Bill C-10 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures

This enactment amends the Air Canada Public Participation Act to provide that Air Canada’s articles of continuance contain a requirement that it carry out aircraft maintenance activities in Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba and to provide for certain other measures related to that obligation.

Air Canada Public Participation Act

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I will start by informing you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Windsor West.

I want to thank the member for Newmarket—Aurora for demonstrating the kind of fundamental incoherence of the Liberal argument when it comes to the bill.

We just heard a speech about how Bill C-10 is really about the competitiveness of the aerospace industry and the airline industry, and how it is unfair that competitors of Air Canada are able to move their maintenance work outside of the country. Then on the other hand, the member got up and said that Bill C-10 is really about jobs in Canada.

Well, if Bill C-10 were really about keeping jobs in Canada, and the argument the Liberals are making is that Air Canada cannot be competitive by keeping its jobs in Canada, it is an argument that we in the NDP do not agree with. However, this is the argument when the Liberals talk about competitiveness.

To get up and say that somehow Bill C-10 is not really about Air Canada moving those jobs out of the country is incoherent. They want the freedom to move those jobs out of the country so that they can move them out of the country, which is the essence of the Liberals' argument when they talk about how Air Canada is apparently getting beaten, although there is no news that I have heard that says Air Canada is on the verge of bankruptcy. Therefore, I thank the member for that.

I hope Canadians are listening, because if they were, they would see just how at loggerheads the two sides of the Liberal argument really are. They do not go together. They do not dovetail. Actually, they are in contradiction. This has been the story of the bill before us.

Another contradiction that has to do with the bill is on the timeline of it. We hear insistence from the minister that there is no deal, that Bill C-10 is not connected in any way to a purchase of jets from Bombardier by Air Canada. Yet, it has been a priority of the government to rush the bill through the House. If there is no deal, how can it be that there is a timeline for getting the bill through? There is no demonstrated need that Air Canada needs this to happen right away. The only way it could need it to happen right away is if it already had plans to move the jobs out of the country; the ones they have not already moved out of the country.

Incidentally, the member for Newmarket—Aurora was wrong to say that Air Canada had not moved any of its maintenance jobs out of the country. In fact, it did in 2012. The member for Winnipeg North understood that well when he was in opposition. The Prime Minister understood that well when he was in opposition. The people who are taking Air Canada to court to get those jobs back understood it well.

What is wrong with the bill is that it would eliminate any legal basis for challenging Air Canada now and into the future. It may well be that the Quebec government dropped its suit, but there are others who are prepared to take Air Canada to court in order to win those jobs back to Canada. However, after Bill C-10 passes, they will not be able to do that. They will not be able to do the very thing that the member for Winnipeg North and the Prime Minister were calling on the last government to do, which was enforce the act.

Now that the Liberals are in government, not only are they not enforcing the act, but they are changing the act. It is reprehensible, because it means that citizens in Canada who want to take Air Canada to court to enforce that very same act would not be able to, because the act would be changed, which is the shame of Bill C-10.

What we have learned from this whole process are a few things about the character of the government. There are a number of reasons why I think Bill C-10 is so telling in terms of the character of the government. It is kind of unique in that it was the first bill that the government brought that was not a routine motion or a direct consequence of an election commitment. Bill C-10 was really a preview of the current Liberal government's mind and what the Liberals do when they are not handcuffed by election commitments.

The first thing the Liberals did was something that goes totally against what they were campaigning for in opposition, which was enforcement of the act. They decided to change the act to take out the provisions that they said needed to be enforced. I do not see how anyone can think that is consistent from one moment to another. I think there is a bit of hypocrisy, frankly, which is interesting to note about the government.

It is interesting to note that western Canada in all of this was an afterthought, because, despite the protestations of the minister, it is hard not to believe that part of this was really about finding a deal for Bombardier. Instead of saying that we need to do that in a responsible way, in a way that does not play the maintenance sector off the production sector, instead of doing that in a way that does not play regions of the country off against each other, we would just go and cut a deal with our big corporate friends and sort the rest out later.

If it just so happens that we cannot get back a major part of the Winnipeg aerospace industry because the law has changed, so be it, because Winnipeg is not really on our mind and western Canada is not really on our mind. I found that very interesting.

