James Moore

[Airline Safety, March 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in December the government told the Canadian people it would establish an air marshals program, but the Air Line Pilots Association and CUPE, which represents the majority of cabin crew, said that the government had not given any procedural guidelines on working with air marshals to Canadian flight crews or flight attendants.

This means that either the government is being incompetent and irresponsible in setting up the program, or the government has not hired air marshals beyond the Toronto-Washington, D.C. route. Which is it?

[Point of Order, March 12th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, no rhetorical farce is ever fully complete without a cameo appearance by the member for Scarborough--Agincourt.

Speaking of donkeys coming to work, the idea of amortizing the cost of the equipment over the life of the equipment is standard practice in the private sector. I am not saying we should have 20 year old security equipment at airports 20 years from now. It would be up to the government to decide what constitutes the life of the equipment.

If the member believes that the airports should replace this equipment after five years, then the government should set it at five years and scale the cost of the equipment over five years, not in year one. All I am advocating is that anything would be better than paying it all in year one, which is what the government is planning to do.

It can scale it or pick a number but it should not pay all the cash up front. I will tell the member why. He is from a constituency in Toronto. Toronto has a lot of airline competition and it will continue over the years because of the size of the population. However I would invite the member to go to Grand Prairie or to Prince George. In fact, he might want to bring the former secretary of state for multiculturalism, the member for Vancouver Centre, when he goes to Prince George and investigate those supposed cross burnings while he is at it. He should go to Prince George, to Vernon, to Grand Prairie, to places in Saskatchewan, to Churchill Falls and tell the people that the government should pay cash up front for all this equipment, which it does not need to do, and that they have to pay a huge tax up front which could drive small, local, regional air carriers into the ground and people will not have jet service.

The member can make glib comments all he wants about donkeys, dinosaurs and all that nonsensical stuff, but it is a substantive policy question that will have a real impact on small communities and local small regional carriers. I would encourage him to take a plane outside of Toronto or Ottawa, because the impact is real. I do not say that as some rhetorical slap, I mean that sincerely. He should fly to remote parts of this country and tell them there that there will not be an impact from this tax, because they will tell him a very different story.

[Point of Order, March 12th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I want to refer to the last comments of my colleague from Scarborough--Agincourt in concert with what was said by my colleague from Medicine Hat. If the Liberal mentality is that we wait for a disaster to happen to set up parameters to defend against the disaster, it is no wonder the government has been in such a rush to set up even basic security parameters post-September 11.

That exact mentality causes Canada to be weak and causes Canadians consternation about the future of the country and our capacity to defend ourselves. Because something has not happened in the arena of ballistic missiles does not mean that we should not then therefore defend against it. That sort of mentality is frankly frightening for most Canadians.

We are debating the Progressive Conservative motion that reads:

That this House condemn the government for its failure to implement a national security policy to address the broad range of security issues, including those at Canadian ports of entry and borders, and call on the government to reassert Parliament's relevance in addressing these and other public policy issues.

I agree wholeheartedly with the motion. I encourage all members of the House including all backbench Liberal members to agree with it. I know a number of Liberal members in the House are not happy with the way the government is being led certainly by the frontbenches on the issues of national security and so on.

One particular event happened in the House, but because I only have about nine or so minutes left I want to specifically circumscribe my comments to the issue of the $24 air tax, how it relates to airport security and what the government has done in that area.

The government said after September 11 that our security was not where it should be given the new realities of airport and airline security and what we need to be doing. It also said at the same time that our airport and airline security standards, however, were still higher than those of the United States.

The government then asked those of us on the transport committee to hear witness after witness, hour after hour, and spend tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars. It asked us to travel across North America to hear from witnesses and to look at different ways of improving Canada's airport and airline security. We did that. We went to Washington, D.C., and to Pearson airport. We took tours of airports all over the country, heard from countless witnesses and drafted 14 recommendations.

They included the idea that we had to increase airport security, that the new improvements in airport and airline security should be financed by a group of financiers including airports, airlines, general revenue and passengers, and that the cost of improved security should be dovetailed so that no one specific element of the transportation sector or one branch of Canadians would get nailed harder than another. The cost should be spread out.

Recommendation No. 14 of the transport committee was supported unanimously by every member of the committee including every Liberal present at the committee and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, the member for Chicoutimi--Le Fjord. We all said that this was how it should come forward.

What happened? Lo and behold we tabled our report and half a week later the government came down with its budget which said that it would impose a $24 air security tax specifically on passengers. To heck with what the transport committee said. To heck with what its own Liberals said. To heck with what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport said. It nailed consumers only, travellers themselves, with a $24 tax.

