Bill C-33

Strengthening the Port System and Railway Safety in Canada Act

An Act to amend the Customs Act, the Railway Safety Act, the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992, the Marine Transportation Security Act, the Canada Transportation Act and the Canada Marine Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act

This enactment amends several Acts in order to strengthen the port system and railway safety in Canada.
The enactment amends the Customs Act to require that, on request, any person in possession or control of imported goods make those goods available for examination in accordance with regulations and deliver those goods, or cause them to be delivered, to a secure area that meets the requirements set out in regulation.
The enactment also amends the Railway Safety Act to, among other things,
(a) add a definition of “safety” that includes the concept of security;
(b) prohibit interference with any railway work, railway equipment or railway operation, or damage or destruction of any railway work or railway equipment, without lawful excuse, in a manner that threatens the safety of railway operations;
(c) prohibit behaviour that endangers or risks endangering the safety of a station, railway equipment or individuals who are at the station or on board the railway equipment and unruly behaviour toward employees, agents or mandataries of a company;
(d) authorize the Minister to order a company to take necessary corrective measures if the Minister believes that
(i) a measure taken by the company in relation to a requirement of a regulation made under subsection 18(2.1) has deficiencies that risk compromising the security of railway transportation,
(ii) the security management system developed by the company has deficiencies that risk compromising railway security, or
(iii) the implementation of the company’s security management system has deficiencies that risk compromising railway security;
(e) authorize the Minister to grant, refuse to grant, suspend or cancel a transportation security clearance;
(f) strengthen the administrative monetary penalty regime; and
(g) require a review of the operation of the Act every five years.
The enactment also amends the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992 to, among other things,
(a) require persons who import, offer for transport, handle or transport dangerous goods to register with the Minister;
(b) provide to the Minister powers relating to the management of safety risks; and
(c) establish an administrative monetary penalty regime.
The enactment also amends the Marine Transportation Security Act to, among other things,
(a) set out the Act’s purpose and allow the Minister of Transport to enter into agreements with organizations in respect of the administration and enforcement of the Act;
(b) set out regulation-making powers that include powers respecting threats and risks to the health of persons involved in the marine transportation system, the sharing of information and the establishment of vessel exclusion zones;
(c) authorize the Minister to make interim orders and give emergency directions and modify the Minister’s power to give directions to vessels; and
(d) create new offences, increase certain penalties and extend the application of certain offences and the administrative monetary penalty regime to vessels.
The enactment also amends the Canada Transportation Act to, among other things,
(a) specify that the Minister may use electronic systems in making decisions or determinations under an Act of Parliament that the Minister administers or enforces and provide that a power of entry into a place under such an Act may be exercised remotely by means of telecommunications; and
(b) reduce the threshold above which the Minister and the Commissioner of Competition must receive notice of proposed transactions relating to a port.
The enactment also amends the Canada Marine Act to, among other things,
(a) set out that port authorities are responsible for management of traffic and create regulatory authorities respecting fees and information and data sharing in respect of that management;
(b) provide the minister with the power to require, by order, the taking of measures to prevent imminent harm to national security, national economic security, or competition; and
(c) require port authorities to establish advisory committees, which must include representatives from local Indigenous communities, require periodic assessments of port authorities’ governance practices and set out new requirements respecting plans and reports relating to climate change.
Finally, it makes a consequential amendment to the Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada Act .

Motions in Amendment

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 123

That Bill C-33 be amended by deleting Clause 121.

Motion No. 124

That Bill C-33 be amended by deleting Clause 122.

Motion No. 125

That Bill C-33 be amended by deleting Clause 123.

Motion No. 126

That Bill C-33 be amended by deleting Clause 124.

Motion No. 127

That Bill C-33 be amended by deleting Clause 125.

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise and to have numerous amendments in my name. I am proud to be working hard on behalf of the people of Northumberland—Peterborough South.

As some may know, I am the newly minted shadow minister for transportation for our side. I was on the finance committee, and we spent a lot of our time studying the economy. I even did so in my career before that. I just want to put things in context in terms of where the Canadian economy currently is. I will relate that back to transportation and to the bill; I hope we will have an understanding of why Conservatives, and really all right-thinking folks, cannot support the legislation in good conscience.

