Bill C-9 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992

This enactment amends the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992, in order to enhance public safety — the safety of human life and health and of property and the environment.
The main amendments fall into two categories: new security requirements and safety amendments. These amendments include the following:
(a) requirements for security plans and security training;
(b) a requirement that prescribed persons must hold transportation security clearances to transport dangerous goods, and the establishment of regulatory authority in relation to appeals and reviews of any decision in respect of those clearances;
(c) the creation of a choice of instruments — regulations, security measures and interim orders — to govern security in relation to dangerous goods;
(d) the use of industry emergency response assistance plans approved by Transport Canada to respond to an actual or apprehended release of dangerous goods during their transportation;
(e) the establishment of regulatory authority to require that dangerous goods be tracked during transport or reported if lost or stolen;
(f) clarification of the Act to ensure that it is applicable uniformly throughout Canada, including to local works and undertakings;
(g) reinforcement and strengthening of the Emergency Response Assistance Plan Program; and
(h) authority for inspectors to inspect any place in which standardized means of containment are being manufactured, repaired or tested.

Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would not say that words fail me just because I will not be debating the bill itself. I want to debate the motion that would prevent any discussion of the substance of the bill. I find it rather odd that the Bloc supports the government's attempt to stop any possibility of debating the substance of the bill.

No one in the House can accuse the Liberals of not supporting the proposal to abolish one-sixth accelerated parole for white collar criminals. Two years ago, my colleague from Bourassa, our candidate in Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, and the member for Lac-Saint-Louis participated in a press conference with a number of Earl Jones' victims to urge the government to quickly introduce a bill to eliminate eligibility for one-sixth accelerated parole for white collar criminals, especially those who commit major fraud and have many victims. No one can accuse the Liberals of not supporting this idea. I find it shameful that the government is making these types of accusations when it is fully aware of the Liberal position. That is my first point.

Second, I want to talk about the debate and the possibility that there will be closure. Barely seven months ago, the Bloc members rose in the House to criticize this government for doing what it is about to do with Bill C-59. The government had moved a motion to prevent debate. The Bloc member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain rose in the House last June to admonish the government because it moved a motion to prevent debate on the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act. The Bloc member for Hochelaga also rose to oppose the government's time allocation motion to prevent debate on the Jobs and Economics Growth Act, Bill C-9.

We oppose this time allocation motion because we believe that this is an important matter. In addition, the Liberals have been asking the government for two years to abolish one-sixth accelerated parole for white collar criminals such as Earl Jones, Vincent Lacroix and others. I find it regrettable that the Conservatives are trying to make people believe that the Liberals do not care about the victims. That is not true.

As I mentioned, when the government introduced Bill C-21 regarding white collar criminals and it was sent to committee, I proposed an amendment to eliminate the one-sixth accelerated parole rule for white collar criminals. The Conservative and Bloc members defeated the motion.

It is a matter of responsibility. Every member has the right to speak about the bills that the government introduces in the House. This is an extremely important issue.

We would like to hear from experts. It is possible that experts will tell us that we should eliminate the possibility of parole after one-sixth of a sentence for white collar criminals who committed a crime over a certain amount or if there were multiple victims. But for white collar crime that is not fraud, we believe evidence shows that parole after one-sixth of the sentence is served is very effective and that the recidivism rate is lower. I do not know. With this motion to limit debate, we will perhaps never know before we are asked to vote on this bill.

The Liberals are against this motion to limit debate. It is not justified, and we are sorry to see that the Bloc has decided to join the Conservatives to limit debate on this bill. As for the substance of the bill, up until today, no one could accuse the Liberals of not showing their support for eliminating the one-sixth accelerated parole rule for white collar criminals.

Ending Conditional Sentences for Property and Other Serious Crimes Act

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, once again the hon. member has asked the question about the cost. I do not know whether members might have asked him how much his bill would cost. What is the cost in terms of dealing with child pornography?

Once again, I go back to the real question. What is the cost to society of not taking these types of action? What is the cost to society of not putting in place the deterrents to stop these types of action?

I have laid out that the original bill, as amended, was $10.7 million and that Bill C-9, as it was originally introduced, was $21.7 million.

There will be some costs, but these are costs that the people of Canada expect the government to pay.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my constituents, and I am sure his constituents in Mississauga South, feel that we should spend the money to implement these changes.

I am just looking at some of the numbers that were provided before, when Bill C-9 was going through the House. The cost, ultimately, was amended to $10.7 million. However, the cost for the original Bill C-9 was $21.7 million. So, I know that Canadians expect their tax dollars to be used wisely, and I know that my constituents expect us to spend money on these types of things.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Order, please. I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:

Rideau Hall

Ottawa

May 14, 2009

Mr. Speaker:

I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bills listed in the schedule to this letter on the 14th day of May, 2009 at 2:33 p.m.

Yours sincerely,

Sheila-Marie Cook

The schedule indicates the bills assented to were Bill C-5, An Act to amend the Indian Oil and Gas Act--Chapter 7; Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Energy Efficiency Act--Chapter 8; and Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992--Chapter 9.

Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992

[Josée Verner, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

moved the second reading of, and concurrence in, an amendment made by the Senate to Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992

Marine Liability Act

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Madam Speaker, I thank all those who applauded me from across the House. That is very nice. It really speaks to the goodwill that came out of the transport committee in bringing forward the third reading of this bill to amend the Marine Liability Act.

