Debates of Nov. 25th, 2004

Points of Order

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Supply

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Lanark, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for 35 years Mirabel Airport has stood as a symbolic reminder of the power of government to impose its will on landowners, even if it means dislocating families, destroying livelihoods and shattering communities. Based on some grandiose but flawed vision for Montreal, the Liberal government undertook the expropriation of 97,000 acres of land to build an airport in Mirabel.

The airport was intended to service the burgeoning city of Montreal, an hour away, and contribute to the explosive population and economic growth. Then Prime Minister Trudeau called it a project for the 21st century.

Of the 97,000 acres expropriated, only 5,000 were used for the airport. The Mirabel area at that time consisted of prime agricultural land with farming the mainstay of the local economy. The farmers whose lands were expropriated found out about the project over the radio.

The government ignored their protests. Some 3,200 families were dislocated, many from homesteads which had been in their families for decades. Houses were torn down and businesses were closed. Those who were fortunate enough to stay on their land had to pay rent to the government and try to farm, in spite of restrictions placed on how they could modify the land.

Now 35 years later, the full failure of the Mirabel vision is clear. What has not changed is the anger of the farmers who owned the land then and want it back now.

While most of the unused land was returned to farmers by the Mulroney government, almost 11,000 acres continue to be held by the federal government. The farmers want to buy this land back, but in its typically arrogant and meanspirited fashion, the Liberal government is saying no.

The Mirabel story is about far more than flawed visions and government mismanagement. It is about the right of farmers to own land, to enjoy the fruits of their labour on their land and to dispose of their property when, if and how they see fit. Mirabel should never have been allowed to happen. Government, any government, should never the right to exploit landowners by taking away their land without their consent and without fair compensation.

Mirabel is a symbol of this country's failure to protect the property rights of landowners, a failure that gives far too much power to governments and far too little regard for the right of individual property owners.

For a country that prides itself on being the champion of human and individual rights, we have displayed an appalling tolerance of governments that infringe on the property rights of landowners.

Governments at all levels, federal, provincial and municipal, too often display a blatant scorn for landowners, especially rural landowners. Examples are legion. A striking recent case is Premier Dalton McGuinty's proposal to ban development on 1.8 million acres of private land in southern Ontario in order to preserve a greenbelt. Premier McGuinty's plan is to impose this plan, without providing any compensation for the devaluation and loss to the landowner. If this project has so much widespread public benefit, then the Ontario government must be prepared to compensate the landowners at a fair market value.

Expropriation is just one way the government exploits landowners. In recent years governments have increasingly been placing unreasonable restrictions on regulations on landowners that diminish property values and infringe on their ability to use their property as they see fit. Zoning laws, heritage regulations and conservation designations are just some of the ways in which governments impose restrictions on the rights of property owners.

My constituents in Carleton—Mississippi Mills are no strangers to the effects of intrusive legislation and bad public policy. However, landowners are beginning to fight back. In my riding, rural property owners have organized themselves into very vocal and active lobby groups. The rural landowners are spearheading a massive grassroots movement in defence of their rights as property owners. Their key message is they are fed up with government interference and want their property rights respected and protected.

These business owners, farmers and landowners have seen their property values and livelihood diminished by expropriation without just compensation, enforcement of urban property standards for rural lands and farms as a result of municipal amalgamation and the imposition of buffer zones.

The landowners believe that government has confused the right of private property with the public's privilege. Governments, they say, have overstepped their mandate and crossed the line from good government and into the private lives of citizens, and I agree that this too often is the case.

I also agree with landowners who are beginning to demand that property rights be entrenched in the Canadian Constitution. It is an abysmal situation that what should be a fundamental right, the right to own, enjoy and dispose of private property, was deliberately left out of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms for political purposes. It is time to change this situation.

My colleague, the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, has been a strong champion of property rights. Last week he introduced a private member's bill that would amend the 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights to provide greater protection for property rights. Specifically, the legislation is intended to ensure that no person will be deprived of the use or enjoyment of property without full, just and timely compensation. I applaud the member for this initiative and I am pleased to support it.