From that I think we learned that it is not just about regions, or a lack of strategy when it comes to the aerospace industry, or the government's willingness to engage in hypocrisy, but it is also about big corporate friends getting one set of rules and everyone else getting another set of rules. Therefore, if individuals used to work for Air Canada and they were counting on that lawsuit to go through and looking forward to someone else taking up the charge after the Quebec government let that lawsuit go, then it is too bad for them. The Liberals are actually getting rid of those rules. The rules that protect those individuals, they are getting rid of and they are bringing in a new set of rules, a set of rules that are going to be good for Air Canada executives and shareholders. If that means Liberals are selling out Canadian workers, now that they are in government, that is just too bad. They cared about them in opposition because they wanted their votes, but now that they are in government they have better friends. That is the message of Bill C-10. Shame on them for that. Canadians ought to remember that at the next election, far away though it may be.

I think we learned a lot about the government in this whole process, and it is important to articulate those lessons.

Incidentally, just in terms of getting a bit of insight or a premonition, there is now an established pattern of not having a lot of respect for Parliament when it comes to the Liberal government. We first saw it with Bill C-10. The first time allocation was moved on Bill C-10. At the time, I could not figure it out because I was listening to the Liberal government saying that it had a lot of respect for Parliament, that Parliament is a great place, and that they wanted to hear from parliamentarians. We still hear some rhetoric to that effect, although it is harder to believe because, as the Liberals say, we too are interested in evidence and evidence-based decision-making. If we are going to make a decision about what to believe about the Liberals, and we look at the evidence in terms of what they have done, it is very hard indeed to believe their claims about respect for Parliament. That started with Bill C-10. It was a mystery then, because I wanted to take them at their word. I really did. Also, there was no deal. There was no deal for the purchase of Bombardier jets, no deal at all with respect to this legislation. There was really no need to push it forward, so it was genuinely mystifying.

As time has gone on and we have seen this lack of respect the government has for Parliament, we have heard from witnesses on Bill C-10 who also skated around the issue of whether or not there was a deal among perhaps the government, Air Canada, and Bombardier. We are not quite sure because no one from the government will enlighten us. It is hard to believe there is no deal at all. Moving time allocation on C-10 at every stage begins to make a bit more sense.

In question period today, and other days, we heard the Minister of Democratic Institutions say that one of the great things about the Liberals' process for a new voting system is that every member would have a say, every member would have a vote. We are all going to get up, and after the Liberal majority committee makes a recommendation to the Liberal cabinet, which comes back with legislation that is being dealt with by a Liberal majority, everyone would have their say on a new voting system, as if the Liberals' majority did not make a difference or as if they were comfortable with the idea that, if their majority did not make a difference, that would be okay.

Again, Bill C-10 is instructive, because it was only the last Monday we sat before the break that Bill C-10 came to a vote at report stage. Because the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley changed his vote, we had a tie vote. He had voted against it at second reading and then voted for it at report stage and that came down to a tie. Because of that tie vote on Bill C-10, we got to see what the government is really like with respect to every member having his or her say. Not all of its members showed up because perhaps they did not think it was important. I will not presume to say why they were not there. However, the result of the tie was clear. The government did not say that was great, Parliament had spoken, and had it had one vote less, that would be fine. Instead, it lost its temper. It brought forward a motion that was completely draconian, that would have handcuffed Parliament, and created a climate where people were prone to losing their temper. Therefore, I think we saw another insight into the real mind of the Liberal government through Bill C-10.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan for his intervention today. I was expecting to hear from him. He enjoys intervening in this place and I enjoy addressing his questions.

His question is a valid one, of course. I support wholeheartedly the position of the minister on that, but this has nothing to do with Bill C-10. I was speaking to the competitive nature of the airline industry and Porter remains a competitive player in that marketplace. In fact, I often fly to Ottawa on Porter from the island airport, because it is a little easier to get to from my house than it is to get all the way out to Pearson.

As I mentioned in my speech, what these amendments to the act would do is help maintain a competitive airline marketplace in Canada, which I think everyone in the House agrees is a service to Canadians that is needed in this marketplace, and I am happy to support anything that supports competition in the Canadian marketplace.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to rise to debate Bill C-10, proposing amendments to the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

I would like to take a few minutes to explain why the Government of Canada believes this is an appropriate moment to modify the almost 30-year-old act.

