Debates of June 15th, 1995

Cn Commercialization Act

[The Speaker]

There is a request to speak for a little bit longer than the usual amount because we are putting three groups together. Is there unanimous consent to give each other a little bit more time?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Beauport—Montmorency—Orléans, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I apologize. I hope you will not take the fact that I thanked the Government Chief Whip for agreeing to extend my speaking time as a lack of respect on my part for the Chair.

I would like to start by speaking to Motion No. 12 standing in the name of the hon. member for Kootenay West-Revelstoke, which proposes to delete clause 15 which reads as follows: "The Official Languages Act continues to apply to CN as if it continued to be a federal institution within the meaning of that Act".

I think it is too bad that my Reform Party colleague, who is an ardent Canadian and wants to maintain Canadian unity, does not behave like one and is indulging what is referred to in English Canada as Quebec bashing. That is really too bad, and the Reform Party will suffer the consequences when one day it decides to field candidates in a federal election in Quebec. Mr. Speaker, in Quebec our motto is: "Je me souviens", I remember. And we certainly will remember, provided Quebec is still part of Canada, which is unlikely once we have won the referendum.

We will take every opportunity to remind Quebecers that the Reform Party proposed amendments to remove the privatized company from the application of the Official Languages Act. And this is not the first time, as the hon. member for Bourassa pointed out. This party makes a habit of presenting petitions in the House of Commons to complain about the Official Languages Act. I would like to point out that the government acted responsibly by including Clause 15 in Bill C-89, under which the Official Languages Act will continue to apply to CN when it is privatized.

The government's actions reflect those of the previous government in 1988 when it proceeded to privatize Air Canada. I could also mention another amendment by the hon. member which proposed to reverse the present government's commitment to keep the company's headquarters in the Montreal Urban Community.

I would now like to touch briefly on amendment no. 14, which would provide for the federal government, therefore the Minister of Transport, to remain responsible for the maintenance of the Pont de Québec, despite the privatization of CN.

The Pont de Québec is a jewel in our world heritage. This is no bridge over some backwater creek at the end of some concession. This is the structure that Sir Wilfrid Laurier called an architectural masterpiece when it was inaugurated, a source of pride not only for the Province of Quebec and Quebec City, but for all of Canada.

I publicly denounce here in the House the attitude of my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Transport. Both the chairman, the hon. member for Hamilton West and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, the member for London East were impolite to the people from the Coalition pour la sauvegarde du Pont de Québec when they presented their brief to the committee last week. And that is putting it mildly.

The chairman of our committee and the parliamentary secretary are both unilingual anglophones. With their earphones off, our committee's chairman and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport chatted away throughout the unilingual French presentation by the representatives of the coalition, taking in absolutely nothing at all.

After it was over, they went so far as to ask me why the coalition had not applied under the infrastructure program. That is utterly unacceptable. Canadian National, and not the City of Quebec, is the owner of the bridge. And why should the City of Quebec have applied under the infrastructure program to renovate the bridge? This shows how ignorant they are of the whole issue and, to top it off, how impolite they were to the unilingual francophones who came before the Standing Committee on Transport to present their brief.

I would like to remind you that the coalition to save the Pont de Québec is not a partisan organization, on the contrary, it is non-partisan. And I can assure you that I have never personally met any of the members of this coalition and they have never been associated with me or affiliated with my party. Their work falls squarely outside of the political arena. The people of the region of Quebec were very disappointed by the reception this coalition received in Ottawa.

The bridge is in a pitiful state. According to the coalition, the required work is estimated at between $41 million and $45 million. What will happen if the new privatized CN refuses to honour its commitments with regard to the bridge? What will happen? Will it be left to deteriorate? It is a world heritage jewel.

Here again, I deplore, I forgot to mention it earlier, I deplore the fact that the chairman of the Standing Committee on Transport downplayed the Pont de Québec, saying that the new privatized CN would never save any old bridge crossing a stream at the end of a concession or any bit of rail line in some village in Canada or some old station in Canada.

This was how the bridge was described, and it is crazy. Perhaps it was to convince himself that those watching us would think the Bloc member was fantasizing and making it up. I suggest they read the minutes of the Standing Committee on Transport; they will see where the truth lies.

