Debates of Oct. 26th, 1995

Government Response To Petitions

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the government's response to 14 petitions.

Committees Of The House

[Charles Caccia, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development has the honour to present its sixth report, pursuant to the order of reference made Monday, October 2, 1995.

Your committee reviewed Bill C-94, an act to regulate interprovincial trade in and the importation for commercial purposes of certain manganese-based substances, and agreed to report it without amendment. A copy of the minutes on this bill is being tabled.

[David Walker, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the 20th report of the Standing Committee on Finance. In accordance with its order of reference of Monday, September 25, 1995, your committee has considered Bill C-103, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Income Tax Act, and has agreed to report it with one amendment.

Petitions

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I take tremendous pride in representing my community, and the petition I am presenting is one of the reasons. It was organized by Mr. Jakeet Singh, a student at Waterloo collegiate. A year ago a couple of students at WCI decided that with the referendum approaching the youth of Canada would reach out to do their part in having our country remain united.

There are 4,000 signatures on this petition, which reads: "We, the citizens of Canada, want to see this country remain united from coast to coast, with Quebec as an integral part of our nation".

"We, the citizens of Canada, want to see this country remain united from coast to coast, with Quebec as an integral part of our nation".

I am very pleased to present this petition to the House. It is in addition to the many other things done in my community in expressing its love for a united Canada.

[Bill Gilmour, Reform, Comox—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am pleased to present the following petition which comes from all across Canada and contains 1,183 signatures, making a total of over 6,200 signatures to date.

The petitioners request that in memory of Dawn Shaw, a six-year old girl who was murdered in my riding of Comox-Alberni, this petition be brought to the attention of Parliament.

The petitioners request that Parliament enact legislation to change the justice system to provide greater protection for children from sexual assault and to ensure the conviction of offenders.

I fully concur with the petitioners and endorse this petition.

[The Speaker]

With all respect, we need not endorse nor be against a petition, but simply present the petition.

[George Proud, Liberal, Hillsborough, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of submitting a petition signed by senior citizens of my home province concerning the payment of fees to enter Prince Edward Island's national parks. These petitioners feel they have contributed their share to the economy over the years and enter the parks for sightseeing only and do not use any of the other services offered by the parks.

Accordingly, the petitioners request Parliament to review the policy of charging senior citizens entrance fees to Canada's national parks.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I wish to present a petition circulating all across Canada. It has been signed by a number of Canadians from Uxbridge, Ontario.

The petitioners draw to the attention of the House that managing the family home and caring for preschool children is an honourable profession that has not been recognized for its value to our society. They also state the Income Tax Act discriminates against families that make the choice to provide care in the home to preschool children, the disabled, the chronically ill or the aged.

The petitioners therefore pray and call on Parliament to pursue initiatives to eliminate tax discrimination against families that decide to provide care in the home for preschool children, the disabled, the chronically ill or the aged.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today, I am tabling a petition signed by 10,000 people in my riding, which denounces the cuts in the Martin budget, particularly their impact on our riding's employment centre, whose staff will be reduced from 50 to 15 and which will become a local employment centre.

All those who signed the petition denounce the impact this will have on the regional economy. I am pleased to table this petition today.

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition signed by more than 200 people calling on Parliament to recognize that Canada recognizes two official languages but that our flag does not reflect this duality. Being only red and white it does not reflect the blue that has traditionally represented the French speaking population.

The petitioners are asking Parliament to legislate in order to get discussions underway on the renewal of our national emblem to include blue bands within the red borders to symbolize Canada's distinct francophone society and promote unity and harmony within the country. This addition would enhance the beauty of our flag.

The petition is the initiative of Hank Gigandet, who believes we should renew our Canadian flag.

[Bob Kilger, Liberal, Stormont—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have the privilege of presenting a petition on behalf of a number of my constituents from Stormont-Dundas and over 15,000 Canadians from coast to coast who signed a unity scroll that originated with Mr. Norm Lalonde of Cornwall and several volunteers who have contributed many hours of their time to ask Canadians to sign this unity scroll.

These petitioners draw to the attention of the House their belief that all Canadians want the same from life in Canada and that Canadians want the opportunity to prosper, to grow and to preserve the rich heritage and cultures that built our great nation regardless of where we live in this vast country.

To begin this process they invite Canadians, particularly those who reside in Quebec, to stay within the Canadian family and join all Canadians in taking Canada to a united, stronger and greater future.

Therefore the petitioners call on Parliament to unite and continue to build this great country.

[John Richardson, Liberal, Perth—Wellington—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on behalf of petitioners in my riding concerning the government's restructuring of the railroads.