During the past election campaign, the entrenchment of property rights in the Constitution was included as part of my platform. I believe strongly that landowners should be protected against arbitrary and unjustified intrusions by governments. If a government's restriction or regulation is shown to be for the public good, then landowners should be fairly and appropriately compensated for their loss.

Today's motion calls on the Liberal government to take the necessary steps to sell the 11,000 remaining acres of arable land back to the families and farmers whose land was expropriated to build the Mirabel airport. It is time for the Liberal government to right a wrong. The farmers want and deserve to have their land back. Beyond this specific instance, I also want to push for measures to be introduced that will ensure that the Mirabel fiasco is never allowed to happen again, not anywhere in Canada.

It is time for Parliament to take steps to enshrine property rights in our Constitution.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has covered the issue quite well in his speech. I am glad he raised specifically the issue of property rights under the charter. It is a question which arises from time to time. I do not know how that discussion would ever get revisited, but I would like to support revisiting it.

Hopefully the member has had a little research done for him. I am interested in the criteria that must be satisfied to qualify for expropriation of property. Is he aware of what those criteria are that must be satisfied?

As a corollary to that would be with regard to his point on expropriation without just compensation and whether there is judicial, or some review or recourse available where there is a dispute with regard to whether the compensation is just.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Lanark, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot give all the specific criteria for the right of government to expropriate. If individuals have property rights within our Constitution, it would mean that governments, when they pass any legislation that affects property rights, would have to take into consideration the effect on individuals. It may be justified for example in an environmental case to protect some endangered species, some animal or some bird. It may be justified because these species are facing extinction.

However, say someone owns a plot of land and on that land is some acreage of trees. In one of these trees is an endangered bird and the government passes legislation which says that endangered bird has to be protected. The government can do that, but the property owner should not be restricted so that he or she has to pay tax on the land which cannot be used. If property owner cannot sell the land, that property is devaluated. Therefore, the property owner has to be compensated

What I am saying is, in future if we have property rights, when governments at all levels pass regulations that affect property owners, they have to work out the consequences.

As to arbitration, I imagine that if we had property rights, within the legislation that would flow from those property rights would be a mechanism to deal with disputes.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for joining in the debate today and bringing to light a couple of things that we need to look at.

When the Progressive Conservative Party joined with the then Alliance Reform Party and today calling themselves the Conservative Party, I distinctly remember watching TV and the leader of the Conservative Party said, “We are the party of Brian Mulroney, our beacon of light”. Going back to what Brian Mulroney did, in--

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member opposite has mischaracterized the Leader of the Opposition by attributing a statement to him that is untrue. He must table that before he can make those kinds of assertions.

[The Speaker]

I am sorry. I thought the hon. parliamentary secretary was asking a question and referred to some other statements. I am not sure that there is a requirement that he table other statements. The hon. parliamentary secretary, I am sure, will want to put his question to the member for Carleton--Mississippi Mills.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if we were to take light of what the Leader of the Opposition said, then I wholeheartedly believe that this member would agree that ADM was something that was done during the Mulroney years. We created this agency, the Montreal airport, the Pierre Elliot Trudeau airport, and the Mirabel airport. We put them together under ADM back then. It was something that was signed by the Government of Canada by the then Prime Minister in 1992.

If his leader is in agreement, and he says that Brian Mulroney was a beacon of light, why is that party arguing this point today?

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Lanark, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not understand what this has to do with my speech. However, I am--

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

It was signed in 1992.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Lanark, ON]

That may be so. But I am talking about the need for property rights so that things like Mirabel or Pickering, there are 20,000 acres of dead acres sitting north of Pickering, do not happen. Future governments must take into account individual rights.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part briefly in this debate. I listened to the speech of the member for Carleton—Mississippi Mills and I must say that I do not agree with what he said.

First, I disagree with the substantive issue. Second, what the member has presented as the current situation is not the case. The member may not be aware of this—it is possible—but he was wrong when he claimed that expropriation was currently happening in some sort of legal void and that owners were not adequately compensated for their property and so on.

So, this is totally false and he was wrong to make such assertions. He must know quite well that this is not the way the expropriation process works. He may ask that the process be improved, of course, and he is free to do so.

