Bill C-44 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act

This enactment amends the Canada Post Corporation Act to modify the exclusive privilege of the Canada Post Corporation so as to permit letter exporters to collect letters in Canada for transmittal and delivery outside Canada.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member a follow-up question. The member raised the issue of Canada Post and the remailers, and I really think that this is the smoking gun in this 880-page omnibus bill. The Conservative government has tried to throw in a lot of things that do not really apply. The sale of AECL is one of them, but certainly the remailers is the most blatant example.

I say that because the government, independent of this measure, introduced the remailer issue under Bill C-14 and Bill C-44 over the last two or three years. It presented them in this House. These bills were debated in this House and they were not passed by this House. It could not get these bills through.

Seeing a weakness over on the Liberal side in the opposition, the government has thrown everything into this bill. Things that do not belong have been thrown into the bill because the government knows that the Liberals will go along with it and pass it through as law.

Would the member like to make some comments on that point?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, clearly of all the things that do not belong in this 880-page budget implementation bill, the smoking gun, the item that stands out the most, is the issue of the Canada Post remailers.

The fact is the government introduced that measure in Bill C-14 and in Bill C-44 over the last couple of years as stand-alone bills in the House and were rebuffed by this Parliament. It was unable to get it through.

Now the government has snuck it in under Bill C-9 in the hopes that its Liberal allies will close their eyes and vote for it or avoid the vote and allow this to pass.

How can the member, with a straight face, claim that this is a pure budget implementation act when he knows it is not?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely correct in his analysis of Bill C-9. We have an omnibus bill which is 880 pages long; it has to be a record. The government is adding in all sorts of measures that have nothing whatsoever to do with budget implementation. More to the point, they are measures the Conservatives have been trying to get through the House for the last two years.

For example, on the post office remailer issue, the government introduced Bill C-14 and Bill C-44 over the last two years. The Conservatives brought those bills to the House, debated them, but could not get them through the House, so they simply have seized the opportunity while the Liberals are sleeping to stick it into this huge omnibus bill and ram it through the House. That is the way the government is approaching the legislative agenda today and it is absolutely wrong. It is the wrong way to proceed.

I would like to ask the member for his comments.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the Bloc member on his speech. I have a question for him about Canada Post, since he spoke extensively about the corporation. The Conservative government has already tried to make changes several times, with Bill C-14 and Bill C-44. This time, it included the changes in and Bill C-9, in this massive volume.

I would like the Bloc member to tell us what he thinks will happen to Canada Post if Bill C-9 is passed by the House of Commons.

Report stage

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-9 and to the Group No. 2 deletions that the NDP alone has been attempting to have deleted from the bill.

To answer the Bloc member's question, we in the NDP recognize that we cannot effect changes to legislation in Parliament without the co-operation of the other two opposition parties. Therefore, it makes sense that if it takes a proposal or an amendment to get the Liberals to support it, we would be prepared to do that.

However, having said that, we have no intention of voting for the bill even if we were to get the deletions that we were looking for because, once again, the bill is not an honest attempt at a budget implementation bill. It is well-known that if we want to implement the provisions of the budget, as the member for Mississauga South has indicated, we should at least talk about the budget or at least mention it in the throne speech.

What the Conservatives have done here, recognizing that the Liberals are the weak link in the chain here, is decided in a minority situation to ram all this stuff into a bill that is basically like vegetable soup and throw in the issue of the remailers, the issue of selling AECL and the environmental issues and serve it up in an 880-page omnibus bill and hope for the best. They are basically challenging the Liberals to vote against them and have an election over it. That is not the way we should be running Parliament.

The Conservatives presented the post office remailers as a government bill on two occasions and they ran into a wall. Even the Liberals said no when they brought in the remailer issue on Bill C-14 and Bill C-44 over the last couple of years. The brain trust of the Conservative government saw a way to get the budget implementation bill through so it threw in a bunch of things that did not apply.

Now we have the government's very weak defence today of saying that we have had so many days to discuss the bill and that it brought in an omnibus bill because the Liberals did it before. In other words, two wrongs make a right. Just because the Conservatives can point to and attack the member for Mississauga South on the basis that he was in the House when the Liberal Party was in power and it did the same thing that--

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, clearly, the Canada Post remailer issue is a smoking gun in Bill C-9 because it, like the sale of AECL, especially does not belong in Bill C-9. The evidence of that is the fact that the government itself introduced the remailer issue in Bill C-14 and Bill C-44 in the last couple of years.

I applaud the member for his analysis of the bill. I want to ask him why he thinks the Liberals should be able to claim that they are sympathetic to this issue, when in fact they will not be supporting it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-9.

I have before me this bill, which is called a bill to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures. I have it in hand and I know that everyone is familiar with it.

It is a very large bill with 880 pages and more than 2,200 clauses. Those who are watching us might think that such a large bill is meant to improve things for Canadians in terms of taxes. It is called a budget implementation bill, but on the contrary, it is a Conservative scheme for pushing through a significant portion of their policies—their right-wing philosophy of which I will provide some examples—knowing full well that the official opposition, the Liberal Party, will back down. Thus, we already know that some members will be absent. They say they are against the bill when they take part in the debate, but when the time comes to vote, they will back down. The Conservatives know this very well. That is why they decided, after four years as a minority government, to seek passage of unpopular measures in bulk that they could not get passed in separate bills.

It is important that Quebeckers and Canadians watching us understand this: the Conservative Party has included unpopular measures in this bill, measures that would otherwise not get passed.

I will take as an example part 15 of the bill, on the Canada Post Corporation Act, on page 568. Clause 1885 has one paragraph:

1885. Section 15 of the Canada Post Corporation Act is amended by adding the following after subsection (2):

(3) The exclusive privilege referred to in subsection 14(1) does not apply to letters intended for delivery to an addressee outside Canada.

This change was part of Bill C-44, introduced by the Conservative government on June 17, 2009. That bill went to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, of which I am a member. The debates were so serious that, after prorogation, the Conservatives decided not to bring back this bill, which would have made changes to the Canada Post Corporation. The Conservatives decided not to bring it back, because changes in the exclusive privilege of Canada Post will reduce its revenues.

As a Quebec sovereignist, I believe that one day, we will have our own country. We will control our postal service, but until that happens, there is one agency, the Canada Post Corporation, that delivers mail in all regions of Canada. Not a single member in this House would dare say that postal services are not important. It is the only service that the Government of Canada provides to the public through a crown corporation, Canada Post. It affects every single citizen, and these services are provided every day. It is the only service left for the public, simply because the remaining public services are provided by other levels of government. Municipalities provide a significant number, as do the provinces. The only service that the Government of Canada provides to the public is the postal service.

When the revenues of Canada Post are cut, its services are also cut. That is what we heard in committee, even before the first version of the bill, when remailers came up with an idea, and lost their case in the courts. These remailers were, and still are, operating.

When they lost in court, they brought their request to us. The president of Canada Post came to tell us why the corporation was suing the remailing companies it had tolerated for 20 years. It was because Canada Post lost approximately $80 million in 2007, and the losses were not stopping.

It is important that Quebeckers and Canadians, and even members of the House, fully understand what remailing is. Companies offer to collect a large business's mail and send it to clients overseas, outside of Canada. Canada Post has tolerated remailing for a long time. Obviously, these companies have grown and are continuing to grow. They have found all sorts of ways to collect mail here and send it from elsewhere. They ship mail in containers and then mail it from overseas, in countries where the costs are significantly lower than in Canada, which leads to financial losses for Canada Post.

Remailing companies came to realize that as long as they were collecting international mail from businesses, they could suggest to these businesses that they collect and send all of their mail. When Canada Post realized that remailing companies were signing mail collection contracts with all of the large organizations—universities and all of the major health networks—it realized that it was losing significant revenue.

In order to stay afloat, Canada Post has to cut services. There is a reason why, in the past three or four years, Canada Post has been closing post offices, trying to reduce the number of rural routes and installing group mailboxes instead of offering home delivery.

I do not think that a single member of this House would dare debate this issue. The Conservatives have decided to hide this measure in their omnibus bill, Bill C-9. We must never forget that Canada Post was the first major Canadian corporation. The famous Royal Mail has always been delivered ever since there was mail. The largest union in Canada is the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. It makes sense because the corporation delivers mail to every home.

The Conservative Party is destroying this service. This bill will take away its exclusive privilege. Canada Post won in court because the onus was on the companies to prove that they were obeying the law. Bill C-9 will take away that exclusive privilege and remailers will be able to collect mail.

What the government and the minister are telling us is that remailers will only be able to collect mail destined for foreign countries. If they collect mail distributed in Canada, it will be up to Canada Post to prove it. We can imagine the money Canada Post will have to spend to prove that private businesses are not collecting only international mail.

The companies knew what they were doing when they asked for the end of the exclusive privilege. Their problem was that they had to prove in court that they were not collecting mail. Now, Canada Post will have to prove it. What does that mean? I can say right now that Canada Post plans on cutting its spending by $250 million over the next two years. That means that services will be cut in rural areas in Quebec and the rest of Canada.

With the Bloc Québécois, I will be voting against Bill C-9 because I do not want to be responsible for ending the provision of service to the entire population. Every citizen pays taxes, whether they live in a rural or urban area. Everyone has the right to postal service in all parts of Quebec and Canada. I do not want to be the one to vote to eliminate postal service in rural areas.

Bill C-9--Time Allocation Motion

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the smoking gun in this 880-page budget implementation bill is the removal of the Canada Post legal monopoly on outgoing international letters.

The government tried over the last two years to introduce this bill as Bill C-14 and then again as Bill C-44. However, no matter how hard it tried, it could not get the bill through the House of Commons. It sees an opportunity to throw it in this soup and try to get it through.

There is also the sale of AECL. It is a huge undertaking to sell AECL. The government knows that if it were to bring it in as a separate bill, it would not make it through the House without thorough questioning and an assessment. By putting it in this omnibus bill, it can avoid all the scrutiny and questions that should be given to it.

Just because the Liberals had an omnibus bill five or six years ago is no reason for the government to continue this abhorrent practice, and bringing closure in the House is no way to deal with Parliament.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, one of our earlier speakers pointed out that we would not be in this situation right now if the Liberals would take a strong stand rather than being doormats for the government.

The member explained the situation regarding Canada Post quite well. We have a budgetary bill that is 880 pages long. Because of the weakness of the opposition, the government saw an opportunity to throw everything into this bill.

The Canada Post part of it is a good example of that. The government introduced Bill C-14 and Bill C-44 over the last couple of years. The government tried to get it through a minority Parliament and could not do it. This has absolutely nothing to do with budget implementation legislation, but the government has thrown it into this bill along with a dozen other things that do not belong and it has driven it to the Liberals who it knows are not going to be here in sufficient numbers to vote to defeat the government. In fact they are not even speaking to this bill. The government is de facto a majority government because of the irresponsible Liberal opposition.

Does the member have any comments on this point?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the people watching should know that most of the bills before this House, hundreds a year, are in the neighbourhood of 10 or 20 pages long. This particular bill is 880 pages long. It is basically like vegetable soup.

I have had experience with omnibus bills in the past. Twenty years ago in Manitoba, in a minority government situation, the Filmon Conservative government of the day did the same thing. It brought in its budget implementation bill, but along with that, it put in a provision to eliminate, sell off and privatize Manitoba Data Services. Something it could not do in a minority situation up front it did through the back door.

That is what is going on here with Canada Post. The government could not get Bill C-44 through when the government introduced it last year. It knows it will not get it through so it is sneaking it through the back door.

Would the member like to make some comments about that?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite amazed that my Conservative colleagues actually got my point, that wrecking the environment should not have anything to do with a budget bill, but that is precisely what they are doing. They are taking the environmental assessment on energy projects, oil and gas, from the environmental assessment agencies. They then give the responsibility over to the industry-friendly National Energy Board, or the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

Let me explain the connections between the National Energy Board, the oil industry and the government. The National Energy Board does not have the experience necessary to conduct proper public consultations and environmental assessments. In fact, about 90% of the board's total expenditure is recovered from the companies it regulates under the National Energy Board.

That is like asking someone like BP to decide on whether its oil drilling is safe or not. In fact, 90% of the National Energy Board's expenditures come from the companies it is supposed to regulate. How could that possibly be done? The companies cannot be asked to regulate themselves. The government is supposed to regulate the projects that come in front of it.

Not only are six of the board members longtime veterans of the private oil and gas industry, on top of that, the Conservatives have hand-picked 10 out of the 12 members on the board. Sometimes the board only takes written submissions. There are no public hearings or consultations. Who did the board choose to hear from on one of the projects, the same-season relief well policy? It heard mostly from the big oil companies. No wonder, they are funded by them.

Of the 300 staff at the National Energy Board, only a few dozen of them work on environmental issues. They do not have the expertise. They are not designed to do environmental assessment. It is not their job, yet they are now given the responsibility to look at all our energy projects. It will take away the environmental protection role that the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is supposed to have. It is set up, under the environment minister, to conduct reviews of projects that may have serious consequences.

When there is an oil leak, whether it is diesel, oil or deep-sea drilling, oil has huge environmental consequences as do nuclear projects. This move is anti-democratic and bad for the environment.

Part of the budget bill has cancelled the eco-energy renewable power program, a project that was quite popular. Now it is gone. After increasing some money for Environment Canada, there will be a $53 million cut.

Also most unacceptable in the bill is the selling of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. That will have serious consequences. Last year's spending on AECL ended up being more than double what was budgeted, raising questions about what the final figure would be this year. Embedding the sale of AECL in the budget bill makes absolutely no sense.

The other element I want to talk about is the whole Canada Post situation. I have met with quite a few of the postal workers in my riding. My riding actually has four postal stations in its vicinity. The workers are extremely worried that their jobs are on the line. The bill would remove Canada Post's monopoly on outgoing international letters, which means that it would earn less, for example, when they needed to deliver mail to rural Canada. Canada Post runs itself like a business and if it loses this monopoly on international letters, it will earn less and other mail service across Canada will suffer.

This proposal is identical to what was proposed in Bill C-14 and Bill C-44. These two bills were defeated in the House. What the government has done is totally undemocratic. It brought back the bill that it was unable to pass and put it into this enormous Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill, in all types of areas that have nothing to do with the budget.

We ask all members of Parliament, who are not Conservative, to stand and vote against the bill.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as everyone knows, this is an 880-page omnibus bill. It weighs several pounds. There are a lot of things in this bill that go far beyond budget implementation. For example, the post office remailers issue has nothing to do with the budget implementation. As a matter of fact, the government tried to introduce this through Bill C-14 and Bill C-44 twice over the last two or three years in this House. It is a sneaky approach to take bills that they cannot get through the House, put them into a huge omnibus bill such as this, call it a budget implement act, and then threaten an election if we do not pass this bill as is.

However, what I want to ask the member about is that while the current government is reducing taxes for corporations, trying to reduce taxes over the next three years to 15%, when the CEOs of banks are making $10 million, it has brought in an airline tax. The airline tax is going to increase now to about 50%, which is going to make Canada the highest taxed jurisdiction in the world, higher than Holland, and much higher than the United States.

Would the member like to comment about those points?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, if this is the type of activity and direction we see from a minority Conservative government, imagine what sort of direction we would get if we had a majority Conservative government, or if we were to get one in the future.

If the Conservatives are this brazen to put a clause into an omnibus bill to privatize parts of Canada Post when they could not do it through legitimate means by bringing in Bill C-14 and Bill C-44 over the last couple of years, imagine how dangerous they would be if they were ever in a majority situation. I think people would agree with that.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise again to speak to Bill C-9. The bill has now come out of committee and our party has had to introduce several motions to attempt to make deletions to the bill. The bill is so massive, at 880 pages, it must be a record, certainly by weight.

We have 60 some motions covered by these resolutions. The other members who have spoken today have essentially explained how and why the bill has come to us the way it has. It has been quite a number of years since I can recall a similar approach being taken by a government, which takes me back to 1889-90 in a minority government in Manitoba when the Filmon Conservatives did similar omnibus bills over a two year period, I believe. Not only did we have the budget implementation measures put into a bill, but we had extra items thrown in. One was the privatization of a business in Brandon that had absolutely nothing to do with the bill at hand.

If we fast forward to the present, this is the type of frustration with which the members of the House are dealing. The government has taken not only the budget implementation act, which we all agree is something that should be dealt with, but it has thrown in many extra measures, which rightly belong as separate legislation.

The best example of this is the issue of the Canada Post remailers. The government over the last two years, or perhaps longer, has attempted to get Bill C-14 and Bill C-44 through Parliament, which would remove Canada Post's legal monopoly on outgoing international letters. This is the thin edge of the wedge to start to privatize Canada Post.

The government introduced that bill as two separate bill numbers in past years, brought it into a minority Parliament and found the opposition so strong that it could not get it through. Therefore, the government has taken that legislation and added into this omnibus bill.

The government has added in the sale of AECL, which the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley has rightfully pointed out has cost the Canadian taxpayers perhaps $22 billion in subsidies over its history. At the present time, nuclear looks like it is making a comeback. As the member indicated, we are looking at perhaps 120 new nuclear builds around the world. What the government is attempting to do is sell off this crown corporation, probably at fire sale rates and probably to foreign investors and American investors. They will then buy an asset, at a fire sale price, paid for by the Canadian taxpayer and will make a success of the company by building nuclear plants around the world.

This is what is being suggested. The fact is this element of Bill C-9 does not belong there. This is rightfully a subject for a different bill, a different day and a totally different subject for debate.

We want the Canadian people to understand what is going on here. A government that cannot get its way one way simply circumvents the process and attempts to bring it in through an omnibus bill.

After the second prorogation of the House, the opposition parties attempted to bring in motions and resolutions to put some qualifications on any future prorogations by the Prime Minister. It is high time the House adopt some rules on when the Prime Minister can prorogue the House.

Likewise, there should be some attempt made by parties to come up with some guidelines that the government should be able to follow for budget implementation legislation such as this. An independent panel of people, or an independent group of people, or any of our constituents, and I think my colleague, the member for Sudbury, would probably agree with me, will know the difference between what should be in a budget implementation bill and what is in this 880-page omnibus bill.

The privatization of Canada Post and the selling of AECL have absolutely nothing to do with traditional budget implementation. We only have to look at the environmental assessment issues. Our member from Edmonton spoke to this yesterday. The government is weakening the environmental assessment regulations. Once again, if it cannot get something through the House, it goes around to the back door.