The petition states that rail service is the fastest and most environmentally responsible means of travel and that the subsidies to VIA Rail are not disproportionate to the huge subsidies provided for highway infrastructure.

On behalf of my constituents I present this petition to maintain passenger rail service in Canada.

Questions On The Order Paper

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-61, an act to establish a system of administrative monetary penalties for the enforcement of the Canada Agricultural Products Act, the Feeds Act, the Fertilizers Act, the Health of Animals Act, the Meat Inspection Act, the Pest Control Products Act, the Plant Protection Act and the Seeds Act, as reported (with amendments) from the committee.

Agriculture And Agri-Food Administrative Monetary Penalties Act

[The Speaker]

There are 23 motions in amendment standing on the Order Paper for the report stage of Bill C-61.

The motions will be grouped for debate as follows:

Group No. 1, Motion No. 1.

Group No. 2, Motions Nos. 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17.

Group No. 3, Motions Nos. 3, 4, 5, 18 and 19.

Group No. 4, Motions Nos. 20 and 23.

Group No. 5, Motions Nos. 21 and 22.

I wish to inform the House that there is an error in the text of Motion No. 1 in the name of the member for Kindersley-Lloydminister. The motion should read:

That Bill C-61, in clause 4, be amended by adding after line 23, on page 2, the following:

"(b) prescribing criteria for determining whether an act or omission shall be proceeded with as a violation or as an offence".

[Elwin Hermanson, Reform, Kindersley—Lloydminster, SK]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-61, in clause 4, be amended by adding after line 23, on page 2, the following:

"(b) prescribing criteria for determining whether an act or omission shall be proceeded with as a violation or as an offence".

Mr. Speaker, we are at report stage of Bill C-61, a bill that allows the Department of Agriculture, under the jurisdiction of the minister of agriculture, to impose administrative monetary penalties for a violation to the various acts that were just read in the House and to seek compliance agreements to ensure the violations do not continue in the future.

My party and I support the concept of administrative monetary penalties. We also support the concept of compliance agreements. The House will see in the amendments we have proposed today that none of them would disallow the use of administrative monetary penalties to implement or to penalize violations of acts, particularly those that would affect regulations dealing with agriculture, health, safety and the like. Nor do any of the amendments we propose, including the one we are dealing with right now, preclude the minister reaching a compliance agreement with an offender or with a violator of any of the offences in the acts we are dealing with today.

Our amendments attempt to qualify and quantify the powers of the minister, the powers of the tribunal to which violators can appeal, and to clarify certain parts of the acts and the rights and the responsibilities of both the violator and the minister in enforcing and administering the monetary penalties and forming compliance agreements.

Motion No. 1 is incorrectly printed in the Notice Paper. It says that the minister shall prescribe "criteria for determining whether an act or omission shall be proceeded with as a violation or as an offence". The amendment requires the minister to have regulations determining the differences between a violation which the AMPs address and an offence which the court system addresses. We feel this clarification would respond to some concerns in the industry about the matter.

The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food was given information by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food that a number of institutions and associations impacted by the legislation support Bill C-61. The parliamentary secretary to the minister of agriculture circulated a list in the committee of several organizations such as the Canadian Horticultural Council, the Canadian Meat Council, the Canadian Animal Health Institute, the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, the Canadian Nursery Trades Association, the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency, the Canadian Seed Growers Association, the Council of Forestry Industries of British Columbia, the Canadian Fertilizer Institute, the National Dairy Council of Canada and the Holstein Association of Canada.

The parliamentary secretary indicated to the committee that all these associations and organizations supported Bill C-61. The list that he circulated in the committee was titled "Organizations which support Bill C-61". He said that he would supply letters of support for the bill to members of the committee. We sought those letters of support, and when we received them only one of the

letters was dated after the introduction of Bill C-61. In other words all the letters the parliamentary secretary suggested indicated support for Bill C-61 were written in 1992 and 1993, which is before the current government was elected and before Bill C-61 was in the drafting stage, let alone introduced into the House of Commons.

We took note of what the individuals who wrote those letters said and found that while they supported the concepts of AMPS and compliance agreements, they wanted to review the legislation once drafted and to comment on it.

To my knowledge the minister of agriculture and his officials have not yet supplied us with any letters, other than one letter from the Canadian Meat Council, that actually support Bill C-61. I bring that forward as a concern and as a rationale for some of the amendments we are proposing.