That was utter disrespect of the committee system. For that reason alone I would think that certainly members of that committee would support the motion we are discussing today.

There are many problems with the $24 tax, which is one of the reasons the government has been pilloried on radio talk shows, in the newspapers and everywhere else about it. No real Liberal is standing to say the $24 tax is a great idea and that we have to do it. There are many holes in this policy. I have raised this a number of times in the House in question period.

Among these problems is the fact that last year Canada's airlines paid $72 million in airport screening. They cut cheques to the government saying that they understood they benefited specifically more than other people in this regard. The government mandated that they spend $72 million for airport screening. As of the December budget the government has said it did not want the $72 million. It has the $24 tax. It has the taxpayers in its line of sight and is going after them. Why is the government not asking air carriers to pay the extra $72 million they used to pay and lowering the $24 tax a bit?

Another problem is that last year prior to September 11 per passenger screening was $1.10 per emplanement. It is now $12 or 10 times the amount. When average Canadians go to the airport I do not think they will see 10 times the number of security guards, 10 times the number of metal detectors or 10 times the number of baggage screeners. It is just will not happen. However the government is asking taxpayers to pay tenfold the amount they paid last year.

In the United States the government said that its security was here and that we were ahead of it. The United States implemented airport security to raise it up to the Canadian standard and maybe even exceed it. With the variation between Canadian standards and American standards and given that we were further ahead, Americans are charging $5 for a round trip or, adjusted for Canadian dollars, $8 for a round trip. What are we charging? It is $24. This is defeating the government's own logic.

The Liberal government says that our security is better than that of the Americans. We have a higher starting point but it will charge Canadians triple to improve it so that we meet American standards. How does that square? Average Canadian citizens think it is just a bunch of blarney. It is and they are right.

The $24 tax will finance $2.2 billion in aviation security needs. The government said that $2.2 billion was the number it would finance over five years. It picked a number out of the air. Thus $2.2 billion divided by the average number of passengers that flew over the last couple of years adds up to $24. That is what it put in the budget so that bang, it would become law.

It did no impact study whatsoever on what it would mean to regional carriers or to low cost carriers in small communities. It did not even listen to the transport committee. It did not consult a single air carrier. It just said that $2.2 billion over five years divided by the number of passengers was $24. That was the number.

It is nonsensical. Of the $2.2 billion in airport improvements over $1 billion is to buy EDS or electronic bomb detecting type equipment. That is fine. The official opposition supports purchasing the new and best equipment possible because Canadians should be safe when they are flying. However the problem is the government will pay upfront cash for all that equipment in year one.

There are two problems in that regard. The first problem is that the equipment will not be available for one to two years because there is a backlog of American airports that are already ordering this stuff. We are paying cash up front for a service, for technology that we will not see for another year.

The private sector, and this is where the Liberal government does not get it, has some lessons to teach the government. Once in a while it would be helpful if the government would listen.

Dentists and chiropractors are two examples. Dental chairs cost roughly $20,000 to $25,000. A chiropractic table costs about the same. When they buy those as small business people, which is what they are, they amortize the cost of the equipment over the life of the equipment. They say the equipment will last them roughly 12 to 15 years so they amortize the cost of it and keep their payments down.

The government is doing the opposite. This equipment, the EDS, the bomb detection equipment, should last 10, 15 or maybe up to 18 or 20 years and the government is paying cash up front in year one. What kind of nonsensical fiscal irresponsible financing is that and at what cost so that it can meet its target of $2.2 billion over five years without having done a single impact study?

Even worse is if we consider the numbers and how it arrived at the amount. The 43 million passengers that were screened last year do not include connecting passengers. The government has said that 43 million passengers flew last year. It divided the 43 million over five years at $12 per emplanement and reached the $4.5 million number for new improvements per year.

There are a number of problems in that regard. Among them is the fact that last year was the worst year on record for commercial aviation in terms of emplanements at 43 million people flying. In March of this year Air Canada and WestJet have both reported that their passenger numbers are back up to normal. In fact Air Canada just rehired a few hundred of its former employees. WestJet has just purchased two brand new 767s. They are back. Things are improving. Air traffic is coming back. The numbers will go up. The number of 43 million passengers was the real low ball number.

What has the government done? It has taken 43 million passengers and has dropped the number to 36 million. It is assuming that only 36 million passengers will fly next year, so 36 million times the $12 over five years equals $2.2 billion. What the government will not admit but should admit because it is so painfully obvious is that more than 36 million people will fly. More than 43 million people will fly, which was the number for last year. It could be in the neighbourhood of 50 million people. If we take 50 million people times $12, all that money and all those tax dollars will go straight to the finance minister and to the Liberal government.

