Bradley Trost

[Business of Supply, October 3rd, 2017]

Madam Speaker, of course the opposition does not share the premise of the inequalities that the member is talking about. However, let us say that we do.

Instead of raising taxes on business, why does the government or the hon. member not advocate for lowering taxes on salaried employees to the level that the businesses have for their supposed advantage? Why, instead of raising taxes, does he not advocate lowering taxes to make everyone equal?

[Ovarian Cancer, October 2nd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, on September 10, I had the honour of attending Canada's Walk of Hope for ovarian cancer along Highway 60 near Saskatoon.

Striving for early detection was the theme of the walk. More research needs to be done so that methods of early detection of ovarian cancer can be developed. Unfortunately, there is no reliable screening test for ovarian cancer. Two of my friends, Brenda from Cudworth and Denise from Saskatoon, have each lost their battle with ovarian cancer, and I do miss both of them.

If people have any signs and symptoms that may indicate ovarian cancer, they should please talk to their physicians. Even though close to 3,000 women in Canada are diagnosed with ovarian cancer every year, only 2% of donations for cancer are directed toward this disease. In the competition for research dollars, it is one disease that is sometimes overlooked.

Ovarian Cancer Canada welcomes volunteers and financial support. Please visit ovariancanada.org today to donate and get involved and support friends and family who have struggled against this tragic illness.

[Oceans Act, September 29th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, the principle is very clear. Whoever takes an action should be responsible for the results of that action, and when it comes to pollution, we try to make the polluter, the person who polluted, who was the cause of the accident, ultimately responsible. We know that in international shipping lanes, where there are ships from all around the world with flags of convenience, that may be difficult and, unfortunately, impossible at certain times.

That is why throughout history various governments and regimes have looked to various forms of insurance and collective action and those sorts of procedures to try to cover those loopholes. That is something that any government should look at. It should try to find out where there are loopholes where people are polluting and are evading their responsibility, and make them directly responsible.

[Oceans Act, September 29th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I believe I have about 13 minutes left in debate before we go to the private members' hour, so I will try to make my remarks fit within that time.

The hon. member who spoke before me began by saying that Alberta's coastline was very important, and how great it was. Coming from the province of Saskatchewan, I think I come from the only province that has less of a coastline than Alberta. We are that square in the middle of the rectangle in the middle of the country whose boundaries are not made by any natural coastline or mountain, but by someone who just drew lines on a map.

People may think it is somewhat interesting that a member from Saskatchewan would get up to talk about this at the end of a Friday in the House of Commons. However, I think it is appropriate that we in the opposition push the government very aggressively on this bill for a couple of reasons. The first has been the theme of most of my colleagues today, that we feel that the people who are most directly impacted by this legislation have not been heard.

I was looking through some of the testimony at committee. Witness after witness said that this bill did not meet the needs of the local communities. There were representatives of fishers in Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, and a professor from Simon Fraser University who was an expert on the subject. Time and time again they said that the government needed to slow down and talk to them. This has an impact on their day-to-day lives. This is something that could have vast repercussions for what they do.

When we hear the witnesses who represent these areas and the people who will be directly impacted say that they are not opposed to the idea in its entirety but need to have input because of the drastic implications this could have for their lives, we begin to realize that the government has not been doing an effective job at consulting with people.

I know that the government has been criticized in the past for over-consulting. Somewhere it needs to be able to find a balance. The purpose of consultation should not be delay, as the government tries to figure out what to do or to put off a difficult decision. The purpose needs to be to acquire the views of the people who are most directly impacted.

This drives to the nub of what the issues often are when it comes to conservation and environmental issues throughout the country. Now, I do not have personal experience in the fisheries or any of the marine industries. I was raised on a family farm and have experience there. Prior to being elected to the House of Commons, I was a mining exploration geophysicist, someone who had the privilege of working in northern Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Yukon. I particularly enjoyed my time up in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, seeing the great majestic splendour of our north. I had the chance to enjoy and work in it, and I came to understand parts of Canada that, unfortunately, too many Canadians from the south never really get to live and experience.

