Transport Committee on Nov. 29th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 92 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, September 26, 2023, the committee is meeting to resume clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-33, an act to amend the Customs Act, the Railway Safety Act, the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992, the Marine Transportation Security Act, the Canada Transportation Act and the Canada Marine Act and to make a consequential amendment to another act.

Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using, as always, the Zoom application.

Colleagues, to help us once again this evening with the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-33, I would now like to welcome our witnesses, who include, from the Department of Transport, Ms. Sonya Read—welcome back—director general, marine policy; Heather Moriarty, director, ports policy—welcome again; Rachel Heft, manager and senior counsel, transport and infrastructure legal services; and, of course, Ms. Amy Kaufman, counsel.

Welcome, all of you.

I'd also like to welcome back our legislative clerks, Jean-Francois Pagé and Philippe Méla.

Oh, pardon me.

He isn't here?

Unfortunately, colleagues, we have only half the capacity of our legislative clerk department, but we have Mr. Méla joining us, and he has 23 years of experience, so we're in good hands.

(On clause 108)

Colleagues, where we left off at our last meeting was, I believe, at BQ-4.1.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Clerk.

We had a subamendment that was proposed by Mr. Badawey, which I believe was submitted to all members.

For that, Mr. Badawey, I'll turn it back over to you to get things started.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You are correct. I did submit a subamendment. I just want to give some reasons.

I'm sure all members recognize that port authorities operate under letters patent that govern a lot of their allowable activities. If you look to this section in the Canada Marine Act, you'll see that paragraphs 28(2)(a) and 28(2)(b) both reference the letters patent.

Mr. Chairman, if we're proposing to create a new class of allowable port activities, like joint ventures, I think they should also be specified within the letters patent for the port authorities, as are all other activities. This would help us to be consistent and to make sure there's appropriate oversight over these entities.

I know that the member's previous related amendments all made reference to the letters patent, so I'd like to propose a subamendment here that inserts that specific language, just to be consistent. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, after adding “(1.1) Section 28 of the Act is amended by adding the following after subsection (2)”, the key part is the first part:

(2.1) To the extent authorized in each participating port authority's letters patent,

It goes on:

two or more port authorities may jointly, through a corporation, partnership, joint venture, association or other entity whose shares or other ownership interests are all held by port authorities, engage in the activities referred to in subsection (2).

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Badawey.

I want to confirm that all members did indeed receive it.

Mr. Savard‑Tremblay, I believe you've received the amendment.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I didn't have it, but my colleague very kindly passed it on to me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Great. Thank you very much.

I see, Mr. Strahl, that you have your hand up.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would ask the witnesses about this.

I don't how many of the letters patent you're familiar with or have access to. I guess my question would be, does the subamendment proposed by Mr. Badawey render the rest...? Are there any letters patent that would authorize this in any way? Are there prohibitions?

I understand what Mr. Badawey is doing. I even think that it's probably a good idea, but does that clause negate the second part of the clause? Do any of the letters patent allow for this type of collaboration that Mr. Barsalou-Duval envisioned with his amendment, or do letters patent specifically forbid it?

I'm trying to get just an idea of what the letters patent say. Does it allow for collaboration in any of them?

[Amy Kaufman, Counsel, Department of Transport]

Currently, the letters patent of all the port authorities have a prohibition against engaging in certain kinds of collaboration for their 28(2)(a) activities. That's for their shipping and navigation activities. They don't speak to it for activities deemed in support of port operations.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

The letters patent would forbid some of what Mr. Barsalou-Duval had perhaps envisioned but allow some of the other activities that are in the second part of the amended amendment, if you follow me.

Ms. Read.

[Sonya Read, Director General, Marine Policy, Department of Transport]

Going back to the other amendment that was made, which would ask that the government specify in the letters patent the types of collaborations that can be undertaken by these entities, effectively I think the two pieces will work together.

There are a number of amendments in Bill C-33—existing and potentially as amended—that would require us to go through the process of revisiting the letters patent to update them to give effect to that. That would ostensibly be one of the things we would be consulting on, or we would engage with ports, I guess, on that collaboration in the context of those discussions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Strahl.

