Bill C-49 (Historical)

Transportation Modernization Act

An Act to amend the Canada Transportation Act and other Acts respecting transportation and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Canada Transportation Act in respect of air transportation and railway transportation.
With respect to air transportation, it amends the Canada Transportation Act to require the Canadian Transportation Agency to make regulations establishing a new air passenger rights regime and to authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations requiring air carriers and other persons providing services in relation to air transportation to report on different aspects of their performance with respect to passenger experience or quality of service. It amends the definition of Canadian in that Act in order to raise the threshold of voting interests in an air carrier that may be owned and controlled by non-Canadians while retaining its Canadian status, while also establishing specific limits related to such interests. It also amends that Act to create a new process for the review and authorization of arrangements involving two or more transportation undertakings providing air services to take into account considerations respecting competition and broader considerations respecting public interest.
With respect to railway transportation, it amends the Act to, among other things,
(a) provide that the Canadian Transportation Agency will offer information and informal dispute resolution services;
(b) expand the Governor in Council’s powers to make regulations requiring major railway companies to provide to the Minister of Transport and the Agency information relating to rates, service and performance;
(c) repeal provisions of the Act dealing with insolvent railway companies in order to allow the laws of general application respecting bankruptcy and insolvency to apply to those companies;
(d) clarify the factors that must be applied in determining whether railway companies are fulfilling their service obligations;
(e) shorten the period within which a level of service complaint is to be adjudicated by the Agency;
(f) enable shippers to obtain terms in their contracts dealing with amounts to be paid in relation to a failure to comply with conditions related to railway companies’ service obligations;
(g) require the Agency to set the interswitching rate annually;
(h) create a new remedy for shippers who have access to the lines of only one railway company at the point of origin or destination of the movement of traffic in circumstances where interswitching is not available;
(i) change the process for the transfer and discontinuance of railway lines to, among other things, require railway companies to make certain information available to the Minister and the public and establish a remedy for non-compliance with the process;
(j) change provisions respecting the maximum revenue entitlement for the movement of Western grain and require certain railway companies to provide to the Minister and the public information respecting the movement of grain; and
(k) change provisions respecting the final offer arbitration process by, among other things, increasing the maximum amount for the summary process to $2 million and by making a decision of an arbitrator applicable for a period requested by the shipper of up to two years.
It amends the CN Commercialization Act to increase the maximum proportion of voting shares of the Canadian National Railway Company that can be held by any one person to 25%.
It amends the Railway Safety Act to prohibit a railway company from operating railway equipment and a local railway company from operating railway equipment on a railway unless the equipment is fitted with the prescribed recording instruments and the company, in the prescribed manner and circumstances, records the prescribed information using those instruments, collects the information that it records and preserves the information that it collects. This enactment also specifies the circumstances in which the prescribed information that is recorded can be used and communicated by companies, the Minister of Transport and railway safety inspectors.
It amends the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board Act to allow the use or communication of an on-board recording, as defined in subsection 28(1) of that Act, if that use or communication is expressly authorized under the Aeronautics Act, the National Energy Board Act, the Railway Safety Act or the Canada Shipping Act, 2001.
It amends the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority Act to authorize the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority to enter into agreements for the delivery of screening services on a cost-recovery basis.
It amends the Coasting Trade Act to enable repositioning of empty containers by ships registered in any register. These amendments are conditional on Bill C-30, introduced in the 1st session of the 42nd Parliament and entitled the Canada–European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Implementation Act, receiving royal assent and sections 91 to 94 of that Act coming into force.
It amends the Canada Marine Act to permit port authorities and their wholly-owned subsidiaries to receive loans and loan guarantees from the Canada Infrastructure Bank. These amendments are conditional on Bill C-44, introduced in the 1st session of the 42nd Parliament and entitled the Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1, receiving royal assent.
Finally, it makes related and consequential amendments to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, the Competition Act, the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, the Air Canada Public Participation Act, the Budget Implementation Act, 2009 and the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act.

Transportation Modernization Act

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thought I would only have 10 minutes, but it sounds like I will have 20. I will try not to bore you too much and close off nicely this long day that the Liberals have granted us.

The subject of today's debate is the transportation modernization bill. The Liberals have proposed this transportation bill—an omnibus bill, I might add. Bill C-49 establishes new rights for air passengers and liberalizes international ownership restrictions for Canadian air carriers; enables the Minister of Transport to consider and approve joint ventures by two or more airlines; updates the Canadian freight system; requires railways to install audio-video recorders in locomotives; enables the Governor in Council to require large railways to provide rate, service and performance data; and amends the Canada Marine Act to allow port authorities to access Canada infrastructure bank loans. I will focus on that last aspect in a few minutes.

