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.

Bill C-48--Time Allocation Motion

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I sit on the transport committee, and we put through Bill C-49 last night. It was a little unusual that on Monday we were notified the committee would sit from 3:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Be that as it may, the member from Saskatoon and the member for Wellington—Halton Hills stayed, and it was very collegial. In my nine years, I do not recall any bill getting passed in one day through a committee. The members made their points and were very collegial.

However, we see this take place today. If people wonder at home why politics are sometimes toxic, this is a great example. Here is an opportunity for members of Parliament to debate the issue, to let it go to committee, and probably have an opportunity to be collegial with the amendments in clause by clause. He has now forced the committee to examine every amendment, and every clause to the very finite end.

Therefore, between the minister and the House leader, could they explain why they would want to sour the positive relationship on the transport committee? For good measure, he should apologize to the chair, because she has done a great job, and now he is putting her in a heck of a situation.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good reminder.

Back in 2015 we definitely heard a lot of voices from Canadians who very strongly supported the concept of a permanent moratorium on west coast tanker traffic. That is, of course, the substance of this bill.

We feel that there is going to be a reasonable amount of time for members of the opposition to express themselves on this bill. The bill is going to go to committee. It will come back for report stage and third reading. There will be other opportunities for both parties to express themselves on whether they agree with it or not.

As well, there is the very important work that goes on in committee. May I say, on a very positive note, that yesterday there was great co-operation among all the parties in doing the clause by clause on another important transport bill, Bill C-49.

Rail Transportation

[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?

Taxation

[Jean-Claude Poissant, Liberal, Parliamentary 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.

Amendments to Standing Orders

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Scarborough—Agincourt for sharing his time with me. It is emblematic of the duties we have been sharing over the past year as I have been working with him to back him up in his deputy House leadership duties.

While my dream of fixing the clocks in this place to be digital remains unfulfilled, there are a number of more serious Standing Order issues that need to be addressed. While the opposition has often accused Liberal members in this place of wanting to change the Standing Orders to government advantage, I would argue that the opposite is true.

Many of us on this side were here when we were in opposition. A few of us survived the decimation to third party. I started as a staffer, working for Frank Valeriote, the previous member for Guelph, in his constituency office early in the 40th Parliament. I eventually found myself working here for the member for Ottawa South, where I worked when the government was found to be in contempt of Parliament and an election was forced in early 2011. I subsequently worked for both those members as well as the current members for Halifax West, whom I take great pride in calling Mr. Speaker today, and the member for Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, all, for a short period, at the same time.

Working for four excellent members of Parliament, with different personalities and areas of interest, I gained a great breadth of experience and perspective, which has been a key part of learning how to do this job. It also gave me an up-close perspective on the abuses of power, on a daily basis, by the previous government. That is the perspective from which this motion has been written, that of the third party. To make the point, I want to go over Motion No. 18 one piece at a time.

In 2008, most of us will remember that the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc got together in an effort to take down the freshly re-elected Harper government. Whatever one thinks of the details of that agreement, a majority of members intended to vote no confidence in a sitting minority government. To avoid this, Harper visited then governor general Michaëlle Jean and asked her to prorogue Parliament, a request she granted after a couple of hours of deliberation.

Parliament is often prorogued between dissolutions. Of the past seven Parliaments, only one did not have at least one prorogation, that being Paul Martin's minority 38th Parliament. Proroguing itself is definitely legitimate. In the 2008 instance, however, it was used as a tool to avoid a confidence vote. We all know how history played out after that, and it was a tactical success for Prime Minister Harper.

The first clause of Motion No. 18 would not prevent a prime minister from proroguing, but it would require the executive to explain why they felt it was necessary and would mandate the procedure and House affairs committee to revisit the matter. It would not prevent abuse, but it would raise the bar on prorogation.

It is a bit of a marvel to me that, in my experience, no one has tried to do a massive private member's bill that rethinks the role of government from one end to the other. It would be a pretty interesting two-hour debate and is only currently prevented by convention, not rule.

In the last Parliament, the government had some impressively scattered omnibus bills. The standard here is not about how many laws a bill amends but rather if those various and sundry changes all serve the overall purpose of the bill. For example, Bill C-49, which passed at second reading here only yesterday, was cited by many in the opposition as an omnibus bill because it intends to modify 13 existing acts. However, this is spurious, because all the changes legitimately and clearly fall under the concept of the name of the act, the transportation modernization act, and some of those 13 existing-act changes are both relevant and miniscule.

For example, clause 91 of Bill C-49 is the section that would amend the Budget Implementation Act, 2009. This change reads, in whole, “Parts 14 and 15 of the Budget Implementation Act, 2009 are repealed.” A quick investigation will reveal that Part 14 is amendments to the Canada Transportation Act and Part 15 is amendments to the Air Canada Public Participation Act, both well within the purview of the Minister of Transport to modernize within his mandate. Both sets of amendments from that Budget Implementation Act, 2009, which was called Bill C-10 in the second session of the 40th Parliament, came with a coming into force clause that read, in part, “come into force on a day to be fixed by order of the Governor in Council made on the recommendation of the Minister”. The most remarkable part of this eight-year-old piece of legislation is that the Governor in Council never brought these changes into force.

Getting rid of obsolete, never implemented bits of transportation law is clearly within the frame of transportation modernization.

In 2012, the Conservative government brought in a wide-ranging budget bill that implemented much of what it called Canada's economic action plan, but it also went after environmental legislation that had nothing to do with the budget. Among other things, it stripped legal protection for Canada's millions of lakes and waterways. This was slowed down, but not stopped, by more than 1,000 amendments to the bill at the finance committee, resulting in an around-the-clock filibuster-by-vote at clause-by-clause study. I was there as staff for the final shift of that marathon vote.

