Bill C-49 (Historical)

Transportation Modernization Act

An Act to amend the Canada Transportation Act and other Acts respecting transportation and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Canada Transportation Act in respect of air transportation and railway transportation.
With respect to air transportation, it amends the Canada Transportation Act to require the Canadian Transportation Agency to make regulations establishing a new air passenger rights regime and to authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations requiring air carriers and other persons providing services in relation to air transportation to report on different aspects of their performance with respect to passenger experience or quality of service. It amends the definition of Canadian in that Act in order to raise the threshold of voting interests in an air carrier that may be owned and controlled by non-Canadians while retaining its Canadian status, while also establishing specific limits related to such interests. It also amends that Act to create a new process for the review and authorization of arrangements involving two or more transportation undertakings providing air services to take into account considerations respecting competition and broader considerations respecting public interest.
With respect to railway transportation, it amends the Act to, among other things,
(a) provide that the Canadian Transportation Agency will offer information and informal dispute resolution services;
(b) expand the Governor in Council’s powers to make regulations requiring major railway companies to provide to the Minister of Transport and the Agency information relating to rates, service and performance;
(c) repeal provisions of the Act dealing with insolvent railway companies in order to allow the laws of general application respecting bankruptcy and insolvency to apply to those companies;
(d) clarify the factors that must be applied in determining whether railway companies are fulfilling their service obligations;
(e) shorten the period within which a level of service complaint is to be adjudicated by the Agency;
(f) enable shippers to obtain terms in their contracts dealing with amounts to be paid in relation to a failure to comply with conditions related to railway companies’ service obligations;
(g) require the Agency to set the interswitching rate annually;
(h) create a new remedy for shippers who have access to the lines of only one railway company at the point of origin or destination of the movement of traffic in circumstances where interswitching is not available;
(i) change the process for the transfer and discontinuance of railway lines to, among other things, require railway companies to make certain information available to the Minister and the public and establish a remedy for non-compliance with the process;
(j) change provisions respecting the maximum revenue entitlement for the movement of Western grain and require certain railway companies to provide to the Minister and the public information respecting the movement of grain; and
(k) change provisions respecting the final offer arbitration process by, among other things, increasing the maximum amount for the summary process to $2 million and by making a decision of an arbitrator applicable for a period requested by the shipper of up to two years.
It amends the CN Commercialization Act to increase the maximum proportion of voting shares of the Canadian National Railway Company that can be held by any one person to 25%.
It amends the Railway Safety Act to prohibit a railway company from operating railway equipment and a local railway company from operating railway equipment on a railway unless the equipment is fitted with the prescribed recording instruments and the company, in the prescribed manner and circumstances, records the prescribed information using those instruments, collects the information that it records and preserves the information that it collects. This enactment also specifies the circumstances in which the prescribed information that is recorded can be used and communicated by companies, the Minister of Transport and railway safety inspectors.
It amends the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board Act to allow the use or communication of an on-board recording, as defined in subsection 28(1) of that Act, if that use or communication is expressly authorized under the Aeronautics Act, the National Energy Board Act, the Railway Safety Act or the Canada Shipping Act, 2001.
It amends the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority Act to authorize the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority to enter into agreements for the delivery of screening services on a cost-recovery basis.
It amends the Coasting Trade Act to enable repositioning of empty containers by ships registered in any register. These amendments are conditional on Bill C-30, introduced in the 1st session of the 42nd Parliament and entitled the Canada–European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Implementation Act, receiving royal assent and sections 91 to 94 of that Act coming into force.
It amends the Canada Marine Act to permit port authorities and their wholly-owned subsidiaries to receive loans and loan guarantees from the Canada Infrastructure Bank. These amendments are conditional on Bill C-44, introduced in the 1st session of the 42nd Parliament and entitled the Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1, receiving royal assent.
Finally, it makes related and consequential amendments to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, the Competition Act, the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, the Air Canada Public Participation Act, the Budget Implementation Act, 2009 and the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act.

Transportation Modernization Act

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Red Deer—Mountain View.

Bill C-49 has a number of legislative gaps.

This bill is simply an omnibus bill. It is a whole bunch of random ideas tossed together to make one large omnibus bill.

Obviously, the transport minister looked around his department and asked if anyone had anything he or she wanted passed in legislation. He took a list of requests, put them in this bill, and that is what we have. Besides having some loose connections to transportation, there is little common among the items in this bill.

One component of the bill outlines a passenger bill of rights, but there is nothing concrete, no details outlined in the bill, that truly protects passengers. The reception of this bill by passenger rights advocates has been the political equivalent of standing for three hours on the tarmac on a hot summer's day. It is really terrible. That is because the Liberal government is proposing a passenger bill of rights that fails to actually do much for passengers. However, the one thing it would do is allow the Minister of Transport and the Canadian Transportation Agency to set monetary compensation for passengers on their own, with no oversight, yet again another constant theme of the Liberal government.

We all know that the last thing Canadians want is the Liberals having an easier time spending tax dollars. Along those lines, there is more.

The Liberals have also suggested possible increases to the cost of airport security charges.

The Liberals also opened the door to possible increases in security service fees at airports. To top it all off, the minister also gave himself the power to approve or reject risk ventures between airlines, which could diminish the role of the Competition Bureau, which is independent and non partisan.

This is yet another scenario under which the Liberal government has placed more power in the hands of the minister and less power and control in the hands of Canadians, where it rightfully belongs.

Not to be outdone by other omnibus bills, the government has also decided to tackle the issue of grain shipping by rail. I am certain prairie producers, just like those in the riding of the member for Brandon—Souris and other members who represent grain farmers, were delighted when they heard the Liberals would tackle this grain shipping issue. As part of the previous Conservative government that supported the Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, greater opportunities were provided for grain farmers. The Liberals are not focused on that.

What have the Liberals done? They have proposed major changes to shipping policies that were introduced by a former great minister of agriculture and member of the House, the Hon. Gerry Ritz, and the very capable minister of transport at that time, the member for Milton. By changing the interswitch rate, the Liberal government will make it more difficult for shippers and farmers. We will also see an increased use by American railroads without reciprocal rights for Canadians. Again, I am not sure what the logic of that is. Last I checked, the Canadian government should be putting Canadians first.