However, this is not the same thing as claiming that the people who were expropriated in Mirabel did not receive any compensation. This is not true. There was a system in place, there was arbitration, there was compensation, people were paid. Many of them moved later into the riding that I represent, and I remember this is the way that it happened at the time.

Consequently, there is a compensation system in place now. The member should not claim that people who are expropriated are not compensated or protected and, based on these false assertions, then claim that everyone's rights were infringed.

That is another issue. In 1969 or around that time, the Government of Canada expropriated close to 100,000 acres of land in order to build the Mirabel international airport. I think that it is important to give a little background on this whole issue.

In 1985, the Prime Minister at the time was the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney, who is well known to the member for Niagara Falls opposite, as he was a member back then. He will recall that Treasury Board had approved a system to resell some 80,000 acres of surplus land around the airport.

The member opposite will most likely remember the mess created at that time by Roch LaSalle and others in the resale of these lands and the arbitrary fashion in which it was done, and so on.

Also at that time, an agricultural recovery program was established. A number of initiatives had been launched towards the late 80s, notably greenhouses. In 1988, the Government of Canada announced that 11,000 acres of land, designated as airport reserve, would be leased over the long term. This was happening at the same time as agricultural recovery.

The lands were thus leased over the long term, leases were signed. These contracts were duly drafted by the Conservative government of the time. If my memory serves me well, they were leases ending around 2010. Since then, we have heard that there was an offer on the table to prolong these leases for another 14-year period. The leases would then be extended under certain conditions, and so forth.

In the meantime, the Aéroports de Montréal corporation, ADM, was formed by Mr. Mulroney's Conservative government. What kind of deal was signed with it? A lease for some 60 years was signed.

After a contract for 60 years is signed with an organization, it cannot be terminated one third of the way, more or less, and the lands sold to somebody else. It cannot be done once the contract with ADM has been signed.

These are some of the deficiencies in what is being proposed today by the Conservative Party. Obviously, it is now trying today—and will fail—to look good in the eyes of some in the region of Mirabel.

I find a little surprising to see New Democrats fall into the trap, because they should know better. The New Democrats sitting here beside me know that a good number of Bombardier employees and other workers in the Mirabel region want to protect the territorial integrity of the area.

They want to be able to secure the desired long term expansion, the proposals that are being made, but have not been approved yet, and everything else. It is very disappointing to see them fall into this trap. Anyway, they will be the ones bearing the burden, and if they want to go ahead, they will. That will certainly be a tough sell in the eastern part of my riding. I look forward to see what the unions will say about that in my neck of the woods.

For the Bloc, it is also a double-edged sword. We heard today the hon. member for Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher tell us, on one hand, that we had to get rid of the land surrounding the airport, despite the will of ADM and others, and on the other hand, that we should announce as soon as possible government help for the aircraft manufacturing sector.

Honestly, there is no need to think long and hard to see that this suggestion borders on the ridiculous. How can we protect the sector that needs the land and, at the same time, get rid of that same land? It is clear that Bloc members are proposing conflicting solutions.

But that might be understandable. One member represents a given region. The member from the next region might have a different opinion. The dishes are rattling a little in the caucus room's cupboards. These things happen.

As for the Conservatives, I would like to be able to say they are sincere, but there is not an ounce of sincerity in them. Nary a bit of it. What we are talking about, of course, is contracts signed by the Conservative government, headed at the time by Brian Mulroney. The leader of the opposition is a big fan of his, and the member for Central Nova worships him even more. He is constantly telling us what a nice person Brian Mulroney was. That is not an opinion I share, nor do my constituents, or indeed most Canadians. Although they are quite free to declare their love for Brian Mulroney if they wish to.

Once again, let us recall one thing. As the Minister of Transport said again this morning, that same Brian Mulroney is trying to help the industry at this very time. He is lobbying on behalf of Bombardier to get facilities in the Mirabel area expanded.

I do not know if hon. members have been able to follow me through all this, but the situation is so contradictory that it would not be surprising if it did confuse people. On the one hand, we have a Bloc Québécois member saying that we need to get rid of the lands around the airport —which ADM says we need—and on the other we have her saying a bit later in her speech that we also need to provide help to Bombardier so that it can expand its operations on that same site. It would be interesting to know how that can be done, especially when the same parcel of land is involved, and has already been sold. I will come back to that later.