The second section of Motion No. 18 would attempt to address these problems. Any bill presented in the House that did not focus on a single theme or overarching purpose could be split by the Speaker. While there would be an exception for budgets, the phrasing of that section, which would be standing order 69.1(2), would only seek to clarify that the objectives outlined in the budget would in their own right define the purpose. Attempting to change environmental law in a budget implementation act, without having defined it in the budget itself, for example, would permit a point of order to be raised and accepted by the Speaker to carve that section out of the BIA. This change is important and is something we committed to doing.

The third change is a little more arcane.

I was a staff member on the public accounts committee for a short period in the 41st Parliament and was a member of government operation and estimates early on in the 42nd Parliament for about the same length of time. I do not pretend to have any great understanding of the minutiae of the estimates process and defer to those who do. That is a big part of the point here. I welcome anything that can help bring clarity to the estimates process.

The fourth change in the Standing Orders in this motion is a particularly interesting one, covering sections 4 to 6 of Motion No. 18.

In the last Parliament, I believe most of us who were around had the same experience. Committees were run by parliamentary secretaries. They sat next to the chair, moved motions, voted, and otherwise controlled the committees. This utterly and totally defeats the point of parliamentary committees. The parliamentary secretary is, by definition, the representative of the minister. In this capacity, parliamentary secretaries serve a critical role in liaising between the committee and the department the committee oversees.

Being able to answer questions about intent and plans from the committee on a timely basis or bringing concerns or issues for study that ministers would like feedback on in the course of their duties are completely appropriate. However, when parliamentary secretaries run the committees, these oversight bodies cease to oversee much of anything and simply become extensions of the executive branch of government. If that is what we are to have, the committees serve little purpose. Including parliamentary secretaries on committees as liaisons with their departments instead of as the planners and executors of the work of those committees is the right balance.

This is really important. During the Reform Act debate in the last Parliament, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, for whom I have great respect and have for many years, commented to me that as a backbencher, he was not government. “Like you,” he said to me, “my role is to keep the government to account. The difference is”, he concluded, “I have confidence in the government.”

This critical bit of political philosophy has stuck with me since that day. Our role as backbenchers is indeed to keep government to account whether we are on the government or opposition benches. One of the most critical tools to achieve that is committees, and when this government talks about restoring independence to committees, it is not a meaningless catchphrase or sound bite; it is legitimate. I have seen the transition on committee function from last Parliament to this Parliament and it is truly something. Keeping parliamentary secretaries in a participatory, but not controlling, role on committees is a critical element of this.

The last change, section 7 of the motion, is particularly interesting. The one place where the opposition has immense power, even in a majority government, is in the power of the filibuster at committee. An opposition member determined to prevent a vote from taking place or a report from being written at a committee has the absolute power to do so, as long as he or she is willing to talk out the clock and stay reasonably on point. Our colleague from Hamilton Centre is an expert at this task, often joking that after half an hour of talking he has not yet finished clearing his throat.

When we had the debate on reforming the Standing Orders that went sideways at PROC a few weeks ago, we were accused of trying to kill the filibuster. This could not be further from the truth.

In that debate, we sought to have a conversation about how to change the Standing Orders. The government House Leader had written a letter with her ideas of what changes she hoped we would discuss on top of the numerous ideas already before us on account of the Standing Order 51 debate from last fall. However, but if we refer back to the previous elements of this speech, where we landed was up to us as a committee. An idea floated was that members at committee be limited to an unlimited number of 10-minute speaking slots rather than a single slot with no end.

The way I understand this would work in practice is that any member can speak for as long as he or she wishes at committee, but when another member signals his or her interest in speaking, the member would have 10 minutes to cede the floor before the other member would take over, before giving it back again if the first member so chose. The effect of this would be to ensure that every member on a committee would have an opportunity to speak in any debate, but would not limit anyone from tying up committee and would not kill the filibuster either in the instance or in principle. It certainly would make it easier to negotiate our way out of one by giving others a chance to get a word in edgewise.

However, the change proposed here is not about that. It is about getting rid of one of the most absurd abuses of committee procedure we saw in previous parliaments: that a member of the committee majority would take the floor, even on a point of order, and say to the chair something like, “I move that we call the question.” The chair would correctly say that it was out of order and reject the request for the vote. The member would then move to challenge the chair, the majority would vote that the chair was wrong and the question could be called, and the motion to debate, study, report draft, or whatever was happening, would come to an abrupt, unceremonious, and totally acrimonious end. That was the only effective, if not exactly legitimate, way of ending a filibuster.

In Motion No. 18, we are defending the right to filibuster.

As I said, Motion No. 18 is about defending the rights of the opposition, informed by our experience in the third party. Not one line of this motion benefits a majority government. All, however, benefit the improved functioning of this place. I look forward to its passage.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have two brief questions for the government House leader.

First, Bill C-49 is a wide-ranging transportation modernization act, so called. Bill C-51 is a very wide-ranging Criminal Code change. I wonder if the government House leader thinks either, or both, of these constitutes improper uses of omnibus legislation.

Second, I want to ask about the powers given to parliamentary secretaries because now, the way the Standing Order change is set up, a committee could theoretically bar members of Parliament who are not members of the committee from attending in camera meetings. That would mean they would have additional members of the government who are parliamentary secretaries who are able to remain in the room, but they would have other members of Parliament who might be interested in the discussion who cannot be in the room. Does the government House leader see a problem with that? Would the government House leader agree that any member of Parliament who wants to listen in to an in camera discussion if he or she is an elected member of Parliament, regardless of whether the member is a parliamentary secretary, should be able to do so?

