SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 220 - Sep/19/23

Sep/19/23 11:50:19 a.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-49

Madam Speaker, I love that question; it comes up a lot. I would simply point out to my colleague that more than $30 billion, some of it from Quebec, has been poured into infrastructure that Quebeckers will never use. In 2022, if I am not mistaken, the oil and gas industry received $20 billion from the federal government for a sector of activity that will never serve Quebec. The balance of trade between Quebec and Alberta equals a loss of approximately $2 billion to $3 billion. Just send it back to us; that would make us very happy. Once we finish with the electrification of transportation, we would be quite happy to get that money back. Equalization gets blamed for a lot of things. Once we are sovereign, we will be even better off.

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Context: House Hansard - 220 - Sep/19/23

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Sep/19/23 5:25:57 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-49

Madam Speaker, I am so happy to see my friend from Battle River—Crowfoot. I am going to hone in on something he said in his speech about transportation needs, because it is critical. Because of having a stroke, I could not take a plane to Ottawa, and as I needed to pursue foreign interference, I took the train. I thought of him while crossing the trestle bridge over Battle River. I thought, “I know who the member of Parliament for Battle River—Crowfoot is.” I want to let him know exactly how often one can get public transit from Vancouver to Kamloops. It is a shockingly poor two times a week that someone can get Via Rail out of Vancouver to get to Kamloops and Edmonton. By the way, we took the train back and we were stopped. Edmonton was as far west as we could go because Via Rail cancelled the train due to the fires, so we rented a U-Haul truck out of Edmonton and drove to Kamloops. It is a long story, but would the hon. member join our passenger rail caucus so we can do everything we can to boost accessibility, for particularly low-income Canadians, to reliable public transit in rural and remote areas because all of the buses packed up and left? Any comments would be welcome.

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Context: House Hansard - 220 - Sep/19/23

Mr. Damien Kurek

Sep/19/23 5:27:19 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-49

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question because it highlights that we need to ensure that we provide opportunity in our country, and that includes for rail development. I have in my constituency one of those Via Rail stations, in the community of Wainwright, and it is unfortunate that there has been reduced service. Although the Liberals brag a lot about investing in transportation, it certainly has not come to Battle River—Crowfoot, nor has it been seen in the Via train situation. We have to acknowledge that we must provide opportunity on all fronts, even if that is passenger rail service. I know the province of Alberta has been leading the country by ensuring that it is opening the door to say that there is potential to have high-speed passenger rail service from major urban area to major urban area. I think the rest of the country could learn from that. In addition to passenger rail, I am proud to have communities that are actively working to ensure that we increase rail capacity, period, because more rail capacity in our country is good for the economy and it is good for industry. Ultimately, if we can get passenger trains on that rail, it is good for passengers as well.

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