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 .

Strengthening the Port System and Railway Safety in Canada Act

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my Liberal colleague's speech earlier. Obviously, words matter. One part of his speech caught my attention, and I would like to go back to it.

He said that one of the bill's objectives is to ensure that port boards have the right people, that the right people are sitting at the table. Who are these right people? Does he mean to say that the people there now are not the right people? Does he mean that the wrong people were appointed in the past?

The government actually has the authority to make numerous appointments to the boards of directors. In fact, this bill specifically discusses the appointment of port board chairs.

In the minds of members on the other side, does “the right people” mean Liberal Party supporters?

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the work we do here is for the people. It is about the people. We need to listen and collaborate.

In no way does the bill say they have to be from one party or another. What I said was they need to represent the communities that are impacted by the supply chain. We saw the negative impacts of this during COVID. We need to see to the needs of the people who are operating on these corridors and take their advice. We need experts from the industries. Those are the people we need to listen to.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is a fantastic home. Our country spans more than half of the northern hemisphere and crosses more than six time zones. It is quite incredible. We are the second-largest country by way of geographical size and have the most extensive coastline, spanning more than 240,000 kilometres. It is amazing.

Our home is vast, and the early years of Confederation were spent ensuring that our nation would be built in such a way that it would allow all of this land to be united. From coast to coast, Canadians built infrastructure that was necessary to move goods from one end of our country to the other and to equip themselves to be able to send our goods across the water to other countries. Rail, of course, played an incredible role in this and continues to play a role in our country's ability to get trade goods to market and within the confines of own country.

The project of our very first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, was a masterpiece of sorts. It was the Canadian Pacific Railway, which was meant to unite us as a nation. It was meant to serve our economic well-being as a country, and it did just that. In fact, it was so visionary that it continues to do just that.

Rail and national infrastructure were pivotal to how our nation was built, and we remain united today. As these means of transport and infrastructure were set up, both on the national and subnational levels, our economy grew and we fashioned ourselves as a nation committed to trading. To this day, we are an export nation. It keeps us strong, but only as much as our infrastructure is strong.

Canada is blessed with a plethora of natural resources, abundant land and incredibly hard-working people who will get the job done, that is, when the government frees them up to do so. Canadians work hard. They work hard between every coast in this country to build, grow, harvest, mine and collect the fruits of their labour and then get it to market. Our domestic economy feeds and fuels the world. In fact, there is such great capacity in this regard that I truly wish the government would get out of the way and allow us to excel.

Nevertheless, our rails and ports provide the means for our industries to deliver what Canada has to offer to the world and to bring to Canada what the world has to offer to us. The infrastructure across our great land provides the opportunity for every worker, farmer, business owner and their family to be sustained. It allows them to get the goods they need for their households and their businesses.

Rail is literally in the centre of my home city of Lethbridge. We are home to the High Level Bridge, which spans the Oldman River. It is the largest railroad structure in Canada and the longest trestle bridge in the world. It is at the core of our centre.

Canada's railways and ports are more than just the infrastructure that gets stuff from point A to point B. Infrastructure is a piece of the Canadian nation-building legacy, and it is the vital artery of our economy, which is not just our present but also our future. To believe in our infrastructure and keeping it strong is to believe in the Canadian people, our country and its vibrancy going forward, because without a thriving economy we cannot have a thriving people. Without infrastructure to get product to market, we cannot have a thriving economy. Therefore, infrastructure is essential to our economy, which is essential to the strength of our people and this dear country we love.

Let me be clear. Our infrastructure in this country has its fair challenges, in particular infrastructure around transportation, so I understand the desire to address those challenges, fix problems and look for greater efficiencies and greater effectiveness. However, this bill does not do that. This bill does not answer the call that was put out for meaningful change. Overall, this bill is an abysmal failure in that regard.

Bill C-33 is a failed attempt to strengthen the port system and railway safety. It amends several acts in order to do that. It was drafted in response to the Railway Safety Act review and the ports modernization review.

