The goal is sustainability and fairness, listening to Canadians' concerns about the CPP and responding with a package of changes that ensure it is there for all of us.

Mr. Speaker, on October 11 I asked the Minister of Transport, considering the increase in the number of railway-related incidents and accidents in Canada, for a moratorium on the closure of one of the three track maintenance shops operated by CN in Charny, in my riding.

In his answer, the Minister of Transport said:

There are from time to time minor variations among all provinces but essentially when we look at accidents in the various categories in which they are analyzed, there has been a slight increase in some of the derailments but not at all untoward and certainly not out of9 to 20''.

I would like to give you some more statistics, since I have a few minutes left. For instance, the number of serious injuries as a result of accidents in 1995 was 40, but the annual average during the five previous years was 24. In 1995, the number of deaths caused by accidents was 87, while before it was 73. The total number of accidents for the last five years has gone up from 632 to 770.

I hardly need recall the figures given by Le Soleil on the number of accidents on the main lines, a main line that goes as far as the Maritimes, where accidents increased by more than 50 per cent.

These figures were not produced by an outside office but by the railway safety