When one works in those sorts of occupations, one really begins to understand that it is ultimately not a question of the environment versus industry. These things are necessary and work together. This can often be a problem for people who do not work in these natural resource, agricultural and, in this case, fisheries-related industries, where there is a real daily physical interaction between nature and the activity humans are trying to engage in to create a livelihood.

We can see that tension in the debate and the testimony by witnesses on this bill. They are very concerned that marine protected areas could be imposed upon them in a way that is detrimental to their livelihoods. That is a real concern, because nowadays there are increasingly large numbers of people who no longer have that direct connection to the places where raw, natural products come from.

The joke, which is a somewhat unfair stereotype, is that people in the cities believe milk comes from a carton in the store and not from a cow. The same could be said for fish and where it comes from. Not everyone can quite understand that someone has to go out there and harvest it. If environmental decisions for a marine protected area are made without direct consultation, this could have a real and direct impact on the livelihoods of people.

The concern about the legislation is that it would give power to the minister to create a temporary marine protected area, whereas previously, it was a long consultative process to ensure all interests were brought in, aboriginal, local sport users, and various people, to ensure there was a solution that worked for everyone in the area.

One might say if it is temporary, it can be quickly overturned. When temporary decisions are made, they often become de facto permanent decisions. While people are waiting for a quick resolution of the environmental issues for an area, their lives have to go on. They have to move, and they are unable to continue with their livelihood. That major concern is coming from communities in Atlantic Canada, the west coast, and, as we heard earlier in reference to an MLA speaking of Nunavut, communities up north.

They are concerned that a minister could be under political pressure to green wash the government's politics in time for an election, or to perhaps help the Liberals win some votes to get their much coveted seat on the UN Security council. With some quick green washing, a temporary marine protected area could be set up and that would have detrimental effects on the livelihood of people worked there to make a living.

Again, I do not have that direction connection with the fisheries community that some of the hon. members in the House do. However, I can understand how that would feel in the agriculture area. I was a farmer and I grew grew up in a farm family. I also worked in the natural resources industry up north. People feel very vulnerable when they realize someone, who has no understanding of the actual day-to-day operations of their industry and the necessity of the things that need to be done, can come out of nowhere and make an arbitrary decision that could absolutely ruin their livelihood. They feel vulnerable and scared.

I am pretty sure the government is not trying to frighten Canadians. Politicians generally do not try to. This might look good from political optics and it might look good if they need to burnish their environmental credentials with international bodies, but while it may look good, they need to understand this can have a very real impact on the ordinary livelihoods of people.

The opposition is asking the government to step back from the legislation, put it on hold for a while, spend more time consulting , and pull away from the whole concept of a temporary measure that could, out of nowhere, lead to de facto permanent impositions on an area. The hon. members on the other side talk about science. Science is rarely quick. That is why we need time to do this right, to be involved, and to consult.

As a member who has a scientific background, and a career based in the natural sciences before I came here, I urge the government to take those principles, the understanding of science and marry it with the democratic principles of consultation and working with people in the rural communities who are trying to make their living through fishing. Do not to scare them, but work with them.

Putting all that together, we can have better legislation, better protections for the environment, and economic growth for these areas. Ultimately, to have good environmental protection, and we see this throughout the world, we need a growing and strong economy and we need the local population to be strongly supportive. The Government of Canada taking steps to frighten local people away from supporting environmental provisions is not the proper way to do that.

As there are only a couple of minutes left, I would like to give my colleagues in the House the time to ask me a few questions. With about three or four minutes before the clock winds down, I will allow my colleagues to wind up the day with a couple of questions.

[Petitions, September 29th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I would also like to present petition e-1053, which calls upon the House of Commons to revoke Bill C-45, the cannabis legislation.