It was delivered with promises to improve affordability, to improve safety and to improve efficiency, and it was delivered by a minister who is no longer functioning in that capacity. I wonder if that is perhaps a bit symbolic of the confidence we should have in the bill. More than that, the draft of the bill, the content of the bill, speaks for itself in terms of how much confidence we should have in it.

Bill C-33 fails in so many ways to address the issues that are at play. For starters, it fails to address the urgent need to alleviate supply chain congestion. This was outlined in the final report put forward by the national supply chain task force. Stakeholders have said that there is nothing in this bill that would improve supply chain efficiencies. For example, there is nothing in this bill to address labour disputes that impact supply chains.

Furthermore, the bill does not solve long-standing issues between railway shippers and railway companies. There is also nothing in the bill to address the Port of Vancouver's inability to load grain in the rain. Folks, let us be clear here: It is Vancouver; it rains all the time. If we cannot load in the rain, when are we loading? If we are not loading, how are we getting product to market? Wait. We are not. That is why we basically have a congested parking lot known as the Port of Vancouver.

It is a problem. It is driving up the cost of goods and is making it so that some of our store shelves do not have products on them to begin with. This bill had the opportunity to address some of these key issues, but it failed.

I hear all the time from those in my riding about their frustrations concerning these things. They simply want to get their product to market in a reasonable fashion. Farmers want to get their grain onto trains so those trains can go to ports and those ports can let others take the commodity across the ocean. That is how this needs to work. That was the potential of this bill. It had the potential to address these issues.

It is a failure in and of itself that it did not. However, on top of that, the bill decided to heap on even more bureaucracy and more red tape to make things even more difficult. Not only did it fail to solve the issue, but it actually creates more issues. There is a good piece of legislation for everyone.

As I mentioned, our port is already a mess, but the government has decided to apply a bit more red tape to see how much more of a mess it can create, so out comes Bill C-33. In this bill, the government decided to implement a new advisory committee. No doubt this could restrict ports in making decisions to improve their capacity and efficiency. That is a problem.

Bill C-33 would also increase the ministerial authority to appoint the chair of port authorities, therefore reducing the independence of our ports, which are supposed to operate at arm's length from the government. Additional ministerial powers would limit local decision-making and would lead to further delays in the modernization of our ports. In the end, the overly prescriptive and bureaucratic red tape would increase costs, which would then be passed on to consumers, consumers who are already paying through the roof due to the government's inflationary spending and carbon tax.

Clarifying that the railway blockade is illegal certainly will not reduce disruption. Imposing a one-size-fits-all approach to ports and to railways across the country does not recognize the unique challenges faced in this vast nation. The entire bill is symbolic of a government that is incredibly out of touch and not willing to listen to the true needs of this nation. For this reason, I will not be voting in favour of the bill, and I would urge the House to act in the same way.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is one thing I did not get a chance to bring up in my speech, but my colleague from Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques mentioned it. The Conservatives are criticizing the fact that the ports will have additional red tape imposed on them. That is a concern we share.

We agree with the Conservatives that the bill does not meet the expectations of port representatives. The representatives made certain requests, but none of them are included in the bill. That said, we do see value in some of the additional accountability measures, such as the idea of setting up advisory committees to forge links with cities, local residents and indigenous communities and to help develop climate change adaptation plans.

We have a question, however. The legislation imposes a one-size-fits-all approach. The same rule applies to everyone. The problem is that some ports, like the ones in Vancouver and Montreal, are bigger, while others, like the one in Saguenay, are quite a bit smaller. I am more familiar with Quebec than I am with Canada, but it seems to me that there must be small ports in other areas of Canada that might have more trouble than the others in dealing with these rules.

We would like to propose an asymmetrical approach so that the smaller ports are not forced to meet certain requirements, such as filing quarterly financial statements. Preparing those statements takes a lot of time, energy, financial resources and accounting work that could be put to better use in these smaller ports. The federal government does not need quarterly financial statements for small ports.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think where the hon. member, I and my colleagues can agree is that we are looking for that supply chain clog to be resolved. We are looking for greater efficiencies and effectiveness. We are looking to actually resolve the real problems that exist. I think where we agree is that the bill would not do that. In fact, it would not only fail to address the issues that currently exist, but the bill would create more problems.