Let us first recall that the Air Canada Public Participation Act's primary purpose was to convert a crown corporation into a thriving and competitive private corporation in an industry that is characterized by aggressive competition, strong cyclical business patterns, and sensitivity to external shock.

The Air Canada Public Participation Act was brought into force in 1989 to provide the federal government with the legal framework to privatize Air Canada. It also required the airline to have provisions regarding where it carried out its maintenance, the use of official languages, and where its headquarters would be located. Other airlines, Air Canada's competitors from Canada and abroad, are not subject to such conditions. The market conditions in which Air Canada operates are now greatly different from those of 1989.

The 1980s was characterized by deregulation. Since that time, the world has seen a proliferation of new air carriers as well as new airline business models. In June 1980, the then president of the International Air Transport Association reported that its membership was composed of 100 airlines from 85 nations. Today, its membership is composed of 260 airlines.

In short, the air carrier marketplace is now much more competitive. This is a good thing. It benefits travellers and it pushes the airlines to be as efficient as possible. However, we must ensure that our carriers are able to compete themselves, or we risk limiting Canadians connectivity and we threaten the economic viability of these carriers in Canada.

The Canadian marketplace has also evolved. By the end of the 1990s, Canadian Airlines International ceased operations, reducing the extent of competition. Other carriers, like Canada 3000, also came and went. However, since then there has been a flourishing of growth among Canadian companies. WestJet, Porter, Transat, Sunwing, and others provide important travel options for Canadians. I should also note the important role played by foreign carriers in offering other travel options to and from Canada. Choice is good for the consumers.

Air Canada continues to provide vital connectivity, both within our vast country and also to the outside world. It is also an important source of employment and opportunity. Our air sector has weathered some difficult times, including the tragic events of 9/11, global pandemic, and the recent economic crisis, yet it continues to robustly offer service options to Canadians. In short, we have come a long way since the 1980s when the government of the day created this law.

The Air Canada Public Participation Act has clearly achieved its primary objective of successfully privatizing Air Canada. Furthermore, many other aspects of the act remain relevant. However, given that times have changed and the air transport sector has evolved, it is also important to ensure that this statute remains up to date.

In particular, the provisions of the act that deal with aircraft maintenance risk hampering Air Canada's competitiveness by limiting its ability to organize its activities in a way that responds to the evolution in the air sector. Furthermore, given Air Canada's role in providing Canadians with connectivity, this could also impact on the overall competitiveness and cost of air transport throughout the country.

This leads me to my second point, which is about economic opportunity for Canada's aerospace sector. Air Canada and Quebec have indicated their intentions to end their litigation regarding the carrier's compliance with the Air Canada Public Participation Act. This announcement came on the heels of Air Canada's declared intention to purchase up to 75 Bombardier C Series aircraft, to ensure that these planes will be maintained in Canada for at least 20 years, as well as to collaborate in the establishment of a world-class centre of excellence in Montreal.

Furthermore, Air Canada will also be facilitating the creation of a centre of excellence on aircraft maintenance in Manitoba, and we understand that this has led the government of that province to agree to discontinue litigation.

The Air Canada-Quebec agreement will allow the carrier to benefit from cutting-edge aircraft technology produced here in Canada. It will also result in significant benefits for the aerospace industry, including aircraft maintenance right across the country. This is the sort of investment that the aerospace sector needs.

Quebec and Manitoba have accepted that these conditions create a context in which they no longer feel the need to pursue litigation against Air Canada. These developments provide us with an ideal opportunity to rethink our approach and look for opportunities for improvement.

Federal officials have identified specific concerns around the maintenance provisions of the Air Canada Public Participation Act because they create challenges for Air Canada's ability to be competitive. Specifically, they prevent Air Canada from doing what other carriers do, which is to organize its supply chain to optimize efficiency.

The intention of Air Canada, Quebec, and Manitoba to discontinue the litigation creates an appropriate context to modernize the act and indicates that the parties are working together toward a similar objective: the growth of Canadian prosperity. However, let me be clear, we continue to believe that Air Canada should commit to undertaking aircraft maintenance in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec, and we intend for this to be stipulated in the law. However, we need to provide Air Canada with the flexibility to meet the requirements to compete in an evolving global marketplace.

We cannot predict how the airline industry will evolve in the future. Whatever happens, our carriers will need to adjust to meet the challenges and remain competitive. Air Canada needs the flexibility to enable it to adapt to changing market conditions. Bill C-10 allows us to target the right balance between such flexibility and the continued expectation that the carrier will undertake aircraft maintenance in Canada.