I am saying all this to show how huge this part of the bill is. Unfortunately, we will have little time to discuss it. This part is hidden in an omnibus bill. The government has found a way to muzzle us so that we cannot point out the flaws in this bill.

The Emerson report is a study of the Canada Transportation Act that was led by the Hon. David Emerson. The study was launched on June 25, 2014 to address a variety of changing conditions and challenges, especially in the grain transportation industry across the Prairies.

Liberals tabled this report on February 25, 2016. Then, they launched a new process because the work done by the Hon. David Emerson was not enough for them. This means that today we have very little time to discuss this issue. The bill was introduced after 18 months of work. It built on the work done by the previous government and contained 60 recommendations to deal with a variety of changing conditions and challenges in Canada's transportation industry.

Unfortunately, the Liberals decided to launch another consultation process, and are only now introducing another bill. We will study it to make sure it strikes the right balance between the industry and consumers rights. That is the thorough work we, the opposition parties, will do together to try and support the government, who needs a lot of help implementing structuring bills for all Canadians.

This bill is supposed to amend the Canada Transportation Act but surreptitiously empowers the mysterious Canada infrastructure bank. This particular clause can easily be overlooked, and yet it raises many questions. We are not even sure why this infrastructure bank is being created in the first place.

That is what I what to speak to in the House tonight. The infrastructure bank is funded with taxpayers' money to the tune of $35 billion. Those same citizens will have to guarantee these $35 billion if foreign investors fail to bring projects to fruition. Thus, it will be the citizens taking the risks. The Liberals are putting their infrastructure bank in place for all of their friends around the world, those foreign investors our Prime Minister likes to visit outside of the country.

The top infrastructure bank official said it was created to underwrite funding for carefully planned, complex projects.

“Underwrite” means that if someone defaults on a loan, the underwriter is responsible for the debt.

In this case, Canadians taxpayers will assume all of the risk for the Liberals' bank venture. Considering how they are managing the deficit, we have every reason to be concerned about how they will manage the $35 billion if that is really how the bank was set up.

I would like to tell the House the story of the infrastructure bank.

In October 2015, the Liberals promised small deficits on the order of $10 billion and announced the creation of an independent infrastructure bank. We know what happened next. In November 2016, the highly anticipated bank was announced. At a meeting of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, I asked the minister where the money would come from. All I got was radio silence. There was no response in the budget.

The next day, I again asked where the money would come from, and I was told that the government would take the $15 billion out of the infrastructure program that was supposed to help all Canadian municipalities.

The minister decided to take that money and put it in the infrastructure bank to finance projects worth more than $100 million in the municipalities.

Now we get to the really good part because a few weeks later, I had an opportunity to ask the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities questions about who would really benefit from these $100-million-plus projects they wanted to fund through the infrastructure bank.

We are wondering about this because most municipalities cannot afford projects of $100 million or more except maybe Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. We get the feeling that the government has diverted $15 billion that should have been given to all Canadian municipalities to support infrastructure projects and put it in a new infrastructure bank that it created for its little friends. The government is still trying to figure out what kind of projects can really be funded under this program.

In November, December, January, February, March, April, and May, we asked the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities to name a single project of $100 million or more that could be carried out in Canada's small or medium-sized municipalities. Every time, we got complete radio silence, despite the fact that, at one point, the minister was surrounded by his cohort of senior officials and experts at a committee meeting. We repeated that it was not a complicated question and asked him to name, not five or six, but just one single project. We wanted to know one project that a small or medium-sized municipality in Canada would need the infrastructure bank to carry out. Radio silence.

That is normal, because over the past 10 years, and not over the past six months or 10 days, the average cost of infrastructure projects in Canada was not $100 million or $500 million, as certain investors would like. It was $6.7 million. The difference between $100 million and $6.7 million is a lot of money. This is simply to prove that this infrastructure bank will not serve many people, apart from reassuring investors by making sure that it will be Canadians all across the country who carry the risk for these projects.

I think the Prime Minister is missing something about the Robin Hood story. Indeed, instead of taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor, he decided to take taxpayers' money and give it to his friends and Liberal Party donors. This is where we get a sense of the dishonesty of these plans for the infrastructure bank.