My hon. colleague is highlighting the fact that a one-size-fits-all approach is being taken, as if every single port across the country is the exact same and therefore should be subjected to the same sort of scheme. We are this vast country. We are this vast land. We are this massive geographic nation. We have to come up with something different. There has to be something more efficient, more effective and more unto the service of Canadians rather than unto the service of bureaucracy.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I have a quick question. This bill is going to pass second reading and go on to the committee. I would be very interested, whether it would be directly through the committee or even through me, to hear the member's comments and/or amendments she would like to see made to the legislation. Maybe she can comment today on what specific amendments or changes she would make to really strengthen the legislation to then serve the purpose it is intended to serve.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, if I were eating in a restaurant, my server brought out a dish and maybe there were a couple of hairs or a fly in there, and I would send it back, I would not say to sprinkle some cheese on it and it would be fine. I would ask that the meal be tossed and that a new meal be brought to me. The same is true with the bill. Let us toss it, let us restart and let us get it right.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, there was a portion of the member's intervention where she described Nunavut to a tee. Because of the lack of investments that have been made in Nunavut, our economic opportunities have been well below the rest of Canada. Ports are an important opportunity for Nunavummiut to be part of generating and contributing to Canada's economy. With climate change, we have seen the Northwest Passage opening up a lot of traffic and therefore there is the need for more ports to be established in the Arctic region.

I wonder if the member agrees that when the bill comes to committee, we need to ensure there are witnesses called from the Arctic to ensure that Nunavut's unique needs will be met through the bill.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to visit Nunavut and 11 of its remote communities. It was an absolutely spectacular opportunity. I walked away with such an appreciation for the vastness of the north, and the uniqueness and specialness of that area.

One of the things I observed, and she is drawing attention to it, was the lack of access to goods and resources. It is putting those who call Nunavut home at a significant disadvantage compared to the rest of the country.

The whole vision behind national infrastructure, in particular the railroad and the ports, was to unite the country and give us equal access to goods, both in and out. I absolutely believe that we should be bringing witnesses forward who can testify to the fact that Nunavut has been underserved and that changes are needed in order to do better for the sake of our unity as a nation.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to join the debate today on Bill C-33, the strengthening the port system and railway safety in Canada act.

The parliamentary secretary asked a great question about how we could fix this bill once it went to committee. Being on the Standing Committee on Agriculture, the bill was very interesting to me, especially being from Saskatchewan where we are landlocked. The railways are an important mode of transportation for our commodities. It is a bit disappointing that this has missed the mark in improving the efficiency of the railway system and ports.

I will talk about agriculture for most of this speech, because it is interconnected between agriculture and our supply chains in our transportation system.

Like most of us did, I had a lot of time this summer to go around the riding and visit folks. I was able to get the member for Thornhill out to Regina this summer, and we got her on a combine. We were combining lentils just outside of Regina. We were also able to get the chief superintendent from the Depot Division, F division, on a combine as well. That day we were combining durum.

What these all have in common is that once they go from the field to the combine to the bins, the next step is to get them to the port. That is the transportation system we have in the country.

The thing that happens so often, almost like clockwork every winter, is a slowdown of the trains because they cannot pull as many cars because of the cold weather. We really need to focus on this and have more options available to get our commodities to market. We have heard this time and time again from producers across Saskatchewan and the Prairies.

I know my friend from Red Deer—Lacombe would hear many of the same complaints from producers and from the agriculture sector as a whole. They are very good at getting their yields off the field; the problem is getting them to port.

My colleague, the member for Lethbridge said it very well, that one of the aspects we were looking to strengthen is the efficiency of the port system. Not being able to load grain cars and ships in the rain in Vancouver is a substantial problem. This could have been addressed in this legislation to strengthen it.