Let us wind back the clock to April 30, 2014. The New York Times put out the article “Life in Canada, Home of the World's Most Affluent Middle Class”. Does that not seem long ago? It was when Canadians could afford housing, when there were available and affordable rents, when food was at a reasonable cost, when the dream of Canada seemed as alive as ever and when the promise of Canada was shining perhaps brighter than ever in Canada's history.

We then heard from a Liberal candidate at the time who said that better was always possible. That is true, but we found out that, in this case, better was certainly not the result. We have seen this both empirically and subjectively. We have seen that GDP per capita, which is perhaps the best measure of the standard of living for Canadians, has flatlined. Over the last decade, the standard of living, or the GDP per capita, has seen zero growth.

We will hear from members of the opposition who say that this is because we are stuck in a bad world economy. We have had the pandemic and other events; there is no way we could have possibly done better. However, that is just simply not true. We can compare those numbers to other benchmarks. One easy benchmark for us is that of the United States of America, which is geographically quite close and shares many things in common with Canada.

During that same time, in the United States, the GDP per capita grew by nearly 19%. The GDP per capita is, in many ways, a substitute or an equivalent measure of our standard of living. We know, in contrasting and comparing it to peer nations, that Canada has done exceedingly poorly and that we are on a trajectory that leads us down a very dark path.

Let us also compare the case historically. Perhaps there have been other times when we have had these challenges and emerged on the other side brighter. Maybe we were paying this price for a reason. Unfortunately, the damning truth is that our GDP per capita has not grown this little since the Great Depression. We had decades and decades of going through tumultuous world events and recessions. We have never seen a standard of living flatline or, in real terms, decline as we have under the Liberal government.

We have talked about where the Canadian economy, over the last nine years, ranks in history. We have benchmarked it now with the United States of America. Let us look at them both. Back in 1984, the Canadian economy was producing 88% of the value generated by a U.S. worker per hour. By 2022, that collapsed to 71%. It is actually quite well known why this is. The problem has been diagnosed by many, including the deputy of the Bank of Canada, Carolyn Rogers. She said that we are in a productivity crisis and that this is a “break glass” moment for the Canadian economy.

That is after nine years of a complete lack of care for productivity, which not only underlines our GDP per capita but also, more importantly, powers our economy and our standard of living. We have professionals, non-partisan and arguably non-biased economists, saying from coast to coast that the Liberal government has led us to this productivity decline and, therefore, the flatlining of the standard of living. Of course, those who are wealthy have not done too poorly, but those in the middle class have suffered. I see it in my riding every day. We see individuals who used to donate to food banks and are now clients of food banks. Two million Canadians are going to food banks every day.

One key factor of any economy, something that has provided a real lift throughout history, is transportation. In fact, there is perhaps no better example than Canada and the construction of our railway. Transportation can power and transform an economy. It can take an economy from one that is lagging to one that is succeeding. What is the record, after nine years, of the Liberal government? We have seen inaction and incompetence, probably in equal parts. What happens is that, in an economy, there are factories and people producing things. However, that matters very little if we cannot get those products and services to market. Unfortunately, that continues to be a tremendous challenge here in Canada. We see almost constant work stoppages because of the Liberal government's failure to effectively manage ports, airports and other transport sectors. We see its inability to get major projects built to get our valuable resources to market.

As if it were not enough to have legislation that has acted to prevent growth and kneecap our own economy, such as the no-pipeline bills and other legislation, we have now decided to bring in legislation that promotes bureaucracy over productivity. Over the last hundred years, if we have any doubt, we have seen the impact of bureaucracy on productivity. We have an absolute slam dunk case. I have no doubt that, in 20 or 50 years' time there will be people studying this decade. They will look at this in history and say that we had a country with an amazing economy. The New York Times said that we were the most affluent middle class in the world, but in just 10 short years, we saw a government actively work against its own people to develop our economy and increase productivity.

Let us talk a bit about Bill C-33 specifically. I am always a big fan of listening to experts, as opposed to politicians. Thus, I want to read into the record some quotes from individuals, folks who are actually on the ground. These are the boots, not the suits, who are talking about it.

