Bill C-3 (Historical)

International Bridges and Tunnels Act

An Act respecting international bridges and tunnels and making a consequential amendment to another Act

This enactment establishes an approval mechanism for the construction, alteration and acquisition of international bridges and tunnels and provides for the regulation of their operation, maintenance and security.

Respecting International Bridges and Tunnels Act

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I thank the member for Nanaimo—Alberni for his point of order. I am sure the member for Mississauga South will want to address the main tenets of the bill in the rest of his speech.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the main point in the bill is that the devil is in the detail and these were examples. The members obviously have some examples and if they wanted more they could look at the tax credits or transit passes of Kyoto.

However, let us move on to the regulations. Clause 16 states:

The governor in council may,--

It says “may”:

--on the recommendation of the Minister, make regulations respecting the security and safety of international bridges and tunnels, including--

It then goes on for three paragraphs.

As I discussed with the members earlier, the regulations can be extremely important and vital to the operations of a piece of legislation. I understand that projects for bridges or tunnels, whether to build a new one, repair one or change its ownership will have some fundamental differences. Look at the Minister of Transport's speech. It was all about the vital nature of safety and security issues that we needed to take care of very specifically.

In particular, clause 16 on safety and security says that it may issue regulations requiring persons, who own or operate bridges or tunnels, to develop and implement security plans and establish security management systems. What does it mean by it “may” develop a security and safety plan? What does it mean “may”? Why is that not in the legislation subject to the regulations where the detail would be? That is what it is supposed to be. This is absolutely unacceptable.

Safety and security plans must be tabled with every project and the details of what has to be included must be put in regulations which can be amended from time to time by order in council. I do not want a bill that says we may do this and, for our friends, maybe we will not. This is a recipe for abuse and lack of accountability. Can we not put this in the legislation? There is another requirement which states:

--must be included in the security plans and requiring persons who own or operate international bridges or tunnels to make the additions, changes or deletions to their security plans that the Minister considers appropriate--

This seems to be a general catch-all, but it was the last one that got me. Subclause 16(c) under “Regulations” states:

--requiring any person or class of persons to provide to the Minister any information related to the security and safety of international bridges and tunnels.

Think about it. This is a regulation that the minister “may” come forward with, requiring any person or class of persons to provide the minister any information related to the security and safety of international bridges and tunnels.

I must say that the first things I thought of were constitutional rights, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the rule of law. What is this? This is utter nonsense. What kind of catch-all is this? Does anybody in the House really understand what it is? What does it say? Can anybody stand in this place and give me an example? If no one can, then why is it that we are being asked to debate this at second reading and vote to give approval in principle which, once we do that, based on ignorance, we will not be able to reverse?

This is nonsense. This is making law by regulations. I hope members get interested in this because there is more. Let us look at paragraph 39(5)(b) where there are more regulations. It states:

The Governor in Council may, on the recommendation of the Minister, make regulations respecting--

(b) the return of the evidence to the person from whom it was seized or to any other person entitled to its possession.

This is pursuant to paragraph 39(1)(c), which I guess we have to read in order to understand what that means.

Clause 43 is another one. It states:

The Minister may, by regulation,

I will move down to paragraph (b):

prescribe the maximum amount payable for each violation,--

If a law prescribes violations and penalties, then I hate to tell the House that there will be penalties and they will be prescribed in the regulations. It may be better to be put in the legislation that there will be penalties and the penalties are as laid out in the regulations.

This idea of the government saying it “may” do this really bothers me. We are going to see this often. We as parliamentarians must be more vigilant. If we are expected to vote on legislation and want to be accountable in this place, then we must know what is being asked of us. It is not here.

Usually a department would provide briefing notes with an explanation on each clause. Members get those notes the first time a bill goes to committee and after all the witnesses. Members do not even have that information when they are talking to witnesses. I hope potential witnesses will look at this bill and say we are missing something, or we are on a track that basically says Parliament is going to give us approval in principle and then we are going to slap on what we really want to do in the regulations because it says we can do it. That is law made by the executive. It is law made by regulation and it is wrong.