I may not have served as much time as many of my august compatriots on the transport committee but in the time I have been here I did feel that this bill was a good example of parliamentarians working carefully on a bill that had very little partisan aspects to it and very little ideology. It is a pretty straightforward bill that would put into place certain international conventions and then ratify them. These conventions have been around for a very long time in which Canadian law has picked up, in one way or the other, over that time and there are provisions within those conventions.

The bulk of the bill's importance was within the conventions but that did not necessarily translate into the time the committee spent on those particular aspects of it. More of the committee's time was spent on the Adventure Tourism aspect of it and the opportunities for establishing liens against foreign vessels in Canadian waters.

The committee's work should be applauded by all members of the House because it does represent good work together. However, it is not like this committee does this all the time. We have differences. Quite clearly, the debate that took place over Bill C-9, the amendments to the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, showed that when the issues are controversial and they speak to differences in ideological direction on the committee there will be a healthy debate and a strong presence by all parties.

The functioning of the committee is good but this is a committee that is also in charge of infrastructure. What I have seen here on the committee is a failure to deal with infrastructure issues. We saw that quite clearly with a vote at the last committee meeting on a motion brought forward by a Liberal member to examine right away the aspects of the infrastructure stimulus moneys that had been put forward in the budget. The motion was defeated because there was a reluctance on the part of two of the parties to deal with a very important part of parliamentary business, for which this committee is responsible. The committee has a responsibility to Canadians to ensure that the work that is going on under the infrastructure stimulus program is well understood and well expressed in the committee.

I find that these types of issues sometime need to come back to Parliament as well. We need to have exposure of what we are doing on the committee in order for the committee to work properly and for individual members on the committee representing their parties to understand that there is are reactions to the positions they take.

I was quite willing to accept that with Bill C-9. I had to come and stand up again in Parliament to debate amendments to try to bring sense to the bill as I saw it. I exposed the workings of the bill because I considered it inappropriate but I suffered the consequences in the vote and did not get what I wanted. Nonetheless, the House understood what was going on in the committee and it understood what was happening with the bill, which is a better situation for everyone. Infrastructure is important and I hope the committee will come around, as it has come around with Bill C-7, to work on the issues that are important and in front of the committee.

I mentioned earlier that two aspects of the bill were under some degree of scrutiny and that they were clearly understood by the committee as to their impact on citizens in Canada. The impact of ratifying conventions when enormous sums of money may or may not be utilized for the purposes of cleaning up oil spills or other types of pollution that occur in waterways was probably not that well understood by the committee and we simply accepted the good advice that came from a variety of witnesses and experts in international law who gave us the assurance that these larger issues matched up to what was good for Canada.

There is background to this. In May 2005, Transport Canada put forward a marine law reform discussion paper in which many of the points in the bill were brought out so that the legal communities had many years to take a look at it and understand what was happening with the larger conventions.

When it comes to the smaller issues, such as Adventure Tourism, there were many more grounds for improvement in the bill and the government, in bringing forward a number of amendments, admitted that, which was a good step forward. We have come to a better understanding of how Adventure Tourism waivers will work in the system and how this bill would enhance the ability of the industry, which is not a huge industry and a very seasonal industry.

I understand the Adventure Tourism industry because in my hometown of Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, we have probably one of the largest whitewater rivers in Canada with class six rapids. For many years we had Adventure Tourism with rubber rafts on that river but the nature of the risk involved with these rubber rafts, bringing people in and putting them on the river, made the business of Adventure Tourism very difficult and expensive to operate.

Adventure Tourism is not a gold mine of opportunity and the cost of insurance is a drag on the system. The opportunity to use waivers to allow people to engage in Adventure Tourism is with the understanding that they take on the risk themselves for the activity that they are involved in as long as the operator provides a certain measure of safe conditions, equipment, professional conduct and trained guides. When those are in place, the waivers are acceptable and there is a prior understanding by the people involved in the Adventure Tourism that the waivers are something they can either accept or not participate in the activity. They have that knowledge prior to showing up at the river's edge with their families for the Adventure Tourism opportunity.

All of those things were discussed. We went through them in detail in committee and heard from many witnesses and I think we came to a satisfactory solution on Adventure Tourism. However, this would be the third attempt by Parliament to come to grips with it. There was a law in place prior to 2000, then another law was put in place in 2000 and now we have another law in 2009. This subject is not perfect and will not likely to be perfect but it is the third iteration of the understanding of the nature of the liability that Adventure Tourism operators take on.

This subject is not perfect, and not likely to be perfect, but this is the third iteration of the understanding of the nature of the liability that adventure tourism operators take on. We worked on it and I think in all conscience all parties tried to come to a good understanding on this issue.

Then we took on another issue that was controversial, and a number lawyers were present to debate this with us. This issue was the nature of maritime liens and whether maritime liens, as outlined in the bill, would be effective to ensure Canadian suppliers would get their money out of foreign boats before they escaped to the high seas.

There was considerable debate on this. There was a sense that if we gave it to the lawyers, it might not be good enough because lawyers might not be available, their fees might be too high, the timing might not work right and the foreign vessel would escape Canadian waters and the Canadian supplier would be out the dollars for whatever type of provision had been given to the boat. There were differences of opinion on it, but they were differences of opinion that were primarily technical. They were not going to stop a ship supplier from putting a lien against a boat. They might make it a little more difficult, they might make it expensive, but it was there for the ship supplier to do it.

This was the compromise we finally achieved in putting the bill forward to Parliament. My Liberal colleagues made valiant presentations about the nature of the lien and the nature of work of lawyers, and I thank them for that. The Liberal Party is well supported by lawyers. They like those intricate details of how these things work. I appreciate the work they did. I think we have came to a solution on that one.