The CEO of the Association of Canadian Port Authorities said:

The concern for the smaller ports really was in the heavy reporting that's associated with the bill. It'll be a question mark on whether this will be a lot of new work that's required or if it's a repackaging of material that's already being provided.

One of our larger ports actually said they'd have to hire [multiple] full-time people. This was going to cost them [hundreds of thousands of] dollars a year.

This is one of a million productivity cuts that are slowing down our economy.

I want to read one more thing here from the executive vice-president of the Trois-Rivières Port Authority. He states, “Bill C-33 and its extension, Bill C‑52, restrict the Trois-Rivières Port Authority's ability to fulfill the mission entrusted to it by the Canada Marine Act.”

We see over and over again that the Liberal government is standing in the way of Canadians realizing their dreams and of the Canadian economy realizing its potential.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

There are 127 motions in amendment standing on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-33. Motions Nos. 1 to 127 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

I will now put Motions Nos. 1 to 127 to the House.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-33, an Act to amend the Customs Act, the Railway Safety Act, the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992, the Marine Transportation Security Act, the Canada Transportation Act and the Canada Marine Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, as reported (with amendments) from the committee.

Business of the House

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Yes, Madam Speaker, by popular demand, I am back. I really missed these exchanges. Some of our great moments are on Thursdays, not just for CPAC viewers, but also for you and me personally, I know. Therefore it is wonderful to exchange and wonderful to be back. I want to wish members a good return. I hope everybody had a productive and happy time with their families and their constituents in their ridings.

This afternoon, we will resume second reading debate of Bill C-66, the military justice system modernization act.

Tomorrow, we will begin the report stage debate of Bill C-33, the strengthening the port system and railway safety in Canada act.

On Monday, we will begin second reading debate of Bill C-63, the online harms act.

Madam Speaker, you will be very happy to know that next Wednesday we will also be resuming second reading debate of Bill C-71, which would amend the Citizenship Act.

I would also like to take the opportunity to inform the House that both next Tuesday and next Thursday shall be allotted days.

Furthermore, on Monday, the Minister of Finance will table a ways and means motion on capital gains taxation that incorporates the feedback received during consultations over the summer. The vote will take place on Wednesday of next week during Government Orders.

[Wade Sobkowich, Executive Director, Western Grain Elevator Association]

Thank you.

The Western Grain Elevator Association is a national association of grain companies that handle over 90% of our country's bulk grain shipments. Grain transportation makes up roughly 20% of total railway revenue each year, making the WGEA members some of the largest users of Canada's railways and marine ports. Our thanks to you, Madam Chair, and the members of the committee for inviting us on this very important topic.

Canada's ability to compete in global markets hinges on our ability to rail product from the interior of our country to tidewater ports. The efficacy of rail service is therefore a critical component to the success of our supply chains. Air travellers in Canada often experience plane cancellations and delays, missed connections, lost luggage, exorbitant charges and lacklustre travel options. Now imagine there was only one airline available at an airport. That's our reality in rail service.

Above all else, financial accountability and enhanced competitive access regulations for the railways for service performance failures is required. Monetary penalties payable to the shipper for poor service would incentivize railways to put plans in place to avoid them. In addition, measures like extended interswitching that inserts competition creates a threat of loss of business that will drive better rail service.

We also need to recognize the importance of marine ports and vessel traffic to the national economy. With a growing crop, we face the challenge of moving more product each year. This is not a situation of trying to find ways to do more with less. In practical terms, we need to find a way to have more vessels ready to load in the port of Vancouver primarily. It's Canada's largest working port designed for commerce and must first and foremost be viewed through that lens.

Instead, we have Bill C-33 that is going to create a regulated system to restrict the presence of vessels in Canada's ports. Regulators and parliamentarians currently see the presence of vessels in ports and the operation of terminal facilities as a negative. On one hand, we're told Canada wants the economic benefits from exports to worldwide markets, but on the other hand, we're told there are too many vessels in ports and that activities associated with normal vessel loading are a problem.

