissions in 2002 than they did in 1990, while hauling almost 30% more traffic than they did a decade ago.
I think it is important for my colleagues in the Bloc Quebecois to consider this. The Bloc and the NDP are probably the most pro-Kyoto political parties in the House of Commons, although it is easy for them to be pro-Kyoto because of the water that they have their backyards. However overall the transportation sector remains the single largest energy user in Canada, with road vehicles accounting for more than 70% of sector emissions, passenger cars and light trucks accounting for 44.1% and commercial trucks 27.2%.
Rail generates only about 4% of transportation sector pollution in total. Rail carries slightly more than half of all freight ton miles moved in Canada, as well as 51 million commuters, intercity passengers and tourists. In fact the whole workload was handled with some 3,000 units in 2000.
A 100 car freight train, for example, carries the equivalent traffic load of 280 trucks and every commuter train takes hundreds of cars off the highway. This is the sort of thing that contributes to cleaning our skies, cleaning the pollution, getting more people moving faster, enhancing trade and doing the sort of thing that the Bloc Quebecois says that this country needs to do, which is why it supports Kyoto.
I will conclude by addressing my Bloc Quebecois colleague in French. Just like my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord said, we congratulate our colleague on his approach to respect his fellow citizens in his particular riding.
I too have introduced four or five private member bills aimed at dealing with problems that my fellow citizens had brought to my attention. We congratulate our colleague from Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière.
However, we believe that the kind of change that people in his riding and himself are seeking can be achieved without giving increased powers to a federal government that has proved so careless. It is not really a good idea to give it more powers as it has been getting worst and worst.
I congratulate my colleague on his motion and we do appreciate the spirit in which it was drafted. However, the Canadian Alliance will not support the motion.