It would take hours to deal with all of the issues in the bill, but I will talk for a couple of minutes about the taxation policy of the government. The government is reducing taxes on corporations, particularly on the banks. It is reducing the corporate tax rate to 15% at a time when it is already lower than the United States. It is doing it at a time when the banks made $15 billion in 2009. It is doing it at a time when the presidents of those banks made up to $10 million a year.

We have the highest paid CEOs in Canada. Gordon Nixon of the Royal Bank and Edmund Clark of the Toronto-Dominion Bank were granted about $10.4 million in 2009. The CEO of CIBC was granted $6.2 million. All of these presidents are in the stratosphere in terms of salaries.

What is the government doing while this is happening? It is sneaking through a huge increase in air travel taxes being paid by all air travellers in Canada. In fact, the increases are going up 50% on security fees paid on flights.

Representatives of the Air Transport Association of Canada, an organization that the government is very familiar with, provided testimony regarding the bill. The observations they made are these. In 2008, only two years ago, ATAC conducted a survey which ranked the security fees charged by governments and airports worldwide. Guess what it found? Canada's security charges, just two years ago, were the second highest in the world. Only the Netherlands was higher.

Guess what the government did? It increased those same taxes by 50%. After this tax announced in February, the Canadian security charges will be the highest in the world, having increased by 52% from $17 to $25 U.S. In the U.S. the charge is only $5.

For a government that wants to be competitive with the United States, it has just made itself uncompetitive. Its taxes are much higher.

[Barry Sikora]

It is important for the committee to understand that during the past 25 years while this industry has operated in Canada, Canada Post has continuously and successfully provided universal postal service. There was no crisis. Our industry has not stopped this important mandate from happening.

Moreover, Canada Post experienced significant profits for 12 consecutive years in the early 1990s and throughout most of the 2000s. While the industry was operating in Canada, and until this matter with Canada Post became public in 2006, this industry did not receive one communication or complaint from CUPE relating to our operations.

Mr. Chairman, how could it have been the intent of Parliament, when it established the Canada Post Corporation Act, to allow small businesses like mine to start up in Canada, employ thousands of Canadians, and invest in the economy with the full knowledge and acceptance of Canada Post, only to have Canada Post come along and tell me, “Thanks, Barry, for building up your business, but you no longer are in business”, hoping to drive all the business to them, which has not happened and will not happen....

This is why the government introduced Bill C-14 in 2007 and then, again, Bill C-44 in June 2009. And now it's part of Bill C-9.

Mr. Chairman, this is really about common sense and fairness. This has nothing to do with the diminishing of an exclusive privilege or the ability to provide universal postal or rural mail services in Canada. It hasn't been about any of these issues in the past two decades while we have been operating, so why, all of a sudden, is this one sentence going to completely disrupt and dismantle our entire postal industry and postal authority?

The reality is that it will not. We welcome the opportunity to continue to compete and operate against the much larger Canada Post. I welcome your questions.

[Denis Lemelin]

We invite all the opposition parties to take a firm position on this matter. We've had discussions with the people from the parties and this isn't the first time we've discussed this issue. We did it with regard to Bill C-14 and Bill C-44. We went across the country to meet with members of Parliament. We think the only way to resolve this matter is to hold a public debate on the entire issue. That's also what the Conservative government thought before it included this part in the omnibus bill. The Conservative government said it wanted to hold a public debate, but it ultimately put this part in the omnibus bill. So we invite all opposition parties to take a firm stand and to ask or suggest that it be withdrawn.

[Denis Lemelin]

Absolutely not; we weren't consulted. We know that this part, which is now included in Bill C-9, existed in other forms in the past. For example, there was Bill C-14 and Bill C-44. However, we were never consulted. We have always tried to be publicly accountable and we've always called for public debate on the postal services issue, since it's a service we provide to the public. This is a roundabout way of avoiding public debate on the issue.

[Katherine Moynihan]

Canada Post has recently estimated that the revenue risk is between $40 million and $80 million on a revenue base of $7.3 billion. These companies have been in operation in Canada for over 20 years. The provision in Bill C-9, as in the previous Bill C-14 and Bill C-44, does not change Canada Post's powers or its mandate, which is to offer a universal postal service in a financially self-sustaining manner. We don't expect a significant impact.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, the member mentioned that the Conservative government is using the budget implementation bill to exploit the Liberals' weakness by sneaking in things that have been debated in the House, such as Bill C-44, concerning Canada Post.

They are using the budget implementation bill and the Liberals' weakness to introduce the privatization of Canada Post's international mail services.

The member did not talk about this, but I would like to know what she thinks about the impact this measure, which targets Canada Post, would have on rural areas.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened to what my colleague was saying. I agree with most of his comments but I would like his thoughts on something else.

The government is trying to ram the partial deregulation of Canada Post down our throats through this mini omnibus budget. The fact that this measure is now included in this budget implementation bill illustrates the somewhat hypocritical and devious nature of this Conservative government and its desire to completely deregulate the crown corporation. The Conservative government is obviously trying to fool the public by slipping this deregulation plan in with everything else in this 800-page budget implementation bill. It is an indirect way of making cuts by using this bill on the heels of Bill C-44 that was introduced in the House.

I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about this because, as I have said so many times, cuts to Canada Post result in cuts to revenues and often the impact is felt in rural areas. Often there is reduced postal service for people living in rural areas. I would like to hear—

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be speaking about Bill C-9, which would implement various initiatives presented in the Conservative government's budget of March 4. Unfortunately, it is a budget that represents the government's own interests and the interests of its friends, the banks—which we have often discussed in the House—and, of course, the oil companies, all to the detriment of those who are often the poorest in our society. They have simply forgotten about supporting families and those who are so often in need after a period of recession and economic crisis such as the one we recently experienced.

This budget was very disappointing. Contrary to the Liberals, who also find this budget disappointing, the Bloc Québécois has stood up and voted against it because it goes against the needs of Quebeckers as well as Canadians with their numerous needs.

We will vote against this budget. The Conservative government continues to spare the rich, including the banks and major corporations. They want to make the middle class and working class pay off the operating deficit. They do not want to take profits from big banks or big oil. And then they justify it by saying that more jobs will be created for the unemployed if we give preferential treatment to the banks and big oil.

We have seen that the big banks do not necessarily create jobs. They move their capital to tax havens. We have seen it and we have the numbers to prove it. This budget does nothing about the problem of tax havens. It even allows some businesses that are not registered in Canada to avoid paying taxes in Canada when they do business. The government is protecting these people.

In term of tax loopholes, the government is still talking out of both sides of its mouth. On one hand, in its speeches and to the public, it is saying that it will target tax havens. On the other hand, it creates loopholes in the Income Tax Act allowing businesses not registered in Canada to avoid paying their fair share of taxes

This is doublespeak. There are two messages here. Rather than protecting the rich, the government should implement the measures proposed by the Bloc Québécois. In doing so, it would free up additional funds to deal effectively with deficits, while distributing wealth more equitably for all Quebeckers and Canadians.

Why not ask an extra 2% from those who earn over $150,000, and an extra 3% from those who earn more than $250,000? The Bloc Québécois proposes that the budget include a surtax in this regard. This would allow the federal treasury to collect $4.8 billion annually. That is a lot of money, and this measure would not affect the poor in our society. Those who earn $150,000 have the means to pay and to support those who make less. They can support the unemployed and low-income seniors by improving the guaranteed income supplement. This is money that could be used to support the manufacturing and forestry sectors. We could do a lot with $4.8 billion, but the government prefers not to do it.

The government refuses to pick on the rich, those who have high incomes, and it also refuses to pick on the banks' outrageous profits. Instead, it goes after the poor in our society. The government makes them pay more taxes, while protecting those who hold the economic levers, under the pretext that this will generate wealth and create jobs.

Of course, this is not an approach that the Bloc Québécois supports. The Conservative government prefers to give generous deductions to oil companies and banks, while neglecting to support those who are in need.

In fact, this government wilfully refused to improve the employment insurance program. Fifty per cent of those who lose their job do not qualify for EI benefits. This is shameful. We are talking about people who contribute to the program. We know how much profits large corporations and banks make. Employees and employers pay into the EI system, but the government has taken close to $60 billion of these funds, over the past 10 or 15 years. It has taken this money from those who lose their job, and it has reduced access to EI for people who are in need. The government has taken that money and used it for various expenditures. Surely, that money must have helped reduce taxes for banks and make oil companies a little richer, because this is what the Conservative government has been doing for the past few years.

The Bloc Québécois has made suggestions. Some of my Bloc colleagues have presented proposals to improve the EI program. We introduced three bills. The waiting period is an issue on which I have worked very hard in my riding. I tabled a petition in the House signed by over 4,000 citizens, demanding that this unfair measure be abolished.

Not only does the government refuse to improve the employment insurance system, but it will not hesitate to dip into the EI fund, just like the Liberals before them. The waiting period must be eliminated. When someone loses their job, why should they lose another two weeks of income? Not only did they lose their job and see their income drop, but they are also penalized for two weeks. Will their landlord give them two weeks of free rent because they lost their job? Do they stop feeding their kids for two weeks when they lose their job? No, they still have expenses. Despite the staggering surpluses misappropriated from the employment insurance fund, the government still deprives these workers of an income for two weeks. It is shameful.

The Bloc Québécois introduced another bill, proposing another initiative. In our respective ridings, people who have been ill, people who have cancer for instance, come to our offices. They are entitled to only 15 weeks of employment insurance when they have a serious illness.

Once again, the Conservatives decided to put the burden of the deficit on the middle class and refused to ask for more from those who have more.

I would like to talk about Bill C-44 from the previous session, which would have amended the Canada Post Corporation Act. As part of the budget implementation, the government wants to privatize international mail. Yet that is Canada Post's cash cow. If we cut Canada Post's revenues, the repercussions will be felt in rural communities.

The Conservative government wants to privatize international mail, but this will mean lower revenues and then it will certainly have a hard time making the Canada Post Corporation make ends meet. That is why rural services are being cut.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, once again we are in our third day of speeches on an 880 page omnibus bill, which has a number of measures that do not belong it, and not one government member has spoken to it. The debate is just among the opposition parties. We are not debating the government. We cannot ask the government questions on aspects of the bill. We have a lot of backgrounder notes that need clarification, but there is nobody here to answer for the government.

The Liberals say that they will vote against the bill, but not in sufficient numbers to defeat the government. The other day, their postal critic talked about how important it was to stop the remailer issue, which the Conservatives have tried to get through the House over the last couple of years, under Bill C-14 and Bill C-44, but have been unable to it. They knew they could not get it through the minority Parliament, so they dumped it into this bill, where it does not belong. It has nothing to do with the budget. They are basically defying us to defeat them and have an election.

How can the Liberals defend the issue of postal remailers knowing full well—

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Mr. Speaker, because this budget implementation bill contains nothing good for Quebec, it confirms the fact that the latest federal budget is fundamentally unfair to Quebec. I am thinking of the growth-generating economic sectors that receive more support in Ontario and the west than in Quebec. That is an understatement. I am also thinking of the sales tax harmonization that everyone but Quebec got.

I can hardly believe my ears when I hear the Prime Minister say in the House, without batting an eyelid, that harmonization did not happen in Quebec. On page 68 of his 2006 budget speech, the Minister of Finance said that five provinces had not harmonized their sales taxes, and Quebec was not among them. I am sure that everyone will agree that sales taxes have been harmonized in Quebec since 1992.

The Conservative government also seems to think that the Great Lakes make up a closed basin. It renewed the Great Lakes action plan for $16 million over two years, but there is no money for the St. Lawrence. There is no long-term vision for this waterway, which flows alongside the riding of Verchères—Les Patriotes, where water, in the form of the Richelieu river, a tributary to the great river, and the St. Lawrence itself, plays an important role. That is why I am so disappointed and worried that on March 31 the St. Lawrence plan to develop an integrated vision and management strategy for one of America's largest waterways expired without any announcement by the government regarding its extension.

Part 15 of Bill C-9 limits the exclusive privilege of the Canada Post Corporation. I will not talk about this at length. People can refer to the speeches by my colleagues from Beauharnois—Salaberry and Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, who have spoken about this in detail. It is clear that the government is trying to avoid a debate on this subject in the House, even though it introduced Bill C-44 itself to study the issue.

Trying to eliminate certain exclusive privileges of Canada Post without debate, on the sly, quickly, through the back door, leaves us asking a tonne of questions. Our constituents are concerned about the services they are receiving from Canada Post. In my riding, a number of constituents are drafting petitions. Municipalities, such as the Lajemmerais RCM, have adopted a resolution calling not for the reduction of Canada Post services, but for the improvement of the services that have been cut and for the moratorium on post office closures to be maintained.

It is as the health critic that I would like to come back to certain parts of Bill C-9, namely part 18 on privatizing AECL. Nowhere in part 18 is there any assurance that the federal government will continue to take its responsibilities and provide Quebeckers and Canadians with a supply of medical isotopes. Knowing the serious and unfortunate consequences of closing the Chalk River facility and the NRU to patients and health care providers, this is worrisome.

On November 23, 2009, Patrick Bourguet, President Elect of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine, came to speak to the Standing Committee on Health about a global approach to technetium. I wonder whether the budget and Bill C-9 will ensure international unity in order to prevent what we are currently going through. Therefore—

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments.

This omnibus budget implementation bill provides for the dismantling of Canada Post. In my speech, I described this budget as a very devious move by the government. This is not the first time the government has tried to dismantle the postal system, which should be an affordable universal public service.

I presented numerous petitions from people in my riding protesting against the attack on Canada Post by Bill C-44, as it was called at the time. This bill outlined how services would be dismantled, starting with remailing, as my colleague just said. We know that this is just the thin edge of the wedge and that the government will go after postal outlets next.

Last fall, the government declared a moratorium, saying that it would not touch postal service, but it did not keep its word, because in Saint-Mathieu-de-La Prairie in my own riding, it is closing postal outlets in a roundabout way.

The government always does things through the back door, by stealth. What it cannot do directly or indirectly, it does another way. It has Canada Post in its sights in the budget.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I was particularly interested in what the member had to say about the provisions in Bill C-9 regarding the removal of Canada Post's legal monopoly on outgoing international letters, or the remailer situation.

Members of the House know that this bill was introduced on two previous occasions as Bill C-14 and as Bill C-44. The government was not able to get either one of those bills passed through the minority government. The government has taken advantage of a situation and it has simply added this bill, totally unrelated as it is, to an 880-page budget implementation bill. It has nothing to do with the matter at stake. One wonders whether the government has a wish for defeat and an election, whether that is what it is doing.

I have seen this before. The Filmon government in Manitoba did the same thing in a similar minority situation. Every year it would bring in a big omnibus bill like this, throw in a whole bunch of surprises and dare the opposition to call an election. If that is what this is all about, then let us call a spade a spade.

The government is trying to privatize Canada Post by stealth. This is just the thin edge of the wedge. This mail is going to be sorted in places like Jamaica, where the wages are a fraction of what they are here. Once the remailers get peeled away, it is only a hop, skip and a jump from there to when the entire postal corporation gets turned over to private hands, as part of the privatization of crown assets program.

We are on the same side as the Bloc on this issue. The Liberals are saying they support where we are going with this as well. This whole business has to be exposed. The fact that in the last two days no government members have stood up to speak to their own bill says volumes about what is happening in this House.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to speak about the implementation bill for the Conservatives' March 4 budget. This is my opportunity to inform my constituents and the people of Quebec about the negative impact many of these Conservative budget measures will have on our social and economic well-being.

I already had the opportunity to speak to the budget in the House and to point out the Conservatives' serious lack of compassion and desire for social justice. The current budget implementation bill naturally confirms that the Conservatives are more determined than ever to protect wealthy taxpayers and to make the middle class pay for the budget deficit. Furthermore, the Conservative government has reaffirmed its intention to plunder the EI fund and to begin the process of privatizing Canada Post.

This privatization is particularly worrisome to me and to my constituents, especially the people of Saint-Mathieu-de-La Prairie, because the future of their postal outlet remains uncertain after months of endless talks and discussions regarding the renewal of the local postal concession.

We need to remember that the current government introduced Bill C-44 in June 2009 to take away Canada Post's exclusive privilege concerning international mail. Fortunately, this bill died on the order paper when the House was prorogued, but the same measure is now included in the budget implementation bill. This is still more proof of how devious this Conservative government is and how it wants to completely deregulate the crown corporation.

The Bloc Québécois strongly opposes the privatization of Canada Post to any degree. The crown corporation must remain a public concern in order to maintain universal services and consistent rates throughout Canada, including in rural areas that are threatened with losing this essential public service.

On another note, in denying the huge socio-economic challenges that more than half of Quebeckers have been grappling with since 2008, the Conservatives are showing a total lack of compassion and vision. Seniors and women are the notably missing from this budget implementation bill, which contains nothing to improve the guaranteed income supplement and nothing to promote pay equity. Clearly, this government is continuing to take an arrogant attitude toward the less fortunate. This disdain for the more vulnerable members of society is especially hard on older workers, who are left in the lurch by the Conservatives' 2010 budget.

What does the budget the Conservatives brought down on March 4, 2010 have for older workers? Nothing. Yet for years the Bloc Québécois has been calling on the federal government to bring in a new income support program for workers 55 and over who cannot be retrained and who are victims of massive layoffs.

There will always be workers who cannot be retrained, and they need an income support program. In its 2006 throne speech, this same government promised to create such a program by adopting a Bloc amendment that called for an income support program for older workers. What has happened since? Absolutely nothing.

On October 28, 2009, there was a vote on the Bloc Québécois' Motion M-285, moved by my colleague, the member for Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour. Only the Conservatives voted against the motion. Older workers still do not have access to a proper program for older worker assistance. The Conservatives are ignoring them and they are among those who have been left out of this budget, which is utterly lacking in compassion for society's poorest.

The Conservative government would rather maintain generous tax measures for banks and big corporations than help the people who were hardest hit by the recent economic crisis. In response to the crisis, the Bloc Québécois submitted dozens of proposals during its pre-budget consultations, such as bringing in a heavy tax on the excessive bonuses that some companies give their executives. We would like to see that kind of heavy tax along with a measure preventing companies that pay such bonuses from deducting those expenses from their corporate income taxes.