The bill is now before us. The good work of the transport committee in agreeing to put the bill forward, with the unanimous support for it at the end, suggests it should pass through Parliament just like a foreign vessel slipping out of Canadian waters without paying its bill.

We are not at the end of debate at the transport committee. We saw this in the previous Parliament when the safety management system in the bill to amend the Aeronautics Act was fought tooth and nail by my party, and to good success. We kept it from coming back and being foisted upon the Canadian public in a fashion that it could have been without the hard work of the New Democratic Party. We stood day after day and debated the issue to ensure it did not go forward.

That kind of work will continue in the transport committee when the occasion requires it. At this point in time, though, we can be congratulatory and we can be happy about the work we have done. Parliament now has the opportunity to move forward in a consensual fashion with the Marine Liability Act.

Human Pathogens and Toxins Act

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to address this House on Bill C-11. First, I want to thank Bloc Québécois members for their contribution to the debate on this legislation. They did a lot of work. We proposed many changes to this bill.

We too, like the Bloc, have many issues with this legislation. However, unlike the Bloc, the NDP has proposed some changes. In fact, Bloc members opposed the proposals that we made in committee.

Moreover, we proposed an amendment to this bill, dealing precisely with the issue raised by the Bloc Québécois member today. We proposed an amendment to eliminate human pathogens. That is exactly what we did, but the Bloc said no. That is the only thing that researchers and members of the scientific community asked for. That is precisely what we tried to do, but we did not succeed because of the Bloc's opposition. It is as simple as that.

I want to be absolutely clear. We have some problems with this bill and, like the Bloc, we listened to witnesses and, since they were opposed to this legislation, we proposed amendments to it. Two of our three amendments were accepted by the committee and by all the members of the parties sitting in this House. We accomplished a couple of important things, such as asking that regulations be presented to the House of Commons, for monitoring purposes.

That is something we always ask for regarding any legislation. It is absolutely critical to ask that government regulations be referred to the Standing Committee on Health and to the House of Commons. That is what we accomplished. This is not a Bloc proposal. It is an NDP proposal, and the Bloc supported these amendments. So, this is very important, and it is something that we achieved.

We also dealt with the Bloc's concerns through another amendment that I am going to read. This is precisely the proposal that the Bloc rejected. It reads as follows:

That Bill C-11, in Clause 7, be amended by adding after line 22 on page 5 the following:

(c) any activity involving a micro-organism, nucleic acid or protein that falls into Risk Group 2, if the person who conducts the activity provides the following elements to the Minister:

(i) the location of the places where the activity is conducted and the name of a contact person, and

(ii) a signed document certifying that the activity is conducted in accordance with the Laboratory Biosafety Guidelines of the Public Health Agency of Canada.

This is an amendment that all scientific researchers asked for, in order to eliminate human pathogens that fall into risk group 2, and we made that proposal. Bloc members voted against it and now we have a bill that includes all human pathogens that fall in risk group 2.

It has to be pretty clear about what we do in the House and how we accomplish change. The government's job is to bring forward a bill. Yes, it made many mistakes in this case because it claimed to have done all kinds of consultations and to have done a thorough analysis of this area and the government was prepared to tell us that the whole community supported it. The government did not tell us the truth. It did not do the proper consultations because the minute Bill C-11 was tabled, we were inundated with concerns from scientists and researchers that research in this country would be denied. They were concerned that research would be cut off and would not be undertaken because people would be very concerned that they would fall under this criminal rubric and be subject to all kinds of criminal penalties because of their laboratory work with level 2 pathogens.

We accepted the arguments the researchers and scientists made, which was that there has to be a differentiation between the different levels of toxins and pathogens. Therefore, we proposed an amendment to do just that.

Many of the scientists we heard from said that the work that was done by the government's amendment was a step in the right direction and they also said that the proposition we had made was a good one. Yet the Bloc accepted neither.

Our job is not to do the job of government. Our job is to amend and change the bills it brings before us. We cannot simply say every time we do not like something that we are going to send it back and start all over again.

In this case we heard multiple times from those witnesses. Some of us called them and spoke to them individually apart from the discussions at committee. It was clear that this issue about including level 2 pathogens in this whole umbrella of punitive measures around safety in our laboratories was a major concern and had to be addressed.

Many of them said as we went through the process that they could live with the government's amendment. We did not think that was good enough and we proposed one step further. That was the one that was rejected by the Liberals because they were not part of the discussion at all, but most surprisingly it was rejected by the Bloc members. This actually would have addressed their concerns.

We did our best. We put the proposal on the table and we were turned down. We did our part to try to make this a better bill but it is certainly not our job to hold up everything ad infinitum because we did not get our way. We do our best to work within a minority Parliament. We work to make changes and that is exactly what we did. We accomplished two important changes. We did not get the third change. We will continue to find ways to address the concerns raised by scientists and researchers.

It is very important to note that the NDP's amendment to get all regulations before the House is a significant breakthrough. The Bloc members are quite right when they ask how we can vote for something when we do not know the regulations. We deal with that each and every day. Every time we have a piece of legislation we deal with it.

We did it with Bill C-9. That bill deals with the transportation of dangerous goods. It is a very similar situation to this bill dealing with laboratories handling dangerous toxins and pathogens. We tried through a motion to get the House to amend that bill to ensure that all regulations would go before the committee. Where were the Bloc members on that? Where were the Bloc members on each and every other bill where we were trying to get regulations under the purview of the House and we raised concerns about the discretion of the minister and the latitude he or she may have in terms of implementing a bill and for which we do not know the full consequences? It is a legitimate concern but the normal parliamentary way is to amend a bill so that the regulations go to committee.