In closing, I would like to talk briefly about Motion No. 15. The aim of this amendment is to avoid short line railways CN might have an interest in being put under federal jurisdiction.

At the moment, all intraprovincial transport comes under provincial jurisdiction. We are concerned about the wording of clause 16 of the bill and so we have proposed an amendment to ensure that SLRs remain within provincial jurisdiction and do not become federal.

Obviously, by stating that interprovincial transportation structures-check the wording in the bill-are "for the general advantage of Canada", we avoid having SLRs in which CN has an interest being automatically placed under federal jurisdiction, and this is the aim of our amendment.

CN could thus become a partner and share in the creation of SLRs. I think that our party has shown great openness towards SLRs; it may be the way of the future, an instrument that will give us more flexibility to satisfy the clients' needs, etc. But what is important is that, to prevent abandonment, it isimportant that many lines be taken over by SLRs. Some of them may even belong to CN. I think that instead of eliminating regional services, it isimportant, and I will conclude with this, to consider rail transport in the same way as air or water transport. A mode of transport is above all an instrument for regional economic development.

It is obvious that when a rail line is abandoned, it can make regional economic development much more difficult.

To conclude, I will give you an example. A cement factory is planned in Port-Daniel, in the Gaspé. Unfortunately, the member for Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine has not intervened and never made any inquiry regarding this planned cement factory, although it is in his riding, probably because he is not interested. Anyway, there is a plan for a cement factory in Port-Daniel, in the Gaspé, a beautiful village with a 25 per cent unemployment rate. The developers have two requirements. First, they require a sea port; Port-Daniel is located in Chaleur Bay; I believe that having a deep water sea port will not be a problem. Second, to move cement to Canadian and American markets, they require a railway since, as we know, Gaspé roads cannot take heavy trucking.

Therefore, if they close the railway in Gaspé, how will it be possible to attract companies and develop Quebec? This is what I wanted to say to conclude my remarks.

[Lee Morrison, Reform, Swift Current—Maple Creek—Assiniboia, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to ask you for any extra time or for anything over 10 minutes. As a matter of fact I may not even speak for five minutes.

I have noticed a certain ambivalence on the benches opposite toward this privatization bill. Clearly privatization is not something you do just to do it. It is done for a reason. The reason is to try to put a crown corporation in a position where it becomes an efficient money making organization.

The hon. member for London East has spoken on several occasions about the fact we must not apply constraints to the company after it is privatized. If we do that we defeat our purpose. One of the constraints the government is proposing to apply is to maintain the Official Languages Act for this private corporation. The Official Languages Act is intended for government organizations.

If CN has to maintain the extra cost and the extra inefficiencies of having the hand of the official languages commissioner on the throttle of every locomotive, it is not going to be as competitive as it needs to be. It is unnecessary. Most of CN's operations are west of the lakehead. There is very little French spoken by either the employees or by the customers.

There will certainly be circumstances in any company working in Canada where it will want to maintain the use of two languages voluntarily.

I worked from time to time in mines or other work sites where workers spoke two or even three different languages. We had to use these languages correctly for the sake of efficiency or safety, but never for political reasons. That is sensible bilingualism. It is not always necessary to impose rules for everything.

I would like to speak even more briefly on Motion No. 14. Again, we have an example of an attempt by government to maintain control over the corporation after it is privatized. No one but the management of a company should be in a position to decide what bridges it is going to maintain, what tracks it is going to maintain.

This is something that is not done if the government really means what it says about making the thing run properly. It does not allow bureaucrats or politicians to stick their cotton pickin' hands into the operations of a private company. If it does that, it may as well forget about privatizing the company, just keep on dictating to it. Government cannot have it both ways.

Either the company is going to be private or it is going to continue to be a semi-crown. I strongly agree with the proposal to privatize it.

On the last motion, the question proposed by the hon. members of the Bloc to simplify the regulatory regime, to give the provinces more regulatory powers and the federal government less, in principle I agree with that but this is neither the time nor the place to debate that question.

It certainly should not be written into the bill. With that, I have had my five minutes.

[Philippe Paré, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. I will confirm what my colleague from Beauport-Montmorency-Orléans has said.

The Pont de Québec is indeed a heritage jewel. However, it is in very poor condition due to the irresponsible behaviour of Transport Canada as well as of CN. The reason why it is necessary to propose this amendment is that both entities, Transport Canada and CN, never fulfilled their responsibilities. Therefore, by adding this element to the bill we might have a chance to see the Pont de Québec become once again what it used to be, a source of pride for the Quebec region.