The Conservative government is refusing to consider these measures even though Quebeckers have said that they fully support them.

The one thing that this bill and the budget it seeks to implement make absolutely clear is that Quebec has nothing to gain from remaining in the Canadian federation. The bill does not include a measure to compensate Quebec for harmonizing its sales tax even though Ottawa has already agreed to generous compensation for all of the other provinces.

The Conservatives have also turned down Quebec's urgent requests for more federal transfers, particularly for education. In fact, as a percentage of GDP, primary transfers from the federal government to the provinces for health care and social programs will decline between 2010 and 2015.

The Conservative government is also sticking with its decision to unilaterally cap equalization payments. No doubt it believes that the vast majority of people do not really understand the issue.

I would like to briefly explain the concept of equalization for the benefit of my fellow citizens.

First of all, I should point out that Quebec's current government considers this to be an extremely important matter, so important that it discussed it at length in its latest update on federal transfers published in the March 30 budget plan.

What is equalization in Canada? It is simply a means of distributing a portion of federal revenues in order to reduce the socio-economic inequalities between the provinces. Like many other federations around the world, Canada's federal government created an equalization program in 1957 to try and close the fiscal gap between the provinces.

The money paid out by the federal government comes from taxes paid by all taxpayers, including taxpayers in Quebec, who finance their share of federal equalization.

This was how Canadian equalization functioned until just recently.

Now let us take a look at some of the myths circulating about how Quebec unfairly benefits from this program. As the Quebec government has said, some people are claiming that Quebec has always benefited substantially from the equalization program, which is nothing more than a transfer of wealth from one province to another. But it is a program paid for exclusively by the federal government and all Canadian taxpayers contribute to it. Residents of Quebec, through their taxes, pay their share of equalization, as do all other Canadians. In fact, out of all the provinces that received payments last year, Ontario is the only one that received a smaller equalization payment per capita than Quebec. Quebec is not unfairly benefiting from the equalization program, far from it.

Others claim that Quebec is able to fund its innovative social programs such as daycare and pharmacare because of equalization money. They also claim that this money comes in part from Alberta's tar sands development, insinuating that it is the Alberta oil industry which enables Quebec to offer generous social programs. Quebec finances these innovative social programs on its own.

Equalization certainly plays an important role in Quebec's budget, but it does not use that money to fund its visionary social programs. Quebec taxes its citizens more than the national average, specifically to fund its programs, like the $7 a day child care program and drug coverage. This political choice simply reflects our collective desire to create a Quebec, a society that is more equitable. Quebeckers have opted to give themselves public services and they finance them themselves through higher taxes, which they pay to the Government of Quebec.

Quebec could have fewer social programs and lower taxes, but it would receive exactly the same amount in equalization payments. So Ottawa must reverse its decision to change the equalization formula and give back to Quebec the money it is entitled to. It must eliminate the equalization cap and treat Quebec fairly and equitably, taking its water resources into account in the equalization formula.

In light of everything in the bill, the Bloc Québécois cannot support it.

Accordingly, we will vote against the bill.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join the debate on Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill. Ten minutes is not long enough to address the 880 page document, a document so omnibus it makes one wonder if there could ever be enough allotted time for that debate.

Last month, I debated the government's wasteful expenditures and I spoke to the shortcomings of the budget: the lack of a job creation strategy; no investment in early childhood development; no national child care plan; no affordable housing strategy; no pension reform; no national vision or legacy; and after having invested $50 billion in infrastructure spending, no real jobs. The bottom line is there are no real benefits for Canadians and nothing has changed.

Bill C-9 would do nothing to address these concerns. In fact, it confuses the matter even more. What is worse is the underhanded and sneaky insertion of amendments that deserve their own independent worthy consideration and their own debate.

Instead of dealing with the real problems facing Canadians, the Conservatives are ignoring the cries for job growth and job creation. Over 300,000 Canadian jobs have been lost and Canadians remain out of work. The budget offered no solution to compensate for lost jobs or for the 8% of Canadians who are unemployed, or a staggering 11% of Mississaugans. To inflict further pain, the Conservatives will impose a $3 billion job-killing small business tax. Even the CFIB reported that this measure would kill more than 200,000 jobs.

Today, however, I want to concentrate on the government's underhanded tactic of inserting amendments into the bill. Let us be clear. These amendments are not sellable as orders in council or regulation changes. These proposed changes merit their own introduction and their own debate.

As the Liberal critic for crown corporations, I would like to focus on part 15 of this omnibus bill. The Conservatives' steps taken toward the deregulation and the privatization of our crown corporations are vivid and they are clear. I quote from part 15:

The exclusive privilege referred to in subsection 14(1) does not apply to letters intended for delivery to an addressee outside Canada.

This would not be the first time that we have seen an amendment to the Canada Post Act. It is not even the second. It is the third time. Since 2007, the Conservative government has been unsuccessful in trying to pass the same bill that would eliminate Canada Post's exclusive privilege, the first step toward deregulation of an $80 million industry.

At least the first two times, the bills were given their fair share of independent debate, but never passed second reading. The unexpected election of 2008 put an end to Bill C-14. Six months into the next session the government introduced Bill C-44, with the exact same wording. The unexpected prorogation put an end to that bill as well. Once in 2007, again in 2009 and now most recently in 2010, the Conservatives seem transfixed on the road to deregulation.

My colleagues from Hamilton Mountain and Elmwood—Transcona have misspoken the facts. My party has never introduced legislation on remailers. They should do their homework and stop misleading Canadians. They have misinformed Canadians on at least two occasions and I want to correct the record.

The Conservatives, however, continue to fight dirty with trickery, chicanery and underhanded tactics probably hoping people will not notice. Well people have noticed. Canadians have noticed. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers, CUPW, has noticed. It too knows the drill. When such a large and omnibus bill is tabled, there are many issues that do not get a full and proper debate. I quote from a CUPW release:

It appears that the federal government has grown impatient with the democratic debate that accompanied earlier bills and is attempting to ram deregulation of international letters through Parliament by attaching it to a budgetary bill.

That sums it up. The federal government has grown impatient. It is ignoring the democratic debate process and ramming the deregulation of our crown corporations down the throats of Canadians. The government has lost touch with Canadians.

As the Conservative agenda continues to push for deregulation and privatization, it threatens Canada Post's ability to provide affordable, accessible and universal services for residents across Canada. In 2004 the Ontario Superior Court ruled that Canada Post had the legal right to exclusive privilege of both domestic and international mail.

Canadians still value a stamped and sealed envelope which carries strong sentimental messages for their most special occasions such as birthdays, weddings, funerals or other holiday occasions. Canadians value the affordability as well of our postal system. Our country has one of the lowest basic letter rates, at 54¢ per stamp, whereas the U.K., Japan and Germany charge 70¢, 80¢ and 90¢ respectively.

What do the countries with the higher rates have in common? Each one of those countries have deregulated its postal industries.

As the Conservatives continue to push for privatizing parts of Canada Post, they also threaten the delivery to higher cost regions, such as remote and rural areas. With the one price policy, Canadians know that sending a basic letter from Ottawa to Montreal is the same as sending a letter from Halifax to Vancouver, from Iqaluit to Point Pelee.

However, Canada Post reports that the reserve market of letter mail, representing nearly half the company's revenue, is steadily declining. The parcel industry alone reached $10 billion. Canada Post holds 12% of that market. Canada Post boasts the capacity to be a major leader in direct marketing, but now it only maintains close to 10% of this growing industry.

Even in the international remailing market, Canada Post stands to lose $40 million to $80 million. This lost opportunity is one the government should not give up on. However, with the Conservatives when trouble looms, privatize. Privatization is their motto.

In July 2006 the minister responsible for Canada Post at the time stated in a letter to CUPW:

The activities of international remailers cost Canada Post millions of dollars each year and erodes the Corporation's ability to maintain a healthy national postal service and provide universal service to all Canadians.

Since then, that has changed. In 2007 the Conservatives tabled Bill C-14 to modify the exclusive privilege of Canada Post Corporation so as to permit letter exporters to collect letters for transmittal and delivery outside Canada. Inserting an amendment to Canada Post Act in the budget is underhanded and blatant trickery. This is another example of the Conservative Party's iron curtain of transparency at its best. The week Bill C-9 was introduced was a bad week for Canada Post and a bad week for Canadians.

The Conservatives' attempts to deregulate and privatization did not stop with this sneaky Canada Post amendment. In the same week they announced the slashing of 300 Canadian jobs in Edmonton, Winnipeg, Antigonish, Fredericton and Ottawa. The jobs come at the expense of privatizing Canada Post's call centres. The call centres will obviously be outsourced to overseas markets. This guarantees 300 Canadian jobs lost as a result of this announcement.

Union after union complains that the Conservatives do not care. Again, when trouble looms, they privatize. Public Service Alliance of Canada spokeswoman Janet May told CBC News that “the changes are part of a broader effort by Canada Post management to move the company further toward complete privatization”.

In a press release the other week, PSAC, the largest union of its kind said:

Canada Post is in its 15th year of profit...“So to an average Canadian, does it make sense that part of your postal system is getting privatized?”

No, it does not and PSAC is correct. It goes on:

The union said it also worries about the loss of people's privacy if they have to offer up personal information to a private company—especially if the call-centre work is outsourced to a U.S. company.

The list of opponents to the deregulation and privatization goes further. There are other groups that are impacted as well. Organizations representing the blind are concerned. Right now Canada Post offers free mailing of Braille documents and sound recordings. Opening up the market to unfair and unlevel competition would inevitably result in slashing services in order to compete. Senior citizens on fixed incomes need to know that they have reliable access to affordable mail services to suit their needs. Canadians everywhere depend on universal access to reliable postal service.

If it is necessary to radically alter a fundamentally Canadian industry owned by our taxpayers our, citizens deserve a full committee analysis before the current government potentially deprives so many residents. Canada Post can rightfully claim to be one of Canada's most trusted brands in Canada and its services have connected our expansive land. Canada Post must serve all Canadians, regardless of economic ability or geographic location, ensuring that all citizens are valued and have an equal opportunity to the services that the state provides.

The Conservatives have created a slippery slope that threatens this very premise.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely 100% correct in her analysis. This bill was introduced by a Liberal member a number of years ago while in government and then it was variously introduced by Conservatives, under Bill C-14 and Bill C-44 last year in a minority Parliament.

Knowing that it could not pass the minority Parliament and it would be held up, the government seized upon an opportunity to throw it into an 880-page omnibus bill dealing with the implementation of the budget. This has nothing to do with the budget. This is basically an attempt to privatize the post office by stealth at the end of the day.

If this remailer issue is passed by the House, we will see a gradual erosion of the post office's position in the country. These letters, I believe, are going to be sorted in places like Jamaica where the costs are much less. We will see a reduction in jobs in Canada as a result.

It is the dishonesty of the government in its approach. It does not have the courage to bring this bill forth, as it did last year, and subject it to proper debate and scrutiny in the House. It has stuck it in an omnibus bill that has nothing to do with the subject at hand.

It has basically said, “Here it is. Take it or leave it. It is a matter of confidence. If you vote against it, the government falls”. What has that done? It has scared the Liberals, who are against this measure, into having to either support the government and get what they do not want or cause an election. That is where we sit right now with this issue. It is a terrible spot that the government has put us in.

Would the member like to comment any further on this issue?

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise here today to speak to Bill C-9 on the implementation of the budget that was passed in March.

This bill has over 800 pages and implements various initiatives set out in the budget presented on March 4. However, two measures that did not appear in the budget were added to the budget implementation bill. The first is the change to the Employment Insurance Act and the creation of the employment insurance operating account. The other measure, of greater concern to me, has to do with the liberalization of one of Canada Post's business lines.

In the 10 minutes I have, I would particularly like to discuss the measure included in Bill C-9 concerning Canada Post. I will address only that issue, for it is very important to me.

I represent a rural riding, where many communities have rural post offices. I recently presented petitions with over 6,000 signatures expressing the wishes of the people of my riding, who want to keep their rural post offices. They are worried about various measures taken by the government, including privatization and more recently, the restriction of Canada Post’s exclusive privilege.

The Bloc Québécois strongly opposes the privatization, even partial, of Canada Post. We believe that corporation must remain a public entity in order to maintain universal services and consistent rates throughout Canada.

I just want to talk about this part of Bill C-9, because I want to draw attention to the hypocrisy of this Conservative government, which has been trying since 2007 to get a bill passed that would take away Canada Post's exclusive privilege concerning international mail.

First, in 2007, the government introduced Bill C-14, which died on the order paper. In June 2009, it tried again with Bill C-44, which also died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued.

Now, the government is using the budget implementation bill to introduce this measure and avoid public debate on restricting Canada Post's exclusive privilege concerning international mail.

I also want to talk about this measure to show the insidious nature of the Conservatives' tactic, which is designed to push through their plan to deregulate the crown corporation. We know that the government wants to completely privatize Canada Post, and it is clearly taking the first small step toward that end by including this measure in the budget implementation bill.

I am very active and very close to the people who work in the post offices in my riding. Since Bill C-9 was introduced, I have received many letters from my constituents who work as letter carriers. They are asking me to oppose this bill, because they are afraid of losing their jobs. I also share their fears about how the bill will affect the crown corporation's revenues.

For the people who do not know what I am talking about, I will explain what will happen if Canada Post's exclusive privilege—what we call remailing—is removed.

This measure will permit letter exporters to collect letters in Canada for transmittal and delivery outside Canada. That means that Canada Post's competitors will be able to collect mail in Canada and Quebec and send it outside Canada.

What that means, in fact, is that the forwarding of mail by a remailing company consists in collecting mail items from business clients residing in one country and sending those items to another country where the postal rates are lower. This usually involves a developing country where the mail is sorted and remailed to a third country. This is a cost reduction method and a way of ensuring that the revenue from that mail goes to Canada Post.

Allow me to illustrate this by way of a specific example. A Canadian company wanting to send mail to the United Kingdom goes through a remailing company. The company then sends the mail in bulk to a branch office in another country where the sorting is done at a fraction of the price. The mail is then resent to the United Kingdom. The company will have saved up to 30% of the delivery cost because the mail will have already been sorted.

A business using the services of a remailng company could save up to 66% of the price Canada Post charges. I am getting letters from my constituents about those figures. It is only natural that people working at Canada Post are as concerned as I am because they have good jobs with good working conditions that allow them to live in dignity and be consumers and thereby participate in the economic development of their community and region.

Who does this benefit? We must understand who will benefit from this measure. Some time ago, the government undertook a strategic review of Canada Post. The government reviewed all of Canada Post's activities and, as a result of its analysis, made a number of recommendations. One of these was to revisit the exclusive privilege of Canada Post in the area of international remailing.

However, the strategic review did not indicate the negative consequences for Canada Post of deregulation, even partial deregulation. It was also unclear whether partial deregulation would permit remailers to directly or indirectly attack Canada Post's exclusive privilege within Canada.

They are opening up a crack in order to challenge the exclusive privilege of Canada Post with respect to international mail. However, this may be just the first step. In fact, the entire issue of postal operations within Quebec and Canada may be next.

The Bloc Québécois believes that this bill will weaken Canada Post by eliminating some of its revenue sources. This situation could speed up its desire to regroup the distribution of mail in certain areas, which would result in cuts to home mail delivery to many Quebeckers as well as potential job losses.

I will conclude my speech by stating that, for the Bloc Québécois, it is important to maintain this universal public service and uniform rates throughout Quebec and Canada.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member for a terrific speech on this matter. I have a feeling he wants to say a few more words on this subject.

However, I want to point out to him that the member for Hamilton Mountain, when she made her speech on Bill C-9 the other day, did point out that the bill under a different number was initially introduced by a Liberal MP, perhaps when they were in government. That was news and a surprise to me. Then the current government took up the torch and carried it forward under Bill C-14 and Bill C-44, knowing that it would never pass because of members like the member for Burnaby—New Westminster who would dig his heels in and make sure it did not get passed. The Conservatives put it in this omnibus bill, which is a treacherous way to approach an issue like this.

Would the member like to continue his explanation of why the bill should be severed and not proceeded with?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate. It is interesting that some of the final comments to the previous speaker were about the Liberal position vis-à-vis the exclusive privilege at Canada Post. That is a nice segue, a nice place for me to begin, because that is going to be the focus of my remarks.

What was previously known as Bill C-14 and Bill C-44 is now incorporated into the budget implementation bill, basically making it an omnibus bill. They have stuffed everything they can possibly legally manage and think of in there in the hope that one vote gets a whole bunch of things passed.

One of the cute things for the Liberals in this particular bill is that when Bill C-14 first arrived, the Liberal critic at the time was very clear. They were in favour of this bill and they were opposed to maintaining the exclusive privilege, without any question. Then the bill came back with a new number, but very little else changed. I am not really sure what the new critic for the Liberals said. They sort of modified it a bit.

When my colleague asked a very specific question about support, the answer was about process. They were playing games particularly with the union in this regard and in terms of conversations they were having with them, because of course the organization that represents the 55,000 people who provide our important, crucial, efficient mail service cares about this issue.

The Liberals got some heat from the first go-around, so what did they do in the second go-around? They made up some kind of nonsense about how they were going to help the workers when it got to committee. When it got to committee, they would roll up their sleeves and be there for the workers. The difficulty is that the Bloc was already on record as being opposed to both bills and so were we. This means that, had the Liberals taken a position that said they were opposed to the bill, we could have killed the bill and there would not be any committee for anybody to roll up sleeves at and play games.

We are hearing the same thing again. As I understand it, and things change over there a lot, they are going to roll in a minimal number of members to technically vote against it. However, by not bringing in enough members to actually win the vote, the government will get what it wants. Bill C-9, the budget implementation act, moves on to committee. Tagging along like a trailer hitched to the back is a little issue that the government is hoping nobody will pay any attention to, and that is the issue of Canada Post and the exclusive privilege.

We have been around and around on this issue. What is frustrating is that something has happened during the tenure of the government. Let us understand where we are. The law right now says Canada Post has exclusive privilege to all mailing, full stop. Canada Post is not obligated or mandated under the Canada Post Corporation Act to solely be there as a cash cow to make money. It is quite the contrary. The act spells out that it is there to provide a similar service across the country at the same price to every Canadian, and it makes sure they charge reasonable fees for doing that.