Motion No. 1 would require the minister to have regulations determining the differences between a violation which the AMPS address and an offence which the court system addresses. This must happen in any case. The amendment ensures that the minister is required to do it. The criteria must be more open and more well known in the industry and if the criteria are wrong we will know in advance, before the regulations are administered, whether or not they will be done in a fair and reasonable manner.

Departmental officials say that they are doing a great job of it right now, that they are very fair minded, very reasonable in the way they administer penalties on violations and deal with offences under the acts. That may very well be; I am not here to challenge whether or not they are doing a good job. However over time, situations change. A few years ago we had a Mulroney government that was very arrogant. We may have a Liberal government that becomes more arrogant or we may have some new arrangement in the Parliament of Canada in the years ahead where ministers and departments overstep their bounds.

The amendment is not criticizing the current administration. It is not a criticism of the Department of Agriculture. It is not a criticism of the minister's officials. It is ensuring that in the future the criteria will be very public, that no one could be biased in their determination of whether a violation would follow the AMPS and compliance route or go the court route, perhaps based on someone's politics, on which part of the country they live in or on some other unreasonable criteria unacceptable to Canadians.

The minister must set out a criterion to determine the differences. This minor amendment would ensure that happens. It would ensure the AMPS and the compliance agreements would have a reason for introduction. If the department decided not to go the AMPS route or the compliance agreement route and decided to take the matter to the courts, to the justice system, we would know the criteria on which the decision was made. It is a more open, transparent way of performing one's responsibilities.

I urge the House to accept the amendment. It certainly is not partisan by nature; it certainly is not unreasonable. Therefore I ask for the support of all members.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity in the House today to deal with Bill C-61 and the various possible motions in amendment that have been put on the Order Paper with respect to Bill C-61.

In beginning the discussion on Motion No. 1, I start by making reference to a matter the member for Kindersley-Lloydminster referred to in his opening remarks, the level of industry support for the measure as it appears in the form of the legislation.

My parliamentary secretary, in dealing with the issue before the committee, indicated that there was broad support for the legislation as it appears before the House of Commons. In indicating the kind of correspondence presented to verify the support, my parliamentary secretary was not in any way misleading or attempting to mislead members of the committee. He stated quite accurately that letters of support had been received for the principle and the concept of the legislation from 11 key industry organizations. The names of the organizations have already been referred to by the hon. member opposite.

Consultation on the legislation began a long time before the bill was actually drafted. In October 1992 Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada wrote to all industry associations to inform them of the intention to move forward with an administrative monetary penalty system. After that consultation various letters of support were received broadly from the industry. Also a variety of industry groups reaffirmed their support for this type of legislation during the regulatory review process conducted by my department during the course of 1992.

Once the bill was actually drafted and tabled in the House of Commons on December 5, 1994, a letter and substantial documentation were sent to 132 industry associations informing them that the bill had been tabled. The letter went on to detail the significant features of the legislation. It specifically provided a contact point to enable further discussion and information upon request from the various industry organizations.

In response we received a few inquiries seeking certain specific clarifications about some detailed points contained in the draft legislation, but there were no letters and no other forms of

communication indicating any fundamental change on the part of the industry in terms of support for the legislation.

At the same time a press release was issued to over 1,000 media and industry contacts. It indicated that the legislation had been tabled and that the concepts previously discussed in various forms of consultation had now been transformed into legislative form and were about to proceed through the House of Commons.

As the bill has been before the House for some considerable length of time, various industry representatives have been kept informed of the progress of the legislation. Certainly the indication is that a broad measure of support in the industry continues for Bill C-61.

In view of the concerns expressed at committee stage by members of the opposition wondering if the previous expressions of support continue to the present time, this week my officials have contacted a number of the groups and organizations previously consulted. This week my officials have also spoken with the Canadian Horticulture Council, the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency, the Canadian Seed Growers' Association, the National Dairy Council and the Canadian Meat Council. All the organizations again reconfirmed their support for the bill.

While I appreciate the question about earlier support and later support being raised by the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster, the evidence before us indicates fairly clearly that a broad measure of support was there in the beginning and continues to the present time.

Specifically Motion No. 1 talks about the possibility of prescribing in regulations the criteria for determining whether any contravention should be considered as an administrative violation or an offence. I have a couple of observations I would like to make.

At the present time, every contravention can be prosecuted through the court system. What this bill does is it gives to the minister of agriculture an administrative option where prosecution is seen to be too harsh or too drastic a measure. In arriving at his or her decision as to whether to proceed immediately through the court system by way of prosecution or proceed under the auspices of administrative monetary penalties, the minister of the day will be guided by a compliance and enforcement policy. That policy establishes criteria to advise and instruct the department in making decisions on the use of the various enforcement options that are available, the more severe and the less severe.

