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.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Exactly. He's going to get a chance to learn today how important Canada's energy future is to our generation, to his generation and to the generation that is going to follow after his and how our country is going to work.

It's an important opportunity for us to discuss the division of powers in this country as well, because Bill C-69, as the Supreme Court of Canada clearly ruled, has trampled all over that. That is why there is a priority and a precedence on our side to see that we deal with Bill C-49 first, because it directly quotes and references Bill C-69 no less than 33 times.

It is causing some grief for members on the other side that we keep talking about Bill C-69, but, because they are so incredibly linked together, we continue to hammer home this point. We want to make sure that people understand that, in order for us to properly get the best result for Canadians, we are going to start with Bill C-49, which means that we have to deal with Bill C-69 and, as the amendment that was moved states at the very end in point 2—it's a very simple line that we have at the bottom—we complete consideration of Bill C-49.

What that is doing is ordering Bill C-49 to be first. Deal with Bill C-69, as part of it ties in with Bill C-49, but we are going to complete deliberation on Bill C-49 and, at that point, at the end of the amendment, point number 3 would then be the a), b), c), d), e), f), g), h) and i) that was part of the original motion. It includes the original wording and lettering of the original motion, but it includes direction to have an order prioritizing Bill C-49 in advance. It's a very substantive amendment, and I really appreciate the wording that we have in it here, which we came up with to make sure that it was compliant and in order.

It might be worth going over that one more time. At the start of the motion, point 1 is going to be that first we undertake the study on Bill C-69. It references in the opening dialogue about the need to do Bill C-49. We're already establishing that those two bills are going to be part of the motion.

We're going to say that we first undertake the following study on Bill C-69:

1. First undertake the following study on Bill C-69: “Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study of the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling that Bill C-69, An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, is unconstitutional; for the purposes of this study, the committee: (a) hold at least 5 meetings, (b) invite the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources and the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change to appear for one hour each, (c) report its findings and recommendations to the House and, (d) pursuant to Standing Order 109, request that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.”, then 2. Complete its consideration of Bill C-49.

That's effectively—if I'm allowed to use the term—killing two birds with one stone here, because, when we deal with Bill C-49, we have to deal with Bill C-69. We have to start with BIll C-69 to make sure that Bill C-49 is compliant with that law that is now in place. It has been largely unconstitutional since its implementation, which the government was warned about back then and continues to be warned about now.

This is why we want to prioritize the order of the bills that we have here in this amendment.

There are a few parts to Mr. Sorbara's motion that are still going to have to be addressed and dealt with, possibly in a subamendment.

Before we get to that, Mr. Chair, I think we need to really discuss the impacts that this will have if we don't deal with Bill C-69.

I have read a little bit about Saskatchewan and their response to the reference case and the importance of that. I'll just remind members that at no point in history has a government ignored a reference case. They've always acted upon it and prioritized it. Let's take Saskatchewan as an example. We hear a lot about the government doing consultations and how they've been very engaging with people. Well, only about 15% of Saskatchewanians have heard of the just transition. I would suspect that if the other 85% knew what was happening and what was going on, people would have a lot of concerns.

In particular, as we have seen and heard, the government's initial attempt at a just transition of coal workers substantively and spectacularly failed. I'll get to that in a bit. People have seen their energy prices already go up. That has already happened. At this point, the shuttering of our coal plants has not fully happened just yet, but we have seen energy prices increase as the government has implemented very strong anti-energy development legislation.

Take the cost of the carbon tax alone, for example, on energy production in Saskatchewan. I've heard workers at the coal station talk about how the carbon tax might put them out of a job far in advance of 2030. This is because of the excessive costs that will be associated with producing power as the power plant is phased out and winds down. That escalating cost gets thrown on top, onto the Crown corporation SaskPower.

Then you have the case of Swift Current, where I live. They buy the power from SaskPower. In a sense, you have a doubling of costs and regulation here that is causing this issue of affordability of energy for folks. We've heard the government's own regulations speak to the fact that the people who will be disproportionately impacted are seniors living on a fixed income and single mothers. That was right in the government's own regulations, and yet they are plowing ahead with this legislation that is problematic and causing massive cost overruns for people.

In fact, we just heard on Friday that the government is going to put a pause on the carbon tax in one area of the country because of the issue of cost, but yet we've constantly been told that people receive more than they pay, so therefore it shouldn't be a problem. Well, clearly it is. This is why people are concerned with Bill C-50, Bill C-49 and Bill C-69. This is why getting to Bill C-69 first will be of the utmost importance to people.

In Saskatchewan the working population is 598,000 people, give or take. There were over 43,000 construction jobs, 32,000 manufacturing jobs, and 25,800 agricultural jobs. In forestry, mining and gas there were 19,700 jobs, in utilities about 8,500, in wholesale and retail trade 98,000, and in transportation and warehousing about 30,000 jobs. The potential just transition job impacts are 10,432 direct jobs and 131,500 indirect jobs. A lot of that can be attributed and traced back to the ripple effect of Bill C-69.

[Dr. Gábor Lukács, President, Air Passenger Rights]

Mr. Chair and honourable members, Air Passenger Rights is Canada's independent, non-profit organization of volunteers devoted to empowering travellers. We have a track record of successfully predicting shortcomings and loopholes in legislation related to air passenger rights.