Bill C-49—Time Allocation Motion

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the impression that the minister would really like us to work more quickly. We did not refuse, far from it; we even agreed to meet starting in early September, before the business of the House began, to move the bill forward.

However, if we are seeking efficiency, why did the minister refuse to split the bill in two so that, for example, grain carriers would have answers and concrete measures on the prerogatives of Bill C-30, which is ending on July 31?

Grain producers are currently negotiating contracts. They have lost all competitive advantage in the negotiation because the measures will not be extended from the day the measures in Bill C-30 expire to the day Bill C-49 is passed.

Why is the minister refusing to extend the measures set out in Bill C-30 in the meantime?

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism]

Madam Speaker, I move:

That, in relation to 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, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the Bill; and

That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the day allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the Bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

Business of the House

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the House will debate Bill C-49, on transportation modernization, at second reading.

On Monday we will debate our changes to the Standing Orders. Following that debate, we will resume second reading debate on Bill C-51.

Tuesday the House will debate Bill S-3, on Indian registration, at report stage and third reading.

Following that debate, we hope to make progress on the following bills: Bill S-2, the bill respecting motor vehicle recalls, at second reading; Bill C-17, respecting the environmental assessment process in Yukon, at second reading; Bill C-25, on encouraging gender parity on the boards of federally regulated organizations; Bill C-36, the bill to give Statistics Canada greater independence; Bill C-48, the bill to impose a moratorium on oil tankers off the B.C. coast; and Bill C-34, the bill to reinstate sensible conditions for public service employment.

Bill C-49—Notice of time allocation motion

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise that agreement could not reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the second reading stage of 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.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage.

Opposition Motion—Canadian Economy

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening to contribute to this debate on the complete failure of the Liberals on this economic file.

For a government that would have us believe it is all about the middle class, as it is wont to add that at the end of every statement it makes, for example, more ethical government for the middle class, a Liberal commissioner of official languages for the middle class, new standing orders for the middle class, better innovation for the middle class, and a carbon tax for the middle class, it is remarkable just how out of touch Liberals are on the most important issues facing the middle class: jobs, the economy, and affordability.

On housing, for example, as the price of homes rose significantly faster than inflation in Toronto and Vancouver, the Liberals decided to implement a one-size-fits-all mortgage policy designed to cool down the housing markets of Toronto and Vancouver. Unfortunately, this policy is having a similar impact across the country, regardless of whether Canadians live in Warman, Saskatchewan or Queen West, Toronto.

Before the Liberals made these changes to the mortgage rules, a person with $50,000 pre-tax income could qualify for a $277,000 mortgage. Now, that same person qualifies for a mortgage of $222,000. This change makes buying a first house more difficult for many. Several people looking to buy their first home, and realtors, have raised concerns about this policy with me. However, these changes have not had the attention they deserve, considering the disproportionate impact they are having on first-time homeowners in smaller communities where housing prices are typically more affordable.

The Liberals are also tone deaf when it comes to western Canada. On May 12, the Minister of Transport introduced the oil tanker moratorium act, a bill that his own political staff conceded would only impact the future development of Canada's oil sands, and no other activity in northern British Columbia. Let us think about that.

It was not enough for the Liberals to reverse the independent National Energy Board's 2014 decision to approve the northern gateway pipeline subject to Enbridge fulfilling 209 conditions. They decided to go one step further by opting to handcuff future governments should they want to diversify Canada's energy exports. Bill C-48, the oil tanker moratorium act, will do nothing to enhance marine safety in British Columbia. U .S tankers will continue travelling up and down the coast between Alaska and Washington state.

This is the epitome of political irony. Venezuelan oil in Quebec is okay. Saudi Arabian oil on the east coast is okay. Canadian oil in Vancouver is okay. Alaskan oil in northern B.C. is okay. However, Canadian oil in northern British Columbia is not okay. Blocking tidewater access for western Canadian energy producers was not enough. To add insult to injury, this year's federal budget removed incentives for small companies to engage in energy exploration in Canada.

Furthermore, the new carbon tax will disproportionately impact energy-producing provinces. What the Liberals fail to realize is that Canada does not have a monopoly on the production of energy. In North America alone, western Canadian producers are competing against companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, the Permian Basin, and the Bakken formation. As the U.S. is making important efforts to reduce obstacles to energy development, Canada is going the other way.

Capital and expertise in this sector is very mobile, and Canada is in very real danger of being left behind. Canadian firms and foreign investors will not invest in the Canadian economy if the overall cost of doing business vis-à-vis our American counterparts is higher, as has been mentioned. However, the energy sector is not the only sector being targeted. Western Canadian shippers, and especially captive western Canadian grain shippers, are feeling particularly ignored by the Liberal government.

Unlike Ontario and Quebec, where many products can be trucked to their final destination or to a port for overseas export, western Canada is particularly reliant on rail to get product to market. That is why the Minister of Transport's inaction on critical and time-sensitive rail transport issues is leading to uncertainty for both shippers and railroads. Both need it as they negotiate shipping rates for the season and invest in the required infrastructure to keep products moving to market in a timely manner.

That is why, over the past several months, I have asked many times whether the government intended to renew or build on the sunsetting measures of Bill C-30 before they expired on August 1, 2017. The response, time and time again, was that the government recognized the urgency to get this done and that legislation was forthcoming. Unfortunately the Liberals now acknowledge that the key measures in Bill C-30 will sunset before any replacement legislation can receive royal assent and become law.

