Finance Committee on Nov. 26th, 2014

[Shari Currie, Acting Director General, Civil Aviation, Department of Transport]

Yes, there will be formal consultations once the act is passed. The second rule-making authority we're asking for would allow us to do the consultations on the consultation power, so the answer is yes.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

When will that happen?

[Shari Currie]

The notice of proposed amendments would be out in February of 2015, so we would be consulting industry from probably January until March.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you.

Ms. Day, you were nodding your head on the security aspects of this. Can you confirm that this amendment being proposed by Ms. May is overreaching?

[Marie-Claude Day, Legal Counsel, Department of Transport]

Yes, absolutely. I agree with you. The scope of the Ms. May's proposed amendment is overreaching. The scope of the power is within the safety realm, not the security.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Allen.

I'll go to Mr. Brison on this, please.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

On the scope of clauses 143 and 144, we've heard from a number of Canadians who've made a case that we need stronger federal regulation around aerodromes, particularly when it comes to environmental standards around landfills, but it's clear that we need better and clearer rules regarding the development of aerodromes.

Unfortunately, this division isn't a serious attempt at strengthening the law. In fact, the Canadian Bar Association identified some problems with this. I'll quote from their brief:

The amendments to the Aeronautics Act in Bill C-43 present regulatory and legal problems concerning the exercise and scope of the Minister’s powers. The additional powers are overly broad and do not take into account the everyday operation of aerodromes. In addition, it is unclear whether the exercise of the Minister’s power to prohibit the development or expansion of an aerodrome is reviewable. ...The proposed amendments allow the Minister to get into the minutiae of the operation of the vast number of aerodromes in Canada (approximately 3500). The operation of an aerodrome changes daily, if not hourly or moment-to-moment. Providing the Minister with such power may cause administrative difficulties from a legal and regulatory perspective.

This division gives the minister sweeping powers. The government says it's doing this so that it can insist on public consultation, but the irony is that these measures were put forward without public consultation.

Finally, not that this really matters under the current regime, these measures don't belong in a budget bill and don't really belong in finance committee deliberations.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

It seems rather quaint to say that at this point.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Brison.

Further discussion?

We'll go to the vote on PV-3.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(On clause 143)

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Chair, I could have commented during the debate on the amendment, but I wanted to do so on the division itself, division 2, that is.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. Monsieur Caron.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Although this has already been mentioned, I have to emphasize that no prior consultation was held in any comprehensive way with industry representatives. Mr. Gooch, from the Canadian Airports Council, even told us that some of the wording in the bill could be problematic, that they may well have undesirable effects, and that they should be amended. But no amendments along those lines have been proposed.

Just the fact that the Canadian Airports Council has indicated that some of the wording in the bill is problematic should make the government understand the need to settle that matter before forcing a vote on this division, which, as has been mentioned, should be part of separate legislation rather than being part of a budget bill.

We feel that, before passing these changes to the legislation, even if they could be specified in regulations that must themselves follow some consultation, Transport Canada should re-examine the wording and the scope of the bill and undertake wider consultations. As it stands, this amendment gives the minister new discretionary powers that might be useful in certain cases but that, in other cases, could be used in a way that could be considered abusive.

For those reasons, it is impossible for us to vote in favour of these provisions. We will vote against them in a recorded vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Caron.

Then we'll go on clause 143.

Should we do a recorded vote that applies to 143 and 144?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

(Clauses 143 and 144 agreed to: yeas 5; nays 4)

I thank our officials from Transport Canada for this division.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I would like to request that we take a five-minute break.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I was going to recommend that exactly, yes. We'll take a five-minute break, colleagues, and then when we come back we'll do division 3. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I call this meeting back to order.

Colleagues, we were dealing with part 4 of Bill C-43 and we're now on division 3 dealing with the Canadian High Arctic Research Station Act. This deals with clauses 145 to 170.

We want to welcome our officials to the table for this part of the bill.

(On clause 145—Enactment)

We have four amendments under clause 145. We have Green Party-4, NDP-2, NDP-3, and Green Party-5.

Ms. May, you can speak to both of your amendments or you can speak to your amendments individually. It's up to you.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I think individually would make more sense, because they're speaking to different aspects.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Speaking to Green Party-4, or PV-4, on page 318, after line 4, what we want to do is add to ensure that the new Canadian High Arctic research station will fall under the Auditor General Act, particularly that of the Federal Sustainable Development Act, so that it will become a category 1 department. This will mean that the Canadian High Arctic research station will have the same requirements as other branches of the federal government for sustainable development planning.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much.

Any further comment on PV-4?

Mr. Rankin, please.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I appreciate Ms. May's amendment proposal. We certainly would support that. I can say that on behalf of the three NDP members here.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Further discussion?

We'll move to the vote on PV-4, then.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We'll now go to NDP-2, Mr. Rankin.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

In terms of process, there are officials here. Am I going to discuss these amendments first or have them only when we talk to the main event?