This bill was last introduced in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2019.
Marc Garneau Liberal
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.
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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Clause 59.1 would amend Bill C-49 by adding, after line 23 on page 41, a new clause which speaks to this:
The Minister shall, no later than three years after the first day on which sections 2 to 59 of this Act are all in force, appoint one or more persons to carry out a comprehensive review of the operation of this Act in relation to the Canada Transportation Act
You have the rest in front of you.
Before you rule on that, I think there might be a subamendment.
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Yes. It states that Bill C-49, in clause 29, be amended by deleting lines 28 and 29. This speaks to my first amendment on this section, which did not pass, and we would be supporting recommendations by a number of witnesses to remove the following:
for the movement of TIH (Toxic Inhalation Hazard) material;
I think they spoke more around the common carrier obligations of a railway when it comes to moving this kind of material, and they said that if they do not have access to the long-haul interswitching remedy as a result of the goods that are being carried, there's a thin edge to the wedge there.
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Madam Chair, I believe this amendment was put forward by several witnesses. We know that at least three witnesses we heard from came forward with this exact recommendation. It has to do with clauses within the long-haul interswitching section, which, with all due respect to my colleagues across the way and to our departmental officials who characterized Bill C-49 as a crowning achievement when they were here to provide testimony to us at the very beginning of our study, every single witness without fail—
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Madam Chair, this section and this amendment have to do with access to competing railways. We heard an awful lot of testimony about long-haul interswitching. I think we would all agree that we heard from many of our witnesses that they thought this bill got a number of things right in many ways, but that the long-haul interswitching remedy was creating a lot of problems for our shippers, and in particular that the long-haul interswitching remedy in Bill C-49 is far less user-friendly.
I believe this amendment is being put forward to ensure that the extended interswitching that our shippers have come to enjoy remains in some way, shape, or form a remedy for them.
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Madam Chair, this speaks in particular to level of service. We heard from a number of witnesses some concerns about some of the wording in Bill C-49.
This bill includes an addition to the level of service provisions that requires the agency to dismiss a complaint if it is satisfied that the railway has provided the highest level of service that is reasonable in the circumstances. What we heard was that this unfortunately does not tell shippers what they must prove in order to succeed in a level of service complaint.
If the intent is that unless the railway has provided the highest level of service that is reasonable in the circumstances it will be found in breach of its obligations, then the proposed new subsection should be amended to say so clearly. That's what this amendment is intended to do, Madam Chair.
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you.
My argument in favour is very simple.
Bill C-49 contains a proposal that is not really a proposal, in my opinion. It is actually a solution designed to save time. What for? We could spend a lot of time discussing that.
As for the air passenger bill of rights, Canada does not have to reinvent the wheel because bills of rights of that kind already exist. Many witnesses spoke very positively about the European bill of rights, for example.
The purpose of most of the proposals in this amendment is to include in the bill the main rights that passengers could rely on in case of a problem. The NDP is not actually insensitive to the Liberal approach, under which all that work would be done by regulation, because, when conditions change, it is easier to amend a regulation than an act. We are also sensitive to certain of the details, like the amount of fines.
However, in terms of rights, it seems to me that the problems have been known for a long time, and it is possible to enact the equivalent of the proposals in the European bill of rights, for example. That is actually what the text of the amendment proposes. It is a concrete proposal that I invite my colleagues to consider and take a position on.
In fact, the intent behind Bill C-49 is to be as transparent as possible, but there are concerns about some of the confidential information that may be presented as part of the submissions. Throughout the act there are provisions to protect the confidential information. While the act didn't say that the reports had to be made public, we wouldn't necessarily oppose that, but we would ask that the confidentiality provisions would have to be safeguarded in order for a report to be made public, because certain information can't be in the public domain.
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Unless the officials tell me that I am wrong, it seems to me that, before Bill C-49, the Commissioner of Competition could, on his own initiative, block an agreement. So, my impression is that, although I agreed with all the amendments proposed by my Conservative colleagues—and that is an interesting realization, I confess—basically, the fact is that the minister can still circumvent the recommendation. The commissioner would therefore no longer have the means to block an agreement that, in his opinion, would be detrimental to competition.
Just to be sure that I understand the procedure correctly—because this is the first time I have done this kind of exercise—I could support each of the Conservative measures but, in the end, vote against section 14, because, in my opinion and in our opinion, it gives unreasonable powers to the minister and takes them away from the Commissioner of Competition.
Is my reading of the procedure correct?