The time is now to modernize the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to achieve this balance. With Bill C-10, the government is taking a necessary step to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act to ensure it will continue to be relevant as the sector evolves in the future.

I would now like to take a minute to review how the air carrier sector has evolved since Air Canada was privatized in 1989.

There have been some fundamental shifts in the last 30 years. For example, there has been an important rise in the market share of new global carriers, like those of the Gulf States, that are now playing a major role in global competition.

In the United States, there has been significant rationalization of air carriers, where most major airlines have been through chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, resulting in a major reduction of their costs.

Europe has also seen a series of major air carrier alliances. The low-cost model has come to be a predominant paradigm for certain types of travel within some markets, like Europe, Southeast Asia, and the U.S.

All of these points speak to a highly competitive environment that creates a need for air carriers to seek constant cost reductions to meet travellers' and shippers' expectations.

Canada is no exception where major shifts in the air sector are concerned. Our air transport sector is now fundamentally different from how it looked in 1989. Following years of financial difficulties, Canadian Airlines International ceased to operate in the 1990s and was ultimately acquired by and merged with Air Canada. WestJet has since become a major player, resulting in robust and sustainable competition between two Canadian carriers. Other newer carriers have also been added to the Canadian market, such as Porter Airlines and Sunwing. Canada's charter market is particularly active with many carriers, such as Air Transat, offering services to Canadians. Air Canada itself underwent a major restructuring in 2003-04, under the provisions of the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, the CCAA, which allowed the carrier to emerge as a healthy and viable global competitor.

Where aircraft maintenance is concerned, Air Canada's restructuring under the CCAA included making some previously in-house operations independent, including its maintenance operations, repair and overall service provider, which ultimately became Aveos. Air Canada's decision at the time was in keeping with the practices of many global carriers.

The 2012 aerospace review noted the increasing importance of low-cost maintenance, repair and overhaul service provided in developing countries, many of which are closer to the growing markets in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. While Air Canada is not outsourcing its aircraft maintenance to suppliers in developing countries, many of its competitors are.

From these examples, it is clear that for a carrier to be viable in today's industry, it must be able to adapt the elements of its supply chain to manage its costs and remain competitive. For carriers, this covers all aspects of its business, including being able to determine how and where it conducts its aircraft maintenance activities.

Currently, Air Canada is limited in being able to deal with market forces the way other carriers can. I am referring, of course, to the provisions of the Air Canada Public Participation Act, specifically the obligation in paragraph 6(1)(d) that requires Air Canada to include in its articles of continuance provisions requiring the corporation to maintain operational and overhaul centres in the city of Winnipeg, the Montreal urban community, and the city of Mississauga.

What we need to remember is that the original intent of the Air Canada Public Participation Act was to function as a framework for the privatization of Air Canada almost 30 years ago. It also contained a number of provisions, including the requirement for aircraft maintenance, which we are talking about today. The intent was to turn a crown corporation into a viable and competitive private company while also ensuring that it was committed to undertaking aircraft maintenance activities in those three communities. We believe that the proposed amendments maintain the spirit of this intent by requiring Air Canada to undertake aircraft maintenance in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec, while allowing it to choose the nature of this work in each location to remain competitive.

As we know, these provisions have been the subject of ongoing litigation between Air Canada and the Province of Quebec, with intervening support from the Province of Manitoba. However, on February 17 of this year, the Province of Quebec and Air Canada mutually agreed to pursue an end to this litigation. The decision of the Province of Quebec and Air Canada to reach an agreement has opened up an opportunity for our government to finally modernize the act and relieve Air Canada of prescriptive obligations where its operational and overhaul centres are concerned, while maintaining the spirit of the intent behind them.

We are not proposing to repeal paragraph 6(1)(d). Rather, we are proposing amendments that would allow Air Canada to undertake aircraft maintenance in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec, and choose the nature of this work in each location to help it remain competitive. These amendments, which I am urging hon. members to support today, are consistent with the government's approach to the air sector as an industry that is deregulated and responsive to market forces. It is these guiding principles that we believe induce companies to continue to innovate their business and seek out better ways to work and be cost competitive in the face of a changing and ultra-competitive market.