Are there any questions or comments on Mr. Badawey's subamendment?

Seeing none, we'll go to a vote.

(Subamendment agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

The subamendment carried. We'll now go back to discussion on BQ-4.1.

Are there any questions or comments?

Seeing none, we'll go to a vote on BQ-4.1 as amended.

(Amendment as amended agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

(Clause 108 as amended agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 109 agreed to on division)

(On clause 110)

We will now go to CPC-7.

Mr. Strahl.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, it's trying to address the issues we heard from port authorities regarding their different capacities. I know there are some port authorities that have, for instance, only one first nation in their entire region, so setting up a separate advisory committee for that one first nation would seem not to be the best way to proceed.

This amendment attempts to give port authorities the instruction to establish at least one advisory committee, and it includes “users, port workers and representatives of Indigenous peoples and the community in which the port is located.” That's our attempt to find a way to allow for a different approach or a different set of advisory committees. The onerous nature of the advisory committees won't be applied to each and every port authority in the same fashion.

That's the spirit in which the amendment is put forward. I know there are some other options we can discuss as well, through other parties' amendments, but that was our attempt to be more flexible for the port authorities in question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Strahl.

I would just note, as we dive into discussion on this, that if amendment CPC-7 is adopted, new NDP-12 cannot be moved, due to a line conflict.

I'll turn it over to you, Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I think this amendment is quite similar to the new version of NDP-12, with a couple of exceptions. One difference is that the Conservative version includes port users. The other difference is that new NDP-12 also includes, by adding after line 23 on page 71, the following:

(1.1) The members of each advisory committee shall elect a chairperson from among their number.

That had to do more with the governance of the advisory committee. The essential piece here is going from the original concept of having three committees per port authority, which, as we heard in feedback, may have been too many committees to manage, to having a single committee with members representing different facets of the community.

Our version talks about including “representatives from the local community, local government and local Indigenous communities”. That reflects the original spirit of the three-committee structure that was proposed by the government in writing the bill. I do think, because labour groups and port users are now reflected in the makeup of the board of the port authority, that keeping the community advisory committees to these other groups makes more sense. Through the two we should get a pretty rounded representation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bachrach.

Mr. Strahl, go ahead.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

I would tend to agree with Mr. Bachrach. I'd be interested in hearing him parse out the “elect a chairperson” portion of that. I think our attempt to include port workers and port users was before the amendments had been made to the board selection process in earlier amendments.

After hearing that explanation about the chair part, I would be prepared to withdraw and defer to new NDP-12. I think that where there was a previous attempt to include groups, that has been captured now by the new advisory process for board appointments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Strahl.

Do I have unanimous consent for Mr. Strahl to withdraw?

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Before I do that, I would like to get his explanation of (1.1) in new NDP-12, which talks about electing a chairperson.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I think this follows somewhat in parallel the rationale that the committee followed in not allowing the minister to appoint the chair of the board of the port authority. It assigns that role to the committee members.

For these advisory committees to be effective in representing the community, they need to have a certain amount of independence. Electing their own chair, perhaps, can be an aspect of that.

I've seen advisory committees, not necessarily in the port environment, that are managed very carefully by the entity they're advising. They can almost become a bit of a PR exercise. What we want here is a really honest—

[Angelo Iacono, Alfred—Pellan, Lib.]

I have a cheque, so you'll give me your cheque. Oh, I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Mr. Iacono, you're not on mute, sir.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

You can make the cheque out to me—it's spelled t-a-y-l-o-r—and just leave the amount blank. That's good.

Anyway, I think he knows where I was going.

It's just to give the community advisory committees a bit of independence so they can provide really frank advice to the port authority. The port authority is under no obligation to take that advice, but I think the community deserves to have that voice. Electing their own chair is part of the independence that would allow them to provide honest feedback.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bachrach.

Do I have unanimous consent to withdraw amendment CPC-7?

(Amendment withdrawn)

We will now go to new NDP-12. For that I'll turn it over to you, Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I don't think I need to talk any more, as much as you want me to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Are there any other questions or comments on new NDP-12?

Seeing none, we will go to a vote.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 11; nays: 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Shall new NDP-13 carry?

Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Yes, it shall carry.