Five years ago, we testified before the House of Commons and the Senate respective committees and cautioned that the Transportation Modernization Act was inadequate. In 2019, we published a 52-page report with predictions of how airlines would likely exploit the air passenger protection regulations' shortcomings and loopholes. In December 2022, we cautioned that Canada's air passenger protection regime was broken, and we proposed specific legislative amendments as a solution. Mere days later, during the holiday season, Canadians witnessed a second meltdown of air travel that year, compounded by airlines' flagrant disregard for passenger rights under the APPR..

Our predictions are based on the experience of the passengers we help daily in their struggle to enforce their rights. They have been validated by the four years that have passed since the regulations came into force. Today, even the government acknowledges that our air passenger protection regime needs to be substantially strengthened. Unfortunately, the legislative amendments put forward in Bill C-47 have the opposite effect.

First, the government proposes to create a secretive, star chamber-like process for adjudicating consumer disputes between passengers and airlines with no right of appeal. The adjudication will be conducted on the basis of confidential information instead of evidence, with the exclusion of the public and the media. This is unheard of in consumer disputes.

Bill C-47 therefore violates Canadians' freedom of expression and the open court principle guaranteed by section 2(b) of the Charter, as well as the right to a fair hearing in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice, protected by section 2(e) of the Canadian Bill of Rights.

Second, proposed section 85.12 is effectively a Henry VIII clause that allows the Canadian Transportation Agency to change the law while bypassing the system of checks and balances set out in the Statutory Instruments Act. The agency will be able to make and modify guidelines affecting passengers' rights overnight without examination by the Clerk of the Privy Council and the deputy minister of justice, without publication in the Gazette and without scrutiny by Parliament's committees.

Third, Bill C-47 perpetuates existing loopholes and creates a new one. In spite of the government promise to the contrary, the bill retains the “required for safety purposes” excuse for airlines to avoid paying compensation and shunts that excuse into regulations. This made-in-Canada loophole has unnecessarily and disproportionately complicated adjudication of disputes between passengers and airlines.

Since evidence about the reasons for a flight disruption is in the airlines' exclusive control, passengers are at a great disadvantage in enforcing their rights to compensation. Bill C-47, however, shifts the burden of proof to the airlines in such disputes only if the passenger gives up their right to a fair and open hearing before an impartial judge and instead agrees to submit to the star chamber-like process.

Bill C-47 also creates a new loophole. Clauses 467 to 470 would allow airlines that sign a so-called compliance agreement to avoid paying penalties for violating passengers' rights.

To summarize, many of the government's proposed amendments to the Canada Transportation Act miss the mark, do the opposite of their stated purpose and will weaken not only air passenger protection but also fundamental rights in Canada.

We urge you lawmakers to amend division 23 and not to forgo this historic opportunity to create a robust air passenger protection regime in Canada. A suitable model for amending division 23 would be Bill C-327, a private member's bill to harmonize Canada's air passenger protection regime with the European Union's gold standard. Bill C-327 has been endorsed by Canada's leading consumer protection organizations, and it is what Canadians need.

Thank you.

Second Reading

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to speak in the House on behalf of the people of Calgary Midnapore.

It has been a month now that I have been in the role of shadow minister for the Treasury Board. I would like to once again thank the leader of the official opposition, the member for Carleton, for this role. It gives me an opportunity to work very closely with two of my favourite members of Parliament, the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, the shadow minister for ethics, which we have been doing continuous work on ArriveCAN, and the member for Calgary Forest Lawn, who serves as our shadow minister for finance. It really is a pleasure to have this role.

I am sure members are aware of the crippling inflationary numbers in Canada, 6.9% in the most recent reports, down a slight bit from the 8.1% high we saw in June. Food, of course, is at a 40-year high.

I just came from the government operations committee, and the President of the Treasury Board was there on the supplementary estimates. I am sorry to report that the government has asked for another $21 billion, and I am not making that number up. We have a $36.4 billion deficit this year. That is because of $6.1 billion in new spending even though we are supposed to be moving past the pandemic now. One thing is clear about the Liberal government, and that is that it just does not get it.

As I said, inflation is at a 40-year high, and 1.5 million Canadians are using the food bank in a single month. In the GTA, pre-pandemic food bank usage was at 60,000 people per month. During the pandemic, it was at 120,000 people. Now, under the Liberal government, it is at 182,000 people per month.

Grocery prices are up 11%, the highest rate in 40 years. One in five Canadians are skipping meals and more than half of Canadians are living paycheque to paycheque. What is the Liberals' solution? It is to give up one's subscription to the Disney channel. As I have said, the Liberal government just does not get it.

Consumer insolvencies rose 22.5% compared with a year earlier. This is the largest percentage in 13 years. Small business insolvencies are on the rise. One in six businesses are considering closing their doors. This is very dear to me, since I come from a small business family.

The average credit card balance held by Canadians was at a record high of $2,121 at the end of September. The Royal Bank of Canada estimates that households will soon have to allocate 15% of their income to debt servicing alone. Nine in 10 Canadians are now tightening their household budgets, yet the Deputy Prime Minister is telling us not to worry, that Moody's gave us a AAA credit rating. Quite frankly, that will not put food on the table. The government just does not get it.

Mortgage interest rate costs rose by 11.4% on a year-over-year basis, the largest increase since February 1991. For those whose mortgages are up for renewal this year, they will pay $7,000 more compared to five years ago. Also, the average rent is now $2,000 a month. The average rent for a one bedroom in Toronto was $2,474 in September. In 2015, seven years ago, it was $1,100. In Vancouver, it is $2,300. In 2015, it was $1,079. Toronto has the worst housing bubble in the world and Vancouver is the sixth worst, according to UBS. However, the government is telling us not to worry, here is $500, when people need $2,474 for one month rent alone in Toronto. It just does not get it.