Bill C-33 only addresses the symptom of vessel wait times, ignoring the root cause of inadequate rail service. If the federal government intends on passing legislation that positively impacts supply chains, it must primarily look at railcar supply from railways versus railcar demand from exporters on a week-to-week basis and introduce legislation that disciplines railways to meet that demand. Opportunity for Canada's exports must be set by customers, not by railways.

Labour disruptions for railway and port services are also hampering Canada's ability to reliably deliver to customers. Canada is about to face a strike on both national railways at the same time, and the consequences are going to be devastating. When strikes or lockouts occur at railways and ports, huge swaths of the economy suffer, not just those in the bargaining process. In a competitive environment, customers can find other options to minimize disruptions. Since railways and ports in the grain sector are singular options, the same threat of loss of business is not present. There are no competitive alternatives.

Whether it's wheat and oats for bakeries or pasta and breakfast cereal manufacturers, or canola and soybeans for vegetable oil, our products are the basis for everyday staple foods. Even short disruptions of supply chains can affect product availability and price, something the pandemic has demonstrated the world over. In this respect, the flow of essential goods necessary for the maintenance and preservation of Canada's domestic food and feed supply and global food security is required even when labour disruptions occur. The requirement for a maintenance of services agreement to be in place prior to a labour stoppage would become automatic with Bill C-58. We believe that parliamentarians should explicitly require these agreements to include movement of essential food products.

The national supply chain task force identified that over the next 50 years, investments of $4.4 trillion in marine and transportation infrastructure will be required to meet the projected growth in population. There is a critical need to step up investment in port infrastructure in Vancouver, especially to address fluidity, particularly with the addition of tanker traffic. There is also an undeniable need for Canada to scrutinize its regulatory and permitting framework, which is unnecessarily rigid, redundant, antiquated and inhibits commercial investments to improve supply chains.

Thank you.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Of course, we've had a discussion. I moved a motion related to M-96 in this committee during our study on Bill C-33, when we proposed having the International Association of Fire Fighters, the Canadian Airports Council and others come before this committee to discuss the impacts that making a change of this nature would have. If we're proposing to have a discussion, I think we could have that discussion.

I would also say we've been waiting to have this meeting regarding the Lake Erie connector for a number of months now, so I would move that we adjourn debate on this motion. Perhaps we can have a discussion at a business meeting. However, I don't think we should get into the debate at this time.

[Robert Dick]

Good afternoon.

I am pleased to appear before the committee on behalf of Transport Canada in my capacity as head of the national supply chain office.

I am joined by my colleagues Colin Stacey, who is also with the office, and Christian Dea, chief economist and director general of transportation economic analysis.

I would like to begin by acknowledging that I am speaking with you today from the traditional unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations.

As technology and transportation systems advance and the world economy becomes more connected and integrated, Canadian businesses are adapting to take advantage of the global factory and marketplace. They are also major suppliers of a number of goods the world depends on, from agriculture and agri-food to fertilizer and critical minerals.

As you can appreciate, Canadian producers can’t access global opportunities without transportation and logistics operators moving the goods each step of the way. Keeping the transportation supply chain flowing smoothly and efficiently isn't just essential for Canadian goods to reach international markets. It also keeps manufacturing costs down, which allows Canadian companies to price more competitively. For Canadian families, more efficient supply chains translate to more affordable goods that they use in their daily lives.

Although Canada’s supply chains work well most of the time, we have not seen significant improvements in productivity within the network in recent years, despite growing demands for access to the global marketplace.

We have also seen in recent years how vulnerable our transportation system can be to disruptions, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and geopolitical conflicts. Given that future disruptions and trends are hard to predict, government leadership is needed to bring parties together to build the resiliency of our systems while also working towards more efficient and globally connected supply chains.

As a result, our former minister of transport appointed a national supply chain task force in 2022, charged with consulting broadly to gain industry perspectives on ways to improve Canada’s supply chains.

The final recommendations of the task force and Budget 2023 laid the groundwork to establish a national supply chain office.

Minister Rodriguez officially launched the office on December 1, 2023, with the foremost goal of increasing the fluidity, efficiency, resilience and reliability of Canada's supply chains through collaboration with industry, labour, other orders of government and other partners.

