Finance Committee on Nov. 26th, 2014

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I thank Ms. May for this.

It's trying to make a bad situation a little bit better. If the government's understanding is that they only seek to restrict or deny so-called bogus or denied claims, then certainly they can vote for something like this because the intent is very clear.

Further to the previous amendment, Mr. Caron had a very sage point, which is that we also heard testimony that these will likely face constitutional challenges, which are extraordinarily expensive for both the litigants and the government to defend.

We've seen this movie before, with the government moving legislation and amendments to legislation that then gets challenged all the way up to the Supreme Court. The government has a terrible track record in their defence of their legislation on constitutional grounds.

For both the humanitarian and, I would argue, taxpayers' rights on this, why seek to spend so much money denying basic human rights, which is contained within the provision of social assistance to those who are still in the refugee claimant process?

That's who these people are. We can't call them something else when they're not, especially when we have an amendment that is trying to make something a little bit better.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, thank you.

I will then go to the vote on amendment PV-6.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 173 agreed to: yeas 5; nays 4)

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I want to thank our officials for being with us here for this division.

Colleagues, just very briefly, I don't have any amendments for clauses 174 to 185. Can I apply one vote to them?

(Clauses 174 to 185 inclusive agreed to)

Do clauses 186 to 401 all carry?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

All right, we have amendments in the next division, the Investment Canada Act, so we will return to that when the committee resumes after votes.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I call this meeting back to order, meeting number 62 of the Standing Committee on Finance, dealing with clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-43.

(On clause 186)

Colleagues, we are at division 9, the Investment Canada Act, and we have clause 186 in front of us. There are no amendments to clause 186, so we'll go to the discussion of clause 186.

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Very briefly, we've had concerns about the Investment Canada Act in terms of its lack of transparency over some important decisions. Some of them make the news from time to time—Nexen, PotashCorp, and whatnot, takeovers—in terms of how the government makes its decisions. We still don't have a net benefit definition, which would sure help investors. Canadian companies understand what the rules of the game are, but we see this as a small but important move toward greater disclosure and accountability in terms of the security review so we'll be voting for this particular portion of the bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, thank you.

We'll then go to the vote on clause 186. Shall clause 186 carry?

(Clause 186 agreed to)

(On clause 187)

We have two amendments on clause 187, amendment PV-7 and amendment Liberal-2.

We'll go to Ms. May for amendment PV or Green Party-7, please.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm generally in agreement with the point that Nathan Cullen has made about improvements to the Investment Canada Act, although there's a lot more to be desired in clarifying our approach to investments.

In this case, my amendment is inspired by testimony the committee received from the Canadian Bar Association that what we see here, in terms of disclosures, could potentially be a disincentive for foreign investment. In other words, the Canadian Bar Association made the point that it is possible to make these additional disclosures about the extent to which national security reviews are occurring, as well as outcomes of these reviews, without giving rise to security concerns and making sure the disclosure does not prejudice parties who are dealing with potentially confidential or commercially sensitive information.

That's the purpose, as brief as I can be, Mr. Chair, because this is a slightly longer amendment than the ones I presented earlier this afternoon and evening, but the intention here is to deliver on the good advice received from the Canadian Bar Association to ensure that the wording of the disclosure provisions reassures foreign investors and Canadian businesses that commercially sensitive information will remain confidential.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Ms. May.

We'll go then to the vote on amendment PV-7.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Now to amendment Liberal-2, and we'll go to Mr. Hsu, please.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This amendment to clause 187 requires the minister to publish aggregate data about the national security review process. Again, this is a recommendation by the Canadian Bar Association.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for that.

Do you have further discussion on this, Mr. Adler?

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

We need to be clear that what this amendment does would require the government to publish a report on national security reviews under the Investment Canada Act. National security, as we all know, is a very sensitive matter, and it's important that the government has discretion concerning what is disclosed. For this reason, information on national security reviews was not included as part of the requirement to publish an annual report on the administration of the act, which came into force in 2009. No amendments have been proposed in Bill C-43 to the provisions of the act related to the annual report. The amendments in Bill C-43, however, would provide the government with discretion to disclose more information about individual national security reviews.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Adler.

Again, we'll go to the vote on amendment Liberal-2. All those in favour of amendment Liberal-2?

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 187 agreed to)

I have no amendments for 188 to 190. Can I group these together?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

There are a couple of comments we wanted to make a little further on here on clause 191. I'm not sure how you want to handle it.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I'm going to deal with the clauses up to 190 for now on division 9.

Shall clauses 188 to 190 carry?

(Clauses 188 to 190 inclusive agreed to)

I want to thank our officials for that division for being here.

(On clauses 191 and 192)

We have division 10, the Broadcasting Act, clauses 191 and 192.

I'll go to Mr. Rankin for comment on that.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

It is a comment to thank the Conservatives for finally listening to the NDP on this matter. I'm grateful that you finally stepped up and did the right thing, but in typical Conservative fashion you only went part way. You went after the telecoms and the broadcasters, but we kept on talking about the banks.

We noticed a deafening silence with respect to that lobby. Pay-to-pay fees, we've said over and over again, unfairly target seniors. This bill would make it an offence to charge a subscriber to receive a paper bill. We thank the government for listening to us and finally doing the right thing in this area.

We'll be voting yes to these amendments.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. I know they appreciate that appreciation. We will go to the vote.

(Clauses 191 and 192 agreed to)

Thank you.

We'll go to division 11, the Telecommunications Act, clauses 193 to 210.

Colleagues, I do not have amendments for this division. Can I group these clauses together?

Mr. Rankin, do you want to deal with all of them or do you want to deal with one in particular?

(On clauses 193 to 210)

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

The only comments I'd make, that I've already made, were with respect to broadcasters. This is about telecoms. It's the same pay-to-pay fees we've talked about and we think the government has finally listened, at least insofar as telecoms are concerned.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Mr. Cullen, on the same point.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Yes. I wanted to refresh committee members' memories with respect to the monetary penalties. If the officials could give us the range of penalties, are they at an accelerating rate if a telecom continues to charge consumers for the bill that they're paying for? I know there's an initial fine. I'd like to hear the range and if that range accelerates over time if they continue to flout the law.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. We welcome our officials. Ms. Miller, do you want to address this?

[Pamela Miller, Director General, Telecommunications Policy Branch, Department of Industry]

Yes. Thank you very much.

The range is up to $10 million on the first offence and up to $15 million for a subsequent offence.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Just to be clear, to be able to hit a $10 million offence, which is high, what is the breadth of the non-compliance a company would have to do? It's not the issuance of just one pay-to-pay bill. Is there a warning process before that $10 million, and then the subsequent $15 million, are triggered?

[Pamela Miller]

Yes, there could be a warning process. There would be a due process put in place by the CRTC that would go through the administrative law process in order to determine the nature of the offence. There would be a possibility for negotiation beforehand, if necessary.