One hopes this is not the Liberal negotiating strategy for NAFTA, literally giving the farm away. The Liberals could and should keep the Conservative policies in place, policies that were designed by people who actually have experience in this area and who are working, or have worked, with grain farmers. Instead, they have chosen to side with the industry, making life far more difficult for shippers and farmers.

Another part of this omnibus bill, and, as I said, this is just a laundry list of things, is a proposal for the railways to have locomotive voice and video recorders. This has already been mentioned in the House today. I believe this initiative is designed to help prevent further rail accidents, but, again, this is another item that has been added to the list and the legislation has not been thoroughly thought out.

There is not a person in the chamber who does not want to improve rail safety. We want our railways to be as safe as possible. As a former minister of labour, I understand the call for locomotive voice and video recorders, the LVVR, to be installed, but I do not think this legislation has been thoroughly thought through.

First, Transport Canada just launched a review of the Railway Safety Act in May. Why would we not wait until that review comes back before moving forward?

Further, the public has not seen the analysis of the privacy aspect of this initiative. Regulations mandate that airline cockpit voice recorders keep only a record of the last two hours of a flight. Thus far, all we have heard is that an entire transport trip would be recorded with respect to rail. The minister needs to clarify this, and fairness is important. As I have mentioned before, details are important, and the details of this legislation simply do not exist.

There have also been concerns raised about the use of this data. The legislation states that it would only be used for Transportation Safety Board accident investigations and for rail corporations to inform their safety management systems. However, there are concerns that there would be no limit on LVVR usage in the legislation and that the rail industry would use it for employee discipline beyond the intended purpose. This initiative clearly needs to be better thought out, and quite frankly, clarified. Workers need to know what is happening, and the rail industry needs to understand as well.

If all these loose ends do not demonstrate the weakness of, and the concerns about, this omnibus bill, I have decided to save the best for last. In one of the two marine-related clauses, the minister is proposing to amend the Canada Marine Act to allow port authorities and their wholly owned subsidiaries to receive loans and loan guarantees from the Canada Infrastructure Bank.

As members know, I have some strong views on this bank. First of all, it seems like just another classic example of an ill-thought-out component of the Liberal omnibus bill. Despite calls from every party and every sector in Canada to separate the Canada Infrastructure Bank from omnibus Bill C-44, the Liberals ignored everyone and rushed ahead with this flawed initiative. Even the bible of the Liberal elites, the Toronto Star, demanded further parliamentary review. This $35-billion slush fund, as the Star says, “should not be railroaded through Parliament as a mere footnote in a 300-page omnibus budget implementation bill”.

The only people in Canada who seemed to have been in a rush for this infrastructure bank to be created and the legislation passed were those who use their connections with the Liberal Party to make a few more dollars. The infrastructure bank has been a boondoggle from day one. The budget in 2017 revealed that $1 billion of lapsed infrastructure funding from 2016 will not be reallocated until fiscal year 2022-23. If that is not bad enough, we learned that $15 billion will be taken away from community infrastructure projects to finance the infrastructure bank.

Municipal leaders in my riding and others across the country, particularly in small communities like my own, are wondering why they never seem to benefit from the Liberal government. I wonder if part of it is that the Minister of Transport comes from a large urban area, and the Minister of Infrastructure comes from a large urban area, and they just do not seem to understand that small communities like Collingwood or Alliston, or others across the country, actually need help as well. Small municipalities may never benefit from the infrastructure bank, because even if they scraped together all the money for a large proposal, they would be competing for the minister's approval. While folks like the Minister of Infrastructure and the transport minister live in large cities, small-town Canada actually has no place in the Liberal infrastructure plan.

If the clear favouritism toward big cities over the rest by the Liberals is not clear enough, the governance of the infrastructure bank is so vague and open-ended that we can see a governance scandal on the horizon. I will start with the mandate of the bank. What mandate? There does not seem to be a clear one. The mandate of the Canada Infrastructure Bank is so vague that we are not sure what it is actually supposed to target, and there is no policy directing the bank's investments thus far.

There are also no criteria to determine whether the bank has made investments that benefit Canadians, or whether it has been a huge waste of money and resources.

It will certainly be the latter, as the bank duplicates the work of the P3 Canada fund, which is a completely independent crown corporation.

Alarm bells have also been rung about the bank and its potential for political interference, and there is good reason for this. Final sign-off on the project will be in the hands of the minister, and we know that this is a flawed initiative.

We have learned that foreign companies are able to apply for it. Let us say that a Chinese donor to the Liberal Party applies to the bank and receives $100 million as a loan, and the project goes bust. Who is on the tab for that? It is Canadian taxpayers, people in my riding and yours, Madam Speaker.

Like Bill C-44, Bill C-49 is an example of a poorly thought-out omnibus bill. It would do little to improve transportation.

I will be opposing this legislation, as will my colleagues on this side of the House.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, we wanted a passenger bill of rights. We wanted passengers rights to be guaranteed, but we wanted that from concrete measures, and not from some window dressing in Bill C-49. It does not even contain the minimum standards.

It seems to me that the government reached a consensus with airlines through some great deal. It is as though the industry were the government's boss and told the government what to do so it would not be angry. It almost seems as though the government is lobbying on behalf of the companies. As for consumers, they need much stronger measures, like the measures found in other countries, such as the United States. We were told we would have a great passenger bill of rights, but when we look more closely at this omnibus bill, we see that it contains very little. It is really disappointing.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, in Quebec, between high school and university, students attend CEGEP, where they take mandatory philosophy classes. In those classes, they learn about sophisms, which are false arguments. One can condemn what the previous government did, but one cannot justify one's own actions on the grounds that those of the other government were worse.

The idea of a black box in passenger trains is a step in the right direction, but it is a very, very small step. I just talked about the Lac-Mégantic tragedy. There is a lot to be done, and we see this as urgent.

My colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, said the Liberals are taking a step in the right direction, but the problem is that all of the other elements in this mammoth bill are big steps in the wrong direction. On seaway safety, I am sorry, but this is anything but reassuring, and the situation is getting much worse. On air transportation and the Competition Bureau, why is the minister giving himself the power to just ignore the analysis of transactions? What was wrong with the existing system? I think there has been too much pressure from lobby groups. We need a government that can stand up to businesses and do a better job of ensuring safety and keeping prices down to benefit consumers. Bill C-49 is certainly a step in the right direction in some cases, but it is not nearly enough considering everything that needs to be done.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Mississauga for his question. First, I would remind him that I travel by bike more than by train or plane. Living in Joliette allows me to get around using active modes of transportation such as walking and cycling.