The petitioners are deeply concerned about how the legalization of cannabis will affect Canadian youth. For example, the government's proposal that every household will be able to contain four marijuana plants will make the possession of cannabis by children incredibly difficult to control and make it harder to prevent distribution of this thought-impairing drug by criminals.

[Petitions, September 29th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present a couple of petitions today.

The first is petition e-575, which calls upon the Government of Canada to empower Canadians to be responsible for their own health and safety by removing the prohibition of sound moderators from the Criminal Code.

The majority of G7 nations allow for the legal use of sound moderators by hunters and sports shooters to reduce noise pollution and noise complaints around shooting ranges and near farms and other areas where hunting and target shooting is legal.

[Transportation Modernization Act, June 16th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the member has a good point, and this is one of the things that would be discussed at committee.

If, and this is as big if, we are going ahead with these penalties, it would be wise to have the elected representatives give some sort of a framework rather than have it purely be done by regulation. I understand regulation can be more flexible, but the framework to the regulators should be given by the elected officials. This tends to be the democratic process, and I suspect that will be looked at when the bill comes to committee.

[Transportation Modernization Act, June 16th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, we are coming up to the mid-point of the government. We are likely to have, but not guaranteed, a prorogation where everything gets restarted and reset in the fall. However, if we send the bill to committee, there are ways of reviving it.

My suggestion earlier in my speech was that the government, instead of putting this out as one bill, was to put it out in four smaller pieces of legislation. This would have allowed the government to get the rail piece of the bill out sooner and get it done. As my colleague, the member for Brandon—Souris pointed out, it would prevent the legislative gap that was about to happen.

Therefore, if this is such a priority, and I agree it is, why did the Liberals not get started on it earlier? Why did they not break it down into smaller pieces where the urgent items could be dealt with and the less urgent items could then be debated more fulsome?

[Transportation Modernization Act, June 16th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, it has been a few years since I was last on the transportation committee, I think four or five, if my memory serves me correctly, but I enjoy speaking about these issues. One reason I enjoy talking about them is that in a country as vast as Canada, transportation really matters. Every country has its unique issues, but Canada's would be distinctly different from most countries in the world. Perhaps Australia, the United States, and Russia face some of the same challenges as Canada, but very few other countries in the world would have the exact same problems.

The other thing I find very interesting about the legislation is that it deals with an underlying problem, which is different economically than many issues with which we deal.

Before I discuss that, let me say a few basic words for context about this broad legislation.

Bill C-49, the transportation modernization act, is legislation that we call, for people watching at home, an omnibus bill. Many elements from different areas are put together under one larger theme. We have heard members from various opposition parties point out that not all elements of the bill really fit together. In fact, I suggest the government would have been better off breaking the bill into three, or perhaps even four, pieces of legislation.

A very small element of the bill deals with marine issues. There is a larger element that deals with railway issues, which could have been subdivided into separate legislation to deal with railway safety issues and broader economic railway issues. It also deals with issues related to airlines, consumers, the financing of airlines, foreign ownership rules, and so forth.

In many ways, the government has put together many things that really do not belong in a single piece of legislation, which makes it somewhat difficult to comment on. Some things in the bill are well-intentioned and could possibly be useful and good for the country. Other pieces of the legislation the government should rethink. I will take apart as many elements of the bill in the time allotted to me.

One of the biggest rail transportation issues in Canada is that there is a natural monopoly tendency. That is not caused by the railways through any malice or problem; it is just that there are some very natural realities. To build a railway, a large capital investment is required, making it very difficult for competition. Railways also serve specific geographic areas exclusively. They need to have that natural monopoly. To pay for the underlying capital cost, they need to capture the majority of the market. That, then, leads to a problem of a power imbalance.

If commodities can be shipped by means other than railways, for example, oil can be shipped by pipeline or perhaps trucking is better for other commodities, that is not a problem. However, for certain commodities and situations, rail may not be available. That is where a problem tends to result and get argued about when it comes to rail transportation.

