Industry Committee on Oct. 19th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, May 13, 2010, we will be meeting today on Bill C-14, an act to amend the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act and the Weights and Measures Act.

I'd like to introduce our witnesses to you. We have Alexia Taschereau, senior counsel, legal services; André Gagné, senior program officer for legislative and regulatory affairs, Measurement Canada; and Carl Cotton, manager of the legislative and regulatory affairs division of the program development directorate, Measurement Canada.

Thank you very much for attending and sharing your expertise with us.

Now we'll move to clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. Pursuant to Standing Order 75(1), consideration of clause 1 is postponed until the chair calls it at the end. We'll go to clause 2.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Chair, on a point of order, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I don't think clause 1 has been dealt with.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Clause 1 will be postponed to the end, Mr. McTeague.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Can you hear the translation into French? Yes? Right. Perfect. It was also working earlier? Right, it's fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay. Shall clause 2 carry?

(Clauses 2 to 4 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 5)

I believe there's a Liberal amendment to clause 5. Is that correct?

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Chair, if I could speak to clause 5, my proposed amendment reads:

The Minister shall ensure that all inspectors and all persons designated as inspectors are trained in the same manner and that all measurements made by inspectors and by persons designated as inspectors are conducted uniformly.

The purpose of that, Chair, is to ensure there is absolute due diligence on behalf of the government.

I've certainly looked at a number of the documents supplied to me over the past week and a half, and I want to thank my colleagues and Measurements Canada for making my Thanksgiving a very memorable one. But there seem to be a number of varied ways in which one tests gasoline, depending on temperature and the kinds of provers you're using. This amendement would ensure that the training is uniform, even if it stays as it is currently. It would also ensure that the tests are done in a uniform way, thereby ensuring, among other things, uniformity and repeatability.

It's important that we ensure that if we're going to ask for accuracy by our gas retailers, those small businesses, we should also be asking the same of those who are deemed to be inspectors.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Lake.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I'd like to ask the witnesses, if we could, what the impact would be of the amendment the member is proposing.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Cotton.

[Carl Cotton, Manager, Legislative and Regulatory Affairs Division, Program Development Directorate, Measurement Canada, Department of Industry]

First, to clarify this, the particular clause we're looking at applies to the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act, not the Weights and Measures Act. So fuel dispensers won't be covered by this particular proposed amendment.

The other thing to point out is that I'm not entirely certain that this would be the best section to address that concern. We'd have to look at it a little more closely. But further to that, the accreditation program under the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act has been in place since 1986. When the program was established, we looked at perhaps having some mandatory training requirements. As we established the process, we looked to see that the Canadian Gas Association, the Canadian Electricity Association, and the municipal electricity associations as well, all had training and certification processes in place. Most of the utilities that are accredited organizations hire from that pool of certified “verifiers”, if we can put it that way. So it doesn't seem to me that it would be an enhancement of the current process.

We have 20 to 25 years' worth of audit data demonstrating that things are working fine. The advantage we have with the current process is that it puts us in a position to monitor, rather than manage, a training process, which is more cost-effective for us.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Are you withdrawing the proposal, Mr. McTeague?

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

No, I'm not withdrawing it at all, Chair—quite to the contrary—and it will be introduced in the other section. You'll see further amendments dealing with this.

I have difficulty in understanding and certainly recognizing that the question of compliance, given the number of variables involved, would require a greater measure of certainty and certitude on behalf of the government and those who are doing the inspections.

While your track record is one you have presented here, it's one that I very much question.

I say this because, in part of the documentation you provided—and we'll go right to this, so that we understand where we're coming from—the citation you had to support the 2009 impact of inaccuracy at gas dispensers suggests that you put forth an inaccuracy of $19.88 million, or for argument's sake, $20 million. You have, however, a statement made in one of the background pieces of paper I'd requested that says:

It is important to note that the $20 million overcharge estimated for 2008 was not distributed evenly for all gas pumps but would rather have come from close to 6,000 inaccurate gas pumps located throughout the country. Conversely, it was also estimated that close to 3,000 gas pumps were delivering more gas than what consumers paid for. The total undercharge...was estimated to be $12 million in 2008.

So when you trot out the $20 million, you're not including the fact that $12 million in fact went back to consumers, for a net of $8 million.

The second concern I have is with the documentation, which I would certainly like to provide. Unfortunately, it's only in English, but I'll supply it for other members to the clerk through you, Chair.

It is titled “Measurement Canada compliance rate--2005 to 2009 by sector” and it suggests—I'm looking at about 25 to 30 here—quarries and pits, 47% compliance; laundries and cleaners, 56% compliance; and, looking at upstream petroleum, 78%. Or how about the one I was looking at earlier today: dairy and farm products, at 89%?