The amendments the government has put forward would allow Air Canada the same flexibility that other carriers have to seek out the best aircraft maintenance services it can find and the ability to actively manage its costs. Modernization of the act is the right decision. We know that the Province of Quebec, the Province of Manitoba, and Air Canada have agreed among themselves to collaborate on the establishment of two centres of excellence for aircraft maintenance, one in Montreal and the other in Winnipeg.

In Winnipeg alone, this new western centre of excellence is expected to bring 150 jobs to the area by 2017. In Quebec, Air Canada has committed to maintaining all of its newly acquired CS300 aircraft in the province for at least 20 years and to the establishment of a centre of excellence for aircraft maintenance which will boost Montreal's role as a world-class aeronautical hub.

These developments are a clear indication that there is a willingness among the parties to foster an ongoing relationship, one that I hope will bring economic benefits to Canada and job opportunities for Canadians long into the future.

I urge hon. members to support this bill.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Madam Speaker, the member more or less answered my question, but I will nevertheless ask it again.

Does she feel, as I do, that there are no guarantees in Bill C-10 concerning the percentage or the volume of maintenance activities to be kept in Canada?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the previous speakers and heard a great deal of criticism coming from the Conservative Party in regard to Bill C-10. I need to remind members that when Air Canada was in violation of the act, that was over five years ago. The then Conservative government chose to do absolutely nothing. It was actually the Provinces of Manitoba and Quebec that pushed the issue and brought it to court.

The Government of Canada has worked with the many different stakeholders, including the provinces. There was the potential to have this whole issue put in front of us to hopefully see jobs being guaranteed in certain areas, including my home province of Manitoba.

The provincial government of the NDP thought it was a positive thing. Why does the member believe that the Conservative Party has all of a sudden taken this active interest, as when it was in government and actions were being taken, members sat on their hands and did nothing?

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be here today for report stage of Bill C-10, an act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures.

Governments, and especially new governments, have to set priorities and decide what they want to achieve during the length of their mandate.

Each party campaigns on a platform that is expected to serve as a road map for its early days as a government. Over the course of the campaign, parties make dozens of commitments. Upon taking office, a government must decide which commitments it wants to prioritize. A government must make decisions on what it wants to do right away, what it will do in six months, in two years, and what it will never do. On occasion, the Supreme Court will force the government to introduce legislation, as has been the case with Bill C-7 and Bill C-14.

Other pieces of legislation, like the budget, are presented each year. Because new governments like to check items off of the list of fulfilled campaign commitments during the first year, we often see legislation that reflects their campaign commitments. However, Liberal campaign commitments, like restoring mail delivery, have been pushed back on the priority list with the promise of consultations. Additional funding for the CBC has been pushed down the list of priorities because of a lengthy consultation process. A response to VIA Rail's proposal to build a dedicated track between Toronto and Montreal will take three years due to consultations.

It took the Liberals seven months to create a committee to enact consultations on electoral reform that is effectively identical to every House of Commons committee, and whose recommendations will be both non-binding and, like the preferred option of the Prime Minister, a ranked ballot.

The Minister of Transport has decided to spend an entire year consulting on the recommendations of the Emerson report, which was itself the product of 18 months of consultations with the entire transportation industry.

On so many issues, the Liberal government has pushed back making a decision to a later date.

However, with Bill C-10, we have none of that. What we have is a bill that came out of nowhere and was not the product of any consultations. Why is the government being so inconsistent?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport confirmed, during its second reading debate, that she was rushing this bill through so that the stakeholders could provide input during the committee stage. She was outsourcing her government's consultative responsibilities to committee. A parliamentary committee studying a bill is not a consultative body. Its purpose is to probe the bill for weaknesses and address these weaknesses through amendments if the majority of the members agree.

Witnesses at committee, including the Government of Quebec and the Government of Manitoba, highlighted a number of obvious weaknesses in the legislation. The opposition proposed amendments to address some of these problems. In the case of Bill C-10, the Liberal majority did not accept any of these amendments to the legislation.

If the purpose of sending the bill to committee so quickly was so that the stakeholders could provide input on the legislation, then why did the Liberal members ignore the recommendations? This illustrates more inconsistency on behalf of the government.