Since the transportation modernization act was introduced on May 16, the government has set aside less than two and a half hours to debate it, with the Minister of Transport taking the floor to lead off debate at 9:45 p.m. on a Monday night. This means there will be at least a two and a half month gap from when Bill C-30 measures sunset and Bill C-49 receives royal assent.

By the time this legislation has passed, the majority of contracts for the year will have been negotiated with the law in flux. Because of the government's mismanagement of its legislative agenda, these popular measures will sunset without any replacement, and shippers will be the worse off. What is worse is that while this two and a half month gap will negatively impact both railways and shippers this year, the replacement legislation will weaken shipper protections from what they are today. While something is better than nothing, the transportation modernization act is not a replacement for the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act.

What the government is proposing in its omnibus transportation legislation is to take a little used existing remedy called a competitive line rate and rename it long haul inter-switching.

Under a competitive line rate, a shipper could apply to the agency to set the competitive line rate, the designation of the continuous route, the designation of the nearest interchange, and the manner in which the local carrier shall fulfill its service obligations. We know from history that this remedy was infrequently used because of the prerequisite that the shipper must first reach an agreement with the connecting carrier and the two main carriers effectively declined to compete with one another through CLRs. While the requirement that the shipper must have an agreement with a connecting carrier prior to requesting a CLR has been removed, the greater issue is whether the terms imposed by the connecting carrier will be acceptable to the shipper.

While railways do have a common carrier obligations, we know there are ways to avoid doing a haul. For example, both railways have set the price of hauling uranium so high that it is no longer economical for it to be shipped by rail. Furthermore, while long haul inter-switching will be extended to 1,200 kilometres or 50% of the total haul distance, the first inter-switch location from any captive shippers in north Alberta and northern B.C. will be located within the Kamloops-Vancouver corridor, where inter-switching is not allowed beyond 30 kilometres. Therefore, these captive shippers will not be able to utilize this remedy to increase railway competition.

By borrowing and spending in good times, the Liberals have made it harder to deal with real crisis. According to the PBO, even a minor recession would cause deficits to be as large as during the great recession, and that is before considering the fiscal costs of any response.

The Liberals have mismanaged Canada's finances and have closed many doors for economic development. Unfortunately, the full effects of their policies have not reverberated across the entire economy yet.

The choices the Liberals have made to date are not random. They are the result of an overarching vision of picking winners and losers. Right now, my province is coming out on the wrong side of nearly every Liberal policy decision.

For a government that professes to be focused on the middle class, first-time homebuyers, farmers, shippers, and energy workers are all feeling left out in the cold.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure for me to rise as the representative of the magnificent riding of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles.

I would like to begin by thanking the member for moving this motion, since it gives me the opportunity to once again talk about Bill C-49, the transportation modernization act, a bill that will help our farmers and others who transport their goods using our rail system.

Rivière-des-Mille-Îles is home to a great company called Elopak, which manufactures containers for liquid food, and it needs the rail system. It brings in big rolls of paper to manufacture containers for cream or juice, such as the refrigerated juice that we buy at the grocery store. Canada's rail system is important for moving goods and services within the country.

Users have been asking for many years for an effective, long-term solution to improve this system, and I am proud that our government can keep its commitments.

Our government is committed to ensuring that the grain industry has a balanced, effective, and transparent rail transportation system to get its products to market. That is why Bill C-49 includes a large number of measures to help meet that objective.

Specifically, Bill C-49 is making the most significant changes to rail policy in a generation. This legislation caps the maximum grain revenue entitlement to keep grain transportation rates low. Our government listened to the concerns of Canadian farmers on this issue, which is extremely important to them. Having the chance to sit on the Standing Committee on International Trade, I have often heard about this issue. Furthermore, we are making changes to the maximum revenue entitlement, or MRE, to encourage investment in railway companies and expand the network to benefit all users.

Bill C-49 provides monetary penalties for railway companies. These penalties will hold them accountable for poor service. As well, we clearly set out in the bill that the option for shippers to seek penalties from railway companies will not prevent them from seeking full compensation for expenses or losses due to poor service, such as late charges.

This is a long-standing issue for the grain industry, and this legislation will keep in place the Canadian Transportation Agency’s temporary authority to award compensation for such failures. This bill also provides a robust definition of “adequate and adapted” services by specifying that railway companies must provide the highest level of service under the circumstances. The level of service would be available to everyone, including farmers affected by poor railway service.

To ensure that this mechanism will provide quick compensation, we are reducing the agency’s time frame for rendering a decision from 120 to 90 days.

Furthermore, Bill C-49 ensures that small users can use a centralized process to challenge high rates charged by railway companies.

We will raise the cargo load limit for access to final offer arbitrage from $750,000 to $2 million, indexed to inflation.

This system will be easier for small users. Since there are no hearings, small users will not have to provide evidence in their case against the facts provided by railway companies regarding alternatives for moving their goods.

Users will be able challenge rates, and an arbitrator can make a decision applicable for a period of up to two years.

Bill C-49 will also enhance transparency. For the first time ever, big rail companies will be required to provide detailed information about the rates they charge, including amounts to be paid under the terms of confidential contracts. They will also be required to make all important information about their services publicly available through the agency.

Under this bill, we will establish new requirements for railways with respect to their plans and the steps they are taking to enable them to move grain for the following crop year. The agency will also have clear authority to hold hearings and issue recommendations on any issue of concern.

Taken together, these measures will ensure that problems are identified ahead of time and that all affected parties can take steps quickly to ensure that what happened in the winter of 2013-14, when record grain production and a harsh winter caused major delays, never happens again.

Through the measures included in Bill C-49, our government is protecting our reputation as a reliable trade partner and ensuring that we can grow our economy to benefit all Canadians.