I must say I find the actions of the Liberal government deplorable. It is the same for almost all issues. If we listen to their speeches, like the one my colleague just gave, we hear fine statements about about train safety and about how we need to do more and what the government is doing is fantastic. In speaking about the budget and finance, the government constantly refers to the middle class. The mini budget repeated that phrase 61 times. In reality, however, both it and the budget contained virtually no measures for the middle class.

In our opinion, the rail safety measures set out in Bill C-49 are completely inadequate. Yes, putting black boxes on locomotives and recording what is done is another step, but people in Quebec just lived through the Lac-Mégantic disaster. The subcontractor must have its own maintenance and monitoring plan. Everything is being left up to the private sector. That is the ultimate in complacency. Rail cars that are no longer up to standard are being used to transport oil. Companies are pressuring employees. We are still dealing with the same toxic combination that previously ended in disaster, and that is shameful. This would have been the time to present a real comprehensive rail safety plan so that a tragedy like that never happens again. The government should have given the people of Lac-Mégantic something, like a rail bypass, and made sure that a situation like that never happens again.

Right now, all we have is a black box for rail passengers who are travelling. The government is out of touch with reality. Once again, we agree with what the Liberal Party is saying, but it is not backing up its words with action. The Liberals cannot govern using only a communications plan.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-49, the transportation modernization act, does not live up to its name. Many aspects of this bill represent, quite simply, a step backwards.

The government announced its air passenger bill of rights and many other great measures as part of this bill. Not only is the bill of rights not there, but there is nothing to enhance our security. We see this as a missed opportunity. Bill C-49 could have really addressed some of the concerns of Canadians, like the people in Lac-Mégantic, for example, who are still waiting for their bypass. This omnibus bill is problematic in many ways. Unfortunately, once again and as usual, the government is introducing a bill that is far too big to be examined effectively. This omnibus bill includes a lot of measures, and we did not have time to comb through it and discuss it properly.

As well, in the Bloc Québécois, we have fewer rights than members of the other parties in the House. There are not enough of us. We cannot sit on committees, ask questions to experts who come testify, or debate the bill in depth in the House. My comments today will therefore be the only ones by my party on this bill, which will have major repercussions on transportation as a whole and affect many of our laws.

For example, Bill C-49 gives the minister the authority to allow airlines to circumvent the Competition Bureau as he sees fit. That is something. Call a spade a spade: it makes no sense. The government is politicizing a process that currently a judicial one. Come on. We can already see the lobbyists in the minister’s office, and almost lining up one by one to get the green light to act on plans that will reduce competition. We can even imagine that they will obtain that by attending a fundraising cocktail party. It seems to be a model that works.

How can the Minister claim that that is for the good of passengers? We are not fooled. Everyone in the House understands that the government does not want to repeat the situation we saw in 2011 and 2012, when Air Canada and United Continental wanted to coordinate their activities on 19 transborder routes. The Competition Bureau studied the matter and determined that, on 14 of those routes, Air Canada would have far too much market share, which would have greatly reduced competition. The bureau found that a near-monopoly on certain routes would lead to an increase in the rates paid by travellers. Its role is to block that, and that is what it did.

For some routes, like Montreal to Washington or Montreal to Houston, Air Canada and United Continental together would have held the entire market. That is a near-monopoly for sure. In the end, travellers would have paid the increase in ticket prices, which is obviously unfair, because of the rules of trade. The Competition Bureau stated that, if the situation changed, it would be reassessed. That is logical and fair, even though Air Canada did not like the decision, as they wanted to line their pockets.

It was the right decision for travellers and other businesses. The Competition Bureau committed to reassessing the situation if there were any changes. In our opinion, there was therefore no problem. If we do not want that to happen again, why would we want to politicize something that is not politicised? Why give the Minister the authority to circumvent the Competition Bureau? That is what we are asking here, and that is one of the elements that we deplore in Bill C-49.

What purpose will the Competition Bureau and the Competition Tribunal serve if the government gives the minister the authority to circumvent them as he sees fit? We can see that, with the Liberals, the interests of travellers take a back seat to those of big business and party cronies. We can think of Air Canada in particular.

Another thing I would like to mention is foreign ownership. This bill seeks to increase the foreign investment limit for air carriers from 25%, or one-quarter, to 49%, which is basically half. A single corporation or individual cannot own more than 25% of voting shares. The idea here is to give airlines more cash flow and to promote the creation of low-cost carrier services. The government is saying that Canadian air carriers will not be subject to the controlling influence of international investors. That seems fine at first glance, but it creates an opening that allows the government to get its foot in the door and make major changes to the way things are done. We are worried about the future. What will the next step be? The next time a company like Air Canada is on the verge of bankruptcy, will it meet with the minister to say that it wants to be sold to a foreign company?

We already know that the government did not even make Air Canada obey the law when it decided to hand over its maintenance division to Aveos. The government even changed the law after the fact, and announced it the Thursday before an Easter recess. I remember. I was very angry with the transport minister that day. That is why these measures being announced in an omnibus bill is not very reassuring.

It is the same thing when it comes to shipping and coasting trade. The government is taking a number of steps backward in that regard. Bill C-49 will allow ships registered in other countries to reposition empty containers, when currently only Canadian shipowners have that right. Way to go. It is already clear that good jobs will be lost here in Canada and that they will be replaced by cheap foreign labour. Why? The government is putting large foreign corporations ahead of Canadians. That is not even to mention the different training standards, which means that there will not only be fewer jobs here in Canada but that there will also be a decline in the quality of work and a significant increase in the risk of accidents. That is no small thing.

We also have concerns over the part of the bill on transporting products on our river. The bill allows ships registered in European Union countries to transport bulk commodities between the ports of Montreal and Halifax in accordance with the Canada-EU agreement. We are concerned about this announcement and the pilotage legislation that is being discussed. By all accounts it looks to us as though our seaway pilots will no longer be the only ones to navigate the St. Lawrence River. That is one of our major concerns and we see an opening in it. We know that it takes a real expert to navigate our river. It has challenging winding routes and many obstacles.

It is more than our jobs being threatened, but our very safety. The pilots' role is not just to pilot their ship, but also to assess whether the ship that enters the seaway presents an environmental or security risk. Our pilots are also responsible for protecting the public's safety and well-being and can decide that a certain ship is not to enter our river.