While all of us support a regulatory environment that allows for a viable legacy carrier in Canada and affordable air travel, I do not think a single Liberal candidate campaigned on reducing Air Canada's maintenance obligations as they are described in the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

Considering the government appears to be in no rush to do anything else, its incredible haste to get this legislation that came out of nowhere passed before the summer has opened up a pandora's box of questions. By now most members are aware that in 2013 the Government of Quebec, with the Government of Manitoba as an intervenor, brought Air Canada to court to challenge the carrier's assertion that it was fulfilling its maintenance obligations under the Air Canada Public Participation Act. The Quebec Superior Court, presided over by Justice Castonguay, ruled on the side of the Attorney General of Quebec. Consequently, Air Canada appealed this decision to the Court of Appeal of Quebec, and that court upheld the lower court's ruling in November 2015. On January 5, 2016, Air Canada announced that it would challenge that ruling in front of the Supreme Court. Less than two months later, Air Canada began negotiating with Quebec and Manitoba to end litigation, starting with the signing of a letter of intent to purchase 45 C Series aircraft. Whether Air Canada decided it would lose its appeal in front of the Supreme Court or the Government of Canada prodded it to make a purchase of the at the time troubled C Series aircraft, the carrier started to propose real commitments to keep some of its overhaul maintenance work in Quebec and Manitoba.

As the Government of Quebec has recently placed over $1 billion U.S. into the C Series program, it was obviously pleased to see Air Canada make the first major purchase of the aircraft.

This point cannot be made clear enough. Air Canada was forced to negotiate a settlement with Quebec and Manitoba because the carrier lost in court.

What Air Canada has proposed to settle its lawsuit in the case of Quebec is the purchase of the C Series and a commitment to undertaking maintenance of these aircraft for 20 years in the province. Air Canada also proposed to create a centre of excellence in aircraft maintenance in Quebec. In the case of Manitoba, Air Canada announced a willingness to transfer about 150 jobs from other parts of the country to Winnipeg. It is worth noting that these are not new jobs, merely work that is being shuffled from one part of Canada to another.

These Air Canada commitments to do maintenance work on narrow body aircraft in Canada are good, but these are not listed in the act we are debating today. Air Canada is making these commitments because it lost in court on the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

The Provinces of Quebec and Manitoba understand that if the law is repealed, as is being proposed by the Liberals, then their negotiating position with Air Canada will be swept out from under them. That is why both provinces explicitly asked the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities during the study of the bill to only allow this legislation to pass upon conclusion of their litigation against Air Canada. These calls came on deaf ears.

None of the Liberal members at the committee questioned the statements by Manitoba's deputy premier or Quebec's minister of the economy asking for more time, or attempted to justify the prompt passage of this legislation. The Minister of Transport's own officials also confirmed at committee that there was no legal or technical reason why speedy passage of the legislation was necessary.

Therefore, here we are. We have a bill in front of us that two provincial governments have asked for its coming into force to be delayed, and there are huge questions concerning why it is being rushed through Parliament so quickly ahead of the rest of the Liberal agenda.

We also have the problem that the Liberals are missing an important opportunity to make Air Canada and the entire aerospace sector annually more competitive. The Emerson report, which I mentioned earlier in my remarks, made a number of good suggestions that would stimulate the aerospace sector while maintaining jobs in Canada. For example, the government could tie all airport improvement fees to specific projects, explicit sunset provisions, which would ensure that these fees are to fund a specific project and not the airport's overall operations. They could look at overhauling the airport security model to mirror those used at major international airports, like London's Heathrow or Amsterdam's Schiphol, which have clear customer service standards and much lower delivery costs.

However, the bill does not do any of that, and we have not heard any indications from the Minister of Transport that measures to improve the competitiveness of the entire airline industry are forthcoming.

I look forward to questions from the government and opposition members.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will be very brief. I found the first part of the question more interesting than the second.

The important thing today is just to tell the government to delay passing Bill C-10. Regardless of the measures or the past, passage of Bill C-10 must be delayed to ensure that the jobs at risk are guaranteed.

Until the provinces have the assurance that Bill C-10 will help them, I believe we should not pass the bill, as it will interfere in negotiations between the provinces and Air Canada.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, in my speech I had many opportunities to explain why I cannot believe the rhetoric from across the way because they said one thing and did another. It has been like that since the beginning of the session. It is hard to believe this rhetoric. They get caught up in this rhetoric all the time. They use words, slogans, messages drafted by communications firms to convey a message, but when it comes time to take action, there is none.