I was surprised to learn through your information here that compliance was at 90.89% for retail food, 93.11% for retail gasoline, and in fact 93.33% for honey and apiary. In other words, the retail gasoline market is the second most compliant, according to your own information.

It's also been relayed to me in some of this information that there isn't always accuracy in how one measures. If we're going to go after a retailer with, it suggests, the force of law that you have, through the easier process of the administrative monetary penalties and through civil means, you're going to have to ensure that there is in fact accuracy beyond a reasonable doubt.

I'm simply asking that the government demonstrate both that it has people who are qualified and that when a person is tested, the test is provable, is reliable, is consistent, and above all is in fact uniform.

[Carl Cotton]

And we'll be addressing that mostly through the Weight and Measures Act amendments. With ENG, electricity and natural gas, as I've said, compliance rates tend to be higher, and the process we've had in place doesn't demonstrate that there's a need for formalizing a training process that Measurement Canada would monitor and oversee. We're dealing with different types of stakeholders.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

You're in a position in which you're going to have to do a bit more training, because the number of people across the country is significantly lower than the number we anticipate we are going to need down the road. In other words, you're going to be hiring a lot of new people who perhaps, as we speak today, have never had any training in this particular area.

The prospect that training will take place in certain areas of the country only at a given time has been brought to my attention—I think we've had this discussion thanks to Mr. Lake—in an earlier meeting in, I think, the West Block, a very quiet meeting with members of Parliament attending. You're obviously going to have to change that scheduling. So whatever you've done in the past 25 years, now change it. This is a pretty dramatic piece of legislation.

[Carl Cotton]

But we're dealing with two different issues here. What you're speaking about is electricity and natural gas, which is covered in a different statute and in which we have an accreditation program that is mature and has been in place for close to 25 years and in which compliance rates are high. The industry associations are much more organized. We're also not dealing with smaller stakeholders. So, based on our experience, for ENG it does not look as though formal mandatory training programs would be required.

We have developed the training programs for weights and measures as part of our means for qualifying and designating non-government inspectors as part of doing the due diligence for the minister. When we get to that section in the Weights and Measures Act, we could discuss it, I guess, more fully, but I think under ENG it would be going a step too far and amending something that isn't broken.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Cotton.

Mr. Wallace has his hand up, so I'll have him enter the discussion.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You made the point that I was going to ask about: the issue that the honourable member is bringing up in terms of training is just not an issue in this particular segment of the bill that he's making the change in.

[Carl Cotton]

We'd see it as the implementation of smart regulations, of tailoring the requirements to the particular sector that you're dealing with, which is a government objective.

For electricity and natural gas, we're dealing with larger stakeholders, larger utilities. They have very strong associations that have a gas measurement school on an annual basis. The municipal electricity associations have a variety of training programs in place for the meter shop technicians, and provincial bodies--Hydro One, for example--have an electricity metering school as well. It would be adding a layer of bureaucracy, so to speak, when it may not necessarily be required. They'd be trying to fix something that isn't broken.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Cotton.

Go ahead, Mr. McTeague.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

I think the objective here is to ensure uniformity, and while you suggest that it may not be there, we could look at the possibility of ensuring that it's everywhere, that it's ubiquitous.

Your comments that it may not apply here, and it may be unintended, actually speak very much to the concerns I've had about the bill generally. As my good colleague Mr. Rota suggested earlier, this is a bill that in many respects looks a lot like a dragon slayer looking for a dragon.

I would suggest that none of us here would want to argue against uniformity, Mr. Cotton, yourself in particular, and while the industry may be accountable, I think it's important to be seen and perceived as fair to all industries and not to be seen as targeting one industry, which this legislation appears to be doing.

Notwithstanding the evidence that by your own information, Mr. Cotton, Measurement Canada demonstrates that retail gasoline in Canada is the second most compliant of the 30 industries listed here. Those would be the ones that exclude the sectors that are less than five data points.

I would suggest, colleagues, if you wish--and it's entirely up to you--that the word “uniformity” should remain consistent to all practices and industries affected under Measurement Canada's mandate.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Go ahead, Mr. Lake.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

In a way we're dealing with this issue in two parts. I imagine the change that would be made under clause 16 is almost identical to this. Mr. McTeague, the change that you're making in clause 16 is identical to this, right?

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

That's correct. It raises the important point of consistency throughout all. Mr. Cotton has pointed out that energy--natural gas and electricity--has a very rigorous level of oversight and conformity. Is it fair to say “uniformity”?

[Carl Cotton]

Pardon me?

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Is there uniformity in testing?