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Madam Chair, I don't intend to spend a lot of time providing rationale to the amendments that our party has submitted. Certainly, almost everybody around this table was in attendance at all of the testimony that we heard from our witnesses, but suffice it to say that this amendment is in keeping with a recommendation from François Tougas.
Do I need to read the amendment into the record? I can just leave it at that and state that the rationale for that proposal was that Bill C-49 is not oriented toward fulsome disclosure, not to customers, not to the agency, and not to the minister. Therefore, the proposal that was provided by this witness is a simpler revision to the performance data provisions of Bill C-49.
The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)) Liberal Judy Sgro
I'm calling the meeting of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure, and Communities to order.
We are dealing with, pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, June 19, 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.
I have a script that I've been asked to read, so that everyone understands exactly how we go through this procedure. I'd like to provide members of the committee with a few comments on how committees proceed with the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill.
As the name indicates, this is an examination of all the clauses in the order in which they appear in the bill. I will call each clause successively, and each clause is subject to debate and a vote. If there is an amendment to the clause in question, I will recognize the member proposing it, who may explain it. The amendment will then be open for debate. When no further members wish to intervene, the amendment will be voted on. Amendments will be considered in the order in which they appear in the package each member received from the clerk. If there are amendments that are consequential to each other, they will be voted on together.
In addition to having to be properly drafted in a legal sense, amendments must also be procedurally admissible. The chair may be called upon to rule amendments inadmissible if they go against the principle of the bill or beyond the scope of the bill, both of which were adopted by the House when it agreed to the bill at second reading, or if they offend a financial prerogative of the crown.
If you wish to eliminate a clause of the bill altogether, the proper course of action is to vote against that clause when the time comes, not to propose an amendment to delete it.
Since this is the first exercise for many new members, I will go slowly to allow all members to follow the proceedings properly. If during the process the committee decides not to vote on a clause, that clause can be put aside by the committee, and revisited later. Amendments have been given a number in the top right corner to indicate which party submitted them. There is no need for a seconder to move an amendment. Once moved, an amendment will need unanimous consent to be withdrawn.
During debate on an amendment, members are permitted to move subamendments. These subamendments do not require the approval of the mover of the amendment. Only one subamendment may be considered at a time, and that subamendment cannot be amended. When a subamendment is moved to an amendment, it is voted on first. Then another subamendment may be moved, or the committee may consider the main amendment and vote on it. Once every clause has been voted on, the committee will vote on the title and the bill itself, and an order to reprint the bill may be required, if amendments are adopted, so that the House has a proper copy for use at report stage.
Finally, the committee will have to order the chair to report the bill to the House. That report contains only the text of any adopted amendments as well as an indication of any deleted clauses.
I thank the members for their attention. I wish everyone a productive clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-49, an act to amend the Canada Transportation Act.
Pursuant to Standing Order 75(1), consideration of clause 1, which is the short title, is postponed.
I will now call clause 2 to open up today's discussion.
Mr. Chong.
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Mr. Speaker, Bill C-49 is going to introduce important modernization to the Canada Transportation Act, including the air passenger's bill of rights, and new opportunities for shippers across Canada to gain access to competitive rail rates.
The bill also provides for the introduction of video and voice recorders in locomotives. Labour groups are concerned this could be used by railways to violate workers' privacy and discipline them for non-safety related issues.
Could the Minister of Transport reassure us that this will not be the case?
Jean-Claude Poissant LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food
Mr. Speaker, our government is always focused on delivering results for Canadian farmers.
We tabled a budget that treats agriculture as one of Canada's key industries and that sets a target of $75 billion in exports. We improved the grains legislation with Bill C-49, something the previous government never did. We signed the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, which will help boost agricultural exports to the tune of $1.5 billion annually. That is what our government has done for agriculture.
Unfortunately not.
The way I would articulate it is that Bill C-49 is going to double the amount of compensation that passengers are not going to receive.
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I have just one question to wrap up, and perhaps it's a good time to say thank you to our witnesses and to my colleagues on both sides of the table. This has been a valuable and interesting few days, and I really do appreciate everyone's work and look forward to our further deliberations.
Dr. Lukács, chief amongst your complaints seems to be the fact, in essence, that a lot of people are experiencing irritants and not having a remedy, if I can say there's one overarching theme. Do you think Bill C-49, particularly the requirement that would have airlines adopt clear and concise descriptions of how someone can enforce remedies, is going to improve the situation over the status quo?
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
In your view, should Bill C-49 solve the problem by determining that the company from which the person buys the ticket is responsible for that person?