There has been a 32% increase in violent crime since 2015, which is 124,000 more violent crimes last year than in 2015. There were 778 homicides in Canada last year and 611 in 2015, a 29% increase. There has been a 92% increase in gang-related homicides since 2015 and a 61% increase in reported sexual assaults since 2015. Police-reported hate crimes have increased 72% over the last two years, yet the government pushes through Bill C-5, making it easier for offenders to stay home and play video games. The government just does not get it.

About 31,000 Canadians lost their lives to overdose between 2016 and 2022. There were 7,169 deaths from opioid overdose in Canada in 2021. Twenty-one people a day are dying from overdose, and before the pandemic it was 11. More than six million Canadians do not have access to a family doctor and, as brought to light by the member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, there has been a shortage of children's Tylenol and Advil. No other country anywhere in the globe is experiencing such shortages. However, people should not to worry, because if their child is sick, there is day care for $10 a day. The government just does not get it.

When it comes to immigration, there is a backlog of 2.6 million people. It has grown by 800,000 people under the current government. Fifty-seven per cent of the files in the system are beyond the processing timelines set by the government, and what is it doing? It is putting up incredible new targets that we know it will never achieve, which is not fair to the people who are applying or for the people who are backlogged in the system already. The government just does not get it.

Toronto's Pearson airport is ranked the most delayed airport in the world, with Montréal-Trudeau International Airport right behind it. We have seen how horrible it is to get a passport in recent days and how difficult it is for families who just want to get away on vacation after the difficult two years they have had. It has been impossible to get a passport. We know this, but what does the Minister of Transport say? He says it is Canadians' fault; they do not know how to travel anymore. The Liberal government just does not get it.

We have the second-slowest time for building permits of any country in the OECD. The average permit time is 250 days. In South Korea, it is 28 days, yet the government continues to shove money into the Canada Infrastructure Bank. It is millions of dollars after millions of dollars. The government just does not get it.

In 2015, there were 50 major LNG infrastructure projects under proposal, yet not a single one has been finished. It is the government that gave us Bill C-68, Bill C-49 and the carbon tax, bringing energy production to a halt in this nation at a time when we need it the most. The government just does not get it.

I will tell members what the Liberals do get. They know how to spend and they know how to tax. Under a Conservative government, there would be no new taxes. For every dollar of spending, we would find a dollar of savings. However, until that day, we are unfortunately stuck with the current government and the government just does not get it.

Rail Transportation

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, stakeholders are calling out the Liberals on their failure to ensure adequate and reliable rail service for western agriculture products destined for markets around the world.

According to the executive director of the Western Grain Elevator Association, “We're right back to the same quagmire we were in before Bill C-49 was passed.”

Instead of wasting his energy maintaining vindictive travel bans for Canadians, when will the minister tackle actual transportation issues here in Canada?

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all our witnesses for appearing here this afternoon.

Mr. Bjornson, in your testimony you referenced Bill C-49, the Transportation Modernization Act. On May 24, 2018, there was a story on the GlobeNewswire:

“This day has been a long time coming for grain shippers and the farmers we serve,” said Executive Director of the WGEA, Wade Sobkowich. “Grain shippers extend our thanks to Transport Minister Marc Garneau and Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay for their leadership in bringing the Bill through the parliamentary process with the provisions that are of critical importance to the grain sector.”

With that in mind and with the perspective of several years gone by, what is your view of these reforms, what worked, what didn't work, what remains to be done and how can we do better?

[David Montpetit, President and Chief Executive Officer, Western Canadian Shippers' Coalition]

Thank you very much.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the standing committee.

On behalf of the Western Canadian Shippers' Coalition, WCSC, I would like to thank you for the invitation to participate in this session. My name is Dave. I am the president and CEO.

WCSC is based in western Canada and represents shippers from multiple resource commodity sectors, many of whom are completely dependent on one railway. Our membership includes some of the largest Canadian and North American shippers in these sectors. Collectively, members provide tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs in communities across Canada, ship billions of dollars' worth of product annually, and spend over $3.5 billion on total transportation. The point of commonality for our members is a reliance on market-dominant providers of rail freight, truck and port transportation.

Shippers have faced significant supply chain disruptions since the fall of 2019, following CN Rail's strike and service issues related to unusual weather conditions. While shippers were in recovery mode in 2020, blockades disrupted railway lines across Canada; Transport Canada issued a slow order in response to a train derailment in Saskatchewan; and supply chains and operations began experiencing additional stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The downward spiral continued in 2021 with extreme heat, the B.C. wildfires and flooding, bringing the supply chain in some areas of western Canada to a standstill or a crawl. CP's labour disruption in March of this year and the effect of the war in Ukraine are further testing the resilience of an already strained supply chain. As a result, WCSC members are operating in a very challenging business environment.