This bill is a perfect example of this. It is a straightforward bill on a very important matter. It provides a legislative foundation and framework by which we can deal with issues to do with the international bridges and tunnels. It has some environmental implications et cetera.

What is the legislative framework in the United States? The United States have had it for a number of years. We are now bringing ours into line. I wonder what the United States has to say about this. I wonder whether or not we have patterned this on the American framework. It is clear to me that everything that is happening around here seems to be looked at through the lens of the American people. This is what I call the sniff test and the sniff test is telling me that we are very slowly embarking on the Americanization of Canada.

It seems to me that everything we do is based on what the United States does. It seems to me that we have taken on the attitude that if the United States does something then maybe we should do it too. The attitude seems to be that if the United States wants to steal our billion dollars on softwood lumber, then let it steal it. If it wants to have a maximum quote and have managed trade instead of free trade, that is okay. It seems to me that is the way we are doing business. We have to have big Bush and little Bush. What the heck.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

I am sorry, but I am really concerned about the quality of the legislative material.

This legislation is at second reading. I hope that members who are going to be on the transport committee and will be looking at this bill will take an opportunity to look at what is being asked in terms of the detail in the regulations. I hope the committee will seek the approval of the minister of the department to have these important considerations incorporated directly into the legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, my question for my Liberal colleague will be simple. He said in his speech that the devil is in the details. I will call to his attention a small detail that is not in the bill and that is the federal funding to help maintain the bridges in question.

It is not just Bill C-3. When his Liberal government was in power, there was nothing in Bill C-44, the basis for Bill C-3, on funding for the 24 international bridges and tunnels.

They could have taken the opportunity to establish funding and tell those managing them, namely the provinces and municipalities, that the money was available. As I was saying earlier, this federation has a funny way of doing things. It says in this bill that the international bridges and tunnels are a federal jurisdiction, but it does not invest any money in them. It is the provinces and municipalities that are currently paying. That is the reality.

I gave the example of the Quebec City Bridge because it is an obvious one. It is not an international bridge, but a bridge for which there is an agreement, for which the federal government pays its share. The province should have to pay its share just like a private company. We are just a few years shy of Quebec City's 400th anniversary and we would like to have a bridge that is not all rusty. Our hands are tied because everyone is saying there is no budget available for this.

Why was there no money allocated for these 24 international bridges and tunnels? Why, at the time, did the Liberals not allocate any money either?

That is my question for my colleague.

[An hon. member]

That is a very good point.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises a good point. I am not sure whether it has to be in this legislation. It really is an issue of the fiscal responsibility of the government of the day.

There is no question that the most significant portion of our exports goes to the United States. I have forgotten the number. It is something like 75%. It relies heavily on the infrastructure of the tunnels and the bridges as well as the road system connecting the producers to the export points.

We all have a vested interest in it and therefore, as a general statement, I would say all stakeholders have a responsibility to make contributions that are commensurate with the benefits that they derive from that project going forward. I think it is something that should be argued strenuously especially when the alternative to having no federal funding is to have no infrastructure project. That is simply unacceptable.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to listen to my colleague's speech. It was a typical Liberal speech. In the first part of his presentation he tried to take credit for the actual legislation which was formerly Bill C-44. It is actually significantly the same. There are only a couple of modifications that are different in this legislation.

What is critical though is that the government of the day has carved it out of another bill, Bill C-44. It had other components that made it going forward very complicated. Therefore, at least we can concentrate on this major infrastructure challenge that we have.

There are some negative aspects to the bill, but there are some positive things as well that are very important. However, by the end of the member's speech he was distancing himself from the bill, calling it utter nonsense, despite the fact his own member is going to be sitting on the industry committee that crafted the bill or at least a good part of it to begin with. He had convinced himself that it was actually bad, calling it Americanization and a whole series of things. It is just amazing that one can go within a 20 minute period of time and make a completely contradictory statement about a presentation.