Then we learned that Michael Sabia, president of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, and other investors who are working with the infrastructure bank, will want returns of 7% to 9%.

As a former mayor of a municipality of 45,000 residents, I can say that I never would have accepted funding at a cost of 7% to 9% when I had access to all kinds of municipal bonds at a rate of return of roughly 2% to 2.5% at most.

Once again, one might wonder why a municipality would need to go looking for financing. Just last week I had the opportunity to meet with the vice-president of the Union des municipalités du Québec, who is also the mayor of an important city in Quebec. I do not want to name him and put him on the spot here tonight. He is probably sleeping at this hour, but he might be listening on CPAC. I asked him whether, during all his years as mayor and at the council table, he had ever needed to go looking for financing from a bank. It has never happened.

It is late and we all want to get to bed. I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the time you have given me to speak to Bill C-49. However, it is not nearly enough time to speak to such an important bill.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

When we resume debate on Bill C-49, the hon. member will have 10 minutes to finish his speech.

The House resumed from June 15 consideration of the motion that Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Canada Transportation Act and other Acts respecting transportation and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise before the House to speak to Bill C-49, which proposes concrete measures to respond to several concerns of Canadians regarding transportation. We can agree here on the importance of a transportation system that is safe and secure, green, innovative, and integrated; that contributes to our trade and the economic growth of our cities and communities; and that creates a cleaner environment for our children, not to mention the well-being of Canadians.

On this last point, I want to focus for a moment on one of the important aspects of this bill: the protection of our rights as air passengers. As everyone knows, air transportation has become more widely available and accessible by the public due to a relative decrease in price for this mode of transportation. Canadian travellers are concerned about the value of the tickets they buy, their comfort, and the availability of flights. They are also concerned about how they are treated as consumers by airline companies. This was highlighted in recent media reports about certain airlines.

In contrast, the context in which airline companies operate imposes significant costs associated with safety and security, both in the air and on the ground. Increased availability in the airline industry has contributed to making our aviation system more complex, with both the growing number of passengers transported and the amount of air traffic, which may result in delays for passengers. Air carriers are faced with a relative decrease in their performance, not only because of sustained competition but because of pressure from consumers for lower airfares. Comfort and luxury, once offered to passengers on airplanes, have given way to new practices that are leading airline companies to offer a multitude of à-la-carte services to passengers to remain viable. For example, companies no longer hesitate to make their passengers pay for the size or weight of their baggage, seat selection, and drinks or meals during flights. Carriers have also resorted to overbooking to maximize their revenue. The advent of ultra-low-cost carriers in the airline industry, such as Ryanair or easyJet, has also pushed traditional airlines to re-examine their original business models. Carriers are trying to do more to maximize the use of their aircraft and develop new revenue generation strategies. This has contributed to reduced passenger comfort and general satisfaction when they travel by air.

Let us return to us, the passengers. In general, the main issues we face relate to delays, cancellations, being denied boarding as a result of overbooking, lost or delayed baggage, a lack of information communicated to us when things are not proceeding as planned, long tarmac delays and wait times, or even seat assignments when parents or guardians travel with young children.

Several countries have therefore chosen to legislate or regulate certain practices in the airline industry by establishing mandatory measures or minimum levels of passenger services offered by carriers. It is time for Canada to align its current approach with practices that are in effect elsewhere in the world for the benefit of both travellers and our country.

Bill C-49 proposes to develop an approach that protects the rights of air passengers, and will meet the expectations of passengers, by establishing a clear, predictable, and fair framework that governs the practices and responsibilities of the airline industry while not imposing an economic burden or undue operational restrictions on it. In this regard, Bill C-49 proposes adopting a legislative framework within which the Canadian Transportation Agency can establish detailed and specific regulations that address common situations we face as passengers and thus establish standards and minimum service and compensation levels we can claim when our travel plans are affected.

Moreover, Bill C-49 would gather various indicators and data relating to passenger experience that could assist the government in better understanding, and if necessary, acting on situations or problems travellers may face.

In closing, a new approach to protecting the rights of air passengers could contribute to improving the general satisfaction of users. The government is actively working on this. However, it would be wishful thinking to believe that all concerns or criticisms of carriers or the airline industry made by passengers would be resolved. The reality in Canada is that flights will continue to be affected by the harshness and vagaries of our climate. It is not guaranteed that an approach, however prescriptive and broad it may be, will contribute to limiting the impact on users in such situations, even if it allows them to benefit from some mitigation measures, where applicable.