Now, all regulations for this bill will come before committee as a result of the NDP amendment before the bill is finally approved. It may not be perfect. It may mean the Conservative government can still try to do some things for which it has no authority and where it is taking advantage of grey areas in the bill, but we have a major role to play in terms of overseeing the regulations before allowing the bill to go any further. I think it is important to note all of that.

I will talk a bit about the bill as a whole and put it in the context of the present swine influenza outbreak because the two are very much connected.

We are talking about the precautionary principle in whatever we do. One of the fundamental principles behind Bill C-11 is that Canadians, health workers and all who come into contact with pathogens and toxins are safe beyond a reasonable doubt. Our first premise in dealing with the bill was to ensure that this safety provision was a part of it, but not in any way that would try to prevent research in important areas. We did not get what we wanted on that bill, but we made a good try.

With respect to the do no harm principle in the current context of the swine influenza outbreak, it is important to note that, because we have such capable and competent individuals in our national laboratories, especially our level 5 laboratory in Winnipeg, the National Microbiology Laboratory, we can feel somewhat confident that scientists are doing their job, ensuring that Canadians are protected in the event of a pandemic and that work in labs for which they have oversight are operating according to the highest principles and standards.

In that context, I want to single out Dr. Frank Plummer. He was the individual to whom Mexicans sent their concerns and samples once this soon-to-be-identified swine influenza broke out in Mexico. Dr. Frank Plummer and his team identified this new strain, which became known as the swine influenza. This laboratory is overseeing much of the work in this area. In fact, it is working very stringently on the development of a vaccine, which could happen, as reports show today, much sooner than actually expected. There could be a vaccine developed within a couple of weeks for the swine influenza, thanks to the work of Dr. Frank Plummer and his whole team of scientists and their collaboration with the CDC in the United States, with public health agencies across the country and with public health officers in every province and territory.

I want to mention the work of Dr. Frank Plummer because he also helped us identify the issue around listeriosis. Through Dr. Frank Plummer, the electronic surveillance system detected the listeriosis outbreak. We were able then to take measures to deal with this very serious pathogen and ensure further containment of it.

Dr. Frank Plummer is known to us all for his work, especially, in the area of HIV and AIDS. He is one of the internationally renowned scientists who have done leading and groundbreaking research in getting to the bottom of HIV and AIDS. He has been recognized for that work in many parts of the world. In fact, as members will know, he was recently appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. Probably more important than anything, he was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada. He has received a grant from the Grand Challenges in Global Health, an initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which continues studies on HIV resistance and work on the HIV vaccine. He was named Canada research chair of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and has been elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians, and I could go on.

We are talking about someone who is world renowned, who is providing groundbreaking research on new unidentified pathogens and toxins. He has been behind the developments around listeriosis. Now he has been identified as the key researcher with respect to the swine influenza. He will ensure that we have a vaccine for that latest epidemic in short order.

He is a person with whom we consulted regularly throughout the debate. He took the time to come to our committees, along with Dr. Butler-Jones, the head of the Public Health Agency of Canada. As a result of their efforts, particularly Dr. Frank Plummer's, we were able to get a better handle on the nature of level 2 pathogens versus level 3 and level 4 pathogens and, in fact, begin the process of trying to put in place a modified regime with respect to level 2 pathogens so research would not be stymied and scientists would not feel any encumbrances around their work.

That has been accomplished, in part, thanks to all the scientists who came before us. They were very vigilant in their work at our committee. In fact, I want to mention the efforts by a number of them with respect to this bill, as the Bloc also referred to, and indicate that they were instrumental in our understanding of this whole area.

I hope the government has learned some lessons from Bill C-11, that it must ensure thorough consultations before it proceeds with legislation. I am glad it listened to some of our amendments. I hope it will take seriously our concerns about the regulations and will act quickly and promptly to bring those regulations before the House.

We have the unfortunate example of human reproductive technologies legislation that was passed by the House some five years ago. It still has not been finally approved, nor are the regulations forthcoming. Here is an area where changes are happening every day, by the minute. There are all kinds of concerns about the new groundbreaking innovations in fertility treatments as well as concerns with respect to identity of anonymous sperm donations. Back five or six years ago, our committee tried to address numerous concerns and provide good advice to the government. We are still waiting for those regulations.

We hope the government has learned something from this most recent chapter in its legislative pursuit around protecting Canadians and has learned the lessons from the witnesses we heard at our committee. We hope it will ensure that all legislation brought to the House in the future is done so only after thorough consultation with stakeholders has been provided and with all regard for and taking into account the concerns raised by those people most directly affected by this legislation.

The government has failed to do that in this case and we have ended up with less than perfect legislation.

We are prepared to support the bill in the final analysis. I know Bloc members will go into conniptions over that. We believe we have done our job in trying to improve the bill. We have spoken to the same scientists they mentioned in the debates. We believe we have addressed their concerns, to a large measure, through the amendments to the bill by the government and then by ourselves.

We know it is a less than perfect legislation. There will be concerns identified along the way. We will ensure, through the regulatory process, absolute vigilance and complete oversight to ensure the government is true to its word about bringing forward regulations that meet the specific concerns of the scientists, researchers and laboratory workers.

We will hold the government to account every step of the way to ensure the health and safety of Canadian researchers, laboratory workers and patients are always at the top of the equation and that nothing in the legislation gets in the way of good research and groundbreaking scientific endeavour.