The compliance and enforcement policy is a public document. It would not be prescribed by way of regulation, but it would be on the public record for the public to know about, to understand, to ask questions about, and potentially even to suggest changes to.

The choice to be made by the minister in any given set of circumstances is as to whether to prosecute or whether to issue a monetary penalty. This is akin to a choice that is often before prosecutors in criminal matters where a decision has to be made about whether to proceed by way of indictment, which is a more serious method of proceeding through the court system, or by way of summary conviction, which is a somewhat less serious method of proceeding.

Because the choice in any given case is so heavily dependent upon the individual facts of the situation, there is obviously a requirement here for some degree of flexibility. I would say to my hon. friend across the way that I do not believe it is practical or realistic to have hard and fast rules set down and prescribed by way of regulations. The necessary flexibility that has to be there in making these judgment calls is best offered by relying on a policy statement, a policy document, rather than trying to etch all of that in the more rigid framework of regulations.

I repeat the point I made earlier: The policy document on compliance and enforcement matters dealing with how decisions are to be made on the choice of the various enforcement options that might be available will be open to the public. One of the fundamental things we are trying to achieve by means of this legislation is an open, fair and transparent process.

I would simply conclude by saying that in making these choices, which are difficult choices and require judgment calls to be made and some measure of flexibility, depending on a wide variety of factual situations that may confront the minister of the day, it is important for these matters to be dealt with in the form of a public policy document as opposed to trying to etch them in the more rigid form of regulations. While I understand the general point my hon. friend is trying to make, I would not be in a position to recommend support for Motion No. 1.

[Jean Landry, Bloc, Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I must take part in the debate on Bill C-61 today, because this bill cannot be agreed on as presented by the government, on the basis that it would save time and money for the taxpayers.

I entirely agree with the principle, and so does my party, but the government always has to leave the door open to all kinds of adverse consequences.

This bill could have serious consequences in terms of disregard for judicial fairness. If the department introduces a system of monetary penalties, it must be because it believes that this will significantly reduce the need for enforcement actions, thus generating substantial savings for taxpayers.

The big problem is that the government did not foresee the risks that making totally arbitrary decisions on the enforcement of such penalties entail. We object to reducing penalties imposed on offenders by concluding compliance agreements. That is unfair.

It would have been enlightening for the government to advise us of the potential savings resulting from this bill. This legislation contains a totally unacceptable principle, authorizing the person designated by the minister to conclude an agreement with the offender, whose fine would be reduced by $1 for every $2 invested by the business into improving its process, buying new equipment or training its employees. As far as I know, penalties are not negotiable in our justice system. Bargaining fines is not something we do in Quebec. Anyone who was stopped for speeding knows what I mean: either you are guilty and you pay the full amount of the fine or you go to court and let the judge decide.

The existing justice system provides that the person who is guilty of a fault must bear the consequences of his or her actions. Instead, with this bill, a wealthy offender, one who can more easily afford making investments to remedy a particular situation, is rewarded. In the way of unequal treatment, you can hardly find worse. This is preferential treatment based on the financial capability of an individual or business, and that is unfair.

I would also like the government to tell us who will be in charge of assessing the cost of the efforts made by offending individuals or businesses to remedy the situation. Training, equipment, all that can cost more in one region than in another. In a region where it costs more, offenders will be penalized. Moreover, will they be informed of all the means made available to them to correct the situation? And what if an offender, in collusion with suppliers, presented inflated bills? Frankly, there are tax or other incentives which could be used to promote investment and training by companies. For heaven's sake, let us not negotiate penalties.

Another unacceptable provision in this bill is the one which provides for a 50 per cent reduction of the penalty if the offender pays it without appealing the decision or asking for a hearing. With that provision, the government undermines the presumption of innocence. A number of members of this House are lawyers and they know that the presumption of innocence is a fundamental right. Indeed, under our legal system, a person is deemed innocent until there is evidence to the contrary.

Let us take an unclear situation where there would be grounds for challenging the decision. The minister would tell the individual or business that it is in their best interest to keep a low profile, otherwise, they would of course have to submit to a hearing-

[An hon. member]

You are not discussing the right motion.

[Jean Landry, Bloc, Lotbinière, QC]

What is the problem?

[An hon. member]

You are discussing Motion No. 2.

[The Speaker]

Is everything all right? Fine. Let us stop for a few seconds and then give the floor to the hon. member for one minute. I have a question.

Does the hon. member wish to continue the debate?

[Jean Landry, Bloc, Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to address Motion No. 2. I apologize. I spoke too soon. I am sorry.