Let me just say what an undertaking that is. Canada is the second-largest country by land mass on the planet, and we are promising to deliver mail to the farthest corners of this huge country at the same price as we charge for halfway across downtown Toronto. We do it efficiently and the workers there do a great job. It is not perfect, but nothing is. However, when we look at this and compare it to other countries and the challenges, they do an excellent job.

All of a sudden, these private entities take a look over there. They are eyeballing Canada Post, as they do all the time. They are looking at the money to be made and they are saying that they want a piece of this action. So they just step right in and start getting involved in the international remailing issue. Canada Post reminded them it is against the law. To make a long story short, these private entities took Canada Post to court. They lost. They appealed. This is where it gets interesting.

On May 8, 2007, when the panel ruled on behalf of the Ontario Court of Appeal, this is what the judge said:

The purpose of the statutory privilege can only be to enable CP to fulfill its statutory mandate or realize its objects. It is meant to be self-sustaining financially while at the same time providing similar standards of service throughout our vast country. Profits are realized in densely populated areas which subsidize the services provided in the more sparsely populated areas.

It sounds like a great Canadian idea. That was to support the law. That means the work that these international remailers were doing remains illegal. It remains illegal this second as I stand here. So the government's intent is to change the law. If their buddies cannot win in the courts, the beauty of being the government is to change the law so the courts have no choice but to rule in the way it wants.

In fact, on July 25, 2006, the Conservative minister responsible said:

The activities of international remailers cost Canada Post millions of dollars each year and erodes the Corporation's ability to maintain a healthy national postal service and provide universal services to all Canadians.

What changed? It was illegal to start with. They went to court and lost. They went to the Court of Appeal and lost. The Conservative government in 2006 said it was standing by the exclusive privilege. What changed? I think what changed was that friends of friends got talking here and there. I am not suggesting anything illegal. I do not know enough of the details to make that charge. I would not say it was not, but I would not say it was. Anyway, discussions took place and the government had an epiphany. Conservatives woke up one day and said they had been wrong, the previous government was wrong, the courts were wrong, the strategic review in 1996 was wrong; they needed to sell off part of Canada Post and at the same time have their backbenchers make speeches about no privatization of Canada Post and hope that no one followed the details enough to know that they really were starting to privatize Canada Post. That is what is going on.

The Liberals are going along with it. We are going to have a couple of opportunities, if the Liberals want to suggest that what I have put forward is not accurate. We are going to ask that the bill be severed and we are going to need support for that. We have the votes and we would hope that the Liberals would join with the Bloc and us in severing off this piece of Bill C-9 and at the very, very least, allow Canadians an opportunity to have some input before the government monkeys around with the financial stability of something as important as Canada Post, particularly when 55,000 Canadians and their families rely on those jobs. It is not there solely to create jobs. It is not there to be a cash cow. It is meant to do exactly what it is doing, and that is why this change ought not to happen. It is wrong. It is not in the interests of Canada Post. It is not in the interests of the workers there and it is not in the interests of Canada. So we ask the Liberals to finally get off the fence, join with us, get it severed and let us kill this sucker before it kills Canada Post.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague raises a very interesting point about what is buried in this rather large document. What is buried in it is a provision that will remove the exclusive privilege of Canada Post to deliver mail outside of Canada, allowing remailers to collect and transport mail to foreign countries. As she indicated, that is very similar to what was being proposed in two previous bills, Bill C-14 and Bill C-44.

My point, and this is what I raised during my speech, is that it should not be encapsulated in this bill. If we are going to discuss Canada Post, bring it forward and look at whether there is a going to be an increase in the price of stamps or, as my hon. colleague called it, a privatization of Canada Post, do we not deserve to know the pros and cons, to have the conversation, the disclosure, the debate and the discussion to ensure we make an informed decision rather than having something buried in another bill?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, previously bills C-14 and C-44 were before the House, and they contained provisions to destroy the Canada Post legal monopoly on mailings going outside Canada. What it would do to Canada Post would be devastating. As a result, either our postage is going to go up or there will be massive layoffs in this privatization move.

I do not know where the Liberal Party stands. The hon. member said she is opposed to the privatization of Canada Post, but the provision is in this budget implementation bill, Bill C-9, and her party is about to allow this bill to pass.

Which is it? Does she support the privatization of Canada Post or does she not? If she does not support it, then why are they allowing this bill to pass?

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-9, the so-called jobs and economic growth act, but based on my reading of it, I believe it needs a new title. This rather large tome is short on potential for jobs and growth and long on gimmicks, fee increases and a lot of challenges.

The bill does not address some of the key issues of importance to Canadians, such as child care and pensions. It does not assist small business to encourage job growth. It does not address the requirement for future economic success. It does not address the skills shortage, nor does it encourage lifelong learning. Bill C-9 does not focus on productivity and does not focus too heavily on innovation.

What the budget did do was increase moneys for the Privy Council Office for ministerial advice. It continues the deep investments in government advertising. I guess government ads will be showing up during the Academy Awards and the Super Bowl in the future. This bill funds a record number of ministers, and we all know how that is going.

This bill ensures another huge deficit after 11 straight surpluses. The Conservatives formed government and within a couple of years the country was back in deficit. At the same time the bill does not provide security for Canadians in tough economic times. This bill fails to improve the lives of Canadians. It fails to ensure economic security. It fails to ensure job growth.

According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, there are some 400,000 more unemployed today than in 2008. Youth unemployment is double the average national unemployment rate. There have been several reductions in manufacturing shift hours, which means less take home income and a lower standard of living. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, we are 4.5% behind where we should be in terms of job growth.

What did the Conservative government do? It laid out a plan that would raise employment insurance premiums by 35% over the next four years. This payroll tax would cost a two-earner family $900, and a small business with 10 employees $9,000 more.

This bill would also impose an increased charge for air traveller security. The cost of an airplane ticket will rise. For a domestic one-way trip the fee of $4.90 will rise to $7.48, a $2.58 increase. A domestic round trip fee will rise from $9.80 to $14.96, a $5.16 increase. The fee for trans-border trips will increase from $8.34 to $12.71, a $4.37 increase. The fee for other international trips will rise from $17.00 to $25.91, an $8.91 increase. This will raise about $1.5 billion in revenue over the next five years. That is quite a substantive fee increase.

I live on the island of Newfoundland. There are only two ways to get off the island of Newfoundland, either by plane or by ferry. We know what the government is doing with respect to air travel security. We know there is going to be an increase. To get off the island of Newfoundland, there are going to be increased costs.

On the other side of things, in order to get off the island of Newfoundland and Labrador I could drive and get the ferry at Port aux Basques. Marine Atlantic is a crown corporation. In the budget a small amount of money has been set aside to have additional capacity on this ferry. This small amount is a pebble in the ocean of requirements for Marine Atlantic.

The Auditor General produced a report which indicated that over $1 billion was required to ensure that the province of Newfoundland and Labrador had adequate service and to ensure effective and timely capacity so that the transportation of goods and services is efficient and effective and available. During certain times of the year grocery stores hang a sign saying, “Sorry the boat didn't get in”. In this day and age that is simply not acceptable.

I am concerned about this budget. There are several other things in Bill C-9.

There is some mention of pensions. The government is going to increase the maximum solvency ratio for pension plans from 110% to 125%, allowing for more overfunding. However, during the briefing on Bill C-9 the financial officials suggested there would not be many pension plans in a position to take advantage of this extra room. This is an overfunding of pension plans. I wish there were more businesses in a position to overfund their pension plans so that we could ensure that people who pay into their pensions actually have them at the end of their working lives when they retire.

For the second year in a row the government is using the budget bill to weaken environmental laws. We have this tome, as I said earlier, and buried in it is a change to ensure there will be some weakening of the federal environmental laws. This is not acceptable. If the government is going to change environmental laws, there should be full disclosure so that we can have a discussion and debate.

Also buried in this very large bill are changes to Canada Post. Bill C-9 removes the exclusive privilege of Canada Post to deliver mail outside Canada, allowing remailers to collect and transport mail to a foreign country. This is being done through the back door because it would not have been allowed through the front door.

In previous sessions of Parliaments the Conservatives tabled Bill C-14 and Bill C-44 to try to do just that. Now they have included it in this budget implementation bill. It should not be in this large bill. It should have a full discussion. It should go through the proper process. It should have a full review, complete disclosure. There should be complete democracy actually. People should be able to debate it and bring forward their ideas on how improvements could be made, or simply express their concerns with regard to remailers.

There is a lot in this rather large document that does not necessarily work for Canadians. It does not necessarily give the kind of economic security that Canadians are looking for.

We are coming out of a very difficult economic time. We still have a situation where, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer has said, over 400,000 people are still without work. We have been talking about this in Parliament.

Yes, the bill puts in place a second phase of the economic stimulus package and that is going forward.

My view on this bill is that a lot more should have been done to ensure Canada's position for the future. In my riding I have talked to a number of people. A lot more should have been done to ensure that we have the economic security that we require as Canadians, to have a vision.

KAIROS is an organization that did international development work. Sadly, its funding was cut by the government. For 35 years that organization did some great work worldwide. At the same time we see increases in advertising. I guess there is a disconnect between what Canadians want and what the government is prepared to allow to go forward.

This is a stay the course budget that is on the wrong course. I believe that Canadians deserve better. I believe that Canadians want better. I would be remiss if I did not say there is a lot in this bill that should be taken out, debated, disclosed and discussed in other ways.

Again, I appeal to the government and say there are things we should be addressing in this country. We take our international development work quite seriously. We take the needs of Canadians for health care and pensions quite seriously. It is time for us to buckle down and do just that.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased that the member dealt with the post office remailer issue in his speech. I remember the Liberal post office critic getting up yesterday and explaining very well what is going on. The Conservatives introduced Bill C-14 and a similar bill last year, Bill C-44. When they could not get the bill through this minority Parliament, they managed to stick it into an 880-page budget implementation bill. It is a totally sneaky and dishonest way of dealing with the issue.

I was even more surprised when my colleague from Hamilton Mountain stood up and reminded the House that it was, in fact, a Liberal member three or four years ago who introduced this very same bill. I am pleased to see that the Liberals have changed their position and are now back on the right track on this issue. They are opposing this whole business of trying to dismantle Canada Post and the remailer issue. I applaud them for getting back on track. I was not aware until yesterday that it was the Liberals who had initiated this whole effort two or three years ago.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I spoke to the Conservative government's budget when it was first tabled in the House. Unfortunately, I will not have the opportunity today to go into detail again about what a profoundly negative impact it will have on seniors and hard-working Canadians. Let me just reiterate some of the key points, though, that I raised last month.

Budgets are always about choices. The Conservative government chose to help its wealthy friends. It chose to continue its multi-billion dollar corporate tax giveaway to big banks and profitable corporations. In doing so, it also chose to abandon hard-working Canadians and seniors.

There is no doubt that the innocent victims of the global recession of 2008-09 were seniors and the middle class. A cyclone ripped through Canada's job market, leaving over 1.5 million officially unemployed. Of those, 810,000 of those are poised to run out of employment insurance benefits in the coming months and thousands already have. Without jobs to greet them, the majority will wind up on welfare rolls, or worse.

What should Canadians have been able to expect from their government? A plan to get Canada working again. Clearly, the status quo is not good enough. Full-time job growth has been sluggish, at best. Canada's unemployed are competing in an ever smaller job market. Over the past year, Canada added only 55,000 new part-time jobs and 119,000 new temporary jobs. Without a good job, well-paying, with benefits and reliable hours, life becomes harder to plan, mortgages harder to pay, loans harder to diminish and savings harder to tuck away.

In short, Canada's job crisis represents a new threat to the sustainability of Canada's middle class. It is the government's job to get serious about job protection and job creation. However, instead, the budget freezes public sector operations, creating new job losses in the federal public sector and thereby compromising the food we eat, the health of our environment, transportation safety and the public services on which Canadians rely.

In one fell swoop, the Conservatives have managed to weaken the economy and hurt Canadians. That is why nothing is more egregious in this budget bill than the government's policy of continuing tax cuts to the big banks and profitable corporations. Canada's corporate tax rates are already well below those of our main competitor, namely, the United States, yet the government will continue to enrich its corporate friends.

The Parliamentary Budget Office estimates a $19 billion structural deficit in three years, $15 billion of that deficit will be the cost of corporate tax cuts. All of that, without a shred of evidence that those tax cuts have led to private sector investments in job creation.

To add insult to injury, since Liberal and Conservative governments started cutting corporate taxes 10 years ago, individuals are carrying 61% of the cost of government programs, while corporations now pay only 15%. It is clearly time to recalibrate.

Instead of spending $6 billion on further corporate tax cuts, the government should have sustained its stimulus spending to create jobs. Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have warned governments that withdrawing their stimulus packages too quickly could trigger another global recessionary dip. By cutting the stimulus package off too soon, the Conservatives are letting the jobless fend for themselves and letting the economy simply drift toward recovery. That is not nearly good enough.

On the contrary, the $6 billion that are currently targeted to further corporate tax cuts should have been invested in improving Canada's crumbling physical infrastructure and enhancing its social infrastructure. This could be a win-win. Investments in cities, health care, child care and affordable housing would create jobs and leave our communities more functional and vibrant as a result. Imagine what a boon to the steel and construction industries a serious investment on infrastructure could be. As we replace obsolete infrastructure, we can transform Canada's economic base to a more energy efficient platform because we would not have to choose between what is good for the economy and what is good for the environment.

To a city like my home town of Hamilton, that is absolutely crucial. The recession has hit through our community with the force of a cyclone, leaving a devastating trail of joblessness in its wake. Just in the last two months, Siemens and Lakeport announced their plans to move their operations out of Hamilton, taking hundreds more family-sustaining jobs with them. In a city that was once known as “Steeltown”, only two of the city's ten largest employers are now private sector companies. The impact of those job losses is being felt at every level of our community.

First, is the high rate of unemployment, with workers increasingly running out of EI. This places an additional burden on the city's welfare rolls and the city is already cash-strapped.

The companies that are closing their doors are now no longer paying property taxes to municipalities, a loss that cannot be compensated for by the public sector because employers such as hospitals and post-secondary schools are exempt from paying property taxes to municipalities. This puts the burden for the cost of municipal services squarely on the shoulders of residential property taxpayers, the very people who are losing their jobs. It is a downward spiral with no end in sight.

The only way to reverse the trend is through a positive intervention by senior levels of government. Regrettably, to date, instead of assisting through stimulus spending, they have shown a propensity to download costs instead. This budget bill could have redressed that balance, but shamefully, the Conservatives have failed to do so in any meaningful way.

Job creation is not the only area in which the government has failed to show leadership when it comes to transitioning from one of the worst recessions on record into a more sustainable economy that benefits all Canadians. Just ask the over 1.5 million Canadians who have lost their jobs. The Conservatives' first order of business should have been to stave off the crisis awaiting the 810,000 EI recipients who are poised to run out of benefits in the coming months.

I was proud to table a comprehensive motion on EI reform in the House over a year ago. That motion was passed by a majority vote of MPs and yet benefits still have not been extended or expanded in a comprehensive way to help those Canadians who are struggling in this very tough job market. It is absolutely imperative that we act to protect the jobless. There is no time to waste. The future of entire families literally hangs in the balance.

The future of seniors, the very Canadians who built our country, similarly hangs in the balance. I wish I had time today to speak at length about the government's inaction on lifting seniors out of poverty, improving the CPP and securing workplace pensions. Thankfully, I have had many other opportunities to raise those issues in this House.

Today I have only 10 minutes left to speak, so I am going to address two very specific issues that I have not been able to raise before. It is tough to narrow it down to just two. The budget implementation bill covers everything from a new airline tax to debit and credit cards, to softwood lumber products, to eliminating purely cosmetic procedures from the medical expense tax credit. They all deserve detailed attention, but it is simply impossible to do justice to the entire bill that is before us today.

It is a massive piece of legislation that, under normal circumstances, would have been presented as a number of smaller bills. However, the government knows it would never be able to pass its agenda if it were introduced piecemeal. Since the Liberals have said that they would allow the budget to pass no matter what was in it, the Conservatives have seized the opportunity and left us with a Trojan Horse.

As I said earlier, I will focus on two specific areas that are buried deep within the verbiage of the budget implementation bill that absolutely must be exposed.

The first deals with Canada Post. In essence, this part of the budget implementation bill would remove Canada Post's legal monopoly on outgoing international letters. This was first proposed by the Liberal member for Eglinton—Lawrence when the Liberals were in government. Since then, the Conservative government has twice tried to get these same provisions through the House of Commons, once as Bill C-14 in the second session of the last Parliament, and most recently as Bill C-44 in the last session of this Parliament. On both occasions the entrenched opposition by New Democrats forced the government to back down.

Recognizing that the bill would not get quick passage by Parliament, the government has now snuck it into the budget implementation bill. Surely, it does not belong there.

Right now Canada Post has the “exclusive privilege” to collect, transmit and deliver letters, including international letters, in order to finance the post office's universal service obligation. It is this privilege which guarantees the source of revenue that Canada Post requires to ensure the universality of services that it is mandated to provide.

In granting Canada Post an exclusive privilege, Parliament understood that market forces alone could not guarantee a reasonable level of service at affordable prices to all Canadians, particularly to those living in remote and rural parts of the country. Canada Post needs revenues from commercial bulk mail in order to subsidize other operations, such as rural mail delivery, and to keep postal rates low.

At the moment, Canada has one of the lowest standard letter rates in the industrialized world. Our postal services are universal and affordable, which is no small feat in the second largest country in the world. It will become increasingly difficult, however, for our public postal office to provide affordable service to everyone no matter where one lives if the government erodes the very mechanism that funds universal postal service, the exclusive privilege to deliver letters.

And yes, that issue matters, not just for the benefit of uniform affordable postal rates, but for a broad range of other benefits as well. In fact, rather than reiterate all of them here, I would commend to all members of the House the submission by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers to the Canada Post Corporation strategic review. It does a superb job of detailing why exclusive privilege is crucial to ensuring uniform rates across the country, why postage rates for both the public and small businesses will increase as a result of deregulation, why deregulation inevitably leads to service cutbacks, why exclusive privilege promotes efficiency and lower costs, why it promotes security of mail, and why deregulation is not a requirement for success.

With the limited time available to members to participate in today's debate, it is impossible for me to speak to each of these in detail, but there are a couple of concerns that I do want to highlight.