This bill includes an important new measure to promote competition between the railway companies. Railway interswitching would provide users with access to an alternative railway company for distances up to 1,200 kilometres or 50% of the total long-haul distance in Canada, regardless of which is greater. This would give users a significant bargaining tool when negotiating prices and service options.

Members of the House will recall that this was temporary legislation passed in response to extreme circumstances that are no longer an issue in the transportation and grain shipping system. In that context, we will allow Bill C-30 to lapse as planned on August 1, 2017.

There are four measures in this legislation that our government looked at in detail. We heard the users' concerns about each of them and we considered their future in order to ensure that adequate conditions will remain in place for the long term.

First, the agency has the authority to order a railway company to compensate users for inadequate service. As mentioned earlier, Bill C-49 makes that measure permanent.

Second, the agency has the authority to clarify service agreements that users have submitted for arbitration. This solution allows users to obtain a service contract when negotiations fail. Bill C-49 also makes that measure permanent.

Third, the temporary measures concerning the minimum volume of grain for Canadian National and Canadian Pacific will finally be removed as planned. Users have said that the minimum volumes were having an adverse effect on the system and that some corridors had received preferential treatment. Although it was understandable given the situation, I am sure all members of the House will agree that this is not the type of policy that we want to maintain in the long term, given its unintended consequences. Long-haul interswitching therefore provides a national solution to the major problem of captive shippers.

The report by the Hon. David Emerson on the state of transportation in Canada, began in 2014, recommends that railway interswitching in the Prairies, introduced in the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act, be withdrawn as planned. This report did not make any recommendations about some alternative instrument for encouraging competition or providing users with additional tools for negotiating with the railway companies.

Our government did not think that this was acceptable. Captive users told us that it was crucial to get better service and rate options. That is why Bill C-49 proposes long-haul interswitching. While that would encourage competition in the system, railway companies would be appropriately compensated for directing traffic to a competitor.

This provides me with an opportunity to commend the Minister of Transport for his extensive efforts in consulting farmers and other users before introducing this bill. Our government took the time to listen to farmers. That is why this bill provides them with considerable support.

Our government understands the importance of a balanced and competitive railway system for its users and for farmers. That is why we are calling on all parliamentarians to act quickly. Meanwhile, the grain industry will continue to enjoy maximum revenue entitlement protections, something that keeps rates low and maintains processes such as arbitration around service delivery.

Bill C-49 is not a temporary fix; it proposes comprehensive measures to ensure the long-term success of Canada’s grain industry. Passing them all at once would greatly expedite the legislative process. I am pleased to note that the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities has already agreed to come back earlier, before the House resumes, to consider Bill C-49.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure, as always, to rise in the House to contribute to the discourse on what may be the most important issue facing my constituents, and that is the Canadian economy. The motion essentially seeks to address four constituent parts. The first is a broad statement about the Canadian economy. Then it has three sub-issues: softwood lumber, the western Canadian energy industry, and the western Canadian grain farming, specifically the transportation sector.

Before I get into each of these and explain why I will not support the motion, I would like to point out that the assumptions built into the language of the motion do not accurately reflect the facts at hand. I will start with the statement of the overall economy.

There is an attempt to build a narrative that the governing party is not an effective manager of the economy. I disagree wholeheartedly.

I find it somewhat ironic that around the same time the motion was put forward, we saw a very positive jobs report. Specifically, we have seen over one-quarter of a million new jobs in Canada over the six month period preceding, including just last month, with 55,000 new full-time jobs. Unemployment has gone down from 7.1% to 6.6%, and GDP growth is at 3.7% in the first quarter.

The reason I lay these statistics out is because I find data to be a helpful tool when we form analyses. Instead of projecting a narrative that we would hope would be true, it is important we consider the facts along the way.

We have seen a plan starting to take hold. I know history will be the judge of the success of this government and its economic performance, but the early signs are encouraging in my opinion. The economy is growing. The plan seems to be working, and I am quite proud to be part of it.

I would like to address each of the sub-issues raised in the motion, the first being the softwood lumber dispute.

Of course this is an important and challenging issue that faces regions of the country differently, including Atlantic Canada where I live. There is a number of stellar producers in my own backyard, like Scotsburn Lumber, Williams Brothers, Ledwidge Lumber, that have done a great job, historically, of employing Canadians. This is a fight that we continue to fight every day.

The opposition would have Canadians believe that we have stumbled over this as a federal government, but the agreement did expire under the last government. Although it is not our fault, it is our problem. I have been working closely with the minister and with my Atlantic Canada and Nova Scotia colleagues to help find a solution to this pressing issue for our producers.

In my conversations with the minister on this file, I have full faith in her ability to go head-to-head with the toughest negotiators south of the border. However, the fact is that right now she is facing a climate of protectionism that we have not seen in my lifetime when it comes to this file or trade more generally. Our neighbours are going to do what they think is in their best interests. However, the folks at the helm on our side are very capable and I have full faith in their ability to get a resolution. In the interim, we have introduced an important aid package to ensure we are there to help at a time when help is desperately needed.

On the energy file, specific reference is made to the western Canadian energy sector and carbon pricing. This is of extraordinary importance. I am no enemy to the energy industry. I have made a living working as a lawyer in Calgary and have significant experience working with oil and gas companies in different parts of the energy sector. I understand the strategic importance of this industry to the Canadian economy. However, the characterization of a price on carbon as an attack on the economic industry is wrongheaded, respectfully to the member who has put forward the motion.