What is even worse, that money is supposed to go toward creating a new air security independent authority that will not be set up until November or December this year. People will be paying for a service that they do not get and, of course, as is the Liberal way, all the money will not go to the authority. It will go straight into general revenue and the government will get to do what it wants with the massive surpluses. It is totally irresponsible. The motion speaks to it and I support it.

[Point of Order, March 12th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, the member for Chatham--Kent Essex mentioned that post-September 11, given the new airport security regime that has been put in place, the security guards at airports have been replaced. I have been paying very close attention to this file. The member said that a number of airport security guards and baggage screeners have been replaced at airports. That was in the member's speech. I want to ask him exactly how many have been replaced because I do not know of a single one.

[Privilege, March 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the regulations that existed before the passing of Bill C-34, amendments to the Canada Transportation Act in June 2000, required grain handling firms and rail carriers to provide information to the Minister of Transport to collect sufficient information necessary for the monitoring of the grain handling and transportation system.

However, before the passage of Bill C-34, the government did not have the authority to use the information collected under section 50 of the Canada Transportation Act for monitoring. Bill C-34 changed how the information collected under the authority of section 50 of the act could be used by adding section 50(1)(e.1), monitoring the grain transportation and handling system.

It should be noted that the regulations passed pursuant to section 50 of the act cover all parts of section 50 of the act and not individual parts.

The reporting requirements outlined in section 50(3.2) of the act, as inserted by Bill C-34, were triggered when the carriers and transportation and grain handling undertakings information regulations were used to collect information from carriers and grain handling enterprises and this information was communicated to Quorum Corporation to carry out monitoring of the grain, as anticipated in the new sections inserted into the CTA by Bill C-34.

These two necessary conditions have clearly been met. I will quote from the press release issued by the Ministers of Transport, Agriculture and Agri-Food, and the Canadian Wheat Board of June 19, 2001:

The Minister of Transport, the Minister of Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board, and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, today announced that Quorum Corporation has been hired to monitor and assess the overall efficiency of Canada's grain handling and transportation system.

The June 19 press release further states:

Quorum Corporation will collect and analyze data from railways, grain companies.

This information is collected under the authority of section 50 of the Canada Transportation Act.

Parliament clearly intended that when the Minister of Transport undertook formal monitoring of the grain handling and transportation system, the minister would report the results of this monitoring effort to parliament at least once per year. The minister is engaging in formal monitoring of the system and is using his authority under section 50 of the act to collect information from grain handlers and rail carriers. The minister is getting quarterly and annual reports, again his own press release states “Quorum Corporation will provide quarterly and annual reports” from Quorum Corporation and yet is refusing to abide by the will of parliament and table a report. Again, I view this as contempt.

The government is correct, the regulations in question were brought into effect on July 1, 1996. However, the specific purpose of “monitoring the grain handling and transportation system” could not have been part of the purpose of the regulations because these provisions did not exist in the act until June 2001.

The government claims that the regulations required to trigger the reporting requirement have not been met. In order for this argument to hold, he must answer two basic questions, which I suggest he cannot do.

First, if the Minister of Transport is not supplying Quorum Corporation with information obtained under the authority granted by section 50 of the Canada Transportation Act, how is Quorum obtaining the information necessary to carry out its contractual mandate of monitoring the grain handling and transportation system?

Second, if Quorum Corporation is obtaining information through the authority granted to the minister in section 50 of the act but is not obtaining the information under section 50(1)(e.1), by what authority is it using this information to monitor the grain handling and transportation system given the fact that this purpose for the collection of the information was not anticipated before section 50(1)(e.1) was inserted into the act with the passing of Bill C-34 in June 2000?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, March 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, last year the pre-screening of passengers cost $1.10 per passenger. Under Bill C-49 the government would charge passengers $12 a head. Can the secretary of state tell the House if Canadians could expect tenfold the security measures they experienced last year? Precisely what would they get for ten times the amount of money?

Last year the Air Transport Association of Canada estimated that 43 million people walked through airport security checkpoints in Canada, and last year was the worst on record for commercial air traffic. The government's tax and its revenue is based on an estimated 36 million passengers. How did the government arrive at such a low number of 36 million given that WestJet last week bought two brand new 767s, Air Canada has rehired staff and its March traffic is equal to last year's prior to September 11?

If this year's traffic matches last year's of 43 million people, which again was the worst year on record, we could raise the $430 million the finance minister needs this year by asking each passenger to pay $9.14 rather than $12. Why is the government proposing to charge $12 if $9.14, given the traffic of last year which was the lowest ever, would give it the same revenue? Why is it overtaxing?