First, as climate change continues to be a key priority for Canadians, even if it is not for the government, it is imperative that we evaluate every decision we make as legislators by analyzing the environmental harm or benefit that will flow from our actions.

Let us look at the deregulation of Canada Post from that perspective for a moment. Greater competition in letter delivery would create more environmental problems, period. There is a direct and inverse relationship between increased delivery density and use of fossil fuels, pollution and traffic congestion. It only makes sense. In a deregulated market, the same number of letters would be delivered to the same points of call but by more vehicles.

Is that really a direction we could support at a time when more and more Canadians believe that climate change is the single most important issue facing our planet? I know that we in the NDP would certainly say that we cannot. We cannot and will not support an initiative that would further erode our international reputation on the environment. We cannot and will not sell out our children's future.

The same is true for the other impact of deregulation that I want to highlight next, which is the impact on decent family-sustaining jobs. In Canada, urban postal workers earn slightly more than the average industrial wage which in turn is more than twice the rate of the minimum wage. The vast majority of hours are worked by regular staff which has benefit costs of approximately 40% of wages.

There is every reason to believe that both the quantity and quality of jobs, as well as the wages and benefits of postal workers would decline should the exclusive privilege be eliminated and low-wage competition introduced.

First, the financial crisis resulting from reduced volumes and revenues would leave fewer funds available for wages and benefits. Second, the workforce of the competitors would receive much less pay and benefits, and would be required to work with inferior conditions. Third, service reductions would reduce career opportunities for employees. Fourth, increased competition coupled with reduced volumes and financial losses would create insecurity and greater resistance to negotiated provisions, such as pensions and retiree benefits that require long-term stability in the sector. Fifth, the experiences of other countries, such as Sweden, New Zealand, the U.K. and Germany, show that deregulation is primarily about putting pressure on the wages, benefits and protections of the postal workers.

As I look across the way in this House I can tell that some members are actually looking forward to and indeed celebrating that decline in wages and benefits. I am really surprised, although I guess I should not be. It is, after all, deeply rooted in their ideological belief that living wages are just another encumbrance on what should be the unfettered ability of businesses to make unlimited profits, and yet that value system lacks all credibility.

Even the Conservatives' own approach to fighting the current economic downturn underscores the shortcomings of their ideology. One of the key elements to surviving this recession is to shore up consumer confidence so that Canadians will once again spend their money and stimulate our economy. That can only happen if workers have sufficient incomes to purchase cars, appliances, and a host of other manufactured goods. It is the production of those goods that protects jobs in the auto sector, the parts industry, the manufacturing sector and in small businesses across our country.

We need decent paying jobs to support Canadian families and to support Canadian jobs. There is absolutely no way that a pay cut for unionized workers would make minimum wage workers better off. It would simply make all of us worse off. In a country that has high unemployment, unacceptable levels of child poverty and a growing number of seniors who can no longer make ends meet, we must do everything we can to turn our economy around. Sustaining decent jobs for decent wages must be valued as a critical part of that solution.

That issue of sustainability leads me to the second hidden assault within the budget implementation bill's Trojan Horse, and that is the impact on environmental assessments. When thinking of tar sands, mining and upgrading pipelines, refineries, copper mines and gold mines, most Canadians would agree that projects of that scale pose potentially significant impacts on the environment. Yet, if the sweeping changes buried in the budget implementation bill that is before us today are passed, these and thousands of other projects could escape meaningful federal environmental assessments. The result would turn a blind eye to federal responsibilities to address transboundary air pollution and to protect transboundary waters, fisheries and aboriginal peoples and their lands.

Buried deep within the budget implementation bill are provisions that grant the federal environment minister unprecedented powers to narrow the scope of any environmental assessment. The majority of projects receiving federal stimulus spending would also be exempted from federal review regardless of their potential impacts on communities, waterways, wildlife or ecosystems, and the public's right to participate effectively in project reviews would be dramatically curtailed.

Worse, these drastic changes to federal assessment law are being made under cover of the budget mere months before a mandatory parliamentary review of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act is to begin. This removes any opportunity for public engagement. It is the second time the Conservative government has resorted to a backdoor manoeuvre to undermine environmental laws. In the 2009 budget, the Conservatives significantly reduced federal duties to assess project impacts by eviscerating the Navigable Waters Protection Act. That action drew outrage from Canadians right across the country.

The government defends these drastic cuts to federal environmental oversight by arguing that the provinces have demanded them. Yet, claims of duplication and overlap fly in the face of measures taken over three decades by both orders of government to eliminate duplication or delays through administrative agreements and coordinated reviews.

Federal assessments have long been limited to federal areas of responsibility, such as impacts on fisheries, national parks, aboriginal lands or waterways, areas in which only the federal government has the power to regulate. The decision to remove federal assessments defies successive decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada, upholding federal jurisdiction and responsibilities for the environment.

The effect of these legislative reforms is to diminish federal powers without need of constitutional reform, a move some provinces have sought for decades. It serves a dangerously shortsighted agenda, pitting the interests of major industrial projects against the environment and interests of future generations. New Democrats believe that Canada is at a crossroads. We can choose the Conservatives' regressive agenda or we can ensure that environmental and social impacts are addressed in all economic development.

Canadians in communities across the country are choosing a cleaner energy path. Workers are upgrading their training, hoping to pursue emerging job opportunities in the environmental field. Researchers are exploring innovative responses to address pollution and climate change. Entrepreneurs have launched energy retrofit and renewable energy generation enterprises that could make Canada competitive in the new green economy. As the Conference Board of Canada detailed in its March report, the global market for technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions is exploding, but Canada has failed to capitalize on opportunities.

What is missing is the federal government's resolve to provide the necessary regulatory triggers and fiscal incentives. Instead of seizing the moment, the budget implementation bill is replete with missed opportunities: missed opportunities on job protection and creation, missed opportunities on the environment, and missed opportunities to create a sustainable future for our children. If politics were baseball, three strikes would mean the government is out. Where is an umpire when we need one?

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-9 on the implementation of the 2010 budget. I will share my time with my colleague, the member for Sherbrooke.

In the 2010 budget, the demands of our constituents have been completely ignored or perhaps deliberately undervalued. That is completely unacceptable. For several years, we have been doing our job and have told the government that it needed to help Quebeckers. It needed to come up with a plan to help workers in the hardest hit sectors in Quebec.

We presented measures in good faith to help businesses make it through the economic crisis and to help people. The Bloc Québécois told the federal government that it could take this opportunity to settle a number of compensation claims with Quebec.

We proposed ways to combat the sophisticated schemes that enable the extremely wealthy to avoid paying taxes on their income. We proposed a 1% tax on individuals with a yearly income of over $150,000.

What is even more appalling is that the government ignored our proposal to eliminate the tax breaks given to the oil industry. We asked the government to treat Quebec's forestry and manufacturing industries fairly and equitably, by giving the Quebec industries the same breaks it gave to Ontario.

What does the government propose? It is maintaining the increases in military spending and completely ignoring the reality facing our forestry industry, investing very little in Quebec. It is completely ignoring sectors that have been suffering harshly for far too long.

In Bill C-290, the Bloc Québécois proposed a measure to help thousands of retirees who have been cheated. Over 20,000 workers and retirees will see their pension plans cut by about 30% following an Ontario Superior Court decision to reject an agreement between Nortel and its pensioners. The Conservative government is doing nothing to help them, and yet there are solutions.

The question asked by my colleague from Rivière-des-Mille-Îles is clear. Will the government support the Bloc Québécois' bill to help the Nortel, Atlas and Jeffrey mine workers whose pension plans have been cut off?

The Prime Minister wants to review Canada's retirement income system. If the past is any indication and we remember what the government did to the employment insurance system, we have every reason to fear the worst: we will find ourselves with a program that does not meet the needs of retirees.

The Bloc Québécois is pleased to see that the federal government recognizes that we must make major changes to better protect salaries and pensions. However, these measures do not allay the Bloc Québécois' concerns about declining securities values that, in times of economic crisis, lower the value of pension funds.

If a company goes bankrupt, its pension fund will be unable to fulfill its obligation to beneficiaries, but not because the company fails to make its regular contributions to the pension fund.

The Bloc Québécois wants the federal government to put pension plans set up by companies under federal jurisdiction in trust. That is what Quebec does to prevent companies from liquidating pension funds when the securities market is at a low point. The Bloc Québécois also wants disabled workers insured through self-insurance plans to have preferred creditor status.

The proposal in the budget is not good enough. It does not meet people's needs.

Let us turn now to seniors, who have been largely forgotten in the federal budget. How can the government claim to defend people's interests? For over nine years now, we have been calling for improvements to the guaranteed income supplement. In December 2001, we learned that over 270,000 Canadian seniors, including over 68,000 in Quebec, who were eligible for the guaranteed income supplement were not receiving it. They were entitled to that money. Our poorest seniors are suffering as a result. They are the ones bearing the burden of this government's spending.

Last week, my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé rose in the House to criticize the rising rate of poverty among seniors. He cited a Conference Board of Canada study showing that between 1995 and 2005, the poverty rate among seniors doubled.

In an effort to promote equality and social justice, the Bloc Québécois has proposed simple, realistic measures to solve this problem and fight poverty among society's poorest.

Nowhere does Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill, propose ways to decrease the poverty rate among seniors. The bill says nothing about this, and that is unacceptable. Improving benefits and paying seniors money that is owing them would prevent an increase in poverty.

The government should start by increasing by $100 a month the guaranteed income supplement that people currently receive. It should also consider the poverty in which many seniors live. Given the cost of urban housing—we can all do this exercise in our own ridings—and the fact that this cost and many utility charges are rising, the amount seniors currently receive is not enough. It should be increased, but neither budget 2010 nor the minister's Bill C-9 provides for an increase.

The program should also include individuals aged 65 and over who are entitled to the guaranteed income supplement. The government says that it cannot locate these people. It needs to make an effort to find them, even if it tries just once.

One reason why people do not receive the guaranteed income supplement is that they are not aware of the program. Administrative delays are also to blame. The result is that people do not get everything they are entitled to.

The Conservative government should introduce a measure to pay the guaranteed income supplement retroactively. People have been hurt. The solution is simple: make retroactive payments. But Bill C-9 contains no such measure.

The measures in Bill C-9 are not enough and do not meet people's needs.

We also proposed that the government keep paying old age security and the guaranteed income supplement for at least six months after the recipient's death, to help his or her survivor through that difficult time. Again, there is nothing in the bill to meet these expressed needs, such as an amendment to the Income Tax Act or changes to other programs.

Bill C-9, however, contains measures that were not in the budget, for instance, amendments to the Employment Insurance Act and the creation of an employment insurance operating account. There is no mention of a need for reform.

Among the measures not included in the budget which are included in Bill C-9, there is the liberalization of one of Canada Post's business lines. In the last session and previous ones, the government tried to pass Bill C-44 without much success in the House. With this bill now, it is trying to put something in place that the members of this House did not agree with.

To sum up the first part of my speech, I would say that the government did not listen to the various associations that support what I just said, associations like the Quebec Federation of Senior Citizens, also known as FADOQ. The government is also ignoring the motion passed unanimously by the Quebec National Assembly calling on the federal government to compensate those seniors who have been shortchanged. It was asking that seniors be refunded. Despite all this support, the federal government simply failed to act.

Allow me to pass on what the seniors with whom I met in February told me. They are asking that the public sign their petition. They are currently campaigning to raise public awareness of what is not in the budget.

I think that the government's message is pretty simple, and the campaign slogan pretty clear. I am mentioning it here because these people need the government to hear their slogan at least one. Their slogan is: “The alarm is sounding. React!” That is what seniors want the government to do.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-9, the jobs and economic growth act. As the member for Outremont, our finance critic, has indicated, the New Democrats will be voting against this particular piece of legislation.

When pieces of legislation come before the House, we have responsibilities as members of Parliament to give them full consideration. Although we do support pieces of this legislation, there are other pieces of it that we are fundamentally opposed to. The Conservative government has decided to jam into this piece of legislation things that should properly be considered by other parliamentary standing committees and should have stand-alone legislation.

We have items around Canada Post and the environment that should be stand-alone pieces of legislation. The appropriate committees could deal with those in depth, call the appropriate witnesses and give them the kind of study and due diligence that we have a responsibility to do as members of Parliament. Based on that fact alone, because there are aspects around the environment that we simply could not support, New Democrats are in a position where we have to say no to this piece of legislation.

There are particular aspects of Bill C-9 that are very troubling for my constituents of Nanaimo—Cowichan. I want to touch on a couple of them. One is that there are more changes around softwood lumber. We know that the softwood lumber agreement has had a devastating impact on different parts of the country. Certainly in British Columbia, our forestry sector has undergone a number of changes over the past several years.

The softwood lumber agreement, as it was agreed to by the Conservatives, has eroded the resource industry and forestry industry in Nanaimo—Cowichan and other parts of British Columbia. I would strongly urge members of the House to very carefully review that part of the budget implementation act to see what kinds of effects it would have on their communities.

I know other members have talked about the employment insurance aspect of this piece of legislation, but this is going to take the roughly $57 billion of surplus and wind up that employment insurance account. We know that, in many parts of this country including Nanaimo—Cowichan, there are many workers who have exhausted their employment insurance.

I talked a little bit earlier about forestry workers. We know that forestry workers in my riding, throughout British Columbia and in other parts of Canada have been hit hard. Some of them have either exhausted their employment insurance or were not eligible for some of those provisions that were supposed to protect workers.

If we were going to try to jam employment insurance into this budget implementation act, we would have liked to have seen some of the initiatives that other members, such as the member for Acadie—Bathurst, the member for Hamilton Mountain and the member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, have called for. We would like to see an elimination of the two-week waiting period. We want to see a reduction in the number of weeks that are required to qualify. We want to see an adequate length of time that actually allows people that safety net that many of them have paid into their whole lives. We want to see an increase in the benefit rate.

Studies by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Canadian Labour Congress have indicated that if we want to talk about economic stimulus, we should provide that social safety net so people have money to spend in their own communities, so they can support their local restaurants and stores. If we ensured people had that safety net through employment insurance, we would make sure our economy stayed more stable.

Another aspect of it is that, as people exhaust their employment insurance benefits, they end up becoming the responsibility of the province. Once the workers have exhausted their employment insurance and then depleted their savings, they then end up going on income assistance. It seems to me that this is another example of the federal government shoving its responsibilities onto the provincial governments, particularly in light of the fact that there was a $57 billion surplus in the EI account, paid for by workers and their employers.

It is very difficult to support a budget that says the government will take the money that workers paid for and make sure it stays in the consolidated revenue fund, with no access to it by workers or their employers.

There are many, many parts of the bill that are simply anathema to New Democrats, but I want to talk very briefly about the environmental assessment part of this legislation. It exempts through legislation rather than regulations certain federally funded infrastructure projects from environmental assessment. This goes well beyond the efforts by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment to streamline the environmental assessment process, which was to be the object of a review in 2010. At the outset of my speech, I referenced the fact that parts of this Bill C-9 legislation are taking the responsibility away from standing committees where it appropriately belongs.

Our environment critic, the member for Edmonton—Strathcona, is here intently listening and I know she has raised the issues around the fact that there was a process that was going to be under way and this legislation attempts to usurp the authority of the environment committee to do its work. It allows the Minister of the Environment to dictate the scope of the environmental assessment of any project to be reviewed and it allows for, rather than requires, the National Energy Board and the Nuclear Safety Commission to pay for public participations and reviews that they choose to undertake. That is in line with the budget speech, which outlined the plan to remove assessment of energy projects from the Environmental Assessment Agency and give it to the NEB and the NSC.

In British Columbia, we recently had a Supreme Court of Canada ruling where MiningWatch Canada raised an issue. The Supreme Court said that the federal regulators erred when they failed to subject the Red Chris project to a full review under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act following its review and approval by the B.C. government. The question this raises is that there are dozens of projects under federal review including mines, highways and pipelines. The court said the so-called responsible authorities including the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada must undertake comprehensive reviews of all projects that qualify for CEAA scrutiny.

So the question then becomes, with what is in Bill C-9, what happens to that court ruling. What happens to that responsibility under CEAA to put that kind of assessment review process in place? It is very worrying that the federal government seems to be distancing itself from its responsibility as a federal regulator to oversee these kinds of processes.

In my riding we have a very difficult situation with the Chemainus River and the Halalt First Nation. The Halalt is asking for a judicial review of a water project undertaken by the District of North Cowichan. There had previously been some action by the community because they were so frustrated by their inability to have the District of North Cowichan, the provincial or the federal governments pay attention to their very legitimate concerns.

As Chief James Thomas has said a number of times, their attempt to raise the issue around the Chemainus River aquifer was not just about Halalt First Nation. It was about protecting that aquifer for all of the residents of Chemainus. They had been passionately pleading with all levels of government to come to the table with them as full partners at the table to make sure the aquifer would be protected not only for this generation but for future generations. So they have been forced into the courts. They have a petition asking the courts to order a judicial review of the $3.6 million water project, which has been approved under both the federal and provincial environmental review processes.

Grand Chief Phillip has also commented on this and he has said:

As Indigenous Peoples, we are increasingly alarmed when third party interests are granted access to the resources of our territories, especially fresh water, government and the courts protect those corporate interests at the expense of our Aboriginal Title and Rights and of the environmental values that many British Columbians hold dear.

When we speak about the environmental values, many of us in the House keep in mind that we are not just talking about today. First nations will talk about seven generations into the future and that is what we need to be talking about when we are looking at protecting those valuable environmental assets.

I want to touch on a couple of other items.

I want to speak very briefly about Canada Post. Bill C-9 removes Canada Post's legal monopoly on outgoing international letters. The bill includes some provisions from previous bills, Bill C-14 and Bill C-44. I want to acknowledge the work done by the member for Hamilton Centre in raising concerns around this issue.

I live in a rural community. It is essential that we protect the ability of Canada Post to deliver cost-effective services to all residents in Canada. One way is to continue Canada Post's exclusive privilege to collect, transmit and deliver letters, including international letters, which is what is referenced in this piece of legislation. This would allow Canada Post to maintain its universal obligation. In many communities Canada Post is the lifeline. It is the mechanism by which people receive and send their correspondence at an affordable rate.

The member for Hamilton Mountain identified that where deregulation of that kind has happened in other countries, the costs have gone up and many postal workers have lost their jobs. Surely a piece of legislation called the jobs and economic growth act should look at protecting jobs, and not include measures that would do away with jobs.

