moved:
Motion No. 16
That Bill C-61, in Clause 14, be amended by replacing lines 4 to 16, on page 9, with the following:
"under this Act, the Tribunal shall, by order, as the case may be, determine whether or not the person requesting the review committed a violation and, where the Tribunal decides that the person committed a violation but considers that the amount of the penalty for the violation, if any, was not established in accordance with the regulations, the Tribunal shall correct the amount of the penalty, and the Tribunal shall cause a notice of any or-".
Motion No. 17
That Bill C-61, in Clause 15, be amended by deleting lines 38 to 42, on page 9 and lines 1 to 7, on page 10.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose Bill C-61, because we feel it is unacceptable in its present form. Myself and my party fully agree with the underlying principle, which is to save taxpayers time
and money. However, it seems that the government always opens the door to all sorts of harmful effects.
This bill could have a major adverse impact on compliance and fairness. Moreover, if the department is setting up a system of monetary penalties it is because it feels such a system can greatly simplify the procedures used to ensure compliance, and therefore result in major savings to Canadian taxpayers. The problem is that the government did not anticipate the possibility that some decisions related to the process may be totally arbitrary. We oppose the compliance agreements which allow the designated person to reduce the penalty imposed to an offender. Such a procedure is unfair.
The government should also have told us about the potential savings associated with the implementation of this bill. Allowing a person designated by the department to enter into a compliance agreement with an offender is totally unacceptable. Under such an arrangement, the offender's penalty would be reduced by one dollar for every two dollars that the company would invest to improve its procedures, buy new material or train its staff. As far as I know, our justice system does not allow an offender to negotiate his or her penalty. Bargaining penalties is not part of our way of doing things. Just ask those who get arrested for speeding: either you are guilty and pay the full amount of the fine, or you challenge the decision before the court and the judge makes a ruling.
Under our justice system, an offender must assume the consequences of his acts. An offender who has the means to invest money to correct a specific situation would benefit from that provision. This bill is as unfair as you can get. Such preferential treatment is based on the spending power of an individual or a company, and that is unfair.
Moreover, can the government tell us who will evaluate the cost of efforts made by the individual or company to remedy the situation? Training, equipment, all these things cost more or less, depending on where you live. Offenders would be penalized if they live in a region where these costs are high. What is more, will they be informed of all of the approaches available to them for correcting the situation? And what if, with the complicity of suppliers, our offender produces padded invoices? Frankly, there are tax or other incentives which could be used if we are seeking to step up investments or training in a company. But for goodness' sake , let us not link it with negotiation of a sentence.
Another unacceptable point: the bill calls for a 50 per cent reduction in the penalty if the person committing the violation pays the fine without contesting or requesting a review. Here the government is attacking the very foundations of presumed innocence. A number of hon. members are lawyers and they know this is a fundamental right. A person is considered innocent until proven otherwise in our legal system, is he not?
Let us look at an obscure situation in which there were grounds to request a review. The minister would tell the individual or company that it would be in his or its best interests to be seen and not heard. Of course, he could ask for a review, but with a gun at his head. He will be told that he has already been found guilty and that, if he wants to reduce his penalty, he has only to pay up without a fuss.
Where does the right of any individual to representation come in? Who will help the person presumed to have committed the violation to defend his point of view?
The individual may obtain a hearing before a tribunal, however, if he insists. But beware of conflicts of interest. Listen carefully to how the thing works: the tribunal is appointed by the minister. The members, whose mandate is renewable, have to assess decisions made by departmental employees.
And the latter answer to the minister. That is how it goes. It seems to me that the tribunal members could very easily be appointed by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food after an assessment of whether the handling of certain cases has or has not caused problems. Another point not made clear is whether the individual will have to travel to Ottawa for a hearing.
This government just loves to complicate things. Another department I will not mention, Transport Canada, uses a system of monetary sanctions. Unlike Agriculture and Agri-Food, however, Transport Canada has no mechanism allowing it to reduce penalties if the offending individual decides to pay up without an argument. There is no reduction either if he decides to invest in improvements to the facilities which earned him the fine.
It is unnecessary to offer some sort of penalty reduction bonus as an incentive for violators to pay up, because in many cases, contesting the penalty costs more than the penalty itself.
The government wants to save money. So do we. The bill before the House today proposes to amend eight acts. Most of these acts concern areas that are already administered by the provinces.
Did the government start by consulting the provinces to find out whether the monetary penalty system is a concept they would recognize, and did it then consider whether the provinces would not be in a better position to administer the system? It is high time we put an end to unnecessary duplication in inspection services.
Too often the federal inspection system's only excuse for being there at all is the international standards it enforces in order to meet international trade requirements. Why not let the provinces
enforce these standards themselves? Then we would certainly save money.
In concluding, we support initiatives that help relieve pressure on the courts. Consequently, as I said at the beginning of my speech, we support the principle of Bill C-61. However, we do not agree with the double standard the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food wishes to introduce by reducing penalties for violators who plead guilty without asking for a review or who will invest to correct the situation.
In fact, the agreement process the department wishes to impose is certainly not essential to the bill, especially since it is a potential source of arbitrariness and inequity. I would urge the House to vote in favour of the amendments proposed by the Bloc Quebecois, in order to correct a bill that might otherwise have a disastrous impact on the concept of equity in our legal system.