Supply chain shortages in all modes—rail, trucking and containers at port—increased costs, scheduling issues and shipping delays have taken a toll. The driver shortage in the trucking industry is not a new phenomenon. Class I railways drastically reduced head counts and active equipment in 2020 and 2021, and they have been slow to bring people and equipment back. In many areas they are, again, stretched too thin to meet demand and they lack the resiliency to manage normal operating procedures. In fact, given the system-wide rail service issues resulting from a combination of weather-related crises, which are no fault of the railway at all—and I must commend them for a great job of bringing everything back—and a personnel and equipment deficit, some of our members have been forced to take temporary plant shutdowns and operate at reduced capacity for prolonged periods of time. In addition to the impact on the member companies, these pressures are damaging confidence in the reliability of Canada as a supplier of goods and resources. Canada's competitiveness and reputation as a trading nation depend on our ability to get products to market.

We need to look ahead. WCSC believes that a comprehensive supply chain review is necessary to determine precisely what Canada's major trade corridors will require in terms of maximizing performance of our roads, rails and ports. This includes determining current and future capacity, first- and last-mile efficiencies and bottlenecks in congested areas, such as the Vancouver Lower Mainland and northern Alberta.

Another area we suggest focusing on is contingency planning. The supply chain must be better prepared in 2022 to move forward through potential things such as climate events—like the ones we have already seen—and other disruptions, such as strikes, blockades, pandemics and now a war. WCSC recommends that regional, federal and provincial task forces be organized similar to those successfully put in place in 2021 during the B.C. flood.

Another area is resiliency. Trade corridors are under much strain and, in some regions, have begun to break down. A comprehensive review of all modes to fully identify these challenges is necessary, including looking at bottlenecks and underutilized corridors, and identifying opportunities to move national trade corridor funding and infrastructure focus accordingly.

There is also seasonal versus winter planning. The narrative and direction for planning need to shift, as what we currently rely on is not working. WCSC suggests that a combination of climate event planning, other trade corridor disruptions, as I described earlier on, and seasonal fluctuations in commodities and manufactured goods in the supply chain need to be considered. What we need is basically a road map.

Finally, we also suggest focusing on data and metrics. More regionally detailed real-time information is required. Capacity data is needed to provide a benchmark so that we can understand what the trade corridors can handle. Shippers are responsible for internally building chain visibility dashboards and need regionally detailed metrics to compare their performance and supply chain against.

We will also be looking at and prioritizing some future legislation moving forward, including reviewing what was put forward in Bill C-49 and looking at areas and recommendations that were not previously considered. We're also looking at the ports modernization review and things we can do, including mechanisms similar to what we have in place for rail, looking at excessive fees and charges, and perhaps looking at some changes to the act to include some mechanisms for shippers to respond to that.

Finally, we are looking at the Canada Transportation Act review and are wondering when the next review will be. We're going to be approaching 10 years since it was last launched. In fact, it's already been more than eight years since it was last launched, and it's something we should consider.

I want to thank everybody for their time, and I look forward to some questions coming up here in the future.

[Steve Pratte]

Well, certainly coming out of the shadows of Bill C-49, the Transportation Modernization Act, there's now bolstered communication between the railways and their grain shippers. Certainly, though, the railways consult. They put on paper their plans with the Ministry of Transport every year—their idea of what they are going to move for that year and the size of the actual crop to be hauled. There's nothing that holds them to that. What we saw this year was that we were going to do X but in reality Y has happened. There is some accountability within contractual arrangements, but it's not to the level that the grain shippers and grain industry would like to see.

Alleged Premature Disclosure of Contents of Bill C-10

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

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to respond to the question of privilege raised by the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent respecting the alleged premature disclosure of the contents of Bill C-10, an act respecting certain measures related to COVID-19.

On Monday, the Prime Minister made a general statement of the government's intention to introduce a bill to purchase rapid tests. The Prime Minister did not divulge the details of the bill, namely the amount of money for the purpose, nor the mechanism for purchasing and distributing these tests across Canada. This is a very short bill with two clauses: the amount, which is about $2.5 billion, and the mechanism for distributing these tests. As a result, I submit that speaking in very general terms about the bill does not meet the bar for a question of privilege respecting the divulgation of the contents of the bill during the notice period. Furthermore, as part of the government's consultation process, a draft legislative proposal on the statutory spending authority for rapid test procurement was shared with parties of the House last week before the bill was placed on notice.

On June 8, 2017, the Speaker ruled on a question of privilege related to the alleged premature disclosure of Bill C-49. He stated:

The right of the House to first access to legislation is one of our oldest conventions. It does and must, however, coexist with the need of governments to consult widely, with the public and stakeholders alike, on issues and policies in the preparation of legislation. Speaker Parent explained on February 21, 2000, at page 3767 of Debates:

Although the members of the House should always be the first ones to examine legislation after it has been introduced and read the first time, this rule must be balanced against the need for the government to consult both experts and the public when developing its legislative proposals.

Speaking in very general terms of the bill without divulging the specific details of it does not meet the threshold of a question of privilege. Any risk was further mitigated by the government sharing a draft bill with opposition parties four days prior to its introduction. This clearly satisfies our long-standing imperative that members of the House should always be the first ones to examine the legislation.

[Jacob Charbonneau, President and Chief Executive Officer, Late Flight Claim Canada Inc.]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I first want to thank the committee for inviting me to make a presentation.

Late Flight Claim is a business that helps airline passengers obtain—simply, quickly and without risk—financial compensation or a refund after a flight has been cancelled or is late.