The entire aerospace industry is waiting for the government to do something tangible, and it will keep waiting. The government could have done so much more with Bill C-10, but it decided to do nothing but end the lawsuits between the provinces and Air Canada and jeopardize thousands of jobs.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, no offence to my hon. colleague, but now I understand their position on electoral reform and Bill C-10 a little better.

What we just heard is a federal minister who does not respect the results of a provincial election. It is the new provincial government's prerogative to make whatever decisions it likes, and it is asking the federal government to delay the passing of Bill C-10, because this bill does not guarantee any jobs in Manitoba. That is what the deputy premier herself told us in committee.

Who are we, in this House, to question the word of the new deputy premier of the Province of Manitoba? That is not my intent.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, the member has lost some focus on the importance of the aerospace industry in Canada, in all regions. I found it interesting when he referenced the province of Manitoba. He needs to recognize, or at least put an asterisk on it, that there was a change in government in the province of Manitoba. I am very proud of the fact that my daughter was part of it. She was elected.

Having said that, we need to recognize that the former government worked with the current Government of Canada. It was part of the negotiations that took place and it was felt that it was in Manitoba's and Winnipeg's best interest to move ahead with Bill C-10. The current government has taken a slightly different position on it, but there is still an obligation, would he not acknowledge, that there was an agreement between the Government of Canada and the Government of Manitoba prior to that provincial election and is that not something we should be looking at and respecting?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I tried to fix my error, but it was not indeed an error. Thank you for letting me try again.

What the minister told us was not true. The deputy premier of Manitoba said:

There are significant implications to moving forward with Bill C-10. It is not appropriate to rush through without substantial dialogue and consideration.

The deputy premier of Manitoba came here to tell us not to rush through Bill C-10.

That is not all. The Government of Quebec sent a brief to the committee. It said:

Pending the conclusion of final agreements, the Government of Quebec has agreed to drop its lawsuit in relation to Air Canada's obligations to have an overhaul and maintenance centre.

Yes, it says, “pending the conclusion of final agreements”. It goes on to say:

...in order to provide for all the aspects of the agreements reached, the Government of Quebec is asking that, once Bill C-10 receives royal assent, the legislation come into force after the final agreements described above have been concluded.

What happened to those good old days of federal-provincial relations? I just read three requests from governments for the federal government not to intervene hastily for no reason with a bill. Nevertheless, the government is pressing on, and we are now at third reading of Bill C-10. This bill is completely unjustified because there is no need to act so hastily.

The government says that this is what the provinces asked it to do, but that is not true at all. In committee, the two provinces that are directly involved in this matter clearly told the government not to act too hastily. This is unbelievable.

We get it, though, because this is in the Liberal Party's DNA. I remember what the Prime Minister said right here on Parliament Hill when there was a decision to appeal and they marched with the Aveos workers here. The Prime Minister gave a mighty fine speech.

He said that our greatest resource is not somewhere in the ground, that it is our people, skilled workers like them who build our country every day with their hands, their arms, their brains, and their creativity. The Prime Minister gave that mighty fine speech about how he supported the workers, but today, he is abandoning them. That is why 3,000 jobs are in danger.

It is incredible to watch the Liberals say one thing and then turn around and do the opposite, as they have done from the beginning. I implore the government to agree to the requests made by Quebec and Manitoba and delay the passing of Bill C-10.

This is important, because they still need to conclude some agreements. Their case is currently before the Supreme Court as a means of applying pressure to ensure that the jobs that are supposed to be preserved will in fact be preserved. Why is the government interfering and jeopardizing the provinces' agreements with Air Canada?

That is what people need to remember. There was absolutely no reason to rush Bill C-10 through. No one, apart from the Minister of Transport, wanted this bill to go through quickly. I certainly hope that this message will finally be heard and that Bill C-10 will not pass.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak, perhaps for the last time, to Bill C-10, an act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures. There are very few other measures, as this is a small bill.

I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Elgin—Middlesex—London. I am sure that her speech will be very good and that she will have a lot to say about Bill C-10.

We have had many opportunities to speak to Bill C-10 over the past few weeks. We had the opportunity to hear the government say all sorts of things about the importance of Bill C-10 and the need to act swiftly. However, when we asked for the real reasons behind the urgency, which led the government to adopt a time allocation motion for Bill C-10, we got no response. The government says one thing and does another or, in many cases, does nothing.

