Mr. Speaker, I want to pay respect to my colleague from South Surrey--White Rock--Cloverdale for his amazing efforts on behalf of the all-party border caucus and the work that he has done there. It is an important issue to his constituency and to all of British Columbia.
He spoke to many of the frustrations that I have with this bill as a British Columbian, which is to say that this bill is everything and nothing at the same time. It presents nothing. It outlines no specific spending formula and no specific projects that the government is going to announce. At the same time, it creates a body that will be discussing future potential projects so that the Liberals in the coming campaign can ask people if they are in favour of the South Fraser perimeter road for the Fraser port and to ease the traffic there, and they will say, “Of course we are. We had Bill C-68, the legislation that created the Pacific gateway council, so yes, we are for it because that council might recognize it”.
The frustration that I have and I know that the member has is that his constituents deserve specific concrete action. The issue of the Pacific gateway has been studied ad nauseam in British Columbia. The provincial government tabled a comprehensive report just a few months ago. Less than a year ago the BC Progress Board put forward comprehensive ideas on how we can move forward. Rather than actually putting forward specific things that we can do, such as the South Fraser perimeter road which is very important for the member's constituency and very important for all of British Columbia, or dredging on the Fraser River, or any of the dozens of concrete ideas that are out there to actually make the Pacific gateway a reality, the Liberals have created a council which will study these issues and make recommendations.
Right now in this House, given the reality that a budget will be coming up perhaps in January or February, we should be discussing specific ideas like the South Fraser perimeter road, and we are not because the Liberals have put forward a bill that creates bureaucracy rather than a bill that offers solutions. I want my colleague to speak to that.