I would like to move on though. The former Prime Minister said this to the Windsor Star in January 2004. He said that there was no doubt that the crossing here was the single most important crossing in Canada and it was the priority. We know we then got a list. Sadly enough, the Windsor-Detroit region corridor was probably one of the initial priorities that then got quintuplets, then dozens, then after that a population explosion of priorities and got put into a mix of things.

I have a question for the hon. member. Why did it take so long to get this actual legislation to this point in time? I have many concerns about the legislation and there are some issues that need to be dealt with. However, the fact is there are over 24 crossings that are bridges and tunnels between Canada and the United States. Two are privately held right now: one in Windsor West and one in Fort Frances. There are no regulations whatsoever protecting citizens and the commerce of this country. Why did it take so long?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is too bad the member did not listen to my speech. I said very clearly in my speech that it was effectively the same bill that was proposed by the last government within those two areas. The member could check the blues or tomorrow's Hansard. The two areas I noted were the St. Lawrence River crossing and the authority to improve all transactions affecting ownership control.

The problem that I have with the bill is with regard to the regulations. That was my speech. It was with regard to putting matters, which were late to the legislation, in the regulations under the auspices of the minister “may”. In fact, on safety and security issues, I am of the view, and perhaps the member does not agree, that if there were provisos of the bill such as penalties and safety and security plans that must be made and so on, those should be requirements in the legislation itself. The details of what matters should be dealt with in this plan, who should it be reviewed by, and all these other things. That is what regulations are for.

My concern was clearly with regard to essential legislative information being buried in the regulations and not available for the members of Parliament to consider before they vote at second reading which would then restrict our ability to make changes at a later date. That is the point.

We are at second reading which gives us the opportunity to make a recommendation to the transport committee. I support the bill, but I want the committee to look very carefully at the requirements of the regulations. I want the committee to ask the government and the department to state some of those requirements in the bill itself with a clause relating to regulations where the amplified detail would be present but the principles would still be in the legislation.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, was the hon. member for Mississauga South concerned about the same degree of Americanization when his Liberal government approved 11,000 takeovers of Canadian firms through the course of its 12 years in power?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if the member would like to name them, I will comment on them. His is a throwaway question, so in that case let me go on to the last two devils in the details.

Can we imagine giving a tax credit for transit users for transit passes? Ninety-five per cent of that money is going to existing transit users. They want to increase the ridership from 5% to 7%, which they cannot do because there is no capacity. There has to be an investment. What it is going to mean, mark my words, is that there is going to be an increase in the price of transit because of this tax credit and they are going to have to invest more and come to the federal government to invest more in transit.

This is not going to do anything. It will cost $2,000 a tonne to reduce greenhouse gases, 10 times more than the programs this government has scrapped.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start the discussion on Bill C-3 by coming back to the comments of the member for Mississauga South. He gave quite an impassioned comment and, for those of us who have actually been in the House over the last few years, a rather strange comment, in that he said he was concerned about the Americanization of Canada.

This is coming from a member who represents a party that, as I mentioned earlier, has accepted, without one single rejection, 11,000 takeovers of Canadian firms over the past 12 years. Eleven thousand firms were taken over and the Liberal government just gave them a green light, with the subsequent loss of jobs, loss of revenue and loss of profits that go elsewhere, outside of the country.

It was also strange to me when we talked about the softwood deal. Indeed, I will come back to this because this touches on the issue of international trade. The Liberal government was bringing forward an agreement on softwood lumber that was basically the same as what the Conservatives are trying to push this week. The difference is about 3¢ on the dollar, but in both cases, Liberal and Conservative, what we have is essentially allowing the Bush administration to profit, to keep the ill-gotten gains of trade crime.

Both the Liberals and the Conservatives agree with this stand. Certainly for the hon. member for Mississauga South to step forward and say he is concerned about the Americanization of this country when the Liberal government showed that, if anything, the Liberals wanted to accelerate that Americanization, it is quite strange indeed. I did not want to leave those comments without a response.