The day this role is no longer reserved for seaway pilots is the day we have serious problems. A foreign pilot hired by a foreign country that instructs the pilot to do their job without concern for the environment or safety will have no choice but to follow orders. Why take this chance? This should not be allowed. We have to remain vigilant and speak out against such practices. We are unnecessarily exposing ourselves to huge risks.

There are many elements in this mammoth bill. We do not have the time to study them all, but we would like to draw the attention of the House to the issue of the infrastructure bank. Bill C-49 shows us once again that the federal government is backing away from infrastructure. The bill opens the door wide to the funding of ports and other federal infrastructure by the infrastructure privatization bank. Investors will expect to make a profit, the infrastructure will not be maintained as well, and there will be more charges and fees. Taxpayers will have to pay more. As we have said, with this bank, profits are privatized while losses are socialized. It is too bad that this is in Bill C-49. Once again, the Liberals are helping their friends.

As I said in my introduction, there are many reasons why the Bloc Québécois will be voting against this mammoth bill and we do not have time to cannot mention them all. This bill just does not address Quebeckers' concerns. As I said at the beginning, we were expecting that there would be something for the people of Lac-Mégantic, but there is absolutely nothing. There is no mention of the bypass.

The government has made it a habit to put everything into a single mammoth bill, even though it is breaking an election promise by doing so, and then making sure that we cannot study it thoroughly. That is not the best approach to take and we are against it.

This bill politicizes a process by giving the minister the authority to circumvent the Competition Tribunal. That is a step backwards, a step in the wrong direction. It will contribute to the loss of our businesses. It is the withdrawal of the state for the benefit of the private sector. The government is potentially jeopardizing safety on the St. Lawrence River and sacrificing our jobs for the benefit of foreign companies.

As everyone may have guessed, the Bloc Québécois will be opposing this bill, which we found severely disappointing.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, actually, many shippers feel that the new approach to long-haul interswitching to be created by Bill C-49 will merely be a renamed version of the current and hardly used competitive line rates. There must be reasons that system is hardly used. This new long-haul interswitching rate would be more difficult for shippers to use and would also not serve as a useful tool in negotiations with the railroads, which Bill C-30 did. That bill was greatly appreciated by our farmers, to the point where they said to the government that they did not want to see it changed. They wanted to see that good policy continue.

There is another issue with this long-haul interswitching remedy. It will increase U.S. railroad access to Canadian traffic at regulated rates without reciprocity. When NAFTA is being renegotiated, it is unwise for Canada to be making this concession before those negotiations have gotten to where they need to be on this issue.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, in the fall of 2016 of the Liberal mandate, the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities undertook a study of Bill C-30 and held a number of meetings on the merits of these measures and whether they should be allowed to sunset. The vast majority of the testimony heard was supportive of maintaining the 160-kilometre regulated interswitching limit. That is why the committee's first recommendation was the following:

That the Canadian Transportation Agency retain the flexibility provided under the Canada Transportation Act by the Fair Rail For Grain Farmers Act to set interswitching distances up to 160 km, in order to maintain a more competitive operating environment for rail shippers with direct access to only one railway company.

The current government ignored the committee's main recommendation. Basically, what the government is proposing with this new legislation is to replace 160-kilometre extended interswitching with the creation of a new long-haul interswitching on hauls of up to 1200 kilometres or up to 50% of the length of the entire haul. Shippers would be charged the regulated interswitching rate for the first 30 kilometres of the haul and then a rate determined by the Canada Transportation Agency, which would be determined on a case-by-case basis based on the price of a similar haul for the remainder of the distance to the interswitch point. Shippers would only be able to interswitch at the first available interswitch point within the zone. What the government has done is effectively taken a little-used existing remedy called a competitive line rate and renamed it long-haul interswitching.

When Bill C-30 was first introduced, there was universal support among shippers for the extended interswitching. The recommendation from stakeholders was to retain the interswitching distances up to 160 kilometres in order to maintain a more competitive operating environment for rail shippers with direct access to only one rail company. Again, the Liberals went through the motions of appearing to consult, and once again deaf ears prevailed.

To make up lost time and opportunity, the transport committee began special hearings on Bill C-49 in the week prior to the House's return from its summer recess. A total of 44 hours of testimony from dozens of stakeholders and expert witnesses was heard in each of the sectors touched by Bill C-49. Also on record are briefs and letters consisting of thousands of pages of data with more than 100 suggested technical amendments from those whose lives and livelihoods would be affected by this bill. From these incredible witnesses, there was unanimous agreement that Bill C-49 was a good start and that, if their suggested amendments were made, the bill would actually accomplish its stated objectives.

After only giving two weeks to review this mountain of information, the Liberal members of the transport committee defeated more than two dozen reasonable technical amendments. Again, these amendments were suggested by a wide range of stakeholders and experts and were written to make the act a workable solution for all involved.

Once again, the Liberals have a skewed definition of consultation—in other words, they pretend to listen and then blah blah blah—and prove again that it is only a buzzword that they used to get elected. With the introduction of long-haul interswitching, the Liberals sought to create their own solution to a problem that had already been addressed with a reasonable Conservative solution. In the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act, the previous Conservative government created a regime of extended interswitching that worked so well in the prairie provinces that shippers of all kinds from across Canada requested that it be extended to the entire country. Instead, the Liberals are committed to their complicated, inefficient long-haul interswitching regime that has such poor conception and so many exceptions that it would be basically useless to many shippers.

For example, a minor technical amendment proposed by both Conservative and NDP members of the committee would have changed the wording of the provision to allow the first interchange point to be in the reasonable direction of the shippers' destination. Under the legislation as it is, shippers may have to send their products potentially hundreds of kilometres in the wrong direction to reach the nearest interchange point, increasing their costs.

What happened to this very reasonable amendment? The Liberals defeated it. They ignored the advice and recommendations of even the the most competent, experienced, and concerned Canadians in regard to extended shipping lines.

Canadians have been ignored by this Liberal government. The laudable and credible efforts of Canadians to contribute in meaningful ways to improving the weaknesses of the Liberal legislation have again fallen on the deaf ears of the government.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Canada Transportation Act and other Acts respecting transportation and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and speak to Bill C-49, the transportation modernization act. This bill would amend a number of different bills, I believe 13 in fact, with many significant changes being more than just technical in nature. My focus will be on the issues around grain transportation as this portion of the bill is of great concern to those who farm in my riding of Yorkton—Melville and ship their products from Saskatchewan to multiple destinations by rail.