From the beginning our only question has remained unanswered. We really wanted a justification for the time allocation motion. Why the need to pass Bill C-10 now, when at the beginning of this Parliament there was no urgency?

We asked the question in the House during question period and also in committee. We never received a single sensible answer explaining why Bill C-10 had to be passed so quickly.

I searched books, history, and everywhere in order to understand how the government could justify adopting a time allocation motion for a bill like C-10. I finally found the answer. It is in the Liberal Party of Canada's DNA that I found the reason for the urgent need to take action on Bill C-10.

The government says that it is open and transparent. That can be found in the Speech from the Throne, which states:

...the Government is committed to open and transparent government. ...[the Government] will promote more open debate...it will not resort to devices like prorogation and omnibus bills to avoid scrutiny.

A time allocation motion is a device. We have had the opportunity to look at the budget bill, which is also an omnibus bill. The government says one thing and does another, or does nothing at all. That is what I discovered when I analyzed the process for Bill C-10, , which has brought us here today.

The government has adopted a number of time allocation motions. I am thinking of Bill C-10, Bill C-14, Motion No. 6, and the electoral reform that the government wants to unilaterally impose using its majority. So much for openness and transparency.

With regard to Bill C-10, in just a few months, we have seen the government, for no real reason at all, decide to lose some of its credibility with the provinces. How? The government announced on a number of occasions that it wanted to usher in a new era of improved relations with the provinces.

In the throne speech, the government also said the following three times regarding three files:

To give Canadians a more secure retirement, the Government will work with the provinces and territories.... To create more opportunities for young Canadians...the Government will work with the provinces and territories.... And to support the health and well-being of all Canadians, the Government will begin work with the provinces and territories...

Those three excerpts from the throne speech show the government's willingness to work with the provinces and territories and its interest in doing so. However, the government says one thing and does another, or does nothing at all. We are seeing it again. We saw it yesterday. The government has said a number of times that it is listening to the provinces and wants to work with them.

Yesterday, the Quebec minister of health and social services spoke about another bill, Bill C-14. What did Mr. Barrette have to say about Bill C-14? He said that it was unenforceable and that, given the current context, he would be very careful about going forward with Bill C-14. He added that, personally, for professional and governmental reasons, he does not think it is a good idea to go forward with Bill C-14. Mr. Barrette is a minister in a province with which the government wants to build good relations. However, the government moved a time allocation motion on Bill C-14. The government is not letting members of Parliament speak about it.

I have other examples, but I do not have the time to share them all in four minutes. When Bill C-10 was first debated in committee, Minister Garneau talked about good relationships with the provinces in his speech:

In light of this development [Air Canada's commitment to creating centres of excellence], the Government of Quebec and Air Canada announced an agreement to discontinue the litigation...

Given all these positive developments, we believe this is the perfect time to modernize the Air Canada Public Participation Act...

Minister Garneau said that this was what the provinces wanted, but that is not true. I do not want to say that it is not true, but it is misleading. This may appear to be the case, but that is my interpretation.

The House resumed from May 17, 2016, consideration of the motion that Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures, be read the third time and passed.

Criminal Code

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, back in 2015, when this came out, a panel was set up by the former justice minister. However, I look at the work we have done today, and we can talk about these timelines. Let us be honest, this week we did Bill C-2, Bill C-6, Bill C-10, and Bill C-11. We had all of these things shifted off of the Order Paper.

What has happened here is this. Although it is a very important bill, unfortunately, when it came to the agenda of what we were supposed to be discussing and what we were discussing, a lot of political games were being played at that time. This took away the rights of the opposition members to debate this. We can talk about that. However, let us be honest about what happened this week. We lost hours of crucial debate because of the actions of the government.

Air Transportation

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to note that in both the debate about Bill C-10 and the decision by the minister to not approve the lengthening of the runway, members have continually referred back to Bombardier. I appreciate the member's affinity for the Bombardier C Series aircraft. Like her, I look forward to the aircraft entering into service with Swiss airlines later in the year and seeing first-hand how the aircraft operates.

If the member truly does believe that overwhelming local opposition exists to the future expansion of this airport, why will she and her government not let the process continue and let Toronto City Council have a vote on it? Is she afraid of Toronto City Council making a decision that the member for Spadina—Fort York will not agree with?