We have to understand that the atmosphere in Canada and across the world belongs to all of us. Polluting that atmosphere is not and should not be free. Putting a price on carbon is the most effective way to reduce emissions and help mitigate the negative impacts of pollution that contribute to anthropogenic climate change. Moreover, I see this as a massive opportunity for us as Canadians. With the ability to develop a skilled workforce, we can take part in a growing industry that will contribute to clean growth and help reduce emissions at the same time. When this opportunity is staring us in the face, I cannot help but take a crack at it, and we are on the right track.

We are making investments in green infrastructure and putting a price on carbon. Some of the biggest energy companies in Canada and around the world are proponents of this approach, companies like Synovus, Suncor, Shell, CNRL, Total, TransCanada, Enbridge, and so on. Some of the people who on a first blush might stand to lose the most are some of the biggest supporters of this kind of an approach to climate policy. I am proud we have industry leaders who have stepped up to the plate.

The final issue raised in this motion has to do with grain farmers, specifically the impact of certain rules and the potential expiry of a unique feature of Canadian transportation called inter-switching.

In 2013, we were facing a truly unique circumstance, with a bumper crop in western Canada and a very harsh winter that made it very difficult to get all our products to market in a timely way. I have had some exposure to this issue, although I am from Atlantic Canada, in my role as a member of the transportation, infrastructure, and communities committee, where we dealt with it. What we saw was that at the time, there was actually a short-term, prudent measure that helped, in an emergency situation, get products to market. This was a difficult situation that needed to be addressed.

The tool created at that time to deal with a pressing circumstance may not be the best tool for the long term. What we have in Bill C-49 is a commitment to long-haul inter-switching such that if there was only one company that could meet transportation needs to get goods to market, we would introduce competition of sorts that would allow a farmer to piggyback on the rates that would be offered had there been another rail company there.

We have made a commitment that rather than dealing with short- or medium-length inter-switching to 160 kilometres, we are going to implement a long-term solution. I cannot help but notice that Alberta's barley growers have indicated that this is fantastic news. The Western Producer, a publication in western Canada, said that the Minister of Transport met with producers and listened carefully and agreed with what was said.

This is a positive development. We have engagement with different communities and policy that is going to, hopefully, meet their needs in the long term and not simply be a response to a short-term issue.

I will try to wrap up by revisiting the initial point I made. What we are trying to do is focus on steps that are going to improve the economy in the long term. I recognize that there are communities that are hurting today, including many I represent, that need jobs more than anything. What we are trying to do is put a plan into action that is going to help kick-start economic growth in the short term and sustain policies that will contribute to long-term economic growth.

We are seeing investments in innovation. For example, at St. Francis Xavier University, Dr. Risk's Flux Lab has, with the help of federal funding, been able to create a product that has entered into a commercial partnership. It detects gas leaks by affixing a detector to the front of a vehicle. This kind of technology would not have benefits just in my community. It would be able to help reduce greenhouse emissions across Canada by preventing leaks and would employ people in the process.

We are seeing investments in infrastructure, such as municipal infrastructure projects, that have kept people in my communities employed during months when they might ordinarily be laid off.

We are seeing commitments to expanding trade relationships between Canada and its trading partners, because we know that with the natural resources we have and the skilled workforce we have, we can produce more and higher-value goods than we can consume as a country. What we need to do is expand our trade relationships to ensure that communities across Canada have the opportunity to benefit.

I appreciate that this may take some time, and more time than many members of this House would like, including me. If there was a job for every one of my constituents tomorrow, I would be the first person advocating for the policy that would give it to them. The fact is that this is a long and difficult process, but we have to start today. I believe that the government is on the right foot, and I look forward to the historical record that will be laid down, because I have to say, the early signs are quite encouraging.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to the opposition day motion brought in by my colleague, the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, which indicates that the government has been very ineffective with respect to the care and due diligence of this nation.

In particular, I want to say that damaging Canadian industries and diminishing Canadian economic stability, as he has pointed out in his motion, are certainly things that we care about every day in the House. We hear it from our constituents when we get back to our constituencies on weekends and during constituency weeks. It is certainly a situation that I have heard about quite regularly from my constituents.

My colleague, the member for Durham, has just pointed out that there is a huge deficit in place in Canada although the Liberals talked about small deficits during the election campaign. They have outgrown that by $30 billion, which is about 30 times what the Liberals said they would have. That is terrible mismanagement. Our future generations are going to have to pay for that every day of their lives as they move forward, not to mention the fact that all of us in this chamber today will share in that burden as well.

There are three major areas of concern that the member has pointed out: the softwood lumber deal, the carbon tax, and in particular, the current rail service agreement with respect to rail transportation in the Prairies.

The member has talked at great length about the softwood lumber deal, so I do not need to say much more. Suffice it to say that thousands of jobs are dependent upon an agreement between Canada and the United States. With the tariff that has been put in place by the United States today, we clearly see that the government did not have an answer when it came up with about $870 million as payment to cover some of the costs that will be borne by our industry. We need to find long-term leadership with respect to this matter. These stopgap measures are not good enough. That is what we are seeing in the other areas too.

The carbon tax that the government has implemented or is forcing upon provinces is certainly something that is going to continue to put people out of jobs. There were 200,000 jobs lost in Alberta alone. There are jobs lost in my constituency. We have a very small oil industry in western Manitoba, most of which is in my constituency. People have been put out of work there as well. We are only seeing some stability back in that area because of the stability in the price of oil right now, as well as an upgrade in the American economy. There has been a bit of a boost there. That is giving us some stability right now in Canada. However, it is very nebulous as to how long that may continue and if it will be on a long-term basis.

The area that I want to speak about today is mainly the current rail service agreements that ensure that our farmers can get their products to market.