I look at this omnibus bill and wonder what the rationale was for creating such complex legislation. It could have been more effective on many levels to split Bill C-49 into rail shipping, rail safety, air, and marine to target consultation to expedite the best legislation for each. My colleague, representing Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek and the transport shadow minister, put forward such a motion in response to the Liberal member for Niagara Centre, who raised the idea of expediting the passage of this bill in order to provide grain farmers a greater amount of certainty as they negotiate contracts for future shipping seasons. It is telling that the member did not have the support of his Liberal transport minister or his colleagues, as the Liberal vote was unanimously against splitting the bill.

The Minister of Transport's silence and inaction on critical and time-sensitive transport issues over the past two years, especially on rail transport, has fuelled uncertainty with both shippers and the railroads as they negotiate shipping rates for the coming season. The previous Conservative government introduced Bill C-30, which gave the Canadian Transport Agency the power to allow shippers access to regulated interswitching up to 160 kilometres, mandated that CN and CP both haul at least 500 tonnes of grain per week, and introduced a new definition for adequate and suitable service levels. With this extension, the number of primary grain elevators with access to more than one railroad with the extended interswitching limits increased from 48 to 261. These measures were met with universal support from the shipping community because, even if shippers did not use interswitching, they could use it as a tool to increase their negotiating position with the railways, as the shippers knew exactly how much the interswitch portion of the haul would cost them. At the same time, the former Conservative government had announced that the Canada Transport Act statutory review would be expedited. It began a year early in order to provide long-term solutions to the grain backlog of the 2013-14 shipping season and other problems in the transport sector within Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, as usual, I loved listening to my colleague's comments and his speech. I am sure that, with all the experience he has acquired in the House in recent years, he is capable of recognizing a government tactic when he sees one.

Bill C-49 strikes me as a perfect illustration of how the Liberal government is trying to run the country. The Liberals are trying to put everyone to sleep with a bill that deals with practically everything we talked about in a committee meeting. They are putting everything together in one bill. They are throwing all kinds of different things together, so that the opposition would not be able to support one aspect and oppose another. They are using tricks that prevent members from being able to vote properly on each aspect of the bill and to walk away with their heads held high. The Liberals know this is going to create some unintended consequences, but it does not matter. Canadians are used to seeing them govern like this.

What are my colleague's thoughts on that?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise to speak to Bill C-49. I will be splitting my time with the member for Yorkton—Melville.

We have before us what is very clearly an omnibus bill. It is a transportation bill that deals with many different pieces of legislation. It is more involved, more complex, and deals with more topics than perhaps the 95 theses. If the government wants indulgence today, it will not get it from members of the opposition.

I will continue to pontificate on this for a bit. We are seeing the government's total unwillingness to take its past commitments with respect to omnibus legislation seriously. It criticized the previous government for covering a range of different topics in the same bill. This was allegedly a big part of its push for changes to the Standing Orders. The Liberals said that the Standing Orders had to be changed because of the big problem of governments bringing forward omnibus bills. They said that a solution had to be found for this.

If the Liberals thought it was such a problem, the simple solution would have been for them to simply not propose omnibus bills. In so many different areas, whether it is Bill C-46, a bill that covers a range of different proposals on the issue of impaired driving, or a transportation bill, or budget bills they have brought forward, there is a real abundance of what clearly are omnibus bills even by their own definition.

The Liberals have said that an omnibus bill is a bill that members might want to vote for parts of it, but oppose other parts of it. Again, there is no credibility. Their policies and platform in the spirit of the season really is ghosted. Nothing is left but a ghost of the commitments the government made with respect to omnibus legislation.

I would like to talk specifically about some of the different pieces of the legislation.

Much of the discussion by members of the government has been about an alleged passenger bill of rights. I am sorry to report to members, but this is more trick than treat. The passenger bill of rights is skeletal at best. It is a framework for legislation that others will be asked to eventually develop, but the House is in no position to evaluate its substance. We are expected to theoretically consider a passenger bill of rights that somebody else might develop without any kind of clarity on its structure or how that would be approached or operationalized in practice. Again, it is more trick than treat even if passengers were expecting something more substantive.

As members of Parliament, we often fly. We could probably all share stories of less than ideal experiences we have had with air travel. It behooves the government to be more clear about what it is talking about when it brings these kind of measures before us. This is the Liberals' idea of being able to check a box for something they want to say they done but really is lacking in meat.

Many provisions in the bill come from a lot of different directions.

I also want to address the issue of joint ventures. If airlines want to propose a joint venture for a route, at present, the proposal is reviewed and ruled on by the competition commissioner, and hat is appropriate. The competition commissioner evaluates the impact of proposals on competition. When a joint venture is in place, that can have a negative impact on competition, because companies work together. Therefore, there is less competition that can be beneficial to consumers.

As a party that believes in the importance of functioning free markets, our caucus is very concerned about ensuring there is as much competition as well. We recognize if we want to get good outcomes for consumers there is a place for regulation. The best way to get to that end is that if we have robust competition, we are going to have good outcomes for consumers. Consumers can drive through the market the kinds of treatments and services they want by choosing between the different available options.

Unfortunately, this omnibus bill makes some changes to the framework in place for joint ventures. It gives authority to the minister instead of to the competition commissioner to make those decisions. In that context, it gives him a fairly wide discretion to make these determinations on the basis of public interest criteria. “The public interest” is the sort of concept that everybody is in favour of, but the devil is often in the details. When the minister has a wide discretion to make a determination on the basis of a concept of public interest, that really gives him the ability to do what he wants with respect to these joint ventures, and he may well be subject to influences and questions which are not in the public interest. We have regularly had concerns raised in this House about ministers who find themselves in conflicts of interest. Therefore, when we have cases of ministers who have been able to circumvent the law with respect to blind trusts, we should legitimately be raising concerns about the minister taking an authority that had previously been exercised through the commissioner.