Just as the Eiffel Tower is the symbol of Paris or the Statue of Liberty the symbol of New York, the Pont de Québec is something which symbolizes the Quebec region.

The amendment is necessary because, in 1993, CN and Transport Canada signed an agreement that they never fulfilled. Why should we believe that a privatized CN, in the hands of private shareholders, would all of a sudden tell its shareholders: We must now ensure that the Pont de Québec be kept in good repair. We do not believe it would.

The agreement signed in 1993 was very clear, it said in section 4: "Canada transfers the Pont de Québec to CN. CN undertakes to finance a major maintenance program on this bridge, including installation and maintenance of architectural lighting, to restore this structure to a condition which guarantees its long-term viability and maintain it in this condition. Without limiting the specified obligations of CN, the company will try to conclude an agreement with the Province of Quebec." I should say that Transport Quebec was never against such an agreement.

Section 13 of the same agreement reads: "This agreement comes under Canadian legislation, is interpreted in accordance with that legislation and binds parties and their successors and assignees". Therefore if an agreement signed by the Transport minister and the CN has remained totally inoperative, how can we believe that private shareholders would fare better? This is why we believe it is essential to pass amendment no. 14 in order to make sure that the Pont de Québec will be maintained by those who have the responsibility to do so.

[Antoine Dubé, Bloc, Lévis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues are inviting me to justify my presence in this debate. If the hon. member for Louis-Hébert can justify his presence because one of the bridge pillars is located in his riding, I must add that there is another one in my riding.

This bridge was built in 1917 and, in the beginning, it was used to allow trains to cross the St. Lawrence River. It is a river, I say to the whip of the Liberal Party. It is not a brook, as my colleague for Beauport was saying. If ever this bridge were to collapse through lack of maintenance-I do not want to make people feel uneasy about this-if ever it were to collapse and CN trains could not go over it, imagine the detour we would have to make in order to ship our goods. We would have to go from Quebec City to Montreal, and then to the Maritimes.

This does not make sense. This is unacceptable. Of course, the bridge may not collapse in the next 20 years, but its physical appearance is deteriorating to such an extent that people in the Quebec City region tell us that this bridge belongs to the federal government and has become a symbol of the decrepit state of federalism in Quebec.

This is getting a reaction from some of the people here. If members of the current Liberal federal government wanted to enhance their visibility before the referendum, they should do as the coalition suggests because every day, every person who comes to see me-not only people from the Quebec City region but also foreign visitors-note the state of disrepair of this symbol. I think it would be to the Liberal Party's advantage-I am giving them some valuable advice-to ensure that the bridge is being maintained, to give it a new image.

Coalition members should also remind them that this would create 200 jobs over six years. Is this not right, my dear colleague? Over six years. This would allow the bridge to be renovated and create jobs, in addition to the purchase of materials. There would be an economic impact. We are looking for ways to put people back to work, for useful projects, and the Pont de Québec would fit the bill.

This would cost $40 million but we must spend it. Strangely enough, an engineer told me this week that CN asked a U.S. firm to study the whole matter. The Americans recognize the value of this bridge. They took an interest in it and even gave it an architecture and engineering award. It has been described as one of the eight wonders of the world. That is quite something.

But the wonder does not impress anyone any more. On the contrary, it has become an object of shame. Something must be done, but it does not make sense to leave this in the hands of a company that will be privatized.

No privatized company will want to invest $40 million to repair this bridge, unless it is forced into it. Nobody will do it. So, we are asking the federal government to act as the owner, not as a tenant, because it really is the owner, and it is responsible for these repairs.

Finally, the amendment proposed by our colleague, the hon. member for Beauport-Montmorency-Orléans, is valid, as the federal government saw fit to remove the CN Tower from CN's assets. If it is good for Toronto, it should be good for Quebec City. I will end here, as it is quite late.

[François Langlois, Bloc, Bellechasse, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. No one will wonder why I rise on the issue of the Pont de Québec.

[An hon. member]

We want to know.