We will continue to raise the need for more government assistance, not less as was the case with the government in the last budget. I think all scientists were shocked by the cutbacks to research. They are crying for the government to pay attention to the need for Canada to be involved in the continuation of groundbreaking research and investigative studies, which will enhance the health and well-being of all Canadians.

Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

It now being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at the third reading stage of Bill C-9.

Call in the members.

(The House resumed at 5:30 p.m.)

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992, be read the third time and passed.

The House resumed from March 23 consideration of the motion that Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992, be read the third time and passed.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment to the motion at third reading of Bill C-9.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am very happy to have the opportunity to ask my hon. colleague a few questions, because it seemed that he was speaking about a completely different bill from the one we have been working on in committee. He mentioned safety management systems several times, which actually has nothing to do with Bill C-9. I was wondering if my hon. colleague was aware of that.

We have worked extremely hard with the stakeholders concerning this bill. We have talked to the trucking industry. We have talked to the Teamsters. We have talked to farmers, who actually will not be penalized with this bill.

It is important for us to protect Canadians. I am wondering why my hon. colleague seems so opposed to protecting Canadians and making sure that dangerous goods are transported in a safe way by people who have the proper licence to transport these goods.

Why is that such a problem for the member? Why is the NDP opposing everything that we are trying to do for the good of Canadians?

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

Madam Speaker, Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992, is an important bill.

The folks listening to the parliamentary deliberations today need to know that the problems in the bill, which the member for Western Arctic just spoke about in the House, are issues that all Canadians should be concerned about. It is a given that no one in this House would want to see less security around the provision for dangerous goods. We all believe in an increased level of safety and security for all Canadians. However, the actions of the government clearly show that its tendency is to move to less safety and less security. It is because of that fact, tragically, that we need to look through every bit of legislation that is brought before this House to ensure that the objectives being set out would actually be accomplished by the bill.

When we look at self-managed safety, the famous controversial SMS, where safety was basically handed over to the companies themselves, the corporate CEOs, to police their own safety, we clearly saw that as a decreased level of safety and security for Canadians. The Liberals brought it in under the railway act where it essentially handed over the safety management of the railways to Hunter Harrison and other corporate CEOs. The government basically went out of the business of protecting Canadians.

What happened after? We had escalating derailment rates. In British Columbia, we have been faced with a number of high profile derailments, deaths and environmental degradation, all as a result of the government pulling itself out of safety management and ensuring protection for Canadians.

When the present government moved on the Liberal model, it moved with the same type of agenda. To save a little bit of money, it wanted to cut back on flight inspectors and hand over to corporate CEOs safety and security in the airline business. The NDP said, no, and we stopped that bill from passing in the House of Commons. It was not because we thought every airline would treat it irresponsibly. Of course not. Some airlines would be very responsible but we knew that some airlines would not be.

The past history of fly-by-night airlines clearly showed that when an airline becomes financially troubled, in many cases upper management would decide to degrade safety in order to save some money and keep the airline afloat. That is why we opposed that bill and why we shut it down in two Parliaments. I am pleased to say that there has not been a full implementation of SMS in commercial airlines in Canada because of the NDP. NDP MPs stood in this House with one voice and said that the government could not move forward with SMS, that it could not cheapen and devalue safety for Canadians and that one party in this House would stand up for an adequate level of safety and for enhancing safety for Canadian families.

Now that SMS has been implemented with business aircraft, we have seen a number of tragic crashes. The TSB is now looking into those crashes to see to what extent the farming out of safety to the companies themselves and the role that played in these tragic crashes. We recently heard of other crashes and the drive by the government to implement self-managed safety in other areas, such as helicopters.

What we have seen is a government track record that is not very good when it comes to safety. It is not very good when it comes to general concerns about public safety as well. We have seen cutbacks in the salaries to RCMP officers and cutbacks in prosecution across the country. The government may move ahead with some criminal justice legislation but it does not get the fundamentals right, which is having a system in place that protects Canadians. That is the problem. The skepticism we have is in the track record of the government. It seems oriented toward cutbacks in providing safety for Canadians rather than moving ahead with an agenda that actually makes sense. Because of that, we are naturally going to re-double our due diligence to ensure that the legislation that the government puts forward is legislation that actually does enhance the level of safety of Canadians. We are not a rubber stamp party like the Liberals.

We believe in our role as parliamentarians. New Democrats work very hard because we believe that Canadians should accept no less. They should demand from their members of Parliament due scrutiny and due diligence when it comes to every bit of legislation that is brought forward.

That is the context of Bill C-9. Essentially, our role in Parliament with the triple caucus that we have seen over the last three elections is to duly scrutinize government bills and ensure that they are accomplishing what they set out to accomplish.

We have some difficulties with the overall approach of the government to dangerous goods. One example that has not changed, that was irresponsible under the Liberals and is equally irresponsible under the Conservatives, is the low level of screening taking place for cargo containers coming into Canada from around the world. Fewer than 1% of them are actually screened for contents.

When we are talking about dangerous goods, fundamentally that is something that the government needs to address right up front, rather than this orgy of corporate tax cuts that seems to be its reason for being. It needs to look at the fact that we have millions of cargo containers coming into Canada every year, and essentially we are screening a lamentably small number of those cargo containers to actually find out what the contents are.

If the government moved forward with investments in that regard, it would get the support of the NDP, but it has made no attempt to increase the scrutiny that is required for these cargo containers coming from other parts of the planet.

Therefore, we come to Bill C-9. As the member for Western Arctic, the NDP transportation critic, has mentioned very clearly, one of our grave concerns is clause 5. Under “Transportation Security Clearances”, we have the following:

The Minister may, for the purposes of this Act, grant or refuse to grant a transportation security clearance to any person or suspend or revoke such a clearance.