Other New Democrats have mentioned that we will not be out of the recession until we have full job recovery. Many communities do not have full job recovery. The kinds of initiatives the government has proposed with respect to Canada Post will see job loss, not job recovery.

I want to touch on a couple of things that are particular to first nations, Métis and Inuit. This week the House had an emergency debate on the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. Bill C-9 does not provide any continuation of the funding for it. On Tuesday night, over the several hours we debated this matter, there were passionate pleas for an extension of this funding.

I remind the House once again that the evaluation done on behalf of Indian and Northern Affairs talked about the program's effectiveness. It said that there was almost unanimous agreement among those canvassed that the AHF has been very successful at achieving its objectives in governance and fiscal management. Just to be clear, not only did it achieve its objectives but it has been fiscally responsible.

Every member who spoke on Tuesday night talked about the effectiveness of the AHF. Members mentioned that it is a grassroots community-driven organization and that it is culturally appropriate. Conservative members, without exception, talked about its effectiveness. A member asked me why the Conservative government would cancel a program that it agrees is effective. There simply is no answer to that.

It is very disappointing that the budget does not acknowledge the good work the Aboriginal Healing Foundation has done. The funding should be reinstated so the program can continue until residential school survivors have received the healing they need to become healthy, active, participating members of their communities, socially, culturally and economically. It is an outrage that it was not included in the budget.

With regard to violence against aboriginal women, we know that $10 million was earmarked in the throne speech, but we would like to see a commitment to continue the funding for the Native Women's Association of Canada. The Native Women's Association of Canada has done a Sisters in Spirit follow-up report, which laid out a number of factors that should be included.

At this juncture, we have no confidence that the Native Women's Association of Canada will continue to be funded, included in the action plan and the implementation of it. It needs to be at the table as a full partner in developing the action plan and implementing it.

The association has made a number of recommendations. In my short 20 minutes I will not have time to go through all of them, but I want to touch on a couple.

One is with respect to the reduction of violence against aboriginal women and girls, which results in their disappearance and death.

The association is recommending that the association and all levels of government work collaboratively to review and consolidate existing recommendations from all of the commissions and inquiries that have occurred.

The Native Women's Association needs to participate as a full member in developing a work plan to identify outstanding recommendations and priorities for action. The Native Women's Association, governments and police need to collaborate to develop policies and procedures that address the issues of prostitution, trafficking and sexual exploitation of children by focusing on the perpetrators, preventing the abuse and ensuring that the victims are not penalized, criminalized or had their personal autonomy restricted.

There needs to be a reduction of poverty experienced by aboriginal women and girls that will increase their safety and security, and a reduction in homelessness and an increased ability of aboriginal women to access safe, secure and affordable housing which meets minimum standards of cleanliness and repair. Finally, there needs to be improved access to justice for aboriginal women and girls and their families. There is a whole list of recommendations that fall under that subject.

I want to specifically address the Canada Council on Learning and First Nations University. A letter from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to the Prime Minister indicated:

The research, analysis and reporting capacity of an organisation such as CCL represents an important asset in a knowledge-driven economy. At the OECD, we have watched CCL's rapid evolution with interest. I have been impressed with the above-mentioned Composite Learning Index, which integrates robust measures across varied dimensions of learning and enables individuals and communities to assess the impact of learning on social and economic outcomes.

As we know, investing in a knowledge economy not only supports economic resilience and fuels economic growth, but also improves health levels, strengthens community, and heightens employment prospects.

In light of that letter from the OECD, one would think that the Canada Council on Learning's funding had been extended. Sadly, its funding has been cut. An organization that has raised issues, has monitored, has reported and has evaluated is losing its funding.

Its recent report, “Taking Stock: Lifelong Learning in Canada 2005–2010”, is a very good overview. It indicates that our country has a fundamental data gap in post-secondary education. It states:

Canada has the greatest deficiencies in acquisition and use of data on learning after high school of any OECD country. This renders the country capable of: matching labour market demand to supply; providing adequate information on which students can base study and career decisions; establishing accountability for resources expended and determining how much and what progress is being made.

Another report indicates that the discrepancy in post-secondary education attainment for first nations can be attributed to the university level. Only 8% of aboriginal people age 25 to 64 had completed a university degree compared to 23% of non-aboriginal Canadians.

The CCL has excellent information. One would probably suspect that because the CCL has raised some very troubling issues its funding was cut. Because it has raised some issues around aboriginal people, I want to touch on the report, “Walk In Our Moccasins, A Comprehensive Study of Aboriginal Education Counsellors in Ontario”.

The CCL outlines a number of factors that are essential for aboriginal learners to complete post-secondary and K-12 learning. It talks about a culturally enhanced and supported curriculum taught by caring educators, teaching strategies and assessments that are culturally reinforcing and diverse, and adequate economic well-being.

That leads me to First Nations University of Canada. We know that the provincial and federal governments cut its funding. The provincial government has reinstated it, but the federal government has only reinstated a portion of the funding. The former grand chief of Prince Albert Grand Council, Gary Merasty, wrote a very good op-ed saying that FNUC has turned the corner. He pointed out that in Saskatchewan 50% of the population will be first nations by 2045, and that First Nations University is an essential factor in terms of the economic health and well-being of that province.

Any economy that is going to thrive and grow needs an educated and trained workforce. First Nations University has a vital role to play in that.

For all of the reasons I have outlined, New Democrats will be opposing this budget implementation bill.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we have seen some pretty brash behaviour on the part of the government last year and this year too. It introduced huge omnibus bills, 800-page bills, including things that really have nothing to do with the budget.

We have the issue of the post office remailers that was introduced last year under Bill C-44 and Bill C-14. When it could not get these bills through the House over two or three successive years, it simply repackaged it and stuck it in this particular bill, Bill C-9.

What is going through the government's mind? What is its motivation to put in objectionable bills that it could not get through any other way, sticking them into the budget implementation process and giving us no choice but to vote for them or have an election?

Canada Post Corporation

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am proud to present petitions signed by hundreds of Ontarians regarding the direction in which the government is taking Canada Post.

The petitioners, in part, call upon the government to instruct Canada Post to maintain, expand and improve postal services, as well to maintain the moratorium on post office closures. Most important, they call upon the government to withdraw Bill C-44, which would privatize Canada Post through the back door, and Canadians want no part of it.

Canada Post Corporation Act

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to debate the government's attempt at privatizing Canada Post part two. Part one was Bill C-14, which was introduced about two years ago, and to refresh people's memories, it was not that long a bill. Neither is Bill C-44, the one now before us now. They are exactly the same bills. It is important to state, as my comments will show, that they are exactly the same bills with different numbers and dates on it. The sole purpose is to privatize part of Canada Post.

Interestingly, however, we hear government members stand and say that they do not agree with privatization. It is in their famed report, the strategic review that says that they do not agree with privatization. In this case, however, all they need is a little deregulation and they automatically get privatization because it is already there. Talk about a major flip-flop.

The government began its tenure in government supporting the fact that all mail delivered within Canada is the responsibility of Canada Post and any mail delivered anywhere is the responsibility of Canada Post. However, as I will show, the government flip-flopped and I am not sure where the Liberals are. I will mention them a couple of times but they are, as a Liberal colleague said, skating on this one and the skate is set to music in this case.

I wanted to mention the strategic plan early on because the Conservatives did a strategic review of the Canada Post Corporation. There may be some members of the government who are tempted to say that they are going for this because of the recommendation in here. We need to understand that the first bill, Bill C-14, was introduced before this report was done. Who is really surprised that a government hand-picked committee came up with a report that, get ready for the shock, endorsed the government's position? Wow, who would have thought that a group of people selected by the government would recommend a major change in the way Canada Post operates and it just happens to line up beautifully with where the government is? It is a wondrous world. I will come back to that report.

I want to begin with the Canada Post Corporation Act, one small part of this law. Part 1, Objects, section 5.(1)(b) reads as follows:

the need to conduct its operations on a self-sustaining financial basis while providing a standard of service that will meet the needs of the people of Canada and that is similar with respect to communities of the same size;

The operative language is “on a self-sustaining financial basis”. If we were not there, there might be some kind of argument that the government could make that it should make this change. If we were on a trend line that showed that in the near future Canadians would need to start either increasing the cost of postage or, worse yet, giving direct subsidies to keep it afloat.

What is the reality, one might ask, so we know the context. The reality right now is that Canada Post makes a small profit so it is currently meeting the mandate of a self-sustaining basis. It sounds like it is meeting its mandate. Why would we make this change? Will the change do any harm to the ability of Canada Post to meet its mandate of being self-sustaining financially?

Let us go back to the last review. We have the government and its current review which says that we ought to stop giving Canada Post the exclusive privilege of dealing with all mail.

What the last report in 1996 said about this very idea, the whole purpose of this bill that we are dealing with right now, about that singular idea that is the singular purpose of Bill C-44, is:

Removal of the exclusive privilege would be tantamount, in effect, to tossing Canada's postal system up into the air, allowing it to smash into a random assortment of pieces, and hoping that those pieces would somehow re-arrange themselves into a coherent whole that was better or at least as good as the current system.

What has changed since 1996? I know. The government, and the official opposition which used to be the government so they might not want to laugh too hard yet until we get to the bottom line. There will be time for them, so they should not get too upset.

In 1996, there was no mistake, the government of the day did support keeping Canada Post intact. Another review came up with that conclusion. Is that the only conclusion? No. This is so critical; there is lots of evidence. I wish I had much more than 20 minutes to get it all on the floor of the House of Commons about why we ought not do this and what the experts, the people with the experience, have had to say about this idea over the years. However, I will do my best to get the main pieces tabled.

What did Canada Post say at that time? It is a little quieter these days. It does not say as much, certainly not as much in support of the Canada Post that most Canadians want. At the time, Canada Post said:

For as long as it is the public policy of Canada to provide universal letter service at uniform rates, it will be necessary to maintain the limited exclusive privilege for letters.

This bill undoes that.

Now who else might have something to say about this? Well, cabinet ministers who are responsible for Canada Post often have things to say. What did the Conservative cabinet minister responsible for Canada Post say in a letter dated July 25, 2006? He said:

The activities of international remailers cost Canada Post millions of dollars each year and erodes the Corporation's ability to maintain a healthy national postal service and provide universal service to all Canadians.

That was a Conservative minister of the Conservative government on record, in writing.

I will introduce one more piece to the foundation of our position on this. The situation is that these private enterprises started encroaching into this business and then started getting into it in a big way. Canada Post told them to stop but they did not. it tried a negotiation process but that did not work. So, given the mandate that it has under law, it did what any Canadian or any Canadian corporation would do if somebody was wronging them, it took them to court. Canada Post won.

However, because these international remailers are so committed to the Canadian postal service, they appealed that decision. On May 8, 2007, the Ontario Court of Appeals brought down its ruling. Justice McFarland wrote on behalf of the three judge panel who had a unanimous decision. They said:

The purpose of the statutory privilege can only be to enable CP to fulfill its statutory mandate or realize its objects. It is meant to be self-sustaining financially while at the same time providing similar standards of service throughout our vast country. Profits are realized in densely populated areas which subsidize the services provided in the more sparsely populated areas.

Is it that hard to understand? We have a huge, beautiful country but it does present serious challenges in terms of presenting and providing the same level of service in downtown Toronto as in downtown Hamilton, Vancouver, Halifax, Yellowknife and, quite frankly, all the other far flung reaches of this country. It is expensive and has challenges in addition to money in terms of having the human resources.

We have this great formula in Canada right now whereby there is enough money being made to tell Canada Post to do it all but that we will regulate it, that it will be responsible to Parliament through a minister, that we will provide the law and regulations, but that its purpose is to provide this service at a world level and be self-sustaining.

Nobody likes an increase in the price of postage stamps or anything like that, but the fact is that currently Canada has one of the lowest cost postal services in the world. That would be one kind of a brag if we are talking about Austria, but to make that brag when we talk about Canada is pretty darn good and it has been pretty good.

There are always problems. I am sure that is not a person in this room who does not have one postal or letter story or another, so be it, but in a large corporation that size that is not surprising. The reality for most people is that the service is okay. It can always be better but it is not horribly broken and inefficient. It is quite the contrary. It is efficient enough to generate a little profit.

What is on the floor now would have the effect of taking that ability away. Why is the government doing it? It did not have that position before and now it has it right after the judge's decision.

This is what it looks like. It looks like a group of entrepreneurs, and there is nothing wrong with that, got into this business, struggled with Canada Post, lost the struggle, went to court, lost, appealed it, lost and then found friends in the Conservative government and said, “We cannot seem to get our argument past the courts with that darn monopoly that Canada Post has that lets it generate this modest profit, so what we would like is for you to change the law and then we will not be violating the law. We can keep on doing what we are doing and whatever happens to Canada Post, that is your problem”.

It is similar to a lot of the issues at the core of privatization. They cherry-pick the things that make the most money, privatize that and make bags of money, usually with non-union workers, but it is a free country but that is a little point to make, and leave the expensive parts, like delivering mail to Yellowknife or Iqaluit, to the government, which will be the first one to talk about how much it costs and how outrageously inefficient the system is.

We have a system that is not perfect but the financial structure allows us to maintain and expand our service to pay the workers a decent wage and benefits. It is not as good as what they deserve for the work they do but it is a decent wage and benefits. All that is done and Canadians do not need to give it a thought. It is taken care of because of the way it is structured.

In effect, by deregulating this particular section, by taking it out of the existing law, the government would make legal the privatization of Canada Post work that is prohibited under the current law. One little change and suddenly what is not allowed in the front door comes merrily bouncing through the back door. That is what is going on.

The government is going to stand and talk about jobs and this, that and the other thing, and the reality is the question is not whether there will be jobs. The question is whether those jobs are going to be outside Canada Post and therefore deny Canada Post the financial ability to provide the service and to be financially self-sustaining, as the law mandates and as it has been doing. That is the real rub.

If this thing were broken and nothing were working and Canada Post were running a massive deficit, one could make arguments for some kind of fix and correction. However, that is not the case.

The people who will be celebrating, should this bill pass, are the owners of the companies doing the re-mailing. That is why I mention the official opposition because I do not know where the Liberals are. They supported Bill C-14, which was the exact same bill, word for word. The current critic is listening to the member for Toronto Centre and skating up and getting ready to go. What I heard was that they put out some nonsense that they were going to support it at this hearing so they could get it to committee and then at committee, they would worry about the jobs that should be at Canada Post and about where the money was going to come from. It is all just a scam.

The fact of the matter is this is a straight-up question. My colleague from the Bloc spoke in the last go-round and made it very clear that there is no nuancing here; there are no maybes or ifs or any kind of dodging. It is very simple: we either support the right of Canada Post to maintain the exclusive privilege and therefore to have the ability to be financially viable, or we do not.

I say to the official opposition, if they join with us and the Bloc, we could kill this. We could save Canada Post. There are a lot of people who use Canada Post and who work for Canada Post and are beneficiaries of the services of Canada Post who do not want this to happen. They do not want it to happen for the very practical reason that it does not make sense. It only makes sense if we think about the owners of these corporations that are doing the re-mailing, the mailing outside Canada, mostly to the United States, right next door. That is where the money is. That is where the volume is. That is where the big bucks are. Of course they want this.

They are going to talk to us about the jobs. Move those jobs out of where they are now and put them in Canada Post and I will bet that every one of those employees will be making more money than he or she is today, and Canada Post would still turn a modest profit. There is a win-win-win situation.

However, the owners of the companies that are currently illegally doing this work would be so heartbroken to see this die. It is the best Christmas present they could ever get, and they would have received it because of the handiwork of the Conservatives and, until I hear differently, from the support of the Liberals, who will have changed their position from having supported Canada Post the way it was to supporting this nonsense.

We can stop all of that. Do Canada Post, Canadians and Canadian business a big favour by voting this bill down and out.

The House resumed from October 9 consideration of the motion that Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Business of the House

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague, the House leader for the official opposition, for his question.

This Thursday I will contain myself mainly to the traditional question which is the business ahead for the next week for the House of Commons.

This week we are focusing yet again on the government's justice bills. Yesterday we completed the final reading of Bill C-36, the serious time for serious crime bill. We expect to send Bill C-58, the child protection bill, to committee later today. I had hoped that debate might have collapsed before question period and that bill would have already been on its way to committee. Hopefully that will happen this afternoon.

We will then be debating at second reading Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act and the Identification of Criminals Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act. We are hopeful debate will conclude on this bill as well today.

Other bills scheduled for debate this week are Bill C-54, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to the National Defence Act, and Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, which is the response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in R. v. Shoker bill.

Next week we will be calling for debate: Bill C-27, anti-spam, at third reading; Bill C-44, the Canada Post remailers bill, at second reading; Bill C-57, the Canada-Jordan free trade bill, at second reading; Bill C-56, fairness for the self-employed bill, at report stage and third reading; and of course, as always, I will give consideration to any bill that is reported back from committee.

My hon. colleague asked about allotted days. Next Tuesday, it would be my intention to have as the next allotted day.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the brief question from my hon. colleague this week in honour of the tributes that we are about to hear.

Today we began and hopefully will conclude the second reading stage of C-56, the Fairness for the Self-Employed Act. That bill is receiving rave reviews all across the land and it is my hope that it will move very expeditiously through the House.

On Tuesday, we sent another employment insurance act to the Senate, Bill C-50. My understanding is that it has completed third reading over in the other place and we hope that will receive royal assent today.

Following Bill C-56, it is my intention to continue the debate at third reading of C-27, the anti-spam bill, which will be followed by Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act, which is at second reading.

Bill C-56 will continue tomorrow if not completed today. Backup bills for Friday are Bill C-51, the Economic Recovery Act, which was reported back from committee this week, followed by any bills not completed from today.

When the House returns from our constituency Remembrance Day week, the schedule of bills will include Bill C-23, Canada-Colombia, and bills not concluded from this week. We will give consideration to any bills reported back from committee or new bills yet to be introduced.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, in relation to what day the House will be doing its annual tributes to the sacrifices of our veterans and those in the Canadian Forces currently serving, that will be under negotiation. I suspect that is something that will be discussed among all House leaders in the days ahead. We will decide, obviously, collectively and co-operatively on the appropriate time to make that important tribute.