I will come back to the issue of Bill C-3, which is to a large extent taken out of Bill C-44, brought forward at the transport committee in the 38th Parliament. Although there have been calls for years to have a legislative framework around our international bridges and tunnels, under the Liberal government there was not the movement that we needed to see, so largely we welcome what we are seeing in Bill C-3.

But I should give credit where credit is due. Essentially, and I think overwhelmingly, this bill coming forward is due to the work of the member for Windsor West, who has been tireless in pushing the cause of having a federal legislative framework around international bridges and tunnels. The member for Windsor West and his colleague from Windsor--Tecumseh have been pushing forward this issue in Parliament since they were both elected a few years ago.

I think it is nice to see that their efforts have borne fruit, that their work has led to the reintroduction of this bill. It is certainly our commitment that we will be working very hard to ensure that we get this type of legislative framework around international bridges and tunnels. I should also mention the work of the member for Sault Ste. Marie, who is also impacted directly. He has been a strong defender of making sure that access passes through international bridges and tunnels, and he has been a good advocate as well. However, all of us in this House, from all four corners of the House, should thank the member for Windsor West for his tireless advocacy on behalf of the Windsor area.

What does this bill contain? The bill essentially takes components from Bill C-44 and allows, in a sense, a legislative framework to be established around international bridges and tunnels. It may be surprising to most of the people who are listening in tonight to this debate to know that there is no legislative framework existing now. Indeed, many of the international bridges and tunnels that we have across this country are privately owned and there is no legislative framework for the federal government to play its role in ensuring that bridges and tunnels are safe and secure, that they are properly maintained and that we can make the kinds of investments we need to in order to ensure that jobs are created and maintained in Canada.

I should also add that when we refer to bridges, we are talking about 24 bridges across the country. Nine are located in New Brunswick, essentially in Acadia. That area has the most international bridges in the country. Of course, there is also one in Quebec, in the Glen Sutton area.

It is a very beautiful part of Quebec. There are also seven bridges connecting Ontario and New York State. We are talking about the whole of the St. Lawrence. This sector is also very important to the Canadian economy. Four other bridges link Ontario to Michigan, including the Ambassador Bridge. I will come back to this, but let me say that this bridge is extremely important to the city of Windsor, which is represented by the members for Windsor West and Windsor—Tecumseh. In addition, there are three bridges in northwestern Ontario, connecting the province to Minnesota. The best known of these is in Fort Francis.

There are also five rail bridges: two between Ontario and New York, two between Ontario and Michigan and one in the northwest, again in Fort Francis, between Ontario and Minnesota.

Of course, we are talking about all the bridges and tunnels that have an enormous impact on the economies of the provinces, particularly Ontario, but also Quebec and New Brunswick. This is an extremely important facet of Canada's economy.

Speaking more specifically about some of the elements, when we talk about truck trade between Canada and the United States, the total value in 2004 was $346 billion. Trade by rail was valued at $98 billion. Essentially trucks and railways carry 80% of the total value of Canada's trade with the United States in the year 2004.

The Windsor-Detroit tunnel connects the U.S. interstate system with Ontario's Highway 401. It is one of the fastest and busiest links between Canada and the United States. Approximately 27,000 to 29,000 vehicles use the tunnel on a daily basis, amounting to nine million vehicles per year, 95% of that traffic being cars and 5% being trucks.

As I mentioned earlier, the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor and the Blue Water Bridge in Point Edward rank as the top two commercial crossings on the Canada-U.S. border. More than 4.7 million commercial trucks and 19.4 million passengers use these annually. With that important volume, one can understand why the member for Windsor West has been such a tireless advocate on behalf of his constituents as well as the member for Windsor—Tecumseh.

Also, the Thousand Islands crossing on an average day in 2003 served 1,600 commercial vehicles, carrying about $27.5 million worth of goods, and served 3,500 passenger vehicles. That would be carrying nearly 8,000 people between the United States and Canada at that border crossing.