[Question No.100—, March 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this important matter. There are a number of points I wish to make. I listened to the speech by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. I found it curious that he took a shot at the official opposition on the question of free votes, in that when we vote in unison somehow that is free votes, but when the government does not do it that is not somehow imposing party discipline.

Coming from the authority he has as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, I find it absurd for him to stand in the House and lecture anybody on the issue of free votes and represent democracy. Consider the debacle that happened in the second election of the chair of the finance committee and how much of an embarrassment that was, not only to the Liberal government, but to the entire House and to democracy.

What is more, consider the lack of democracy at the finance committee when the Liberal member of parliament for Hillsborough, Prince Edward Island, dared to say that he might vote in favour of lowering a tax. Then the committee was gaveled and shut down. We came to the House to vote 15 minutes before any of the other committee meetings broke to come to the House for the vote. Moreover, the chair of the committee would not entertain a vote prior to us coming here even though there was nobody left on the speaking roster.

Clearly, the whip appointed chair of the finance committee did not like what was going on. When we came back to the committee after the vote, the member for Hillsborough was nowhere to be seen for close to half an hour. Then when the Liberal member for Hillsborough came into the committee, he said that he had been made aware that the government would be reviewing this tax sometime in the fall. Therefore, he was not going to vote for my amendment to cut the tax in half.

It was curious given that he said he learned that information in the previous half hour while we were voting. The government said that back in December. Somehow it was a revelation to him even though the information had been made public almost two and a half months prior.

I want to speak to Motion No. 10 which is to remove northern airports from this list. In the House of Commons the finance minister said and I quote:

--the charge will not be applied to direct flights to and from the smaller and remote airports that make up the vast majority of the airports in the north.

I challenged the finance minister and the Liberal government to live up to that recommendation at committee. I tabled a bunch of small and rural communities and airports at committee for them to vote on, to put some muscle behind their rhetoric.

I put the Inuit village of Rankin Inlet which has a population of 2,500 people on the list. It is exempt from the tax. I also put the smaller community of Kuujjuaq, with a population of 1,470, on the list to have exempted. In Liberal math 1,470 is bigger than 2,500. For some reason the people of Kuujjuaq with a population of 1,470 will have to pay the $24 round trip air tax, but the people of Rankin Inlet with a population of 2,500 will not.

Frankly, the government did not fulfill the spirit of what was said by the finance minister in the House. What was very interesting was I said that Miramichi, New Brunswick, another small community, should taken off the list, the argument being that there was no air service to its airport. Somehow the government said that it needed 90 airports, a round number, so Miramichi, New Brunswick was left on the list. There is no air service to Miramichi, New Brunswick, none whatsoever.

Liberals at the committee and all the genius that was mustered said that they would agree with my amendment to take Miramichi, New Brunswick off the list.

After that we voted on taking Dawson Creek off the list, another small city in British Columbia. The Liberals said no, that we could not do that. They also voted to keep Churchill Falls on the list. Churchill Falls has a population of 717 people. It is a small, rural, northern community which is trying to pull the community up, expand it and grow it. However the government is going to tax that community $24 round trip on air service. Then there is Miramichi, New Brunswick. Its airport is dead. Therefore because there is no revenue for the government, it is not going to charge it the tax. Only when an airport is dead will the government say it should be taken off the list. I will bet that if Miramichi airport at some point in the next year or so, if one Dash 8 flies out of that airport, the government will come in and nail that community for the $24 tax again.

There are many reasons the $24 tax is bad public policy. First, it is not revenue neutral. The government's own numbers in Bill C-49 contrast with the budget it announced in December. In year one there would a $90 million surplus. That is not revenue neutral.

Second, I sat for hours at the transport committee and we unanimously came up with a list of recommendations for airport and airline security. Not one of the recommendations found its way into the law that is supposed to improve airline and airport security.

At the finance committee the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance seemed to be an expert on airport and airline security. However he was not on the transport committee so he knows not of what he speaks when he talks about the recommendations.

Recommendation 14 was unanimously supported by the Liberals including the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport. It states:

All stakeholders--including airports, air carriers, airline passengers and/or residents of Canada--contribute to the cost of improved aviation security.

The transport committee's recommendations were totally ignored and brushed aside. The finance minister said he wanted tax revenues to go to the general revenue. The government has ignored the recommendation of the transport committee and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport. The Liberal arrogance on display in the House is quite typical. The Liberals see a tax grab and they like it. They throw corporate welfare to the people in their constituencies. It is a huge a tax grab.