The work of the office will build upon the government’s recent investments in the trade and transportation systems, through the national trade corridor fund, and our ongoing effort to reform key legislation underpinning the network, such as through Bill C-33, which seeks to strengthen the port system and railway safety in Canada.

Over time, the work of this office will contribute to advancing other government priorities, including improving the affordability of goods for Canadians, more competitively priced export goods in foreign markets, and greening transport systems.

As we advance the work of the office, our key priorities are providing overarching leadership, coordination and external outreach to examine, and respond to, specific domestic and international supply chain issues, including during disruptions; supporting data sharing and digitalization as part of work to optimize systems and ensure smarter decisions; and developing and implementing a national strategy to drive collaboration across sectors on shared priorities.

Canada's supply chains are intricate and ever-changing. The office is working to understand the logistical and analytical needs of Canada's transportation sector operators and stakeholders, both geographically and for specific value chains. This includes talking directly to those in the know. Through external outreach, we will strengthen our understanding of what capacity is needed to support major projects, where system bottlenecks are, and what sorts of implications regulatory or legislative changes could have on operations.

Our engagement with the private sector will ensure that the government understands the industry perspective. To that end, we are also bringing industry expertise on board within the office.

Given Canada’s position as a trading nation, we fully appreciate the importance of healthy supply chains to the country’s economy and Canadian companies’ success in international markets. While this work will take time, we will take action on the domestic front to ensure that Canadian firms are well placed to connect with global opportunities.

I will conclude my opening remarks here. I'll of course be happy to entertain any questions.

Merci.

Transport, Infrastructure and Communities

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 16th report of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in relation to BillC-33, An Act to amend the Customs Act, the Railway Safety Act, the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992, the Marine Transportation Security Act, the Canada Transportation Act and the Canada Marine Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I do believe that a map has been drawn up to confirm the boundaries. That was confirmed with the legislative clerks and the drafters who worked on the amendment at a couple of stages.

Maybe “legislative clerk” is the wrong word. The drafters insisted that we map out the coordinates as part of the exercise so that we could confirm that the areas do indeed reflect the areas of concern. We can provide that map if it's of interest to the committee.

With regard to Mr. Strahl's comments, what we also heard over the course of the debate on this bill was that one goal of Bill C-33—the government has assured us of this—is to make the supply chain more efficient. It's going to reduce congestion at ports and reduce the need for anchorages because of all of the many things that they've jammed in here to give the government additional powers to reduce blockages and direct traffic. Ports are moving towards active traffic management systems that are going to make them more like airports in regard to directing marine traffic.

I think all of those things are going to dramatically reduce the likelihood that we'll find ourselves in a situation similar to the one we found ourselves in during the pandemic, which saw an extraordinary amount of traffic backed up and anchored in areas, which had real negative impacts on people and on the environment.

Maybe we'll agree to disagree on this one. I know that this matter has a tremendous amount of support from the residents of those communities. They feel very strongly about this. We are talking about a very unique and precious part of the British Columbian coast that's home to all sorts of important species, including southern resident killer whales, chinook salmon and other species of concern.

I'll leave it at that and hopefully we can move on to a vote.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This amendment is simply the schedule, including the coordinates of the areas of concern in the southern Gulf Islands in British Columbia. I'll note that these coordinates reflect Parks Canada's proposed national marine conservation area for the Salish Sea and the ecologically and biologically significant area identified by Fisheries and Oceans Canada. These are also areas that have been identified by the communities of the Gulf Islands as being of concern.

Our amendment does not prevent anchorage in those areas, it simply limits the duration of anchorage to two weeks and empowers the minister to require vessels to move along after a two-week period. We've seen long stays in those ecologically sensitive areas, and the residents of that area are extremely concerned about the impact of industrial traffic—marine traffic—not only on the ecology but on the quality of life in those rural communities.

I know Ms. Gladu offered to debate every latitude and longitude—which, as a former geography major, I would be happy to engage with—but given that we have already voted on the spirit of the amendment, I would hope we could pass this in due course and finish our work on Bill C-33.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

I know we had some internal back and forth. Again, I'm not sure whether the legislative clerk could provide some guidance on what those discussions look like. I know that not all of the Bill C‑33 process has been collaborative, but this was one we all agreed we were going to look for some guidance on.