The three Niagara Falls international bridge crossings support an estimated $26 billion in trade per year, and reportedly more than 500,000 U.S. and Canadian jobs depend on that export traffic travelling across the Niagara Falls bridge connectors.

Finally, in 1996 almost $1.7 billion American dollars in Canadian exports were shipped through the Sault Ste. Marie crossing, which is the largest international trade crossing in northwestern Ontario, to the United States, over one-third of which was transported by rail. In 2001, 2.5 million vehicles, including nearly 2.4 million passenger vehicles, crossed that bridge.

Therefore, we are talking about crossings that have a fundamental importance for the economy in Ontario. That is why it is extremely important that the efforts of the member for Windsor West and the member for Windsor—Tecumseh have arrived at the point now where we as a Parliament can now consider this important legislation.

We are largely in favour of the principle of the legislation. We feel it is long overdue. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that NDP members have been pushing to make this legislation a reality.

There is one area where we are concerned. When we look through Bill C-3, as other members have mentioned, we see an excessive level of centralization of power of governor in council. In other words, the government is taking over the essential ability to promote regulation when it comes to Bill C-3. That is a problem.

We have seen in other areas of international trade serious concerns with the direction of that young government. Admittedly we are perhaps talking about a government that is still trying to find its feet, but the recent softwood sellout does not allow us to increase our confidence level in the kinds of decisions that the government would make on trade issues. As I very clearly laid out, this is a matter of fundamental importance for international trade.

We have been saying that we need this legislative framework, but the member for Windsor West particularly has been saying that we need the local input to ensure, when decisions are made on safety, security, maintenance and ownership, that those decisions are made both in the local and national interests. The member for Windsor West has been a tireless advocate to ensure that the people of Windsor are involved in decisions that have a profound impact in that area.

I come from British Columbia. We are profoundly affected by softwood lumber. Yet we have seen the most catastrophic sellout of British Columbia interests on softwood lumber imaginable. It is absolutely mind-boggling that we would see the government, after hundreds of millions of dollars paid by British Columbia communities to ensure that Canada would maintain its rights under NAFTA, with a stroke of the pen give away those rights of the dispute settlement mechanism we won last August, which allowed for binding closure. The government is saying that it does not matter if Canada wins, that it will give it all away. It gave away over a billion dollars of proceeds of trade product illegally collected in softwood tariffs.

It is astounding that on an issue that impacts communities in British Columbia to such a great extent, the government would wave the white flag and surrender our rights under NAFTA, surrender over a billion dollars. In other words, it has provided the ammunition to the American industry to attack even more strongly the B.C. industry. It astounds me beyond belief that this could happen.

Our concern is if we are giving this much power into the hands of the government over international bridges and tunnels, which have as much of an economic impact, it will make the same foolish disregarded decision and sell out our interests. That is the problem.

On international trade, we have seen that the government does not understand the implications of the decisions it makes.

When it comes to international bridges and tunnels, we have shown that it has a profound impact on trade. It is of immense concern to us now that we are centralizing that control within the government. This is not how the NDP has been promoting this issue. We have been saying that local areas, Windsor, Sault Ste. Marie and other areas, need to have substantial input into those governmental decisions.

When it comes to softwood lumber, British Columbians have had no input into a softwood lumber sellout that gives away $600 million in hard-earned money paid by B.C. softwood communities to Washington in illegal tariffs, the proceeds of trade crime that the Bush administration can keep and use against the B.C. softwood industry. Even the B.C. premier, who obviously too hastily said he thought the deal might be okay, now that he has seen portions of it, though none of us have seen the complete deal, is having second thoughts. That is why he wrote to the Prime Minister and said that it was not the deal he signed off on, that there were new clauses that allowed American control of our forestry practices.

If the chaos of this bad deal on softwood is any indication, with no B.C. input for softwood communities, which are hard-pressed and which have fought to have Canada's rights maintained under NAFTA, this may be a very poor precedence that we will see for Bill C-3. That is our concern.