One other issue that I want to address is with respect to interswitching for rail. The issues that I have addressed in the short space of my speech today again underline the breadth of transportation measures in this bill. That should be concerning to members. In the existing framework, the previous government brought in something that was called “extended” interswitching, which allowed for the use of another company's rail line. That would be done on a cost-plus framework, so the rates would vary depending on the costs that were in place for the company. It was fundamentally a competitive framework, because there was no fixed rate across the board for interswitching, rather there was a cost-plus framework, so it still encouraged some degree of flexibility and competition. However, the long-haul interswitching provisions the government has in place in this bill do not encourage competition. The way in which the rate is structured for that interswitching is based on an average rate, so it is the same rate that would be charged across different companies. It reduces the pressure for competition vis-à-vis different cases of interswitching. Our view is that competition is important, and that facilitating competition in the transportation sector and other sectors is beneficial for consumers. It leads to choice and innovation.

In conclusion, I would like to say that when we asked the minister about this during time allocation earlier, he said that he did not think we should be hearing more opposition speeches because they kept talking about the carbon tax. Since the minister does not want us to talk about the carbon tax, I think we actually have a duty to talk about the carbon tax in this context. Of course, the government does not want to talk about how negatively it is impacting the transportation industry by trying to impose a carbon tax, which is literally a tax on everything. It is trying to compel provinces, in a way that is profoundly disrespectful to provincial jurisdiction, to impose this carbon tax. I had the pleasure of presenting a petition for my constituents on this yesterday. Many of my constituents are very concerned about the negative impacts to the transportation, energy, and other sectors associated with the carbon tax.

To summarize, we have in front of us an omnibus bill. Again, the Liberal government is showing a disregard for its commitments. There are some specific things that I take issue with. The most publicized element, the air passenger bill of rights, is not at all clear. We would be much better off encouraging competition to help consumers have the flexibility to drive improvements in quality and innovation themselves.

The Liberals are in the process of taking choice away from consumers, talking about an air passenger bill of rights that is not clear or defined in any way. Of course, the government is proceeding with other measures that are very harmful for the transportation industry, such as the carbon tax.

On that basis, we oppose this bill.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House today to speak to this important bill, Bill C-49, the transportation modernization act, on behalf of my constituents in Saint Boniface—Saint Vital.

In his mandate letter to the Minister of Transport, the Prime Minister stated that his overarching goal is to ensure that Canada's transportation system supports the government's agenda for economic growth and job creation. To carry out that mandate, it is essential to look ahead, and today, I would like to reflect on that by focusing on some of the key amendments in Bill C-49, the transportation modernization act, that would help ensure that our transportation system can continue to help build this country for future generations.

In particular, it is essential that our transportation system be fluid in its operation and responsive in meeting the needs of our society and economy. To meet these goals, we need to lay the groundwork for a transportation system that will be safe and secure, innovative and green, adaptable to changing trade flows, and sensitive to the needs of travellers. Following a comprehensive consultation process with Canadians, industry stakeholders, provinces, territories, and indigenous groups, we have established a foundation to realize these goals through transportation 2030, the government's strategic plan for the future of transportation in Canada.

For this government, the transport portfolio is critical to economic growth. Transportation in Canada must continue to be a single interconnected system that drives the Canadian economy. In February of last year, the Minister of Transport tabled the report of the review of the Canada Transportation Act, also known as the CTA review, which was led by the hon. David Emerson. It had been 15 years since the last such review. The review report looked ahead to position our transportation system to continue to support Canada's international competitiveness, trade, and prosperity. As Mr. Emerson noted, our transportation system is the connective tissue that binds us together as a nation, that enables us to participate in the global economy, and that helps us ensure our economic and social well-being.

The review pointed toward many of the goals to which we need to aspire in building the transportation system of the future. We, as a country, must take the long view. We must develop a long-term vision of Canada's transportation system that is focused on the future, on the outcomes of what we want to achieve: better growth, more competition, and better service. When we mention economic potential, we must remember that we can have the best-quality products in the world, but it will not matter if we lack in efficient ways to get those goods to international markets.

Improving our trade corridors is a key requirement in building our future transportation system. That is why Bill C-49 focuses on promoting transparency, system efficiency, and fairness. The bill proposes legislative amendments that would better meet the needs and service expectations of Canadian travellers and shippers, while creating a safer and more innovative transportation system that would position Canada to capitalize on global opportunities and thrive on a higher-performing economy.

In particular, Bill C-49 recognizes that a reliable freight rail network is critical to Canada's success as a trading nation. Many of our commodities, from minerals to forest products to grain, depend on rail to move to markets, both in Canada and abroad. Canada already enjoys a very efficient rail system with the world's lowest rates. Bill C-49 would sustain this by addressing pressures in the system so that it can continue to meet the needs of users and the economy over the long term.

There is no clearer example of the importance of our freight and rail network than the prairie provinces. Each year, over $280 billion worth of goods move through our freight rail system throughout Canada. It is the backbone of our export trade, allowing goods to move efficiently throughout the country and to our export markets.

Bill C-49 builds on our already strong freight rail system by safeguarding its continued reliability and efficiency. Bill C-49 seeks to create a more competitive environment for shippers and producers by introducing long-haul interswitching, a new mechanism that would be available to all captive shippers in Canada across all sectors. Long-haul interswitching would allow shippers access to competing railways at rates and at service terms set by the Canadian Transportation Agency. This measure would allow better service options while improving system efficiency. It would ensure that shippers across industries would be able to bring their products to market.

There has been much discussion of the plan's sunsetting of an extension of the interswitching mechanism created in 2014 with the passing of the Fair Rail For Grain Farmers Act. This system only applied to captive grain shippers within the prairie provinces. In the year prior to the act's implementation, there was a record prairie grain crop, which was immediately followed by a devastating winter. This act was introduced to address this unique situation and the conditions in the grain handling and transportation system at the time. These no longer exist. It is important to emphasize the temporary nature of the previous legislation. Bill C-49 would replace this temporary legislation with a stronger and permanent mechanism that would apply across various sectors, including the grain sector in various regions in Canada. It would apply to a much longer distance of 1,200 kilometres or more, far greater than the 160 kilometres in the previous act. It is critical that this new mechanism apply to all commodities over a much longer distance throughout this great country. At committee, changes were adopted to the exclusion zones, opening the interswitching mechanism to captive shippers in northern Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta, which will have a favourable impact on the mining and forestry industries in those regions. By extending the interswitching system, we would strengthen multiple industries while still supporting the grain industry.

