Bill C-62 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment deals with integrated management systems and authorizes the establishment of voluntary reporting programs under which information relating to aviation safety and security may be reported. It also authorizes the designation of industry bodies to certify persons undertaking certain aeronautical activities. Other powers are enhanced or added to improve the proper administration of the Act, in particular powers granted to certain members of the Canadian Forces to investigate aviation accidents involving both civilians and a military aircraft or aeronautical facility.

Aeronautics Act

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-6.

Since I am the first to speak to this next wave of discussions on Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, I will read the summary of the bill found on the inside of the cover page. The summary states:

This enactment deals with integrated management systems and authorizes the establishment of voluntary reporting programs under which information relating to aviation safety and security may be reported. It also authorizes the designation of industry bodies to certify persons undertaking certain aeronautical activities. Other powers are enhanced or added to improve the proper administration of the Act—

The summary outlines the content of the bill. First off, I will try to convey to the hon. members why the Bloc Québécois will not vote in favour of the bill as originally tabled. We will certainly have ideas to share at committee. Bills can always be improved at committee. The Bloc Québécois will make sure that significant changes are made to this bill at committee to make it acceptable.

As it stands, all it basically does is put in place a safety management system. As attractive as it might appear at first glance, what this system really does is make airlines responsible for enforcing regulations in lieu of federal officials, as is currently the case.

To paraphrase what the member said earlier, it is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. That is really the message the Bloc Québécois wishes to convey. Establishing a safety management system may indeed sound good. There are other examples around the world of such systems being established, but not under economic conditions like the ones that saw the Liberal government make cuts after cuts in Canada. Now the Conservative government has taken over. I am not sure that the Conservative members got the gist of this bill which, at any rate, is not new, given that the minority Conservative government saw fit to borrow it from the former Liberal government.

This bill follows on the study by Transport Canada which launched Flight 2005 in 1999. Transport Canada's initiative was designed to establish in Canada this safety management system that was already in use in other countries around the world. This was 1999, long before the events of September 11, 2001. The bill before us today comes out of a 1999 study by Transport Canada and examples from other countries. Such a safety management system was supposed to get rid of federal officials by having the airline industry self-regulate.

The current Bill C-6 has a history. Following the Flight 2005 study carried out by Transport Canada in 1999, Bill S-33 was developed and introduced in the Senate in May 2005. It was then withdrawn. We do not know why the bill was withdrawn, but it was probably for the same reasons we are suggesting today.

The government had the same problem because of the events of September 2001, but the project was revived in September 2005 and became Bill C-62, which died on the order paper because of the elections. The Conservative Party brought it back, probably because it did not have enough bills. This can be construed from the way it is proceeding. The Conservatives needed something other than law and order. Thirty per cent of their bills are about law and order. They needed other kinds of bills. So they dusted off Bill C-62 and called it Bill C-6.

I am not sure the Conservatives are aware of the contents of Bill C-26 before us.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I started this speech last June I believe and I do not intend to speak very long. I am not sure whether there will be other speakers. I would like to compliment the former minister of transport who brought in Bill C-62 over a year ago and which has now been reintroduced.

After years of consultations with stakeholders it was noted that we would do the following: first, we would implement new strategies to regulate aviation safety; second, we would increase penalties for violations under the act; and third, modernize the act to meet the needs of the aviation community.

A press release from the Minister of Transport stated:

The proposed amendments to the Aeronautics Act reflect new strategies being implemented to regulate aviation safety, including an increase in penalties that may be imposed under the act. Key amendments would also allow individuals and operators to confidentially report, on a voluntary basis, less safety-critical regulatory violations.

If we look back at the record of this Parliament, we would find that a number of the bills that are being tabled in the House are in fact the reintroduction of bills that were introduced by the previous Liberal government. That bodes well. Parliament is working and will continue the important legislation that is in the best interests of all Canadians.

There are two proposed amendments to this bill. The first amendment would allow individuals and operators to confidentially report on a voluntary basis what is described as a “less safety critical regulatory violation”. I am not sure that we have the assurance of the minister as to what constitutes a less safety critical regulatory violation. I am going to be interested to hear more on this subject. If they are not serious violations, why do they have to be confidential? There are some questions here. We want to know if there will be an opportunity for members of Parliament to be briefed on a number of such reports and their nature.

The second amendment would allow the Canadian government to obtain information through any air accidents that happen outside of Canada through new and expanded powers being allotted to the military and to the Minister of National Defence. In the interests of transparency, I am wondering what checks and balances will be on these new powers?

We are paving the way to ensuring that all the information is available to authorities, especially in tragic accidents. There is a balance to be struck. We on this side of the House would like the Minister of Transport and the Minister of National Defence to take some time to assure us that measures are in place to ensure that these powers will be strictly adhered to. We also expect that there will be a report to parliamentarians in any case where this amendment comes into play and has to be exercised.

As a result of all the hard work of the former minister of transport in creating this legislation, we will be supporting it. We hope the government will uphold the spirit of this legislation.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, for the Minister of Transport]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-62, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that this bill and another bill I will be introducing today are intended to reflect and represent the late hon. member Chuck Cadman's commitment to street safety and to the rights of victims. They are a tribute to his legacy.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Fisheries Act

[John Cummins, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member and I are singing from the same song sheet on this issue. The issue is that under the Fisheries Act the government has the ability to put in place a regulation.

If we look at section 184 of Bill C-62, the Fisheries Act, introduced in Parliament in 1996, it talks about offences under the act to which section 181 applies and the manner in which those offences may be described in tickets. It talks about classes of offences referred to in paragraph (d) and the amount of the fine for each class.

Basically, section 184 details sections under the act or it gives an overview of the regulations under the act, the government's ability to respond to violations and the manner in which it will respond to violations. As we indicated earlier, the joint committee provides the scrutiny to ensure that those regulations meet with the intentions of Parliament.

Bill C-52 gives that regulation making authority, although it talks about licensed conditions, to bureaucrats. It gives those bureaucrats the unfettered ability to put in place their own form of regulation to govern the fishery, to give access to quotas to friends of the government and to discriminate between groups of fishermen.

The question then becomes what recourse do fishermen have to challenge these conditions that have been attached to their licence? They will not be able to challenge offensive regulations in court because Parliament will have given bureaucrats the authority to make those regulations. The fishermen will not have the ability to come to us as members of Parliament and ask of how we can help them on an issue because Parliament will have given the bureaucrats the authority to act. In order to challenge a bureaucrat, we would have to change the law.

That is the problem with this legislation. It puts the fishermen in a very vulnerable position. It gives the bureaucrats the authority that one might expect the minister to have, but even the minister's authority is held in check by Parliament.

These bureaucrats will have more authority than Parliament even dreamt of giving the fisheries minister. That is why this bill is so offensive.