Though we agree with the principle of the deal and though we agree that after many years of work by NDP MPs, such as the member of Parliament for Windsor West we are finally getting to the point where we have that federal oversight, we do not see anywhere in the legislation the opportunity for the kind of local input, which is important.

I cannot stress this enough. If we go back to the softwood lumber deal, forestry companies were saying that this was a bad deal. However, the Conservative government said that it was a take or leave it situation, that it would cut them adrift, that it would not provide loan guarantees or litigation support, that it would not provide them with anything. The companies have to take the deal as it is. Because the government has to rehabilitate the trade minister, the member for Vancouver Kingsway, it will sign anything no matter how outrageous, no matter how bad a giveaway, no matter the precedent it sets, not only for softwood lumber but for any other industrial sector.

Next week, next month, next year the Bush administration can target other industrial sectors and we no longer have a dispute settlement mechanism. We no longer have a binding process that allows us to see trade justice. We now have a state of permanent trade crime that has been created because the government did not understand what it was signing. It is a nightmare

Coming back to Bill C-3, the one component that we do not like and that we will endeavour to change and improve in committee is the government's ability to make these changes and perhaps do further sellouts without having the substantive local input from regions like Windsor and Sault Ste. Marie. It is fundamentally important to ensure that our trade works on an even playing field and in the interests of those areas. I believe that is the fundamental issue.

Because of the work of the NDP MPs, the NDP believes we are finally seeing legislation, which should have been passed before, that provides the legislative framework for international bridges and tunnels. However, we are concerned about centralizing the power with a government that has shown, so far at least, that it does not know how to handle it.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments on Bill C-3 on international bridges and tunnels.

However, I would nonetheless like to call him to order. In his speech, my hon. colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster erred on another subject, that being the settlement of the softwood lumber dispute. As you know, this is an issue which has received the support of the Government of British Columbia—where my colleague is from—and of the Government of Quebec—where I am from—as well as the support of the sawmills of Chaudière-Appalaches. For them, this settlement resolves a problem which was latent for many years and which had been left by the Liberal government.

Now we can make plans for the future, because we know we will be able to work. People in the industry will be able to invest, to recover and invest the money that had been held back. They will have a framework for operations and will be able to export their wood. I wanted to correct the facts with my colleague.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question, which did not relate to Bill C-3 but to the softwood lumber industry. It will be my pleasure to respond to this question.

First of all, the Premier of British Columbia has said that this was not the agreement he had approved and it was not what he wanted. This agreement is worse than what he accepted. So the Premier of British Columbia—who may not have read what he signed, or did not understand what he signed—now has second thoughts about the deal. Now the deal is coming apart. Furthermore, as my colleague very well knows, Carl Grenier, a Quebecker and executive vice-president of the Free Trade Lumber Council, has said that, with one stroke of the pen, three years of effort and three years of victories in the NAFTA case have just been erased. It is obvious that this auctioning off of our Canadian rights is generating a good deal of negative comment.

Now the question is rather how the Conservative members can vote in favour of such a measure. It places not only the Quebec industry, but also the industries of British Columbia, Ontario and the entire country in a bad position, and it particularly affects the communities concerned by this bad deal, which should never even have been considered.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will return to Bill C-3. My colleague earlier expressed his concerns about communities not being consulted. I would simply read for him clause 13, even though I know he has read it:

The Minister may order the owner or operator of an international bridge or tunnel to take any action that the Minister considers appropriate to ensure that it is kept in good condition.

In addition, the government is giving itself the right to apply sanctions. The owners are provinces, cities and, in some locations, private companies, but for the most part they are levels of government. This is what the government is proposing today—I repeat—without including any provision for the creation of a dedicated fund, by which the federal government would guarantee its financial involvement. It waves a stick. If there are problems, it will use it.

I would like my colleague to tell me whether he thinks it reasonable, once again, for the federal government to rap the knuckles of the communities, provinces, cities and private firms with its big stick.