It is also important to note the stronger benefits and protections that Bill C-49 would provide to prairie grain shippers and farmers. These include the ability of shippers to seek reciprocal financial penalties in their service agreements with railways. These include a better definition of what adequate and suitable rail service means, and improved access to final-offer arbitration. Bill C-49 better defines adequate and suitable rail service. Previously within the Canada Transportation Act, the terms “adequate and suitable” were not defined and had been the subject of various definitions over time. By better defining the term and providing better clarity to both shippers and rail companies, we reduce the potential for service disputes that can be both costly and disruptive to both parties.

It is also important to balance the shipper's service entitlements while taking into consideration the railway's broader obligations across the network. The act strongly affirms that railways must provide shippers with the highest level of service they reasonably can provide within the circumstances. Factors for the Canadian Transportation Agency to use in assessing what is reasonable will also be identified. These would include the service that the shipper requires, the railway's obligations under the Canada Transportation Act, and the operational requirements of both the railway and the shipper, among others.

The act also addresses penalties for delays, which currently are one-sided. While railways currently can impose penalties on shippers for delays, shippers are not able to impose penalties on the railways unless the railway agrees to these as part of a confidential contract. This causes an inequity between the rail lines and the shippers. Reciprocal penalties would ensure that the responsibility for efficient and timely movement of goods would be shared between the shippers and the rail companies.

With Bill C-49, shippers will be able to pursue reciprocal financial penalties through the service level agreement process under the CTA. The process will allow a shipper to obtain an agreement on service through CTA arbitration when negotiations with the rail company fail. The CTA arbitrator will ensure that the penalties both balance the interests of the shipper and the railway and encourage efficient movement of goods. This is of vital importance to grain farmers on the Prairies and was one of the big asks of stakeholders in the period leading to the tabling of the bill.

The bill would also increase transparency by increasing the amount of publicly available information on the performance of the rail transportation supply chain. Of note is that Bill C-49 requires railways to provide a report assessing their ability to meet their grain movement obligations prior to the start of a crop year. The state of the year's crop and forecast for the upcoming winter will be reviewed annually. This will ensure that should a similar scenario occur like the one seen in 2013-14, a contingency plan can be put in place by the railways to ensure the movement of grains.

In addition, railways will need to report service, performance, and rate metrics publicly. The bill will require railways to provide service and performance information on a weekly basis to the Canadian Transportation Agency, which in turn will make this information public by publishing it on its website.

Rate data will be required from the railways as well for Transport Canada. The rate data will be used by the agency to help calculate long-haul interswitching rates. It is important that this information be available in a timely manner to ensure the efficiency of the supply chain.

Bill C-49 would encourage the long-term growth of the freight rail system by encouraging investments. It would change the provisions of the maximum revenue entitlement regime by making adjustments to intensify hopper car investments and reform the MRE methodology. These reforms will better reflect individual railway investments and encourage investments by all supply chain partners.

One only has to think of Lac-Mégantic, where people are still recovering from the tragedy that took the lives of 47 residents in 2013. This and other events like the derailment at Gogama remind me that the most crucial thing the Minister of Transport can do is to keep the people who use our transportation system safe. Nothing else is as important.

Bill C-49, the transportation modernization act, would further this goal. It would do this by implementing in-cab video and voice recorders, commonly referred to as LVVR, as recommended by the CTA review panel and the Transportation Safety Board. These recorders would further strengthen rail safety by providing objective data about the true actions taken leading up to and during a rail accident. This technology would also provide companies with an additional safety tool for analyzing trends identified through their safety management system.

Finally, the transportation system of the future needs to better meet the needs of travellers who seek greater choice and convenience at a reasonable cost. For example, passenger traffic at Toronto Pearson airport has almost doubled in the past three decades and the airport marked its 40 millionth passenger in 2015. Just cast our minds ahead to 2030 when Toronto Pearson forecasts that it will serve some 66 million passengers per year. That is a lot of people to manage, and our airports need to be up to the task.

Along with connections, we must also consider the air traveller experience and the need for new tools to assist consumers. The traveller needs to know how decisions are made when flights do not go as planned and what recourse they have. That is the very reason that Bill C-49 proposes the creation of new regulations to enhance Canada's air passenger rights, ensuring that they are clear, consistent, and fair to both travellers and air carriers.

The Canadian Transportation Agency would be mandated to develop, in consultation with Transport Canada, these new regulations, and would consult Canadians and stakeholders should royal assent be given. The overriding objective of this new approach is to ensure that Canadians and anyone travelling to, from, or within Canada understands their rights as air travellers without having a negative impact on access to air services and the cost of air travel for Canadians.

The simple fact we must address for all travellers is this: Canadians are spending more on transportation in all forms. In the past 30 years, household spending on transportation has more than tripled, up to 16% of expenditures, second only to shelter. Our government's vision for the Canadian traveller experience is one in which we have more integrated and seamless connections between air, rail, and transit to reduce the overwhelming reliance on the automobile.

These are some big issues, and sorting through the implications of what I have just talked about is a tall order that requires many conversations with Canadians.

The CTA review started this engagement. The report is a comprehensive source of independent advice to government. As I said earlier, I see transportation as essential to driving this country's economic growth and future prosperity for all Canadians. We must also design and manage the transportation system so that we continue to protect passengers, communities, and our environment.

I challenge all of us to think about how we can achieve all of these goals so that we can develop a transportation system that is even more safe, efficient, and green, and which supports both our economy and our country.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his remarks. It is fitting that we are talking about Bill C-49 today, on Halloween, because it is a real Liberal horror show.

It is a horror story, not only because of the rudely imposed time allocation, which the Liberals opposed so passionately in their days as the third party in this House, not only because it is a monster of an omnibus bill, but because the contents of the omnibus bill have nothing in common, piece by piece, except for the fact that they involve, one way or another, the word “transport”.

The Liberal government has made much of the fact that there are six amendments proposed by the opposition. I would like to ask my colleague whether six amendments on a bill this large represent anything of significance.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by mentioning the 60 or so seniors in my riding who suffered a tragic loss two days ago. There was a major fire in a retirement home in Beauport Sunday evening. The people on Joncas street, who are older than those living in other retirement homes, had to leave in the middle of the night and get on a bus. Incidentally, I would like to thank the city of Quebec for sending buses as quickly as possible. My thoughts are with these seniors and their families in these difficult times. I hope that most of them have family who can take them in. I have visited the home twice since I was elected.