Last time I had an opportunity to appear before a House of Commons committee was during the study on Bill C-49, aiming to implement a protection regime for airline passengers. We then critically assessed that bill's shortcomings. We raised the fact that a number of points benefited and protected airline companies more than consumers. The complexity of that piece of legislation and its regulations would open the door to a number of interpretations and encourage airline companies' refusal to provide compensation or a refund, although we had been promised a simple regime that would be ahead of various international programs.

The current crisis is unprecedented and has heavily impacted the aviation and tourism industry. It has highlighted the shortcomings of the current protection regime, the processes, the control measures and the organizations in charge of its proper operation.

The government and the Canada Transportation Agency have been slow in taking steps to protect consumers. Very early at the beginning of the crisis, the European Commission and the U.S. Department of Transportation stated that air carriers must reimburse consumers for unused flight portions. Not only was this not the case in Canada, but the CTA even encouraged consumers to settle for future travel credits and mentioned they should respect the fare rules in place.

In addition, while other countries were implementing clear directives forcing airlines to refund unused portions of tickets purchased, “the CTA quickly took [temporary] steps to address the significant impacts on the airline industry”. One of the things the agency did was apply a temporary exemption on the obligation to provide compensations or to provide new protection for passengers through other airlines.

The CTA additionally gave carriers a deadline extension to respond to passengers' compensation claims. Airline companies had until October 28, 2020, to respond to all compensation claims that had been backlogged since March 25, 2020, or that had been submitted between March 25 and September 29, 2020. That represents nearly a 700% extension of the deadlines.

The agency ordered that the processing of all requests for dispute resolution before the agency concerning airlines be suspended until June 30, 2020, including all requests received under the formal dispute settlement during the suspension period.

So the agency hurried up to implement measures to protect airline companies to the detriment of consumers. One has to wonder what the Canada Transportation Agency's role is and who benefits from it.

During his presentation, Mr. McNaney, from the National Airlines Council of Canada, mentioned that foreign companies that received support were starting to take parts of the market. However, Air Canada, which was in a good position in terms of cash flow at the beginning of the crisis and which has gained several billion dollars in cash flow since, in addition to the billions of dollars in non-refunded tickets, is probably better positioned than others to face this crisis, proportionally speaking.

Moreover, I am astounded when I see a company, on the one hand, asking for public assistance to survive and, on the other hand, offering a gold plated pension of several million dollars to its outgoing president.

And what if this was not just a matter of finances? Would it not be connected to the fact that clients are better protected and helped by different entities?

As you know, travellers expect a certain level of service, and I am not talking about a five-course meal served on board with nice plates. They just want to be able to talk to someone when they have a problem or to be reimbursed when services are not provided. Unfortunately, all too often, certain Canadian carriers have neglected their duty in both cases. The same goes for organizations in charge of regulating and protecting consumers. The situation was already noticeable well before this crisis began.

The longer we wait, the more consumers lose out, as do all other players in the value chain. This situation that has persisted puts undue pressure on service providers such as travel agencies and agents, insurance providers, as well as credit card companies. They should not have been paying for the lack of clear guidelines and airlines' inability to meet their commitment.

In closing, I would like to remind the committee of the fact that, before this crisis, when the airline industry was at its peak and had record sales and profits, a number of situations showed that short-term profit superseded services provided to consumers, who were all too often taken hostage through decisions related to business operations.

What will happen now, following cost and staff cuts, and with the two airlines about to be merged, which will result in less healthy market competition, which is already restricted in Canada, in addition to increasing a number of risk factors?

I have heard various stakeholders mention, at different meetings of this committee, to what extent the airline industry is Canada's economic backbone. Must we hit a wall to realize what consequences our decisions have, thereby jeopardizing an entire industry?

Thank you.

[David Montpetit, President and Chief Executive Officer, Western Canadian Shippers' Coalition]

Good morning, Madam Chair and honourable members of Parliament.

On behalf of Western Canadian Shippers’ Coalition, I would like to thank you for the invitation to participate in this session. My name is David Montpetit, and I am the president and CEO.

WCSC is a cross-commodity organization focused on the safe, efficient and competitive movement of goods while optimizing the transportation sector, which will ultimately benefit the Canadian economy. Our organization represents companies based in western Canada that collectively ship billions of dollars' worth of product annually to domestic and international customers and provide tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs across Canada, including in many small communities where they are key employers.

Let me start by thanking the government for its efforts to minimize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Canadians. This includes both bureaucratic and ministerial personnel at Natural Resources Canada and Transport Canada for being available and responsive to WCSC members through regular conference call meetings, and other MPs with the sitting government and the official opposition who have made themselves available to discuss our concerns. I also extend my appreciation to all shippers and supply chain partners for continuing to do their utmost to safely operate and deliver goods and services during this stressful, unpredictable period.

COVID-19 is only one of the challenges impacting Canada’s supply chain. There has been pressure on our national trade corridors for several years, which is why WCSC participated in the Canada Transportation Act review initiated by Transport Canada in 2014, provided recommendations in response to Bill C-49 and continues to represent members on follow-up initiatives related to the Transportation Modernization Act.

COVID-19 struck at a time when shippers were still recovering from recent disruptions to the supply chain, including: first, service issues resulting from the CN rail strike in November 2019 and the usual winter weather conditions; second, a slow order issued by Transport Canada in response to the February 6 train derailment in Saskatchewan; and, third, illegal blockades on rail lines across Canada that also began on February 6 and continued through March.