I ask my hon. colleagues to support Bill C-49, which aims to implement several measures to make a transportation system that is safe and secure, green, innovative, and integrated and that will contribute to our economic growth and a cleaner environment, not to mention the well-being of Canadians when they travel.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has been a strong advocate for air passenger rights. We have known for many years that passengers want to be more empowered or to at least be treated better overall. This is the type of legislation that would assist in setting a framework for providing guarantees.

I am wondering if my colleague would share some of her thoughts on the importance of getting legislation of this nature through the House.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, consumer protection and increasing the ability of passengers to travel across, out of, and into Canada would, by extension, increase our economy. By facilitating transportation, we would encourage more economic growth and tourism. Such legislation would provide a safe network for Canadians to go above and beyond and achieve their full potential, whether it be for economic or entertainment reasons. It would provide a safety net for passengers.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. I am sure she appreciated the opportunity to have her say on Bill C-49, a bill that amends 13 other laws.

Yesterday, the minister said that over 80% of the legislative changes are specific to a single act. The thing is, amending just one section of an act can determine whether someone is charged with sexual assault or not. The number of sections amended does not matter as much as what those sections do.

My colleague must have been pleased to have a chance to talk about this bill. Does she believe that what she has to say or what I have to say is more important than what other members want to say but cannot because the government decided to limit debate on this bill?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to hearing the member's speech on this very important topic.

The hon. member talked about the different acts Bill C-49 seeks to amend. I can say that 80% of the bill is specific to the topic at hand. Debate in the House is very important. It is crucial to our democracy, and I am very happy to be participating in this debate. I know that many members have participated and will participate on legislation that affects Canadians on a daily basis.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague whether the Liberals would agree to divide Bill C-49 since it is an omnibus bill that amends 13 laws, as my colleague just said. We think this is yet another sloppy bill. The only measure we can support is the one for grain shippers that help western producers get their crop to market, but all of these measures would come into force on August 1, 2017, which is a bit too soon. Because it is part of an omnibus bill that amends 13 laws, it will be impossible to implement all of this at the same time and help grain producers.

Would my colleague be prepared to separate the section for grain producers from the rest of the bill so we can at least agree on that one?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-49 is a fulsome approach to improving our transportation system. It is really about evidence, increasing security, and increasing access for Canadians to transportation within and across Canada.

I encourage the member to express her views on this bill. I look forward to the debate continuing today and to comments members have in this House.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to come back to the question that I asked my colleague earlier, which was about the fact that 80% of the amendments pertain to a single law.

Bill C-49 is an omnibus bill that amends 13 laws, and 80% of those amendments pertain to a single law. Does that mean that the other laws that are being amended are not important? Does that mean that, when just one provision of another law is amended, it is not important? That is exactly what we were trying to tell the minister. Why is the government insisting on introducing omnibus bills that cover so many topics?

We are talking about rail transportation, financial participation, a passengers' bill of rights, video surveillance on trains, and more. The government wants us to make a decision on all of these topics, which are so very different, with just one vote on a bill that amends 13 laws.

Does my colleague think that one law is more important than another?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the member opposite and his party know all about omnibus bills and their use of them in the past.

I assure the member that this bill is a fulsome approach that looks to understand the full scope of the issue and how to address the issues Canadians have told us they face.

I look forward to the speeches from members in the House, and I look forward to the passage of this bill.

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent speech and for the extraordinary work that she does in her riding.

Could my colleague explain how the bill will save passengers time, improve their comfort, and lower the cost of tickets, things that affect them almost every day?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this bill seeks to provide cleaner transportation and more security, more safety, more reliability, and more responsiveness to the needs of Canadians. I am sure all members in this House can appreciate that. We use our airlines frequently, and we are directly impacted by what happens with our airline systems across Canada.

Having increased accountability by airlines would increase the quality of service and encourage more travel, safer travel, and more reliable travel for Canadians across the country.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to come back to what I was saying earlier about the fact that the bill contains a number of other bills, one of which amends the Coasting Trade Act.

During the election campaign, the Liberals promised to leave that law alone. However, in the end, the government broke its promise and is giving ships registered in other countries an unfair competitive advantage, without any reciprocal measures. Canadian shipowners will not have access to the European Union, but EU shipowners will have access to Canada.

Does my colleague agree with that? The government is undermining our shipowners' ability to compete fairly. Do the Liberals support that?