I would now like to express some of my general concerns about this government, which has shown time after time that it is serving special interests, be they Liberal interests or multinational interests. The small and medium-sized business tax hikes it announced this summer are just one example of that. Another is the current crisis concerning the Minister of Finance's conflict of interest, which involves $20 million worth of shares in his family company, Morneau Shepell, that he was supposed to sell off two years ago.

Yesterday, we found out that five more government ministers apparently used the same technique as the Minister of Finance to avoid selling their shares or putting them in a blind trust. I hope we will all keep asking who those ministers are today. I am beginning to have some serious doubts about the behaviour of this government and the Prime Minister. The latter is responsible for ensuring that his government is complying with the law and is not using all kinds of loopholes to circumvent the spirit of the Conflict of Interest Act. I am very concerned about this.

This government is not working for Canadians; it is working for the multinationals. We saw a good example of this this morning in a Radio-Canada article written by Philippe-Vincent Foisy. It says that the government and the Minister of Canadian Heritage met with representatives of Amazon 99 times in the past 12 months. They met 37 times with representatives of Google and 16 times with representatives of Netflix, including 5 meetings with the Minister of Canadian Heritage a few months before she announced her extremely controversial agreement with Netflix.

In contrast, the minister met only once with representatives of ADISQ, whose gala I attended as a representative of the Conservative Party of Canada on Sunday evening. The minister met only twice with representatives of the Association québécoise de la production médiatique, and did not even meet once with representatives of ACTRA. This really gives the impression that the government is giving priority to the multinationals and that it has no time for organizations and Canadians.

Since we began debating Bill C-49, the government has boasted that it wants to focus on railway, aviation, and maritime safety. I, too, believe that railway safety is important, but 90% of this bill has nothing to do with railway safety.

Here is what I have done about railway safety since I was elected. First, I met with authorities at CN, since there is a railway serving Limoilou, in particular the port facilities in my riding, the port of Quebec and the Quebec railway station. I had a great meeting with a CN police officer. The CN has dozens of police officers that ensure railway safety. The police officer answered all the questions and concerns raised by citizens in my riding. My constituents wanted to know why trains often stayed at the two railway yards for several days, and they were also concerned about the trains' speed. It is very important.

If railway, aviation and maritime safety is so important, why was discussion in committee constantly stifled, and why were the amendments proposed by the official opposition rejected out of hand?

Most of the amendments proposed focused on the improvement of certain aspects of safety and competition.

The omnibus bill includes amendments to 13 different acts affecting the three main modes of transportation in Canada and the rest of the world. As I said, most of the content of this bill has nothing to do with safety, despite the fact that the parliamentary secretary’s speech was all about transportation safety. It is unfortunate.

Last night before I fell asleep, I happened to be reading the Canadian Parliamentary Review, a very interesting review of everything happening in all provincial and federal legislative assemblies across Canada. An academic wrote that he had conducted a study of the past 30 years and that, over the past two decades, there was a pattern of using, more often than not, time allocation for bills, in particular omnibus bills.

His study shows that efficiency and a need to act quickly are often cited as the reason to use omnibus bills. Parliament needs to be more efficient, since Canadians expect the House to act efficiently. In reality, in the past 30 years, the use of omnibus bills has not increased the number of bills passed in the House, regardless of the government in power. The academic goes so far as to say that we should let Parliament follow its natural course and allow members to thoroughly debate each bill. Thus, Bill C-49 should have been split into several bills so that we could get a more detailed understanding of every change the government is trying to make, as the hon. member for Mégantic—L’Érable so eloquently argued.

This being said, there are five aspects of the bill that caught my attention and that I would like to mention. First, with respect to allowing airlines to form international joint ventures, the bill will enhance the role of the Minister of Transport. How? Consider Delta Airlines and Air Canada, for example, each of which offers flights between Toronto and Atlanta. For the purposes of productivity, operations or efficiency, these companies could decide to merge the Toronto-Atlanta route in order to provide better service.

Normally, when two companies decide for form an international joint venture on a given route, they must obtain the approval of the Competition Bureau. With this bill, the Minister of Transport will have far more influence, because, at the end of the day, he will decide for the commissioner of competition whether the two companies can move forward with the international joint venture. The minister will act in the public interest. So far, neither the Liberal members or the parliamentary secretaries have been able to define the public interest in the context of the minister’s analysis.

The second issue I am interested in are the new security fees. The Minister of Transport has often mentioned the problem at Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau International Airport, where there are very long lines because there are not enough gates to ensure the safety of passengers as they embark on their flight. He said he wanted to make sure that there were more security checkpoints to make the lines shorter, but he will allow airports to charge additional fees. It is an open secret that the customers will end up paying these additional fees.

This specific clause of the bill shows us right away that Canadian consumers will have to pay more for their plane tickets when this bill comes into force. That is interesting because, every time the Liberals want to solve a problem, in this case wait times at airport security, they solve it by making Canadians pay more. The Liberals wanted to address the problem of climate change, so they created the carbon tax. They wanted to reduce their huge structural deficit by $20 billion, so they cut tax credits for Canadians, including tax credits for public transit, school supplies, sports, and arts.

Third, they want to change the act to give international shipping companies access to coastal trade thereby creating competition for Canadian shipowners between Halifax and Montreal. This will create an enormous amount of unfair competition for our shipowners because Canadian employees receive decent wages while other foreign companies do not pay their workers very well at all. This will create a lot of unfair competition for our shipowners.

This bill should not have been introduced as an omnibus bill. We should be given the opportunity to carefully examine each measure, which is something that we cannot do today. That is shameful.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is an open secret today that very few amendments were accepted by the Liberal government. I was, indeed, a member of the Standing Committee on Transport when it first began discussing Bill C-49. The government wanted it passed as soon as possible. As we have seen, it even brought in a time allocation motion yesterday to speed up the process even more. Worse yet, the time allotted for all of the testimony on Bill C-49 was compressed into a single week, which was clearly too little. We heard testimony all week. People came in to share their comments. Unfortunately, most of the comments heard in committee that week are not included in the version presented by the government here today. The government says that it consults, that work is done in committee, but in the final analysis, whatever is said is ignored. It was therefore a useless exercise aimed solely at passing the bill the way the Liberals wanted it to be passed.