Madam Speaker, since I am not sure how many points I covered when I last spoke I will recap. I also want to raise a point made during question period by the minister of agriculture. In his reply to a question by a member of the NDP, the minister said that if the Saskatchewan government would amend its successor rights it would go a long way to solving the problem with the short line railways and their buyers.
It is a rather strange stance for the minister of agriculture to take when his government is suggesting we should have successor rights in the airline industry. It is strange he suggested that it should not be the same in the railroad industry. We in the Reform Party suggest the section of Bill C-66 that deals with successor rights should be eliminated.
Why should it be eliminated from the bill? We think it complicates things. It does not do what the minister has set out to do, that is to create a balance. It is making legislation for legislation's sake. It is not accomplishing anything.
We also notice the government's amendment to limit the succession rights to the airline securities department. Does it really? Further on we recognize that the governor in council, the cabinet in other words, has the authority to make regulations designating that any other service in any industry would have to comply with the same successor rights provisions. For those reasons we would very much like to see the successor rights portion of the bill removed.
Further, the Sims report from which most of the bill is drafted did not report on the subject. It did not have any consultation with the airlines, the industries or the airports in terms of successor rights.
This is rather ill thought out legislation. It is legislation that may have been brought in to appease certain groups. It is not part of the solution but could be exactly the opposite. It could be part of the problem.
I urge all members of the House to reconsider the portion of the bill that deals with successor rights, specifically clause 47.3 of Bill C-66, and to support the Reform amendment to delete the clause.