The contradiction is even greater for the Conservatives, as they are congratulating Brian Mulroney on the one hand, and repudiating him on the other. I am not going do talk about him much longer for reasons that all Canadians will understand, if they think back.

I noted, in the English speeches in particular, that certain Conservatives were stressing the point that there is nothing going on at Mirabel and it is a kind of vacant lot. While not wanting to describe this as intellectual dishonesty, although it may be pretty close to that, it is absolutely not true. Some of my constituents work there. I represent the neighbouring riding, and I know that this is clearly not true.

I suggest the hon. members go see for themselves the facilities for air freight and for DND's jets, including Bombardier's first home in Mirabel. I suggest they go and visit the airport facilities, of course, as well as the new Bombardier plant located a little further and, in the future I hope, the new facilities planned by Bombardier, which would create even more employment in this area bordering on the one I represent.

Many workers living in Lachute, Grenville, Brownsburg and other Quebec communities work at plants in Hawkesbury, which is located in my riding. For example, there is a Pittsburg Paint and Glass plant, manufacturing automotive windshields, the IVACO plant in l'Orignal, the Montebello Metal plant, manufacturing metal tubing, and there are more. But these three plants employ 1,500 workers.

The reverse is true as well. A large number of my constituents from the eastern part of the riding work in Quebec. In the West Island of Montreal, for instance, there is the pharmaceutical industry. But it is also true when we cross the bridge at Hawkesbury. It used to be called Perley bridge, and I am not too fond of its new name, Long-Sault bridge, but when we cross the bridge to Grenville, it is also true. People cross this bridge to work on the other side of the river, just as people living on the Quebec side sometimes cross it to work in Ontario.

I am speaking on behalf of those from my region who work in Mirabel and who, for the vast majority, want the Mirabel area to do well, in the interests of the people of that area and in their own, because they will be working in the plants in the Mirabel area.

We also have a number of Bombardier subcontractors in the riding I represent and in other parts of Ontario. However, the situation is not always well understood. People think of this industry located somewhere in Quebec, in a place that is less well known of people who are not from the area. They figure that it benefits only the immediate vicinity. The fact of the matter is this is a much more complex industry. It uses part manufactured just about everywhere in the country.

For example, about two years ago when I was a minister, I went to see a factory near Haley Station, not far from Pembroke, represented by the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke. That factory at Haley Station was manufacturing aircraft landing gear parts for Bombardier.

One day we saw a very special scene. The member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke was with me and she was feeling pleased with a contract that this factory had won to manufacture parts for Canadian military aircraft. The next day her colleague asked why the Government of Canada was supporting Bombardier. There was a kind of trick to it, because both members appeared in the same picture in the House of Commons. They sat on the same bench—the one who was criticizing and the one who was celebrating. They were members of the same party; they took their seats together, on the same day. It shows the Conservative Party's lack of straightforwardness on some matters.

Now let us turn to the cargo capacity of Mirabel. There are fine incentives for businesses to locate in this region. Montreal is a world leader, we know, in the fields of aerospace—I have talked at length about that— telecommunications, and so on. We know that it is an important industry for the region.

I must draw the attention of the House to a press release that ADM has just issued. I invite all the members to read it. This is what it says:

Montreal, November 25, 2004

When Aéroports de Montréal decided in 2002 to concentrate passenger flight activity at Montréal-Trudeau, it was clearly understood that the facilities would be able to meet all the passenger requests for a period of at least thirty years, following which there was a possibility that passenger flights would be transferred back to Montréal-Mirabel.

Aéroports de Montréal has therefore formally committed to maintaining the Montréal-Mirabel platform in proper working order.

That is ADM's position. I just received it. The title of the press release is “Absolutely essential that Aéroports de Montréal maintain property reserve at Montréal-Mirabel to provide for future development.” I am telling this to the NDP members who are also listening to us.