The impacts of the measures taken by industries and government in response to COVID-19 include scheduling issues, shipping delays and container shortages; increased transportation costs for trucking and vessels; labour capacity issues such as a workforce that is diminished or stretched to meet decreasing and increasing demand; a drop in imports and exports to Asia and Europe; and reduced demand for products, for example in the energy sector.

The rail blockades and the COVID-19 pandemic have not only demonstrated the importance of Canada's supply chain to average Canadians for basic necessities, they have also exposed its vulnerability.

As Canada emerges from the pressures of COVID-19, our key concern is the recovery plan, the ability of the supply chain to have adequate resources in place to ramp back up when businesses start to return to more normal operations. WCSC members will continue to collaborate with Transport Canada and NRCan regarding to this.

We have some recommendations, the first of which is that a comprehensive review is necessary to determine precisely what Canada’s major trade corridors will require in terms of maximizing the performance of our roads, rails and ports. This includes determining current and future capacity, first and last mile efficiencies, and bottlenecks in congested areas such as the Vancouver Lower Mainland and northern Alberta.

Second, we need a more robust data collection and analysis. The rail transportation system must become more transparent. In Bill C-49, government put in place transitional performance and service metrics reporting. Those metrics lack relevant context, in particular in relation to railway capacity. That has made the transitional provisions largely ineffective in promoting transparency and accountability.

Data that is aggregated and averaged over an entire country does not give a forest products mill in northern Alberta nor a mine in B.C. any actionable information. Shippers have taken a much more assertive role in developing their own internal, regional-specific railway performance metrics and require a benchmark from government to measure against.

We are extremely concerned about the damage to customer confidence in the reliability of Canada as a supplier of goods and resources resulting from the ongoing challenges in the supply chain. We will continue to work with government and other shipper organizations to seek solutions related to COVID-19, including, as I mentioned, the strategic recovery plan, a comprehensive supply chain review, and more robust data and metrics.

Thanks so much.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

That's a very big question. We could talk about that for quite a while. In some cases it does mean that certain shippers have access only to one railroad. That is one of the reasons I brought in Bill C-49; it was to provide the option of interswitching in a fair manner to shippers.

Teck Frontier Mine Project

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to participate in this timely emergency debate initiated by my colleague, the hon. member for Lakeland, on the cancellation of the Teck Frontier mine project, a project in northern Alberta, that if completed would have had the capacity to produce up to 260,000 barrels of bitumen a day, resulted in 2,500 construction jobs, 7,000 permanent jobs and $70 billion of new tax revenue. Not only that, it was a project that was supported by and would have been beneficial to the 14 affected indigenous and Métis communities. Here we are tonight, and all of that is gone. The project is cancelled. It is history and it is not coming back.

In the face of the cancellation of the project, what has been the Prime Minister's response? It was effectively to shrug off the cancellation and say it was merely a decision of Teck, nothing more and nothing less. The vast majority of my constituents and Albertans do not buy the Prime Minister's explanation. They know there is one person who bears considerable responsibility for the cancellation of Teck, and that is the Prime Minister.

Let us look at the facts. Teck went through all of the regulatory hurdles. The joint review panel gave it the green light all the way back in July of 2019. All that needed to be done was for the Prime Minister and his cabinet to give it the final approval. What did the Prime Minister and his cabinet do? They dithered and delayed month after month, undermining investor confidence. Then, more recently, they sent the signal that they were seriously contemplating killing the project altogether, a project that not only would have resulted in thousands of jobs but in billions of dollars of new tax revenue that would have gone some way to restoring investor confidence, which has been sorely lacking and undermined thanks to the policies of the Liberal government. They were contemplating killing a project that really sets the gold standard when it comes to clean emissions with respect to GHG intensity, which is roughly half that of the oil sands industry average, which was projected to be carbon neutral by 2050. It is indeed a project that the joint review panel noted might actually help reduce overall GHGs, not increase GHGs, having regard for alternate sources. For the Prime Minister, in the face of this devastating news for my province of Alberta, to simply shrug his shoulders and say that it was a decision of Teck truly requires a suspension of disbelief.

Make no mistake about it, the decision of Teck was not made in a vacuum; it was made within the context of regulatory uncertainty that arises from misguided policies on the part of the government that is literally killing Canada's energy sector. From the tanker ban off the northwest coast of British Columbia to changing the rules with respect to upstream and downstream emissions midway through the approval of energy east, ramming through Bill C-48 and Bill C-49 at the end of the last Parliament, and I could go on, the message collectively that the current government has sent is that Canada is not open for business, that Canada is not open to investment in the energy sector. The consequences have been devastating.

We have seen $200 billion in projects cancelled since the government came to office. We have seen the rig count cut in half, down 50%. Capital investment is fleeing. Indeed, capital investment is down more than 50%. There are 120,000 people out of work in the energy sector since the current government came to office.

We have seen, in terms of equity raised in 2018, a mere $650 million. Let us compare and contrast that to the United States. In 2018, equity and debt raised amounted to $19.4 billion. That is $19.4 billion in the United States and $650 million in Canada. In the United States, which is open to business and to investment in the energy industry, investment has skyrocketed, production has reached record levels, and for the first time in U.S. history, the United States is energy independent. So much for the sorry excuses across the way.

I heard one member say, “Industries could just move ahead with projects, but they are choosing not to.” It is not that they are choosing not to move ahead with projects; it is just that they are choosing to go elsewhere, to the United States and to other jurisdictions around the world that are saying they are open for business while the current government shuts down Canada's most vital sector of the economy. The number of companies that have divested from Canada in the energy sector, and are divesting from Canada as we speak, is too long to list.