That is a fundamental problem. When we give the minister a blank cheque and say, essentially, he or she has total control, what does that mean in terms of government operations? Can the government be trusted to use that total control given to the minister to actually ensure that what is put in place is fair to Canadians?

We have seen various attempts by the government to use that blank cheque that can be given to it by legislation in a way that we do not believe is appropriate, most recently refusing immigration entrance visas to people with whom it disagrees, essentially saying, no, it is going to take that overall control that it has and simply say no to certain categories of people.

When there is no system of checks and balances, that is a matter of great concern to us. The amendments in clause 5 essentially give that blank cheque to the minister and do not provide for that system of checks and balances that we believe, in a free and democratic society, is absolutely essential.

That is the fundamental problem and why we have seen, from various parts of the country, issues raised about the advisability of Bill C-9, as it is, going through.

As I mentioned earlier, there are difficulties with the lack of an overall strategy on the part of the government when it comes to dangerous goods. There is a lack of credibility when it comes to safety, when we look at issues such as bringing in self-managed safety, turning over our safety management systems, turning over Canadians' personal safety and that of their families to a corporate CEO who may or may not consider the safety with regard to other issues that are at play.

Particular legislation we stopped in the House also gave, essentially, a get out of jail free card to those who misbehaved or acted in an irresponsible and inappropriate way. We said no to that. Those were the SMS provisions that we stopped in the House. Only NDP members spoke up about that, and now more and more people are speaking out.

Justice Moshansky spoke out earlier this week about the fact that, under SMS, Canadian skies are more insecure now than they were even at the time of the Dryden tragedy of 1989, that essentially we are moving backwards in transportation safety.

It would be even worse if not for the stalwart NDP members who stopped those bills cold in the House of Commons because we knew it was not in the public interest.

Justice Moshansky is speaking out, flight inspectors are speaking out, and increasingly we are seeing the media taking an interest now, because of these tragic crashes, to ensure that Canadian safety moves to a higher standard, not to a lower standard.

The bill has been brought forward. We have heard from the member for Western Arctic that amendments were brought forward to ensure that the legislation was improved and actually did what it was purporting to do. Yet there have been letters, evidence and testimony from groups across the country that continue to have very strong concerns because of the fact that the transport committee did not adopt the amendments by the member for Western Arctic.

The member for Western Arctic is a friendly guy. He is also razor smart. He presented these amendments in an effort to improve the bill, to actually have the bill accomplish what it set out to do.

The Conservatives have a tendency of being really good on the spin and the smoke and mirrors and very poor on the substance. Criminal justice issues are one example of that certainly. SMS is another example of that. In fact, I could spend a full 20 minutes talking about the various methods the Conservatives use to not do what they are trying to do.

Very clearly we have evidence that there are concerns that have been raised in regard to this bill.

The Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers said in a letter dated just two weeks ago, “Confronted with increasing pressure from government regulations and more stringent industry standards, agri-retailers are facing prohibitive costs to keep their businesses compliant with security and safety infrastructure requirements. This financial burden cannot possibly be shouldered by agri-retailers alone. Without government assistance, many facilities will be forced out of the fertilizer market or will have no choice but to pass these costs on to Canadian farmers in an already recessed economic climate. Crop input dealers are still reeling from devastating fertilizer writedowns as a result of a precipitous drop in commodity prices in the fall of 2008”.

Canadian farmers and agri-retailers are concerned about what this means. Because the legislation was not drafted properly and because there is essentially a blank cheque being issued, they are concerned about the impacts. The government has not listened to this so far, but it is never too late to listen to the NDP. We are putting forward these amendments again and trying to get the government to understand that the bill, as is, is not appropriate to deal fundamentally with the issue of dangerous goods.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada has also indicated in a very lengthy letter its concerns about this bill. The letter was written by Tom Dufresne, who is the president of the ILWU. He is from British Columbia, a very articulate leader of his union and certainly has the support of the rank and file.

These are hard-working, dedicated longshore and warehouse workers who work every day. They make sure that things keep moving in Canada. So one would think that the government would listen to them, but it has not yet.

The letter stated:

On review of Bill C-9, the ILWU is immediately and seriously concerned about s.5.2(1) which requires workers who handle and deal with dangerous goods to hold transportation security clearances.

That is clause 5, which I mentioned earlier.

The letter continues:

The ILWU takes its members' privacy interests and job security very seriously and is consequently concerned about the ramifications of imposing unnecessary and invasive background checks on Canada's workers. The ILWU is committed to ensuring the safety of its members and Canada's ports generally, however, the ILWU does not believe that requiring security clearances to transport dangerous goods will further this objective.

That is, as the bill is conceived now, for obvious reasons. Farmers are not the only ones concerned about this bill.

S.5.2(1) states that no worker can handle or transport dangerous goods “unless the person has a transportation security clearance.”

That is what I mentioned earlier and the member for Western Arctic referenced.

This means that workers will be asked to answer invasive questions about a series of irrelevant personal matters such as...credit history and past travel, employment and education and their associations. They will also be asked to provide information about family members.

Those who refuse to answer those invasive personal questions could lose their employment, as others could as well.

We have to wonder how many Conservative MPs would pass this kind of questioning on credit history, past travel, employment, education and their associations. Conservative MPs would not want to go through that kind of in-depth, personal history, yet they are subjecting hard-working longshore people and hard-working warehouse people to doing that.

At that same time, it is important to note that they are simply allowing well over 99% of cargo containers, wherever those come from in the world, to just come right in to Canada.