It continues:

Mr. Cherry went on to add that the 11,000 acre property reserve was, at present, used essentially for agricultural purposes and that the rent collected from farmers totalled $15,000 per month, which is to say, an average monthly rent of $130 for each of the 127 lots. For Aéroports de Montréal, the gross income derived from the rental of these lots represents less than one tenth of 1% of total corporate income, without any consideration of the cost of administering these leases.

I will continue because it is important for hon. members to know this. I hope this will make them change their minds.

Aéroports de Montréal has offered to extend farmers’ leases through to 2023.

That is what I was saying earlier. This comes from an ADM press release. It is clear that ADM is telling us in this press release that was just published and part of which I just read in this House, that it is against what the Conservative Party is offering today in this House. That is the ADM position.

Who created ADM? It was Brian Mulroney, at the time, and his minister Mr. Corbeil. Who appointed all the members to the board of directors at the time? The same group. Who, today, is asking to undo everything and to break the commitments, contracts and agreements with ADM, and to interrupt ADM's plans for the future? The same Conservative Party, if we say can that Conservatives today are the direct descendants of those who were here at the time.

I know this is a grey area because some of them say they are Brian Mulroney's illegitimate children, others say they are legitimate children. Nonetheless, I had nothing to do with the marriage agreement that created this second generation of Conservatives and I certainly did not witness the event. The fact remains that the same political party that signed the agreement with ADM is now asking to go back on that agreement and ADM has issued a press release to say, “No”.

I invite all the hon. members in this House, especially those from the Conservative Party, to explain to us what they have just done. There is only one explanation: it is opportunism pure and simple. They are not looking out for the interests of Canadians, Quebec, or Eastern Ontario, and especially not of Mirabel.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell--

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I am very appreciative.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Yes, well, it was an ordeal at times, Mr. Speaker, because I generally have a lot of respect for the member and I certainly was interested in hearing what he would say.

I was really disappointed in his presentation. Only for a very short time during his speech today did the member deal with the people affected by this expropriation. He tried to get as far away as he possibly could from the wrong that was caused back then during the expropriation.

Yes, he talked about things that are going on at Mirabel and he talked about the Conservatives. He did not mention that it was the Progressive Conservative Party of the time that actually got 80,000 acres back into the agricultural mix. This land is now being worked.

As the member knows, the Progressive Conservatives were trying to do whatever they could to make the best out of a really bad mistake made by the Liberals. Mirabel is the biggest white elephant in the history of this country, I believe, but no, not quite, the EH-101s probably are.

However, I want to get to the point here. The member talked about the expropriation process. He said “this did not happen in a legal vacuum”. Probably not. There are provisions under the Expropriation Act which ensure that people get compensation.

However, there is one thing missing in that act and that is the right of people who do not want to sell to refuse, people who want to stay on their land, who want to stay with the dream they had to have a farm for their generation and generations to come. That right of saying, “No, I do not want to sell”, is not in there.

The Trudeau government of the day used the Expropriation Act and whatever cabinet powers they had, in my opinion, because of the price they paid, which was about $200 an acre, to basically cheat the landowners out of their property. I use that word because they got it at bargain basement prices. The Trudeau government knew what it was doing, because not a year later down in Pickering they were prepared to pay about $2,000 an acre for raw farmland.

It clearly shows that the government took advantage of the people living in the Mirabel area. They took advantage to plunder their farms for what turned out to be a very bad investment. The government just refused to recognize the wrong.

Our party wants to talk about the future of the families that wanted to stay there and the people who still want to get back so they can have their future as well.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first, the hon. member points out that I did not talk about the Roch LaSalle fiasco. Of course, I did. I can confirm there was a fiasco under the then minister Roch LaSalle. We are all aware of that, and I talked about it at length in my remarks. If I did not talk about it long enough, I would be happy to repeat that there was indeed a fiasco.

But I do not agree with the hon. member that there is some kind of absolute property right and that expropriation can always be refused. That is what he implied. It is impossible.

All those who live in an area where a road had to be made wider, where a freeway was built or high voltage power lines had to be installed, something which happened many times in my province, especially under a Conservative provincial government, all those who have been through that know very well that there is no such thing as an absolute right to property. Saying the contrary is nonsense.