Bill C-33 would amend seven existing laws, including the Canadian Marine Act, the Customs Act, the Canada Transportation Act, the Railway Safety Act, the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, the Marine Transportation Security Act and the Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada.

My colleague from Lethbridge talked about the ever-increasing bureaucracy and red tape that was added in this current iteration of Bill C-33. We do not need more red tape when it comes to our ports. I think everyone in this chamber would agree that we have to be more efficient at transporting our goods. Canada is an exporting economy. We see that now more than ever in Saskatchewan.

We have some big players in Saskatchewan. The head office of Viterra in Saskatchewan. I talked to its CEO and he put it very clearly that we needed more efficiency at the Port of Vancouver. We did talk about this bill a little this summer when we ran into each other. He was looking forward to seeing what was in it. I had a chance to give him a call the other day and he was quite disappointed. In fact, many stakeholders have been disappointed in what this bill has provided so far.

Some of the people who were not consulted on the bill were CP Rail, the Association of Canadian Port Authorities, Canadian Marine Pilots, Western Grain Elevator Association, Port Nanaimo, Canadian Canola Growers, Global Container Terminals and the Chamber of Shipping.

One of the comments from CP Rail was that after working on this for four years that it was a whole bunch of nothing. That is one of our main stakeholders with regard to the bill. When one asks what could be done better, we could have a conversation with CP on how this bill could be improved. I hope CP Rail representatives are on the witness list when we get this to committee.

Another one of the people who could be consulted is a man from Saskatchewan, Murad Al-Katib of AGT Foods. This company transports and ships across the world. One thing he says is that getting container ships is a difficult thing to do in Canada.

What we could do is have conversations with the people on the ground who need the railway system improved. One thing I would like is to have the witness list include some of these people when this legislation comes to committee, people like Murad Al-Katib and companies like Viterra. These people have used the port system.

The Port of Vancouver is the gateway to the world for us as exporters. There are efficiencies we could improve on, obviously. Like I said earlier in my speech, we really need to be able to load grain cars in all weather. We have to do it safely, of course, but we need to be able to do it in all kinds of weather.

When we are trying to get our goods to market, in talking to the railways about the huge inefficiencies, another thing we could do is get some pipelines built. If we take some oil cars off the railways, then we would have the ability to actually ship more grain on a daily basis.

When it comes to Saskatchewan, and my colleague from Alberta agrees, there is no more efficient way to ship oil than through a pipeline. We have seen through other legislation like Bill C-69, the no-more-pipelines act, that we cannot get things built in this country.

When we talk about the overall vision for infrastructure across this country, that vision needs to include more pipelines being built to get oil from west to east. We do not have those conversations. There needs to be infrastructure debate in this chamber about how we are going to move forward into the 21st century. This also includes building pipelines. It includes the electricity grid as well, because we need to become more efficient when it comes to shipping materials across our beautiful country.

One of the other things I found very interesting is some of the amendments and the impacts they would have on the ports, such as the proposed amendment to expand Canadian port authorities' mandate over traffic management, including vessels moored or anchored. We talk about expanding the port authorities' mandate. Have we had that discussion with the port authorities? Do we know if they have the capacity to even expand that mandate? That is the question I have for the parliamentary secretary, and hopefully we can get that answered when we are in committee.

Another question I have is on enabling the development of inland terminals. Have they talked to some of the proponents that would be building and expanding these terminals and what they need to see in this legislation?

Another amendment would be to streamline the review process for port authorities' borrowing. Obviously, that is something we could have a conversation about and discuss in committee as well. On establishing new regulatory authorities to oversee Canada's marine security framework, whenever there is talk about expanding authorities, I would like to have conversations on what that means to shippers and distributers across the country.

I would also like to have the conversation about how we are going to be able to get goods then across the ocean. We talk about getting to the port. We also need more efficiency when it comes to having the ability to load ships with grain. We need to be building more capacity to ship LNG. We have had Germany and Japan come to our country and ask for help when it comes to LNG. One of the reasons we cannot do it is because we do not have the capacity to load these vessels to get the LNG to different areas of the world. That is a conversation we should be having as well.