What is wrong with this picture? We just bring in the cargo containers from wherever, with no screening, no control, no investment to ensure that they are not transporting dangerous goods. But the hard-working Canadians who have spent decades on the longshore will be subjected to a rigorous cross-examination to ensure that they did not smoke a marijuana cigarette when they were in high school or whatever else the Conservatives decide to concoct to try to push those hard-working Canadians out of their jobs.

It is absurd. It is a blank cheque. It is very clear why there would be concerns raised about the blank cheque that the minister gets.

The ILWU goes on to say that it is presently involved in a legal challenge to this requirement that is contained within this particular bill. The letter continues:

Of particular concern to the ILWU is the admissions received during the course of this proceeding from CSIS that personal information collected from employees and provided to CSIS during the background check process could be disclosed to foreign governments

This is one of the issues that the member for Western Arctic raised, that not only are we penalizing farmers for transporting fertilizer, but essentially once this rigorous cross-examination takes place of people who have worked on the docks for decades, the information is sent who knows where? There is no system of control, no system of checks and balances. Essentially the Conservatives are saying they want a blank cheque to do whatever they want.

The letter continues:

There are no set criteria to determine who will or will not be granted a security clearance. Transport Canada explains that “[t]he assessment of whether to grant or refuse a security clearance is based on a global evaluation obtained by the background checks...” Thus, workers may be deprived of their jobs based on subjective criteria.

Obviously, as to letter goes on to say,

This is particularly problematic when it comes to workers who handle dangerous goods since these employees are skilled, full-time, trusted employees who...have the most to lose if deprived of their employment.

The letter concludes by essentially saying that as the front-line workers on the docks of Canada's ports and working throughout the transportation system, they are already subject to a wide variety of security requirements including secured areas, restricted access passes, cameras, water and land patrols, gates, and fences that prevent unauthorized persons from assessing areas in which hazardous goods are unloaded.

As a result of that, the ILWU submits that background checks will do nothing to enhance the security of Canada's ports and transportation system.

The obvious reason is that the fundamentals, as I mentioned, the screening of cargo containers, have not been addressed by the government. The Conservatives do not want to do the investment, but they bring forward legislation that even Conservative and Liberal members themselves will admit is flawed.

The NDP has been offering, in committee and in the House, to improve those flaws so that Bill C-9 actually does what it purports to do. That is our role as NDP MPs, and it is a role that we take on proudly for the interests of Canadians.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-9, which seeks to amend the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act and to provide certain measures that relate to the security of the transportation system.

This bill was presented in the beginning as a way to protect Canadians. Many of the provisions within it may serve some purpose in that way. As such, we in the NDP have not really taken exception to many of the things within the bill.

Where we have trouble with the bill lies in the provisions under proposed section 5.2, having to do with transportation security clearances. That has been a focus of our attention to the bill.

We recognize that many of the other aspects within the bill are important and will continue to be developed over time through regulation, but where we saw this bill going was contrary to perhaps even the way the minister described it in the beginning. When the minister spoke to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities on February 24 of this year, he indicated that the problem in terms of transportation security clearances, one of the main purposes of the bill, lay with international trade with the United States.

In 2005, when the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act was put in place in the United States, it required commercial motor vehicle licensed operators in Canada and Mexico to go through a background check under the U.S. regulations before they were permitted to bring their goods into the United States.

The minister went on to describe that Canadian drivers are currently doing this, but what the government really wants to do is set up a system within Canada that can satisfy the U.S. requirements under this act. He said:

Canadians enjoy access to the American market through the FAST program, and this will continue. But it is essential that we have long-term solutions to guarantee access to important markets for Canadian manufacturers, producers, and shippers.

This is a bit of a smokescreen in terms of what the bill actually offers up under proposed section 5.2.

After detailed questioning in committee, the minister and his departmental officials indicated that they were going to put in place a bill that would expand security clearances to any Canadian who handled or transported dangerous goods. When I asked why this was going on, they said they did not want to limit this to international travel.

Quite clearly, the way the bill was presented by the minister and the way it is actually written are quite different things. In reality, that is what the minister and the department were looking for. They chose to present it in a certain fashion, which certainly made the work in committee more difficult and also perhaps brought us to the situation today where we have a bill that, as it stands, we in the NDP have difficulty supporting.

Why do we care whether transportation security clearances, as outlined in the United States, would be permitted to be used across the board in Canada? Let us look at who could be caught up by a law like this.

Remember that, in the United States, as witnesses testified in committee, many of the people transporting dangerous goods in the U.S. lost their ability through the licensing and security clearance process. They could be farmers who pick up loads of fertilizer, workers in warehouses who move pallets of car batteries, aboriginal people who buy ammunition and take it to their communities, or home heating fuel delivery people.

I know these perhaps seem extreme, but the bill would allow that to happen. Why would we want to have these privacies invaded? Where is the protection for the little guy who Conservative members always are saying they are defending?

I have a letter from the Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers. It is very concerned with the contents of the bill and what it will do to its costs and ability to compete. As retailers, they are looking for compensation for the type of changes the bill will permit. What about those people in the transportation industry? What about the people who may lose their ability to operate in Canada as a result of this rather wide-ranging legislation?

At committee, we put forward amendments to limit the scope of the transportation security clearances to simply those instances in Canada where Canadians were engaged in international traffic of goods. Those were defeated, which gives us a great deal of difficulty in supporting the bill.