In the face of that, what does the Prime Minister not get? How much is it going to take? How many more projects are going to be cancelled? How much more investment is going to flee this country? How many more people have to be laid off? How many more people have to give up hope because they have been unemployed for the last several years?

Let us talk about the social impact it has on families. They are devastated. The food bank in my constituency, each and every year that this Prime Minister has been in office, has reached a new record level, year after year, thanks to this Prime Minister. It is time that this Prime Minister woke up. It is time that he put Canada first, and as a starting point to do that, he ought to immediately reverse his failed and destructive policies.

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to share my time with the member for North Okanagan—Shuswap.

Though I rose briefly during Routine Proceedings last Friday, this is my first speech in the 43rd Parliament and I would like to take this occasion to give some additional words of thanks. As a temporary custodian of this seat in Parliament, I am deeply honoured to have the enormous responsibility of representing some 140,000 residents as part of a centuries-old tradition of protecting citizens by checking the otherwise unlimited power of the Crown. Parliaments exist in order to ensure that the Crown and its agent, the government, cannot impose itself on citizens without their consent. That consent is granted through votes in this incredible institution.

Once again, I thank the voters of Calgary Rocky Ridge for electing me to be their servant in the House. I also wish to thank the 270-odd volunteers who assisted my election campaign. I thank them for their support, for their commitment to their community and for their love of their country. I could not have done it without them. I would like to thank the other candidates who contested the election in Calgary Rocky Ridge for giving the voters choice, without which there is no democracy.

Finally, I wish to thank my family. My three daughters, it seems I began the last Parliament with three young girls who are now three young women. My loving wife, Kimberley, I thank for her love, her understanding, her patience, her unwavering support and for always keeping it real in the Kelly house. To my parents, Marnie and Duane Kelly, I thank them for their constant love and encouragement.

Today we are debating last Thursday's Speech from the Throne. My response to the Speech from the Throne is coloured by the recent experience of having knocked on a little under 30,000 doors with my re-election team. What I heard on the doorsteps is what informs my remarks and my impressions of the Speech from the Throne.

To be blunt, the government has virtually no support in my riding. That is simply a fact and it is supported by the election results. I knocked on doors in the communities of Calgary Rocky Ridge in every provincial and federal election over the last 30 years as an activist and in 2015 and 2019 as a candidate, and I have never experienced anything quite like it.

It was never easier. People have never been more forthright in coming forward and identifying themselves as Conservative supporters. However, at the same time, I have never had more difficult conversations on doorsteps than I did in this election with people who suggested that they intended to support me, my party and my leader.

For most candidates in most elections, conversations with our own supporters are the easy ones, but not in 2019 in Calgary Rocky Ridge. Some of the conversations I had with supporters were downright heartbreaking. I spoke with people who had not worked in years. I heard from people who told me that they were on the verge of losing their homes. I talked with people whose spouses were working in Texas and coming home for a couple of weekends a month or were working in the Middle East or other parts of the world and only coming home a few times over the course of a year.

I talked with a man who has lived in his neighbourhood for 20 years and he said that since 2015, seven previously stable families on his block had come apart in divorce. Economic stress and anxiety from unemployment and failing businesses have taken their toll on families, tearing apart the very fabric of our communities.

I spoke with people who openly and candidly expressed their despair, anger and incredulity over what they see as a failure of their country to respect their province. For decades, Alberta has welcomed Canadians from across Canada and indeed people from around the world to be a part of Alberta's economic opportunities. It has transferred much of that wealth back to other provinces and continues to do so despite a recession that has been going on for five years.

My constituents are demanding action. They cannot wait. They made it abundantly clear to me that regardless of which party was to form a government after the election, they would expect me to speak clearly and without ambiguity about just how devastating these past four years have been.

They expect me to be candid about just how upset they are with their federal government. They told me that they wanted the no-more-pipelines bill reversed. They told me they were stunned that a tanker ban on Alberta exports was brought in while tankers continued to bring in oil to eastern refineries from Saudi Arabia.

They told me that they could not understand why a government was running such large deficits at a time of economic expansion. They told me that they were appalled by the constant parade of ministers to the Ethics Commissioner, by a Prime Minister prepared to bully his own cabinet and break the law just to get his own way, and by the way the Prime Minister's personal conduct never matches his moral preening.

They told me, at door after door, that the Prime Minister is a constant source of embarrassment on the world stage, and that they do not believe that he is up to the diplomatic challenges of our times, because they believe that he is fundamentally an unserious person.

With the campaign behind us, with the country's divisions laid bare in a minority Parliament, last week the Prime Minister had an opportunity to acknowledge the failings of the last Parliament, which cost him seats and votes in every region of the country.

He had an opportunity to chart a new course to address the concerns of Canadians who rejected his government's track record. Instead, he delivered a speech full of the same flowery language and grand aspirations that we heard throughout the last Parliament with only a few inadequate words for my constituents in a partial sentence, kind of as an afterthought, where he claimed that the government would “also work just as hard to get Canadian resources to new markets and offer unwavering support to the hard-working men and women in Canada's natural resources sectors, many of whom have faced tough times recently”.

Really? “Unwavering support” and “have faced tough times recently”, is that it? Since 2015, hundreds of thousands of energy workers have lost their jobs. Over 100,000 of them are out of work in Alberta right now. There is $100 billion in energy investment that has left Canada since the Liberal government took office.