In regard to our ongoing justice program, obviously we are going to continue along, as we have last week and this week, for the remainder of the week with our justice legislation. I would note that since my last statement, we introduced Bill C-53, Protecting Canadians by Ending Early Release for Criminals Act, and Bill C-54, Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act. Both of those additional bills are a key part of our ongoing efforts to reform the justice system in our country.

We sent to committee this week Bill C-42, Ending Conditional Sentences for Property and other Serious Crimes Act; Bill C-52, Retribution on Behalf of Victims of White Collar Crime Act; Bill C-46, Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act; and Bill C-47, Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act.

By the day's end, we hope to conclude debate on Bill C-43, Strengthening Canada's Corrections System Act. If we do that, I intend to call Bill C-31, the modernizing criminal procedure bill, and Bill C-19, the anti-terrorism bill.

Tomorrow we will continue with yet another justice bill, Bill C-35, Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, followed by the remainder of the justice bills that I noted if they have not been completed.

Next week I intend to call Bill C-50, the employment insurance for long tenured workers' bill, which is at report stage, having had it returned from committee.

Following Bill C-50, we will call for debate the report and third reading stage of Bill C-27, Electronic Commerce Protection Act, and second reading of Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act,

Finally, Wednesday, November 4, will be an allotted day.

Canada Post Corporation Act

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak on behalf of the Bloc Québécois today about Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act.

I would like to begin by saying that the Bloc Québécois will vote against Bill C-44. This bill is the same as Bill C-14, which was introduced in May 2008. This bill would amend the Canada Post Corporation Act, abolishing Canada Post's exclusive privilege to handle outgoing international mail.

We think that taking away Canada Post's “exclusive privilege” would jeopardize its revenues and have other negative repercussions, such as the reorganization of rural mail delivery and job losses.

As a first step toward deregulating outgoing international mail, the introduction of Bill C-44 erases any doubt about the Conservative government's intention to completely privatize Canada Post.

The Bloc Québécois strongly opposes the privatization of Canada Post to any degree. The crown corporation must remain a public concern in order to maintain universal services and consistent rates throughout Canada and Quebec.

We should take a look at how the situation has evolved. On April 14, 1981, the House of Commons passed the Canada Post Corporation Act to turn the postal service from a department into a crown corporation. For the government of the day, a complete overhaul of the Canadian postal administration had become necessary because of the steady deterioration in the quality of service during the decades preceding the legislation. Serious disputes between the department and its employees, which led to a number of strikes that brought postal service to a standstill, were among the factors that contributed to the decline in the quality of service.

In a context that favoured the organization of public service workers in the 1970s, the postal workers' union waged an intense struggle for better working conditions in an environment that was being transformed by the mechanization and automation of mail processing. Administration of the department was made more complex by factors such as worker demands, a serious annual deficit that climbed to $600 million in 1981, and an increasingly competitive market.

The federal government’s top priority was to give the new postal administration the autonomy required to develop business objectives that would make postal services self sufficient in Canada, and also improve labour relations and service. The new crown corporation was given the “exclusive privilege” of collecting and delivering letters in Canada. The monopoly provides it with a guaranteed source of revenue that allows it to deliver mail to everyone, no matter where they live in a country, at affordable rates. In other words, it allows Canada Post to use the money it makes in high-density areas to provide service in non-profitable low-density areas. This practice is known as cross-subsidization. That is important.

In addition, among the changes that made it possible to achieve these new business objectives were the franchising of postal outlets, the privatization of other services, rate increases, the closure of post offices, especially in rural areas, technology development and use, and the penetration of new markets such as the acquisition of Purolator in 1993. As a result, in 1989 Canada Post made its first profit since 1957.

Today, Canada Post collects, processes and delivers over 11 billion pieces of mail a year throughout Canada, and between Canada and more than 200 postal administrations around the world. It serves approximately 14 million urban and rural addresses in Canada. Canada Post's products and services are sold through a network of some 23,000 retail outlets. It counts itself among the largest corporations in Canada in terms of gross revenue and is the sixth largest employer in Canada.

Canada Post Corporation, which is responsible for traditional postal operations, is the principal component of the Canada Post Group, which also includes Purolator Courier Ltd., epost, Innovapost, Progistix Solutions Inc. and Intelcom Courrier Canada Inc.

The Canada Post Corporation, which handles traditional postal activities, is the main component of the Canada Post Group, as I said earlier. In addition, the Canada Post Group remains profitable today, although its consolidated net profit after tax was $90 million for the year ending December 31, 2008. I would remind the House that the Canada Post Corporation has been subject to federal income tax since 1994. It also pays provincial tax and large corporation tax.

In addition to paying tax to its shareholder, the Canada Post Corporation pays it a dividend. Based on its financial performance in the previous year, Canada Post declared and paid $80 million in dividends to the Government of Canada in 2006. In 2007, it paid $48 million in dividends, and in 2008, $22 million. We can see that, with time, Canada Post is becoming less profitable and paying out less in dividends to the government.

What remailers do is collect bulk mail from business customers in one country and send it to another country with lower postal rates, where the mail is sorted and then remailed to a third country.

For example, a Canadian company that wants to send mail to the United Kingdom can deal with a remailer. The company sends the bulk mail to a post office in another country, where it will be sorted for a fraction of the price, then remailed to the United Kingdom.

Remailers have been working in Canada for over 20 years. In 2006, it was estimated that there were between 5 and 7 remailers in the country. The largest are Spring Global Mail, Key Mail and DHL Global Mail. They use the services of some Canadian industries and do $150 million in business.

It is important to understand the dispute between the Canada Post Corporation and remailers. Canada Post states the following:

For the last 10 to 15 years, several companies, some of which are surrogates of postal administrations abroad, have been collecting lettermail in Canada and bringing it to other countries where it is processed and remailed to other countries. Under section 14 of the Canada Post Corporation Act, Canada Post has the exclusive privilege of collecting, transmitting and delivering letters in Canada.

Canada Post initiated court action against several of these remailers. Through actions and appeals the matter was put before several courts. In all instances, the courts confirmed Canada Post’s interpretation of the Act.

For several years, Canada Post tried to resolve this issue diplomatically via the Universal Postal Union, of which most postal administrations are members, as well as through direct negotiations with violating remailers. When this did not effect compliance with the law, Canada Post reluctantly resorted to litigation.

I emphasize the word “reluctantly” because it is important. The Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, on which I sit, brought in Canada Post and the remailers. The first recommendation in our first report indicated that we wanted the jobs in these companies to be retained. That was the goal. It is important since Canada Post told us in its statement that it tried several times, through the Universal Postal Union, to negotiate with these companies.

It is important because in his speech on October 7, 2009, in the House, the Minister of State responsible for Canada Post, among other things, said:

There are two kinds of outboard international remails. [...] First, a piece of mail going to another country can go to a country with a lower regime cost.

...that is one way that it can and would be allowed. This actually goes back to the ratification of the 1999 Beijing congress on the Universal Postal Union. That is one way that it can be done.

There are two methods and one of the methods is legal and that is what everyone has always focused on. When we talk about $150 million worth of business in 2006, that figure has surely gone up since then. It was difficult for us to get the exact figures. When Canada Post says it is losing between $60 million and $80 million, that means that the remailers are still in business.

With that in mind, the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, responsible for examining crown corporations, looked at this issue. Our recommendation pointed out that since one way of operating is allowed by law, there is no need to change the law to allow these businesses to continue remailing under international agreements. Canada Post used the international platform and went to arbitration through the Universal Postal Union.

The Conservatives have not understood one thing: private corporations have a bad habit of not being all about service. They are there above all to make money. In recent years, they have launched huge operations with major public institutions such as universities and Quebec CEGEPs, by signing contracts with these universities. They were in the process of taking over Canada Post's market piece by piece.

I understand the decision of the President and board of directors of Canada Post. At some point they decided that enough was enough. Under the law, they have the right to do certain things—I read to the House the text delivered on October 7 by the minister responsible—but there are other things that they do not have the right to do and they have been told to stop. When I met with these companies' lobbyists, I told them to stop always wanting to expand. They are targeting Canada Post revenues, leading to their decline. What does that mean? It means that the government is considering privatization. The president of Canada Post, Moya Green, was hired at the time by the Liberals. We cannot ignore the fact that the president's stated goal, which is now gaining increasing support from the Conservatives, was to make Canada Post attractive for privatization.

That is clearly the goal, despite what many departmental documents say. An election is on the horizon, and they do not want to scare people. It is clear when we see the work that was assigned by the former minister, the member for Pontiac. He wanted a report that would open a crack in the exclusive privilege. In fact, by attacking the exclusive privilege and allowing companies to collect mail and send it overseas, the Conservatives are now opening up that crack. This will probably permit companies to collect all the mail from a major organization and process it abroad—and maybe even send it back here. Once the exclusive privilege has been breached and a company can take mail to be processed abroad, that does not mean that no letters will come back. What will happen then? It will end up before the courts. Canada Post will come in second, and will be forced to prove that the mail that was collected was intended for us, and that will not be easy.

That is what the Conservatives want. They want to open a crack in the exclusive privilege. Canada Post's profits are dwindling, but what matters to us, to Bloc Québécois members, is that services must be maintained throughout Quebec at the same rate. That is our objective. We know that the hidden agenda of the Conservatives is to open things up to competition. Once again, they are making speeches and haranguing us to tell us to open up to competition.

Rural areas in Quebec will never be able to compete with urban areas. How far will the Conservatives' need for competition go? I think it will never end, no matter what they may tell us today.

They released their latest report because there was a threat of election. They decided to sweep some of their ideas under the rug to hide them. We are not fooled. We hear them, we are listening. I listen to the minister's colleagues in committee. We know that they want privatization.

We will always be there to prevent privatization, especially when Canada Post services are currently under attack.

The government's report even makes it possible for services to be provided in a different way once postmasters retire.

The government sees it like this: they can close post offices and provide services at postal outlets, which are often located in shops or convenience stores.

My colleague from Drummond went through a difficult situation this week. What are Canada Post and the Conservative government doing to obtain the public's consent? They offer more services to a community. The postmaster retires. They could replace him, but what they really want to do is contract the services out to a private outlet located in a shop that is open for longer hours than the post office.

However, what happened with my colleague from Drummond was that it came to light that a contract had been signed with a convenience store owner, and the contract was due to expire in 2010. Then Canada Post decided to impose new advertising standards. Lacking the means to do what the crown corporation wanted him to do, the operator could no longer provide the service. Canada Post therefore closed that outlet and opened another four or five kilometres away, and then some 5,000 people had to drive their cars to pick up their mail. That is what happened.

Clearly, Moya Greene, the corporation's president, will have achieved her objective. She wants to close service centres, because she thinks there are too many and they are too expensive. Of course people will have to travel to get their mail and that is what we will do. They are choosing to do something indirectly that they refuse to openly admit. The fact that the Conservatives are supporting Canada Post's actions just shows their hypocrisy.

Bill C-44 is therefore a way to create a crack in Canada Post's exclusive privilege of collecting the mail. There is a reason I gave a little background information, because that exclusive privilege was granted to Canada Post. Before becoming a crown corporation, with the government as its major shareholder, it reported directly to the government. Now it is a crown corporation. As I said earlier, it pays federal and provincial income tax, as well as corporate income tax. It has a board of directors and acts more or less autonomously. It would not take much to be able to privatize it.

Of course as long as it is generating income for the government, things are fine. However, the problem is that the Conservative government is beginning to realize that the way things are going, profits will continue to dwindle. So naturally, there is tremendous temptation. The temptation to privatize began with the Liberals and continues with the Conservatives. Of course, as soon as a private corporation takes over, it will be like what happened with Air Canada. Since Air Canada's privatization, no one can say that the service has remained the same throughout Canada as it was when it was the government's responsibility or when it was a crown corporation. They want us to forget that.

When it comes to service in French, we all know that Air Canada receives more complaints than any other. It is legally obliged to provide service in both official languages. Yet that company is the subject of the greatest number of complaints to the Commissioner of Official Languages, because it does not provide the service. That is a fact.

As soon as Canada Post is privatized, there will be fewer services in rural areas, and the Bloc Québécois will never be a party to this creeping privatization. What the government is doing is opening up a crack in Canada Post's exclusive privilege, and it will be the beginning of the end. The end, in our opinion, is the privatization of the corporation, which is clearly not acceptable. As soon as it is privatized, service in rural areas will not be as good as in urban areas. Who knows, one day there could well be two sets of postal rates: lower rates for urban areas and higher rates for rural areas. We have to nip this in the bud.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member who just made a speech about maintaining postal services whether she realizes—I am sure it is the same thing in her riding as in mine—that there are a number of concerns about maintaining postal services, especially in connection with the Canadian Postal Service Charter. This charter raises a number of concerns regarding universal yet affordable services for all Canadians. In any case, many communities in my riding have sent me resolutions stating that we should uphold the moratorium on closing post offices, of course, and that we should maintain universal services for everyone.

In my view, Bill C-44 opens the door to the privatization, perhaps only partial, of Canada Post. I would like to ask the member if she is aware of that. I would also like to remind her that in 2005, under her government, the Liberal government, Canada Post lost between $50 million and $80 million a year to remailing companies. I would like to ask her if she has looked at the connection between what happened in 2005 and the bill introduced by the Conservative government.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the new Liberal critic for crown corporations, it gives me great pleasure to stand today to join in the debate on Bill C-44. I look forward to this opportunity, my maiden debate as critic, and I look forward to many more.

I rise today to state our concerns with Bill C-44 and the government's attempt to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act and to legalize the activities of international remailers. While we have specific concerns about the bill, we will be determining as a caucus in the coming days how to best deal with it.

Crown corporations were created to provide standardized and essential services from postal delivery to energy development, resource extraction to public transportation. Crown corporations serve in binding our expansive, sparsely populated country, providing services where they would otherwise be inefficient and uneconomical for the private sector to operate. Providing universal yet affordable services to all Canadians, whether rural, urban or in remote areas through our crown corporations is one of those principles that bind us as a nation. Social cohesion in Canada rests on the shared institutions in which we can have pride.

Canada Post, through its very mandate, is dedicated to providing Canadians with reliable, affordable, accessible and universal services. For 158 years, Canada Post has been a pillar of the Canadian economy, connecting Canadians with their communities and their businesses. Each and every day, it processes some 45 million pieces of mail to nearly 15 million residences and businesses. It continues to meet or exceed delivery standards 96% of the time. It provides the lowest cost of sending a letter among all the industrialized nations, and it costs the same amount to send a letter from Halifax to Vancouver as it does to send a letter from Montreal to Ottawa. That will not be the case if the government is successful in its attempt to deregulate or privatize this public corporation.

Canada Post is a well-managed business that does not rely on taxpayer support and has been profitable for 13 consecutive years. It is one of Canada's largest corporations, employing almost 55,000 workers across the country, including 3,800 or more in rural and remote areas. It is a brand and an institution that Canadians trust.

Even before being elected to the House, I have always looked at Canada Post as one of those corporations that deliver, literally. Its motto is, “On land, online, we deliver”. I have often considered that to be true. Canada Post is award winning and world leading in its online services and second to none in its door-to-door service. To quote our friends from south of the border,“Through sleet, through rain and snow”, and, I will add, “from coast to coast to coast, it delivers”.

As the new critic responsible for crown corporations, I have studied this issue, consulted with former critics and I have heard from the minister of state and my other hon. colleagues. The issue in my mind is that the Supreme Court has ruled that Canada Post should maintain its exclusive privilege for domestic and international mail. Allowing remailers to continue to operate would cannibalize letter mail, reduce mail volume and revenue, and would erode the trusted corporation's ability to provide service in remote and rural areas.

In a letter to Canadian postal workers, CUPW, on July 25, 2006, the then minister of transport stated:

The activities of international remailers cost Canada Post millions of dollars each year and erodes the Corporation's ability to maintain a healthy national postal service and provide universal service to all Canadians.

As we understand it, the problem hinges on the difference between the English and French language variations of the Canada Post Corporation Act, section 14. The English version restricts Canada Post's exclusive privilege to letter mail for addresses within Canada, while the French version expands the exclusive privilege to mail directed to international addresses. This discrepancy between the English and French version has allowed an industry to develop outside the intentions of the act. We are debating Bill C-44 because of this discrepancy.

As we know, for the past 20 years, private international mailers have entered the market undeterred and have capitalized on the language discrepancy and the lack of clarity within the act. What is a remailer? Private remailer firms collect international mail daily from Canadian customers and fly it as cargo to other countries or foreign destinations, either for direct entry into their domestic postal operations or to an intermediary postal administration, bypassing Canada Post altogether.

The U.S. postal service estimates that it loses 5% of its international mail volume each year to remail companies. Canada Post president, Moya Greene, has estimated that the illegal activities of the international remailers results in a loss of revenue for the corporation of between $60 million and $80 million annually.

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled in Canada Post's favour, stating:

...any one or more of the activities of “collecting, transmitting and delivering” letters is the exclusive privilege of Canada Post in Canada, including letters addressed to foreign destinations.

In 2007, the Conservative government introduced Bill C-14, which died on the order paper because of an unnecessary election that the Prime Minister called. We remember when the Prime Minister broke his own fixed date election law. Not only does the Prime Minister obviously break his own laws, but he also ignores the laws of the Supreme Court of Canada.

The ruling cannot be clearer. When the highest court in the land clarifies an ambiguous section of an act, we must respect it. The court granted Canada Post an exclusive privilege over both domestic and international mail delivery. We have an obligation to respect its decision. In fact, section 14 was ambiguous and allowed new players to enter the market for a 20 year period. That fact does not make those actions legal.

In December 2008, a strategic review of the Canada Post Corporation was released, examining all aspects of Canada's postal service and providing some 60 recommendations. The report recommends against deregulation of our public post offices. Page 8 of the executive summary states:

Canadians remain deeply interested in postal matters and intensely committed to the maintenance of a viable and effective universal postal service. There appears to be little public support for the privatization or deregulation of Canada Post and considerable, if not unanimous, support for maintaining a quality, affordable universal service for all Canadian communities.

The advisory panel received submissions from individuals, businesses, community organizations and municipalities. An overwhelming majority of them opposed the deregulation of Canada Post.

In 2008, an Ipsos Reid poll suggested that 69% of respondents strongly opposed deregulation; that is, allowing private companies to deliver letter mail in Canada.