[François Langlois, Bloc, Bellechasse, QC]

It is first for historical reasons. When the bridge collapsed for the second time, my grandfather was there. Consequently, that event was the topic of many stories when I was young. I often cross that bridge. The hon. member for Lévis referred to the CN Tower, in Toronto. It would be more appropriate to compare the Pont de Québec to the Tower of Pisa, considering that both structures are more or less in the same condition.

There is also a more personal and even religious reason. Indeed, every time I cross the bridge on a train, I cannot help but feel a need to say my prayers, because I always wonder if we will make it to the other side.

If you have been in Quebec City on more than one occasion, you should go at least once to have a look at the bridge from the lovely city of Saint-Romuald. You will realize what an eye-sore it is, not to say anything about the risk it represents for those who have to use it.

If it remains a federal crown asset, we will see what will happen later on. We will at least get an assurance that that bridge will be repaired. Everything that needs to be done has already been identified. In the notes my colleague from Beauport-Montmorency-Orléans was kind enough to give to me, I notice that as late as 1994, that is last year, an American company called Mojeski and Masters was paid $700,000 U.S. for a visual inspection of the substructure and superstructure of the bridge. Surely, we must have qualified people in Canada to do that kind of work, but the contract was awarded to an American company anyway.

When the railway service was dismantled, in Bellechasse, the entire Monk line, from Charny to Edmunston, New Brunswick, was dismantled. Even the rails were torn up. The right of way has not been given back to the original owners yet, but the rails have disappeared.

The dismantling of the railroad is a real disaster, since the railway has always been a symbol and a reality for Canada ever since 1867, which is why I will be pleased to support the amendment put forward by the hon. member for Beauport-Montmorency-Orléans and to vote in favour of the Pont de Québec remaining a public asset.

[Joe Fontana, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, let me assure everyone in attendance I will not be quite as long as the Bloc was with all its members. I will be about the same time as it took the hon. member for Kootenay West-Revelstoke.

With regard to Motions Nos. 12 and 13 which affect clause 15 in the bill, CN currently operates under the Official Languages Act in both official languages. In its continuing capacity as a national railway CN will continue to serve both anglophone and francophone clients across the country.

Continued application of the Official Languages Act will not require any change to its operations. In addition, CN management has indicated it makes good business sense to operate a bilingual railway.

Moreover, CN's intention to continue operating as a bilingual railway will also have no effect on the value of the company's shares when they are sold.

With regard to Motion No. 14 and the Quebec bridge, Motion No. 14 deals with the renovation and maintenance of the Pont de Québec in Quebec City. Although the government understands the desire to ensure the Pont de Québec is maintained in good condition, Bill C-89 is not the proper venue for such assurances.

Putting such a clause in the bill would draw negative attention from investors as an operating cost imposed on CN. CN has stated its willingness to increase its contribution for maintenance to $1.5 million but needs matching funds from the province of Quebec, keeping in mind the province has an interest in the bridge because it is a highway structure, an area of provincial jurisdiction.

I hope members of the Bloc would impose upon their friends in Quebec City that they have an equal responsibility to maintain that bridge, as 70 per cent of the traffic on it is vehicular, which is under provincial jurisdiction.

Let me assure everyone this bridge is in safe condition. It is in need of repair. CN is obligated to maintain it and it has promised to do so. I encourage everyone to have the province put in its fair share as well as those people who want to keep it for historical purposes.

Therefore we cannot support Motion No. 14.

On Motion No. 15, which impacts on clause 16, Bill C-89 will have no effect on the jurisdiction under which either an interprovincial or an intraprovincial railway operates. Currently interprovincial railways come under federal jurisdiction and must comply with federal safety regulations. Intraprovincial railways may choose to incorporate either under the provincial jurisdiction of the province in which they operate or under federal jurisdiction.

Currently most intraprovincial shortlines choose provincial jurisdiction. Internal shortlines, whether they be intraprovincial or interprovincial remain part of the class one railway and therefore operate under federal jurisdiction.

An example of this is the internal shortline in northern Quebec recently established by CN and its employees. Again, none of the foregoing would be affected by Bill C-89, and the proposal to amend clause 16 is therefore unnecessary.

[The Speaker]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Speaker]

The question is on Motion No. 12. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker]

In my opinion the nays have it.

[An hon. member]

On division.

(Motion No. 12 negatived.)

[The Speaker]

The next question is on Motion No. 13. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.