In highly competitive markets where a lot of commodities enter and exit and product substitution is easily done, etc., there is no call for the government to get involved because there are few issues with the market. No monopoly is ever naturally total or pure, but to some degree railways in our country have those sorts of issues.

That has therefore caused a long history of the governments of Canada regulating, subsidizing, and interfering in the rail transportation industry, particularly in the west. If we look at the population centres of eastern Canada, they are much closer to the United States and commodities can be trucked. In that case, there is a considerable amount of competition.

That tends to be the underlying issue the government has to deal with whenever it deals with rail transportation issues.

In a previous Parliament, there had been some issues on grain transporting in the Prairies due to bottlenecks. Some of this was perhaps due to the railways, some of it perhaps due to weather issues, and the large crop in western Canada. The previous government put in some adjustments, which allowed shippers to use the railway system within 160 kilometres. This is a bit of a simplified interpretation. They were allowed to use the existing railways, and have the right, to ship their grain and other commodities to the United States and then connect.

It is this interconnection that is being discussed. It used to be 30 kilometres and was then extended to 160 kilometres. For those in places like Regina who needed to ship their grain and CN, CP could not get it out, they could then get them to ship it to the United States at which point a railway like Burlington Northern would have the option to ship the grain. As has been noted, that is coming to an end.

What the government has suggested is changing the rules to introduce something it is calling long haul interchangeability rights, eliminating this 160 kilometre rule.

This is very similar to what has already been in the legislation before and has not been used. If the government is putting in a new provision but it is almost identical to something that has been in the legislation since the 1990s but has not been used, what is the purpose? What is the government trying to accomplish?

The government will have to deal with this at committee. Why is it eliminating something that has helped eliminate a bottleneck situation and going back to an older system that has not worked well. That is my first criticism and question for the government.

The second thing I want to point out, particularly with the rail issues, is that I do not see anything the government is doing in this to bring down the costs. Service is important, and commodity shippers in western Canada have told me they are willing to pay more if they can get timely and accurate services. That is very good. Ultimately, time is money when shipping products.

I am failing to see where the government is dealing with ways to make the regulatory process quicker and smoother. In fact, most of the legislation seems to add more layers onto it. I understand it goes back to that underlying problem, the natural monopoly and how to dealt with it. We often deal with it through regulation.

There is a second question I would like to put to the government. With the rail situation and the added costs that will soon come through the carbon tax, which will ultimately hurt the producers, the shippers, and other Canadians involved, how will it do things to lower the costs?

Finally, there are elements in the bill which personally interest me and many of my constituents. They are around the creation of a passenger's bill of rights. In many ways, this sounds very good. As someone who flies a lot, and most western Canadian members of Parliament joke that our third office is an airplane, I am very familiar with problems airlines can have.

My question is this. What has been costed and how will this cost be passed on to the customer? Costs for airline flights in Canada are some of the highest in the world. We all have a major concern with that. If our businesses are going to grow, if we are going to have better connection and the ability for places like Saskatoon, where I come from, to move out and do business in the world, we need costs to be dealt with.

Therefore, these are the basic questions. Why is the government taking away something that has worked and replacing it with something that has been tried and seems to be wanting? Where is the government's ability to bring down costs, both for railways and air passengers? Also, how is it going to simplify the regulatory burden?

These are questions the government needs to deal with when the bill goes to committee. The Liberals would have been wiser if they had split the legislation into smaller bills so we could deal with it in more bite-sized pieces.

[Transportation Modernization Act, June 15th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the minister's answer to the question my colleague from Swan River asked about changing from the 160-kilometre regulated interswitching to the new proposal for the long-haul interswitching. The minister said this covered all commodities. I could be wrong, but according to the notes I have in front of me, fertilizer shippers are going to be excluded from the long-haul interswitching.

If that is correct, I would like to know why the fertilizer shippers are being excluded. Are there any other commodities being excluded, or are all commodities going to be included under the new long-haul interswitching the bill is proposing?