In the spring of 2014, through the winter of 2013, our government brought forward Bill C-30, the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act, with our transportation minister, at the time, and our agriculture minister. They did an exceptional job of putting a program in place that would allow farmers some protection with respect to the movement of grain. There were extenuating circumstances, for sure, that winter. At that period of time, we had some of the coldest weather we have ever had. However, we are used to that in Canada, particularly in western Canada, so that is not an excuse with respect to being able to get grain to port on time.

There were three or four areas that were very important in that whole venue with that act. One of them was allowing interswitching to move up from a 30-kilometre basis to 160 kilometres, which made it quite effective to have a bit of competition in the industry, which we do not have most times when we have two railroads with, basically, a duopoly with respect to being able to move grain in the Prairies.

Trucks can only move so much grain effectively and we do not have the processing plants to process all of the grain in the Prairies. In fact, at that particular time, about 50% of the grain in Canada was going for export. That is why we desperately need to have that kind of openness and a bit of protection against the movement of other products. We cannot just leave grain, because of the massive volumes of it alone, and because it is basically in a captive area. It has to be grown every year. It has to be moved and marketed, perhaps not all in one year, but it does have to be moved, and it is a perishable product in the long run.

That is why it is so important that we move forward for Canadian families and businesses on the Prairies and in Canada as a whole, because wheat contributes greatly to the gross domestic product of our nation. Millions of jobs in Canada depend on the shipment of grain in the agricultural industry.

The minister has brought forward Bill C-49 but there is great concern as to whether it will have any teeth and whether it will get passed before we rise in the House for the summer. I commend the minister for bringing it forward, but I would encourage him to talk to his colleagues and move forward with it. If the bill does not move forward there is going to be a huge gap in this whole area. Bill C-30 will take over again, and it dies on July 31. That would leave the huge gap I referred to earlier and farmers will go into the coming harvest without any type of rule or regulation in place that will allow for the convenience of knowing the conditions under which grain can be shipped for the coming year.

I referred to interswitching rights earlier. Long-haul interswitching could be utilized. It certainly allowed for competition within that 160-kilometre radius. Interswitching is a tool that we brought in with Bill C-30. It is a much better rule than using competitive line rates, which have been in since the change in the Crow benefit in 1995. Competitive line rates, while sounding good, really were an ineffective way of providing the certainty that farmers and grain companies would have some competition. That is why the grain companies and the farm groups have joined together to lobby the government to put a stronger rate in place, a much stronger and more useable mechanism to use in that area.

A number of groups in Saskatchewan, and a growing chorus of western Canadian groups, have called for an extension of the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act that we had in Bill C-30. I am calling on the government today to extend that again. It was extended once by the government but it needs to do it again. That will provide fairness and equity and predictability in regard to the movement of product into the fall.

The government is talking about proroguing the House. If the House is prorogued this summer or early in the fall, the legislation would die on the Order Paper and the government would have to start all over again. This would provide unpredictability in the industry for some extended time down the road. It would be the spring of 2018 at the earliest or the fall of 2018 before we would have any kind of predictable rules to carry on with the movement of grain products in western Canada and to get grain to port in the just-in-time fashion that is required today to meet the markets that we built up so extensively through the 40-some free trade agreements that the Harper government signed with our trading nations. Keeping markets open is one of the best things that a government can do in relation to our agricultural industry.

The government needs to also look at the coordination of the grain grading system between Canada and the United States because there is much grain movement back and forth. A lot of livestock goes back and forth. Having sat on the western standards committee of the Canadian Grain Commission for a number of years as a farm representative, I know how important access to the U.S. is.

There are other things that I would ask the Minister of Transport to do. One of them is to get the Minister of Agriculture on side to move forward with some of these areas as well. He is looking at removing deferred grain tickets, cash tickets, and that would not be helpful to farmers either. The Minister of Agriculture needs to move more quickly in regard to the PED virus in hogs and cleaning trucks in Manitoba.

There were nine cases last month, and there has still been no action on that to make sure we maintain a strong hog industry.

All of that fits into the transportation of product. We are talking about the transportation of grain, but the movement of livestock is part and parcel of the use of grain on the Prairies.

I look forward to any questions.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Edmonton Strathcona.

I am pleased to help outline some of the NDP's thoughts and objections to the motion before us, which has all the thematic unity of a recipe for leftovers soup.

As is the case with leftovers soup, even if people find the totality of it distasteful, it does not always mean they do not like particular ingredients that were thrown into it. There are some good ingredients to this motion, but when taken together, unfortunately we feel we need to oppose it.

The aspect of the motion dealing with softwood lumber is an ingredient we think is a good one. It is right to draw attention to the fact that the government has simply failed to come up with a reasonable solution to the crisis in softwood lumber.

As one of my colleagues in the NDP has just pointed out, it is a little challenging in some ways to hear that criticism come from the Conservatives. They were in government when the agreement expired. They had 10 years. They could have come to another agreement on it, but they did not. They left it to the Liberals, who then made a big deal of their great relationship with the Obama administration and what this would mean for Canadian softwood lumber producers. The Liberals would be able to go ahead and get not just any deal but the best possible deal for producers. That agreement still has not materialized.

A compensation package has been announced, presumably which is a bad omen for Canadian producers who hoped to get a deal that would allow them, through their work, to provide for them and their families, and not have to do that through a government compensation package. I suppose if the Liberals are not going to get it together to get a deal, then that is the next best thing. We would hope, however, to have a government that fights to get that agreement so softwood lumber producers can get back on their feet.