The United States built five, six or seven LNG terminals over the last three or four years and we have built nothing. We have become a country where it is almost impossible to build infrastructure under the current government. People want to be able to invest in our country, but the goalposts keep moving on when we can actually get something built. We are then really having trouble attracting foreign investment to our country because they do not see how we would have the capacity to export.

We have lost hundreds of billions of dollars in this country over the last eight years because of investment flowing from Canada straight to the United States. This is because investors believe our infrastructure is not sufficient to be able to transport the goods they want to produce in our country.

We have a wealth of natural resources and we do not have the ability to get those resources to port and then to the destination after that. Therefore, this bill, unfortunately, misses the mark in trying to create more efficiencies at the Port of Vancouver. It misses the mark and increases our capacity on the railways. For that reason and many reasons, after reaching out to stakeholders, they do not like the bill, we do not like it either and we will be voting against it.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I have to give some credit to the member for Regina—Lewvan for really engaging, and I think that is the whole point of the process. Now that the bill is going to pass at second reading and go to committee, we are now going to have the opportunity to engage. I take, with great respect, a lot of the comments that he made and a lot of ideas that gave, and I am hoping he can bring those to committee and/or at least pass them on to me so I can bring them to committee.

At the end of the day, what we are trying to do here is all about leveraging government investments. I know in my riding, for example, we were able to leverage $175 million for a project where the private sector and government got together and made the projects happen.

The last thing I want to mention in leading to my question is that one does not work in isolation of the other. Whether it is a ports modernization study, whether it is a St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation review, whether it is a supply chain review, they all work together and are fluid.

With all that the member has proposed and brought to the attention of the House, does he intend to bring it to the committee and be part of the process so that this legislation would do exactly what it is intended to do?

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, we will be bringing some of our ideas to committee, either by me, if I can sub in, or through my wonderful colleagues who are on the committee that this bill will be going to.

I appreciate the ability to add to the witness list because there are a lot of agriculture stakeholders who need to be consulted about this legislation and amendments need to be proposed to make it better. My hope is that when the witnesses and experts in the field of transportation come to committee to talk about what was missed in this bill, our colleagues from the Liberals and NDP will listen and not just shoot down their ideas.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk a bit about history. In 1913, the National Transcontinental Railway was completed a few kilometres from Senneterre. Today, we are talking about rail safety, tracks that are too old throughout my riding and Quebec, safety concerns with the transportation of goods, gaps and red tape.

What does my colleague think about a secure area to reduce port congestion?

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, many of us can have conversations about aging infrastructure in our ridings across the country. Something that has been overlooked in the last eight years is putting money into infrastructure, especially in transportation, in almost all aspects. We should have the conversation around adding more money to infrastructure.

The government is very good at wasting money on pet projects, but when it comes to putting money into infrastructure, it has failed miserably. We have seen the Asian infrastructure bank fail, we have seen the Canada Infrastructure Bank fail and not build one project. I think all of us should be able to bring forward infrastructure projects in every riding. There are 338 ridings across the country where the government could put money into something that will actually help Canadians and stop wasting money on pet projects.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. colleague say the old Conservative mantra that they are going to build pipelines, pipelines, pipelines. I was reading the indictment of the people of California against ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, Conoco, Phillips, and it says:

Rather than warn consumers, the public, and governments, however, Defendants—

That is big oil:

—mounted a disinformation campaign beginning at least as early as the 1970s to discredit the burgeoning scientific consensus on climate change; deny their own knowledge of climate change-related threats; create doubt in the minds of consumers...

...Defendants have promoted and/or profited from the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels...

This has forced the state of California and the people of the world to pay for the damages. What we are seeing is the big tobacco moment.

My hon. colleague is saying big tobacco and big oil will continue to pollute the planet and it will be good. I would suggest that he read the indictment from the state of California against all the big five oil companies that knowingly discredited climate science and are knowingly destroying our planet.