The International Longshore and Warehousemen's Union of Canada is battling against the privacy invasion the government wants under the Marine Transportation Security Act right now. The case is scheduled for hearing in the Federal Court of Appeal in June of this year. In its brief to the committee, the ILWU said:

The ILWU takes its members' privacy interests and job security very seriously and is consequently concerned about the ramifications of imposing unnecessary invasive background checks on Canadian workers employees.

The longshore workers are particularly concerned about section 5.2(1) of the bill, which states that no worker can handle the transfer of dangerous goods unless the person has a transportation security clearance. This means, if we follow the American model, that the workers will be asked invasive questions about a series of irrelevant personal matters such as credit history, past travel, employment, education and who they associate with, along with their criminal record checks and a number of other things that may or may not be appropriate. They will also be asked to provide information about other family members. This is what we are opening the door to for Canadian workers right across the country in the handling of dangerous goods.

Workers who refuse to answer these invasions of privacy could lose their employment. Then what happens to those who fail their security clearance due to something as simple as a minor criminal conviction from their teenage years? They lose their job.

There is also concern about this invasion of privacy and with whom the information will be shared. This is a great concern to all of us in the House, following many of the things we have had in place since the terrorist incidents of 2001. The longshore workers found that their private information could be shared by CSIS, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, with foreign governments.

We also put forward an amendment that would limit the ability of the government to share any information collected under the transportation security clearances with another government. The amendment was put forward but it was voted down in committee as well.

Once again, our attempts to protect the rights of Canadians in a reasonable and logical sense, not going too far ahead and keeping within the bounds of what is required for security, were turned down.

We know the government has a problem with Canadians defending their human rights. Just look at what it did, under the guise of a budget implementation bill, with pay equity. It stripped women of their equality rights, their ability to deal with important questions like that as the result of a current economic crisis. Imagine what the results of a major security breach in the country could be to Canadian workers? If any kind of security breach occurred, what kind of draconian measures could the minister put forward with the kinds of powers he would be given under the bill?

Therefore, we tried very carefully, after those two amendments failed, to put forward an amendment which would deal precisely with the question of human rights and that any of the regulations that would be struck by the bill and by the minister on the issue of transportation security clearance, which are not complex issues, would come back to a parliamentary committee for examination. This would give us at least an opportunity in Parliament to understand what the laws were doing to the essential rights of Canadians.

The bill does not set out any restrictions on the minister or set out any criteria to determine who will or will not be granted a security clearance.

Transport Canada says that the assessment of whether to grant or refuse a security clearance is based on the global evaluation obtained by the background checks. This means Canadians will lose their jobs based on a subjective process, a process which may never get reviewed by Parliament without the proper amendments.

The Liberal amendment, which we supported, would simply allow, with the support of a committee, us to bring forward regulations for review. It did not ensure that the regulations that would impact the human rights of Canadians would be in front of the committee. It allowed it to happen with the majority support of a committee. Majority support does not always exist in a minority government, where the opportunity at the committee level for the opposition to look at what the government is doing with a critical eye, particularly when the majority on the committee can simply refuse to do so.

In the likelihood of a situation occurring, which would impact on the rights of Canadians under a majority government, the committee likely would not get a chance to review those things. That is kind of the fatal flaw in the Liberal amendment. Our amendment would have ensured that situation did not occur.

Therefore, the Liberals, with their toothless amendment, have satisfied their angst about some of the issues we raised in committee. I felt there was some angst there, but once again the half measure proposed by the Liberals is all we really have in the bill.

The issue of dangerous goods and their safety and handling is very important. We do not deny that. We do not deny that many of the provisions within the bill are correct and they are things that can be worked out between government and businesses. However, the fundamental rights of Canadians to privacy and the respect for their human rights are things that we cannot work out. They are fundamental and they have to be respected.

Our difficulty with the bill is that we have been unable to adjust it so it meets the nod test over a period of time that the bill has correctly outlined and that will work for Canadians. While it will ensure that the present government perhaps will respect the rights of Canadians, it does not give any assurances that the next minister of another government would do the same thing.

That is our problem. We want to ensure that legislation not only fits with this Parliament, not only fits with this government but fits in the future and will ensure that basic rights of Canadians are protected. That is why we are standing today to voice our opposition to what has happened with the bill. I would be open still at this stage to see the bill amended to provide slightly better legislation, and I had talks with the parliamentary secretary about that.

We would encourage the government to simply look carefully at the legislation right now. If it can offer up a solution to some of our issues, we would be very happy to support it in its efforts and bring unanimity to the bill to ensure it serves Canadians well. If the government chooses not to do so, then we are stuck in the position we are today.

Our job is not only to keep Canadians safe, to protect them from harm, but also to protect their rights. There is always a balance that we have to strike. It is difficult. We cannot say that legislation is simple or that the way we outline our rights is simple. The Bill of Rights was only established in Canada in 1982. Much of the legislation we deal with has not got to the point where it matches up to our Bill of Rights, so why would we put forward legislation now that still does not accomplish what was laid out in the 1982 Bill of Rights? Why would we not work together to come up with the solutions that could follow an orderly and good system of governance?

When we talk about providing transportation security clearance across the country to workers, we have another approach within the bill. We did not have to go that way. Because we are asking companies that handle dangerous goods to come up with transportation security plans, we have the opportunity to work them. We can work with them in a selective fashion to ensure that their transportation security planning covers the employees they use to move those goods.

We do not need to have a nation-wide program of transportation security clearance in order to accomplish what we want to accomplish with the bill. Already within the bill there is the option to do it another way.

Those are things we need to take into account when we look at this type of legislation. It has been on the books since 2002. The sense of urgency to get it in place now is simply theatrics. We need to ensure we get legislation right for a change.