The hon. member then said we should talk about the future. I have just done that. I read the ADM press release that just came out. It talks about the future of this region and says how important it is to keep the property reserve for the future of the airport. This is the future.

It is what we have been told by those who made the 60 year lease agreement. They are the ones who signed it. I had nothing to do with that. The Conservative government of the day signed it. Not a single Liberal was involved. This 60 year lease agreement was signed by the Conservatives, and ADM is now asking us to abide by this agreement.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague opposite knows very well, 90 per cent of the people working at Mirabel live in my riding of Rivière-du-Nord. Mirabel is critically important for the economy of our riding. All that went on in the past has seriously harmed the economy of Saint-Jérôme. People who worked in Mirabel lived in Saint-Jérôme, but the transfer of flight passengers to Dorval has killed a whole economy. I have received in my riding office people who were complaining and talking about the disastrous impact of what was going on at Mirabel.

We should not forget that Mirabel is an extraordinary airport, one of the best in the world. It provides the highest quality services. What happened there is abominable.

There now are 17,000 acres of available land. However, there is considerable concern about preserving space. They decided to keep 6,000 acres. To give you an idea, 6,000 acres is twice the area of Dorval. I think this is enough for the future. The remaining 11,000 acres should be given back. Besides, farmers do not want free land; they want to buy it because they need it.

It is very difficult to get a bank loan for land development. We have to be realistic. The hon. member knows that because he has a few farmers in his riding. I am convinced he is aware of that. We cannot invest in land that we do not own, because you never know what the future holds.

This is why we have this motion and why we are discussing this issue on this opposition day. At the end of the day, people are waiting to see what will happen. The hon. member cannot be indifferent to this.

I ask him to react and to do so in a conscientious way, rather than attacking Conservatives. I know this is all part of the game, but in my community this is not what is happening. There is a human reality that he does not talk much about. I would like his comments on that.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not questioning what the hon. member has done to protect her riding. There are only two ridings between hers and mine. Hers is a region that I often visit and we have had many informal discussions about that in the House.

I too have met many people from the Mirabel area. Union members came to see me in my office to exchange notes on issues I had raised or letters I had written to ministers back when the decision was made to keep passengers away from Mirabel airport. That decision was extremely unpopular in my riding.

Actually, I remember saying then that highway 50 had finally been completed on practically the same day the airport was closed. Hon. members will remember that new lanes had been added between Lachute and Mirabel while the small section between Mirabel and highway 15 was already built. It was that section, between Mirabel and Lachute, that was incomplete. It was completed at just about the same time. Maybe not exactly on the same day, but give or take a few weeks.

However, our opinions differ when the hon. member says that we must return some of that land to the expropriated people and keep the rest. The following is not from me, but from Mr. James Cherry from ADM. I will quote a sentence I did not read earlier. Mr. James Cherry, CEO of Aéroports de Montréal, said the following:

In the event passenger flights are transferred to Montréal-Mirabel, there is no doubt that the two current runways would not suffice—there are presently three in operation at Montréal-Trudeau—and that we would be obligated to build at least two others. By maintaining our property reserve of 4450 hectares (11 000 acres), we are safeguarding the future of the Montréal-Mirabel facility. To sell back the land at this time would be an error with serious consequences for both Aéroports de Montréal and the Mirabel area.

Committees of the House

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among all the parties and if you seek it I believe you would find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, in relation to its study of the 2004 Fraser River sockeye salmon harvest, the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans be authorized to travel to Richmond, B.C. from December 1 to 5, 2004, and that the necessary staff do accompany the committee.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, further to the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne, this House instructs the Standing Committee on Finance to make recommendations relating to the provision of independent fiscal forecasting advice for Parliamentarians, including the consideration of the recommendations of the external expert.

(Motion agreed to)

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That, further to the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne, this House instructs the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities to recommend measures that would ensure that all future uses of the employment insurance program would only be for the benefit of workers and not for any other purpose.

(Motion agreed to)

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That, further to the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne, this House instructs the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to recommend a process that engages citizens and parliamentarians in an examination of our electoral system with a review of all options.

(Motion agreed to)