I would be willing to hear a time frame that is acceptable. If 12 months is too short.... It seemed like a reasonable time. I can't amend my own amendment, but there was some agreement, as I recall—back when we were discussing this—that vacancies are unacceptable after a certain length of time and there should be a remedy provided.

I don't know whether any colleagues are just going to vote this down, or whether we can make this work. I don't have the blues in front of me, but there was discussion about putting it into the hands of officials to capture what we were trying to come up with.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

I'm unsure what we eventually came to. We gave this back to officials for them to come up with a way to get us where we wanted to go, which was to provide a remedy for lengthy vacancies where appointments have not been made—in some cases, as we heard, for several years. It was to provide an incentive, perhaps, for a minister to make those appointments in a timely fashion. It was suggested that six months was too short a time period, so we talked about one year.

Then we wanted to ensure that any amendments made to the bill—there were amendments made to the composition of boards, the nomination processes, etc.—would not be lost, and that it wouldn't be a way for boards to avoid their responsibilities under Bill C‑33, should it pass, and the changes that were made in terms of labour nominating directors, etc.

I don't know. We threw it back into the laps of the officials and legislative clerks. I'm not sure what they came up with, or whether they have any further comments. We stood it because we didn't want to get locked in on the six months. We wanted to make sure the changes made through the work of this committee were reflected and that this wasn't an end-around on the other nominating requirements.

I'll throw it back to the officials for commentary and would be willing to discuss the best way forward with colleagues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 97 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. Pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, September 26, 2023, the committee is meeting to continue with the clause‑by‑clause consideration of Bill C‑33.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons. The members can attend in person in the room or remotely using the Zoom application.

Colleagues, although this room is equipped with a powerful audio system, feedback events can occur. These can be extremely harmful to our interpreters and cause serious injuries. The most common cause of sound feedback is an earpiece worn too close to a microphone. We therefore ask all participants to exercise a high degree of caution when handling the earpieces, especially when your microphone or your neighbour's microphone is turned on. In order to prevent incidents and safeguard the hearing health of the interpreters, I invite all members, as well as our witnesses, to ensure that they speak into the microphone into which their headset is plugged and avoid manipulating the earbuds by placing them on the table, away from the microphone, when they are not in use.

Colleagues and witnesses, when speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your microphone should be on mute. That's just a quick reminder there.

Colleagues, to help us with clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C‑33, I would like to now welcome back our witnesses, who have done a steadfast job thus far. We have, from the Department of Transport, Sonya Read, director general, marine policy. We have Heather Moriarty, director, ports policy. We have Rachel Heft, manager and senior counsel, transport and infrastructure legal services, and we have Amy Kaufman, counsel.

Once again we have joining us our legislative clerks, Philippe Méla and Jean-François Pagé.

Thank you again for being here.

Colleagues, I hope you had a wonderful break.

We'll now dive in with clause 125 with a CPC amendment. With that, I will open the floor for the first time in 2024.

Oh, it's 124, yes. We'll open up debate.

(On clause 124)

Go ahead, Mr. Badawey.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

My apologies, Dr. Lewis. The floor is yours.

As I was saying, what is very concerning is that Canada is one of the few G20 nations without a firm regulatory framework around cybersecurity. It's essential at this point, when we're looking at Bill C-33 and Bill C-26, that we keep in mind the need for Canada to act to protect the nation's critical infrastructure and the interconnectedness of these two bills.

We also know that in 2016, member states of the EU passed what was called the most comprehensive cybersecurity bill in the history of the EU. The bill was called the NIS Directive. The EU cybersecurity rules, which were introduced in 2016, were updated and later ratified in 2023. They continue to modernize and create this legal framework, which I think is quite instructive in the Canadian context. It keeps up and it increases the digitization...and the evolving cybersecurity threat, which is something we are attempting to grapple with in the present bills we are contemplating.

Expanding the scope of cybersecurity rules in the new sectors and entities further improves the resilience. We have dealt with resilience in the infrastructure context in this committee. This is also a very important part of what we're talking about in Bill C-33.