The government did not do one impact study on the tax. Government members should know WestJet's profit margin is four passengers per flight. We have heard from industry people that WestJet may eliminate its Calgary-Edmonton run. Today WestJet flies 14 or 16 daily round trip flights from Calgary to Edmonton. It may completely eliminate the run from its schedule because of the air tax. The government did not ask one air carrier or industry official what the impact of the tax would be on their business. WestJet's profit margin is four passengers per flight.

WestJet may kill its Toronto-Calgary run altogether. That is the route on which it built its business. It may lose the run because of Liberal policy. The government did no impact study or assessment whatsoever.

The tax would be collected on April 1. All the money from it would go straight into the general revenue of the government. Air carriers and travel agents would cut cheques to the receiver general which would go straight into the general revenue. The money would then go to the new airport authority the government is supposed to be creating. The airport authority would not be created until November or December of this year. In other words, from April 1 until November or December of this year Canadians would essentially have taxation without representation through the authority they are supposed to be financing.

What are Canadians to expect during that time? The $24 fee is supposed to finance $2.2 billion in air security improvements. More than $1 billion of the $2.2 billion would be for new technology such as bomb detection equipment, metal detectors and so on. There would be a one year backlog in getting the equipment because of the attacks in the United States. However the government would pay cash upfront in 2002 for equipment it would not receive for a year. It would pay 100% of the cost upfront.

If the government had any common business sense it would do what people in small business do all the time: amortize the cost of the equipment over the life of the equipment. It could do that. It would cut the tax in half. However the government would rather put the money into the general revenue. After the government paid upfront for equipment it would not get for a year, the same amount would keep pouring into the general revenue. The Liberals could keep throwing it at corporate welfare and their friends. They could keep spending the way Liberals love to spend.

I encourage all members of the House to support the transport committee's amendments and bring sanity back to the House. We studied the issue for hours and spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars. The member opposite may not care because he is a Liberal, but taxpayers care about their money being wasted.

[Privilege, March 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege to charge the Minister of Transport with contempt for his failure to comply with a legislative requirement compelling him to table a report on the monitoring of the grain transportation handling system in the House.

In June 2000 the government passed Bill C-34 that amended the grain provisions of the Canada Transportation Act. Subsection 50(3.2) of the new act reads:

The Minister must prepare, within six months after the end of each crop year, a report on the monitoring of the grain transportation and handling system and cause the report to be tabled in each House of Parliament on any of the first fifteen days on which that House is sitting after the Minister prepares it, if the Minister

(a) makes a regulation under paragraph (1)(e.1); and

(b) uses or communicates the information provided under the regulation for the purpose of monitoring the grain transportation and handling system.

The government hired Quorum Corporation to monitor the grain handling and transportation system and has fulfilled parts (a) and (b) of subsection 50(3.2) of the Canada Transportation Act.

The crop year ends July 31. Therefore, the six month period mentioned in subsection 50(3.2) ends on January 31. According to my count 15 sitting days after January 31 is February 28, yesterday.

On November 21, 2001, the Speaker delivered a ruling in regard to a complaint by the member for Surrey Central who cited 16 examples of where the government failed to comply with legislative requirements concerning the tabling of certain information in parliament. In all 16 cases raised on November 21 a reporting deadline was absent from the legislation and as a result the Speaker could not find a prima facie question of privilege.

However, the Speaker said in his ruling at page 7381 of Hansard :

Were there to be a deadline for tabling included in the legislation, I would not hesitate to find that a prima facie case of contempt does exist and I would invite the hon. member to move the usual motion.

I have established that the legislative requirement provided for in subsection 50(3.2) of the Canada Transportation Act includes a deadline for the tabling of a report on the monitoring of the grain transportation handling system. I have also established that the legislative deadline has not been met. Therefore, a prima facie question of privilege does exist. Accordingly, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion.

[Airline Industry, February 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, dentists, chiropractors and small business owners amortize these kinds of costs over the life of the equipment's use. The government should do the same thing and give taxpayers a break. There is a one year backlog in buying this new equipment. The new bomb detection equipment will have a life expectancy of over 15 years.

Why will the government not amortize the cost of that equipment, give taxpayers a break, save small and regional low cost carriers from going bankrupt in small communities, do Canadians a favour and be fiscally responsible?

[Airline Industry, February 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the $24 air tax that will be implemented to finance $2.2 billion in air security improvements, half of the $2.2 billion will be used to buy bomb detection equipment. The government is paying 100% of the equipment costs up front in cash. If the government amortized the cost of the equipment over the equipment's life time it could cut the air tax in half. Why will the government not do it?