Encana, which was once Canada's largest company, and TransCanada PipeLines are changing their names to remove “Canada” from their business names and relocating to the United States because that is where the work is. However, all the Prime Minister had to say in his Speech from the Throne was “unwavering support” and “tough times recently”?

The Prime Minister has been unwavering in his stated desire to phase out the natural resources sector, and he is succeeding. One incredibly insulting sentence that contained a flagrant untruth was all the Prime Minister had to say about this in his entire speech.

If the Prime Minister meant what he said about getting Canadian resources to market, it would require him to undo much of the work of the last Parliament. It would require him to repeal Bill C-69 or implement every single one of the Senate amendments that were rejected last spring.

It would require him to repeal Bill C-48. It would require him to champion Canada as a reliable source of ethically extracted resources and to disown his own prior anti-Canadian-energy rhetoric. It would require him to actually take concrete steps to ensure Trans Mountain could be completed. It would require him to apologize for chasing its private sector proponent out of Canada and for having to send $4.5 billion to Texas so they could compete with us by building pipelines elsewhere.

The Liberals think they deserve some kind of credit for buying a pipeline that should never have been for sale in the first place. I can assure them that not one single person I met in my riding, where pipelines are a huge issue, thought that buying it was anything other than a last-ditch solution to a problem 100% of the Liberals' own making.

To sum up, the throne speech contains nothing for my constituents. I received a strong mandate from the people of Calgary Rocky Ridge, and I expect them to hold me to a high standard. My constituents expect nothing less.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

One of our objectives is to reduce costs for passengers. Of course, costs must be incurred for security measures. Users pay for their security, that is to say those who buy airline tickets, but we do not want the cost to be higher than needed.

For airports that are not served by a system such as CATSA, as mentioned in Bill C-49, the modernization of the Canada Transportation Act, airports have access to this system, but at their own expense. It is possible that, in the future, we will review the designated airports, but we don't expect that by June.

[Luc Berthold, Mégantic—L'Érable, CPC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

First, I want to thank the members of the committee very much for being here. Indeed, the canola issue does not affect only the west, it affects all of Canada as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for mentioning that fact.

I also want to thank the members of the committee for having given me some time today as opposition critic for agriculture and agri-food.

This matter is extremely important. As my colleague Mr. Maguire mentioned a few minutes ago, the Barton Report indicates that Canadian exports are expected to increase to $85 billion by 2025. It is clear that stakeholders in the agricultural sector and international trade will have to work hand in hand in the future.

Unfortunately, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food who has been in the position for three years has not taken part in the discussions on international trade. I wanted to mention that, because it is important for agricultural representatives, farmers and Canadian producers to know that the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food is an active participant in important activities like international negotiations. When the previous government was in power, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food took part in these international negotiations. Unfortunately, since 2015, no place is being set for this minister at the negotiation tables.

I wanted to mention that fact to the committee because it is important. I strongly encourage you to ask the government to see to it that the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food take an active part in the various international negotiations, especially when agriculture is being discussed.

As you mentioned, Mr. Chair, canola is an important part of Canada's agricultural exports. Forty per cent of Canada's canola exports are sent to China. In 2017, this amounted to about $3.6 billion. This is a major crisis, and that is why the members on this side of the table requested emergency meetings. We also asked the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food to hold a meeting on this subject, but unfortunately, for all kinds of reasons, our NDP colleague could not approve such an emergency meeting.

I commend the decision of the Standing Committee on International Trade to hold this meeting, because it is very important to show Canadian canola producers as well as all other Canadian agricultural producers that their government, their Parliament and their MPs are concerned and are focusing on what is happening to relations between Canada and China.

What is at stake is maintaining the trust of buyers and of producers who export their products, as well as the agreements that were established. Unfortunately, doors are closing. Companies have stopped buying and producers are stuck with their products. We absolutely have to head off this situation, all the more so since there are already issues with grain transport to the west despite the adoption of Bill C-49. We thought that this project would miraculously solve everything and allow the export of Canadian products. We thought it was a panacea and that everything would be settled as if by magic. This year we can already see that that is not the case. We are going to have to be even more vigilant in the future.

The trust of producers and buyers is at stake. Buyers have to know that Canadian producers can provide the merchandise. Without going into all of the details of the context and of China's claims, it's important to know the political response of the Canadian government to this situation.

That is why I unreservedly support the motion that this committee to simultaneously invite the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Minister of International Trade Diversification , and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. This is a political crisis, and we have to obtain answers from the people who are politically responsible for the current situation.

More than half of the agri-food products grown in Canada are exported, which makes agriculture highly dependent on exports and international markets. We can't simply observe this crisis and expect it to magically resolve itself.

I strongly urge the members of the committee to hold this meeting with the three ministers as soon as possible. This crisis urgently needs to be resolved. We cannot wait for other productions to be threatened or for the advent of new obstacles to the Chinese market. We must react as quickly as possible.

I know that the budget will be tabled this week, but I think that nothing prevents the members of the committee from showing good faith. We can hold a meeting with the ministers as early as this week, at any time of the day or night. We are here today on a Sunday, which proves that we are willing to travel at any time. We are ready to receive the ministers and you will have the full support of the opposition if you decide to hold this meeting this week at any time of the day. We are available.

The members of the committee are ready to hold this meeting to shed light on this topic and obtain answers to the questions of Canadian canola producers with regard to the current crisis.