We have seen the problems that a huge infrastructure gap can cause, and one of the problems is the ongoing lack of transparency. We have seen, in our situation with the taxpayer-funded Canada Infrastructure Bank, an unacceptable performance over the last seven years. We want to build mechanisms into Bill C-33 to make sure we're not falling into the same traps and shortcomings we've had with other legislation.

Moreover, we have provisions in Bill C-33 that also raise concerns on cybersecurity and response capabilities of the public and private sector entities and competent authorities. In the case that I was discussing before, the EU as a whole can be used as an example of a model that Canada could adopt. When we're contemplating this bill, I think we should look at enabling legislation from different jurisdictions.

We know that most G7 member states are under the umbrella of the EU. The U.S. and the U.K. and Japan have separately implemented cybersecurity regulations to differing degrees, which I think are also instructive in how we confuse Bill C-33 with Bill C-26.

We also have to look at Canadian businesses and how they continue to be impacted by malicious cybersecurity and cyber-activity. This ranges from cyber-attacks to ransomware, and even things that we are exposed to on an everyday basis.

Many of these attacks include those on critical infrastructure. That accounts for nearly half of the attacks, and many of those go unreported.

This is very concerning. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security has identified attacks on operations networks. They've also identified attacks on how it would impact the physical safety of Canadians. That was published in their biennial publication, the “National Cyber Threat Assessment”.

Now, in this context, when we look at the Ministry of Public Safety, we know that they acted to introduce new legislation, Bill C-26, an act respecting cyber security. I believe it was at the first stage in Parliament sometime in November 2022, and it went through second reading, I think, on March 27, 2023. Bill C-26 currently sits in committee. I believe it's going into law, if it hasn't done so already. When we look at where it is, going through the committee stage, and we look at the fact that Bill C-33 is contemplating sections of this bill, we know that it's very important for us to focus on it, because it may have the capacity of adding teeth to the governance and compliance structure of cybersecurity in Bill C-33.

It's very important that we look at the interconnectedness of these two bills, especially inasmuch as is needed in the area of operational technology where critical infrastructure lies.

Although we don't know how the bill is going to necessarily impact on Bill C-33, between the absence of similar legislation in Canada.... We don't know what the impact is going to be, because this is new. This is untested territory, but we know there is an increasing trend toward increased cybersecurity regulation among our international peers.

Having practised international law for a number of years, I can see the importance of Canadian businesses being prepared. Contemplation of this aspect of the bill and how it will be infused in Bill C-33 is very important at this time.

Canada does not have an overarching governing cybersecurity legislation, let alone require the reporting of vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure breaches, which is extremely problematic. Bill C-26 would empower some regulators to impose fines or issue some summary convictions to ensure governance and compliance. This is something that my colleague, Mr. Kurek, spoke about. It's critical to turn our minds to that, especially as we contemplate this bill.

Now I'll go back to Bill C-26. In its current form it includes four critical infrastructure sections, which I think are related to the transportation aspect of Bill C-33. When we look at the transportation corridors that are contemplated in Bill C-33, we see, in Bill C-26, that it's very important to look at these four critical infrastructure sectors: telecommunications, finance, energy and transportation.

The requirements for organizations in these sections are threefold.

First is to implement, maintain and report on the cybersecurity program, which will essentially address the risks across organizations. It will address the risk in third party services. It will address the risk in supply chain—

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Kurek. You ended on the exact note that I'm going to start on.

I want to thank my colleagues for highlighting the interconnectedness between Bill C-33 and Bill C-26. My colleagues covered the importance of parliamentary supremacy, checks and balances and the need to keep the executive branch in check. Mr. Kurek ended on the note of the importance of upholding critical infrastructure and ensuring that bills are conducive to that.

I'm quite concerned at this time about this particular bill and how it impacts on infrastructure and cybersecurity. I read a very good article on infrastructure and cybersecurity. It was by Frank Lawrence and Eric Jensen, published in the Fortinet journal.

When I read the article, what was concerning to me was that it revealed that Canada is among those G7 and G20 nations without a firm regulatory framework around cybersecurity. Canada must act to protect the nation's critical infrastructure assets, and the only way to do that is what we're doing here today—