Even the agreement that was in place before was not a great agreement. It was signed by the Harper government. Today Conservatives members want to draw the attention of people to that fact. The leverage the prime minister at the time had was that successive challenges by the United States to the Canadian softwood lumber regime at the WTO and NAFTA had failed. The WTO and NAFTA had supported the Canadian softwood lumber system. In fact, we were on the cusp of getting another decision by the WTO that experts thought would affirm the Canadian position.

Instead of getting to hear that ruling and the benefit that would accrue to Canadian producers by having that ruling on the books, the Harper government went off and cut a side deal. That deal left a billion dollars of the $5.4 billion, which were taken out of the pockets of Canadian producers, in the hands of the U.S. It had taken that money, and not rightfully. That is not just the NDP position; that is the opinion of NAFTA and WTO tribunals.

These are under agreements that we, frankly, do not always like. They were coming to the conclusion that Canada had been wronged by the United States, yet the rug was pulled out from under the feet of Canadian producers who wanted to get the money, which had been taken from them in unfair duties, back. The Harper government did not allow for that. It left a billion dollars of that money on the table.

The Harper government did it with another element of that story, which no one else seems to talk about today. It did it with a Liberal turned Conservative trade minister, David Emerson. Perhaps other parties in the House also want to explore that theme today. No only are the Liberals and Conservatives so close together on this issue, in their common failure to provide a lasting solution to softwood, even under the rubric of the WTO and NAFTA of which they were great supporters, but they felt comfortable using the same guy to negotiate for them on this file in the lead-up to and following the 2006 election.

With respect to this ingredient, we do need a lasting solution for Canadian softwood lumber producers, and it is incumbent on the government to deliver that. It has given us a lot of words, but not a lot of action. However, to hear that criticism coming from the Conservative Party, when it is pretty hard to distinguish the two on this file, is a little rich, too rich to soup me, that is for sure.

Grain is another aspect of this motion. It is quite different from softwood lumber, but nevertheless, here they are together. The issue there, as we started to discuss in questions and comments, is that the big crisis in grain transportation for western Canadian grain farmers occurred after the Canadian Wheat Board was abolished. Partly what we see here is Conservatives criticizing Liberals for failing to find a solution to a problem created by the Conservatives. They found a Band-Aid solution with legislation that is expiring soon, and the problem with the Liberal approach is that while they do suggest some solutions in Bill C-49, the House has yet to pronounce on the adequacy of those provisions. The problem is that it is unlikely those provisions are going to be passed before the expiration of the interim or Band-Aid solution offered by the Conservative Party.

I will remain neutral on whether or not what the Liberals are proposing would provide a lasting solution, but what is clear is that there is going to be a gap between the Liberals' proposed solution and the Conservatives' Band-Aid solution. That puts grain farmers, particularly western Canadian farmers, in a tight spot that they ought not to be in, because we could see this problem coming from a long way off. The Liberals had extended the Conservative Band-Aid solution once before, so they knew when the deadline was coming. The fact that they have not been able to put in place a more lasting solution in time for what is essentially their own deadline is sad. Canadian grain farmers deserve better.

The last bit of the soup has to do with carbon pricing, and this is the ingredient that the NDP finds most objectionable. It is not about criticizing the Liberals' approach to carbon pricing, but it tries to say that any form of carbon pricing, the very principle of carbon pricing, cannot work with a functional, growing economy. That is a claim that we simply reject.

I watched as all but one Conservative member voted last week in favour of a motion for this Parliament to support the Paris climate agreement. The idea that we could go on with our current policies, as the Conservatives advocate, in further development of the Alberta oil sands and pipelines and not put any price on carbon is just not feasible. This aspect of the motion stands in contradiction to the position that they took only last week with respect to the Paris accord. Something has to change in terms of Canada's environmental policy if we are going to make good on our commitments under the Paris climate agreement. That much is clear.

When we get into the details, it does not take long before a lot of controversy is sparked, and there is certainly a lot of fair criticism that one can level at the government for its lack of concrete action.

For instance, if we are going to meet our Paris accord commitments, clearly we would need targets to get us there, but we do not have targets. We have the inadequate targets of the previous Stephen Harper government that the Liberals ran against, but the Liberals have not provided newer, more ambitious targets, so there is a clear problem in how we are going to get there.

In my view, part of the problem with the Liberals' carbon pricing plan is that they have given all the responsibility for implementation to the provinces, which means it may be implemented differently in different parts of the country. This situation raises the issue of equity between provinces, and Canadians living in some provinces may live under a different carbon pricing regime from Canadians living in other provinces. That is a real issue, and it is not one that the Liberals have managed to adequately address.

There is an equity issue as well in terms of people on low or fixed incomes being disproportionately affected by a carbon tax. Other governments, such as the NDP government in Alberta, have sought to address this issue by bringing in a rebate program for low-income people that operates along the same principles as our GST rebate. It is not an insurmountable problem and it is one we could address, except that the Liberal government's approach has been to divest itself of all responsibility for implementation and put it onto the provinces. Once again, whether people will be disproportionately affected by this tax will depend on whether they live under the NDP in Alberta or live under governments in other parts of the country.

There is a lot to talk about and there is a lot to criticize. It is very disappointing to read in international papers this weekend, for instance, about Angela Merkel looking for support within the G20, thinking she could count on our current Prime Minister to stand up to Donald Trump on climate, and finding that she cannot.

It flies in the face of the motion that the Liberals themselves presented in the House last week to affirm our commitment to the Paris accord, a motion that we all supported nearly unanimously. Now we see that the Liberals' actions do not meet their words. It is Kyoto all over again.

We need to do better, but I do not think this motion is about a good-faith attempt to solve that problem.