Yet, does Bill C-44 not propose to deregulate postal service by allowing remailers to compete for the international share of the business? It is a slippery slope. Once competition is permitted in one segment of the business, what prevents the government to privatize, spin off, sell off or open competitions in other sectors of this crown corporation or in other corporations? What is the government's true agenda?

The government made a commitment to stakeholders and the industry that it would engage in future consultations before commenting on the recommendations of the report. Instead, the government acted unilaterally to introduce legislation to potentially deregulate the industry and that could create two standards of service: one for urban and one for rural communities.

What would the impact of open competition be on domestic delivery? Let us speculate on that for a moment. We know for certain that service to remote communities in rural areas would be jeopardized. Deregulation would raise prices, reduce services, destroy jobs, hurt the environment and reduce the security and privacy of mail.

Municipalities from coast to coast have written letters to the strategic review panel stating that postal deregulation would be bad for their communities.

A moratorium has existed since 1994 that protects the approximately 3,800 public post offices in rural and small one post office towns. Of the 647 municipalities that made a submission, only one municipality, Ponoka, Alberta, supported deregulation and, hence, is willing to eliminate its rural post office.

Unfortunately, the strategic review report also recommended that the current moratorium on post office closures in rural and small towns be replaced with new rules and procedures, including the ability to replace public post offices with private outlets. By eliminating small town post offices, we would kill jobs, isolate communities and deny them a vital link to the rest of Canada. Closing post offices in small rural and remote communities would prevent seniors from sending letters to childhood friends, disabled Canadians from accessing postal services easily and children from sending letters to Santa Clause at Christmas.

Despite this electronic age of instant messaging, email, Facebook and Twitter, Canadians still value a stamped and sealed envelope, which carries strong sentimental value for their most special occasions: birthdays, weddings, funerals and/or other holiday greetings.

Seniors need accessible and reliable postal service that meets their needs. They are aware that with deregulation they would face higher postal rates. When the Swedish post office was deregulated, the standard rate increased by 90%.

Disabled rights organizations also oppose deregulation. Organizations representing blind people are concerned that deregulation would result in service cutbacks. Canada Post provides free mailing of braille documents and sound recordings. It is no secret that deregulation would result in cutbacks to these types of services because they are not profitable, but we engage in them to serve Canadians because it is our public service mandate.

Small businesses, too, would face rising costs and suffer difficulties as a result of a lack of postal services in their communities. These businesses would have no choice but to pass on increased costs to their customers in the form of higher prices.

Thus, deregulation jeopardizes high quality, affordable, accessible and universal postal delivery in rural and remote markets.

In fact, the revenue Canada Post generates by operating in large urban centres subsidizes the more costly services to rural farms, villages and isolated northern communities. Deregulation would open competition in lucrative urban markets and lead to the dismantling of rural delivery.

In other markets that have deregulated postal delivery service, we have seen increased prices. The cost of a stamp in Finland is $1.35; in Germany, 93¢; and in Sweden, 92¢. In countries that have not deregulated, the price of domestic mail has remained affordable, like in Canada, 54¢. It is the same in the United States.

The final point is the issue of jobs, one of the key and critical issues. The government has a dismal record of creating and protecting jobs. The introduction of this bill is no exception. Instead of putting forward meaningful legislation dealing with the creation of jobs, we find ourselves debating a bill that has the power to potentially eliminate thousands of jobs and destroy an industry.

The remail industry is driven primarily by subsidiaries of foreign postal interests that operate in a bulk mailing system designed for transnational overseas markets. Still, it is responsible for a not so insignificant number of jobs in Canada, some 2,000 or 3,000 according to some estimates. These jobs are generated from gross annual revenues ranging from $40 million to $80 million, depending on who presents the figures.

At any rate, it is a number that pales compared to the 55,000-plus workers who are employed by Canada Post Corporation, more than 3,800 of them in remote and rural communities employed in rural post offices. These positions are often the only jobs in some villages that are helping people connect across our nation. The value of these jobs goes far beyond the simple wages and benefits. These rural postal workers are envied by those who are seasonal workers in resource communities facing contracting industries and job losses.

Although the minister, in his introduction of the bill, neglected to mention or touch upon the special relationship that rural Canada has to postal service and to rural post offices, we on the Liberal side value that relationship. If the Conservatives are prepared to dismiss and abandon Canada Post's connection, indeed obligation, to rural Canada, Liberals will not stand idly by.

Those 3,800 jobs in rural Canada represent the viability of a people and a culture in Canada becoming increasingly urban, but the minister did not even mention that. He made no reference to the economic weight these jobs carry in rural Canada. He ignored entirely the impact the bill could have on those communities, despite the fact the Conservatives have received ample warning from communities across the country.

He referred scantily, almost dismissively, to the Canada Post strategic review, preferring to simply note that closing rural post outlets was one of the recommendations emanating from it. He would address the others. He did not make the connection between the impact of the bill and the implementation of the recommendations on the viability of Canada Post and its employees.

I would not blame him. His finance minister wants to privatize the corporation and his abilities to guesstimate the economic health of the country and the finances of the government would embarrass any six year old.

As we know, in 1994 the Liberal government imposed a moratorium on the closures of rural post offices. I remember the quote as though it were today, “As long as this Government is in power, no rural or small town post office will close”. We promised at that time not to make any changes to rural service without first undergoing a full and comprehensive consultation with Postal Customer Councils and that has not been accomplished today.

Many Canadians are worried about the true long-term agenda of the Conservatives. Is it to weaken the government and crown corporations slowly, incrementally but determinately, so that eventually mass deregulation and privatization is the only answer?

Weakening Canada Post by opening a profitable area to unfair, unlevel competition is a recipe for the long-term degradation of Canada Post and its continued viability and sustainability.

The bill needs work and further discussion to ensure that it will not lead to the deregulation and demise of rural and remote post delivery. At this time, we are agreeing only so far as to send the bill to committee.

The House resumed from October 7 consideration of the motion that Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Business of the House

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by saying that normally in response to the Thursday question, I talk about what government business we will be continuing to debate in this place.

However, because of the NDP House leader, we have not even gotten to government orders yet today. Instead of debating government business this morning, we debated an NDP procedural motion.

Bill C-23, the free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia, began second reading debate on May 25, five months ago. Thanks again to the NDP, we are still debating it at second reading.

We keep seeing the NDP leader on television, telling Canadians that he wants to make Parliament work. However, in this House, his main operative, his House leader, is doing everything she can to make Parliament dysfunctional.

I would suggest that he should either stop running his television ads or actually do what he is telling Canadians and make Parliament work.

However, in response to my hon. colleague's questions about the business for the remainder of this week and immediately following the break week, when we eventually, hopefully, get to orders of the day, we will be calling Bill C-13, the Canada Grain Act, followed by Bill C-44, the Canada Post Corporation Act, and then on to Bill C-23, which I mentioned earlier.

We will continue this business tomorrow.

As my hon. colleague said, next week is a constituency week.

Finally, I would like to designate October 19, the first day back, as an allotted day.

To his question about the report, it will be coming in due course.

Canada Post Corporation Act

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

moved that Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to share my thoughts with regard to this legislation. The Canada Post Corporation Act needs to be amended. It is not the first time it has been tried. We have tried to bring this forward previously. I am excited about bringing this forward because the legislation will give the official opposition an opportunity to stand and support us as a government. We look forward to that because I know it actually will happen.

The members have encouraged me to bring forward the legislation because they see it as good thing. It is the second time it has been introduced. It died last fall, so we are reintroducing it now. It is a very simple legislation, which I will describe for the House so we understand full well what will happen.

It would amend the Canada Post Corporation Act, which we need to do because it is the only way we can change the legislation. It has gone to court. The courts did not rule on whether they agree with outboard or international mailing. What they did was interpret the act as saying that Canada Post had the exclusive right to outboard and international mailing.

The legislation would make outboard international remailing legal, which in the law today is the exclusive privilege of Canada Post. The industry is worth millions of dollars and employs thousands of Canadians right now. Those individuals need to know that in Canada we agree with competition. We agree that this exclusive privilege is not in the best interests of the country. Canada Post would perhaps argue the other way.

Things have changed over a number of years. I would like to explain why it is not needed at this time. This is not unique to Canada. It has changed in Europe. Most of Europe's international remailers have the opportunity to exercise international remailing. It has also changed in the United States. When one sees exactly what has happened internationally, we are just trying to catch up with other countries.

There are two kinds of outboard international remails. We need to describe those so members who will vote on the legislation understand the two ways that it can happen.

First, a piece of mail going to another country can go to a country with a lower regime cost. Bulk pieces of mail will go to foreign developing countries, such as Jamaica, that have a cheaper rate because of their costs of doing business in those areas. Then the mail moves on to a third country where the mail is actually distributed. It is not exercised that way as often, but that is one way that it can and would be allowed. This actually goes back to the ratification of the 1999 Beijing congress on the Universal Postal Union. That is one way that it can be done.

The other way, which is the way more commonly done in Canada, is when an outboard international remail occurs with remailers that collect the outboard international mail from their consumers. Usually it is sorted and bagged by a country of destination and then directly deposited in that foreign country.

That is most likely what would happen. It is most common with us because of our proximity to the United States. These bags are taken to the United States and distributed domestically. Domestic rates are always much cheaper than international rates and that is the reality of the situation. With the way the act is written and the way that the monopoly is given to Canada Post, that is illegal in the country.

It is important that we stay competitive with the United States. We do a tremendous amount of business with our neighbour. I do not know of two other countries that are more closely connected by business, by heritage, by relationships than the United States and Canada.

I have had the privilege of serving as the chair of the Canada-U.S. Interparliamentary Association over the last two years. I work closely with both the U.S. Congress and the Senate. The United States is a great friend and a great ally on many fronts. It is important for us to ensure that we are not at a disadvantage when we do business across the border. We are in the same marketplace and it is important that we understand that.

The world is changing. Eighty-five per cent of our exports used to go to the United States. That figure went down to about 75% and then 70%. Last year it was 66%. We are seeing a trend where our exports are not going directly to the United States and that is because we are capitalizing on international markets.

That is why this legislation is so important. It would allow us to have a competitive edge internationally. One thing that the economic slowdown has shown us is how interconnected we are with the rest of the world and how we have to compete. The only way Canada will really win is by competing and by being better, smarter, stronger than our international competitors. That will give Canadians a competitive edge.

Becoming protectionist would be a recipe for disaster. That promotes lack of productivity not better productivity. As we move forward in the 21st century, only by creating better productivity will Canada reach its full potential.

Canada is a wonderful country. Our population is only 33 million. With the amount of natural resources we have per capita, I know of no other country that can compete with us. If our legislation is right, if our ability to compete internationally is right, we will out-compete any country in the world. Now it is important to make the right investments.

I listened to the opposition speaker before me talk about how, as a government, we have lessened the opportunity for Canadians by going into debt. It is important to understand that it was our government that paid down $40 billion of debt. It is important for that individual to understand that in the fall of 2007 we gave back $200 billion in taxes by dropping the GST from 7% to 6% to 5%. We also gave Canadians a choice in child care. We provided them with $100 for every child under the age of six. Our government dropped corporate tax, personal tax, small business tax, giving Canadians a competitive edge. At the end of five years, Canada will have the most competitive G7 tax regime of any of our major competitors.

That is a competitive edge. That is the greatest stimulus that we could provide for our country. Our economic action plan provides a wonderful stimulus of $12 billion. It was wonderful to do that.

We are capitalizing on the opportunity to use public dollars in a competitive way because of the bidding process that is going on.

I am directly responsible for the stimulus package going into Alberta and Saskatchewan. In Alberta competitive bidding is working extremely well. Projects that were projected to cost $9 million are coming in at $6 million. A project for an overpass that was projected to cost $300 million came in at $168 million. We are using taxpayer dollars to the advantage of Canadians.

It is important not only to get taxpayer dollars working to create jobs now and in a competitive way, but it is also important that we build the infrastructure that allows us to compete internationally in the 21st century. I am talking about solid water and sewer projects, good roads, good facilities that will allow us that competitive edge as we go forward.

Why am I bringing that into a speech on legislation on Canada Post? We have to understand what this legislation would allow us to do. It would allow us to push for productivity in the long run. It does not take away the rights of Canada Post to enter into this business, but it does not give it an exclusive right.

There is a competitive opportunity for all people to push Canada Post into better productivity, as well as to allow these international remailers who employ thousands of people, thousands of Canadians the opportunity to do it in a legal way.

A lot has changed in the last few years. Actually since 1986, profound changes have happened. Up until then the remailing industry was very small, but that is when the United States decided that they had to compete as well. At that time the United States actually handled half of the world's volume of mail. They decided that they would allow international remailers to start, and the industry began to grow in leaps and bounds, and that is what has happened over a number of years.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the European Union sought a consolidation of the market into a larger one, and the pan-European market allowed this to happen in Europe as well.

We are seeing what has happened in Europe and what has happened in the United States. This piece of legislation would allow us to be able to catch up and get into this in a great way.

I want to talk a little bit about how this came about and why we are introducing it. Canada Post is one of the Crown corporations under my watch. There was a panel struck that did a review of Canada Post and what should or should not happen in order to be able to revitalize it and put Canada Post in a very positive light in the 21st century.

There were 60 recommendations, many of which we are following through on. One is that they are recommending we remove the exclusive privilege of Canada Post in international mail and remailers. This is something that comes from a very close study.

Some people may argue that we have rushed on this piece of legislation. This group of three who are very astute and who have worked very hard for over a year heard from thousands and thousands of Canadians on the recommendations for Canada Post. This is very well researched, well thought out and very well supported with regard to where we are going with this piece of legislation.

CUPW, the Canada Post union, does not really like this, but it is actually going to be good for them. It allows them to actually compete. It allows them to be able to test themselves, as to whether they actually can be competitive as they move forward with regard to this.

We are not compromising Canada Post's universality in Canada. We want Canada Post. We demand Canada Post. In fact we have a charter and will have a contractual arrangement between the people of Canada and Canada Post that will insist they deliver mail in an appropriate time period from one side of this country to another.

We know they have committed to local delivery within two days, regional delivery within three days, and national delivery within four days. That is a standard that is set out in the charter that we announced earlier, in mid-September, between our government and Canada Post on behalf of the people of Canada.

No one needs to worry that Canada Post is going anywhere on their mandate or that we are going to compromise in any way the Canada Post Corporation Act. This is the only change that we are looking at or are considering.

I am looking forward to the support of members from all parties in this House because this is what will hold us in good stead as we move forward, long after this vote is taken, because it will allow for many Canadians to be employed; it will allow for competition and it will allow us to be able to enter the world in a way that we can be proud of as Canadians because we will compete with anyone, given the right tools. This allows us the tools to do that.

With that, I would entertain any questions the House might have with regard to this piece of legislation.

Business of the House

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, first, in response to the last point raised by my hon. colleague, we discussed this between us earlier. I indicated to him then that we believed opposition days were the appropriate time to hold such debates. Indeed, today would have been a great opportunity to have the debate about the fisheries industry. I would think that it should have been done today rather than try to bring forward an opposition motion to force an unnecessary election onto Canadians. That is what we have been spending all day debating.

In reply to the fact that if our government does survive this reckless and unnecessary motion that the official opposition has brought forward today and the House were to continue, then obviously today we will continue to debate the opposition motion.

Tomorrow, provided the opposition motion of today is defeated, we will begin debate on Bill C-51, the second budget implementation bill, which has all sorts of great things in it to help Canadians even further.

Following that, we will schedule for debate Bill C-23, the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement, Bill C-37, the national capital act and Bill C-44, the Canada Post Corporation Act. All these bills are at second reading and have a long way to go.

We will continue with this lineup of economic legislation next week and add to the list any bills that are reported back from committee.

If I could, I would like to end this week's reply to the Thursday question by paying tribute to someone who I considered a very close personal friend.

It was little more than a year ago, July 2008, while in my riding, that I received an email from Rick Wackid explaining he had been diagnosed with ALS. The news hit like a blow below the belt. That a young man, so healthy, so active and so full of life could leave us so quickly serves as a wake-up call to all of us of how fragile our existence can be.

Although Rick Wackid, like Jerry Yanover, was always a very worthy political adversary, he was also a passionate believer in this, our House of democracy. When one party loses someone of his quality and integrity, we are all the poorer for it. He is and will continue to be greatly missed.

On behalf of the Prime Minister and our entire Conservative government, I offer my sincere condolences to Rick's wife Danielle, his daughter Stephanie and all of his friends and family.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

It would be nice if members would demonstrate a little bit of respect for me as we did for the hon. House leader from the official opposition when he was making his statement a few moments ago, if he would not mind.

Whether it is the issue of the NAFO deadline, which I am sure the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is seized with, as she is with all fisheries issues, or whether it is trying to negotiate a way forward to expedite the passage of Bill C-50, we need to ensure that we do it right. We need to ensure that that particular bill, which is so important to workers and their families, is passed. However, we need to ensure that the help we are all seeking to provide unemployed people across the country is done in a proper and expeditious manner.

I believe that we will be successful. I am certainly hopeful. I called a special meeting after the two motions from the two opposition parties that made motions this morning. I called a special meeting of the House leaders in my office some two hours ago. I was hopeful that we would have an agreement by now on how to proceed with Bill C-50. That has not happened. One of the parties is still taking a look at a compromise that I have suggested to wrap up debate by tomorrow on this bill and then see it sent off to the committee. I am hopeful that we can perhaps arrive at such a compromise.

That addresses my hon. colleague's issue with Bill C-50. Obviously, as he noted, the House is currently debating second reading of Bill C-50. That will continue after question period.

Tomorrow, pursuant to a special order adopted yesterday, the House will vote on ways and means Motion No. 9 that implements certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on January 27, 2009, and to implement other measures.

Following the vote, we will continue and hopefully complete second reading stage of Bill C-50, so that it can move on to committee as quickly as possible. Backup bills for tomorrow, should they be needed, are Bill C-37, the National Capital Act, and Bill C-44, the Canada Post Corporation Act.

When the House returns after the constituency break, I have planned to call, but not necessarily in this order, Bill C-37, the National Capital Act; Bill C-23, the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement again; Bill C-44, the Canada Post Corporation Act; Bill C-13, the Canada Grain Act; and the Budget Implementation Act, No. 2, that flows from the ways and means motion that will hopefully be adopted tomorrow.

Canada Post Corporation Act

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act.

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