Evidence of meeting #27 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was report.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
I have a problem with this, Mr. Jean. Here we have a report that summarizes the transportation situation in Canada, and the Department of Transport doesn’t want to table annually the report on the transportation situation in Canada.
What’s going on here? Are you proposing to us the abolition of the Department of Transport? Maybe that would be a solution. It could merge with another department.
I am uncomfortable with the fact that you don’t want to publish an annual report. We’re talking about the report that is signed by the minister, on the state of transportation in Canada. All kinds of things could come up in the area of security, for example, and three years would go by before it’s reported on! I have a lot of trouble accepting that the minister is refusing to sign the report, in light of the way security is evolving in Canada, especially in transportation.
You probably tabled that while the Liberals were in power. Did Bill C-44 or the other bills provide for the same thing?
I think it’s extremely important that the minister produce a report every year that summarizes the state of transportation because of the way things are evolving in Canada, because of security-related issues, etc. I’m telling you, it’s not a waste of paper.
I have a lot of trouble with you telling us it’s too complicated to do the work.
Director General, Surface Transportation Policy, Department of Transport
Just to clarify, we're not proposing that we not do our work. We will continue to do our work. What we are saying is that rather than preparing a paper report, we have all that information available on the website--in even more detail. You can go on our website today and you can find data on any mode of transportation, any trend, and have it there.
In fact, I would suggest to you that other than in the case of reports tabled in Parliament--which the minister is obliged to present in such a format--we do not get very many requests for hard-copy reports. We do get many requests for the electronic data. And why do we do that? Because all the provinces and all the transport carriers and the users would rather have the very detailed data.
In the report, because it is a summary, we can only put general numbers. What the industry and the provinces want are the very detailed numbers, and they're available on our website all the time. We will continue to do that. What we would like to be able to do is to give Parliament a more analytical report every three years. That would include, as the motion suggests, that we not only look backwards but also look forwards and say to you that over the past three years this is what's been happening out there and these are the kinds of things we see coming in the future. But the actual analytical data will continue to be available annually on our website, as it is today.
I think Mr. Jean is right. We are having to produce this report on paper, and it doesn't really get a lot of dissemination or use. We think our resources could be put to better use, in fact, in collecting more data and analyzing it and putting it on the website, rather than having to write a report that is then tabled and doesn't get a lot of use otherwise.
Conservative
Bloc
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
I have a lot of trouble accepting that you’re minimizing the importance of this report that has to be produced and signed by the minister. Regardless of what Transport Canada puts on its website, I want the minister to affix his signature on the document and that he be the one to tell us what the transportation situation is in Canada. Once the document is signed, he will ensure that what is on the website conforms to the report. In my opinion, it is important for the minister to be accountable for the report. I’m having a problem with you not attaching importance to that. Maybe this is the new government’s new way of governing.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Mr. Chair, if we had this process in place right now, if we had, right now, this idea that every three years the minister would prepare a report, then we would be referring back to the last report, which would have been produced in 2003. That was three parliaments ago, and I don't even know who the Minister of Transport was in 2003. Can anyone here around this table remember who was Minister of Transport in 2003?
I know some folks at the back know. I was asking the table. It wasn't a broad question; it was a limited question. But thanks, just the same.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
No cheating.
We'd be looking at 2003 analysis from a minister who was the minister three parliaments ago. That is why I think very strongly—and I agree with Mr. Laframboise on this point—we need to have the minister on an annual basis, making sure that he or she is providing the analysis and signing that report and is beholden to the Canadian public as a result of that report as well.
Liberal
Andy Scott Liberal Fredericton, NB
I think there is a larger issue, and I think there's an innocent difference of opinion.
The users who use the data are doing this all the time. They do it full-time; they're looking at this data. They probably contribute to the provision of the data they're organizing. This is a document that is tabled in Parliament to members of Parliament. It's important that it's signed by the minister because that's where the accountability piece comes from. What distinguishes the production of a report from all the broad data that would be on the website is the exercise of presenting that information to us in a way that we might ask for it, the way that we would receive it, and the way it would be debated.
The idea that somehow there's less value in that, in what I think I'm hearing, than I believe there should be—and I'm sure that's not what you meant....
All we're suggesting is that maybe having a less comprehensive report annually and a broader and more expansive report every five years might even save Mr. Jean's trees; I don't know. The bottom line here is that this is an honest effort to get two things done: to have an annual accountability by the minister to the committee, to Parliament—to do that every year—and then to have something much more comprehensive every five years.
You would have the best of both worlds. You have the immediacy that has been spoken about in terms of the importance of safety and you have the comprehensiveness of a much richer document. That's what we're attempting to do, and I think it's been expressed here quite well that it is something that has some value.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I'm so confused—I've heard “report” so many times tonight. Could the department just go over, then, what this amendment would mean? We would have a report every five years, we'd have a report every year, and we'd have another report every year, plus the reports, of course, from the Canadian Transportation Agency and Stats Canada and any number of other bodies. How many reports would we have here?
Can you tell us how many trees as well, or not?
Director General, Surface Transportation Policy, Department of Transport
I'll try.
Currently this bill envisages two reports. One is called an industry report that the department provides, and Mr. Scott's suggestion is that it be very tiny. Right now, according to the legislation, we can't get away with that. We have to make a big report. There's a second report, which is the one we were explaining to Monsieur Carrier. The agency has to report annually on its business, how it conducts its business, the cases it hears, the complaints it hears. And that's not changing. There are no changes proposed to that.
On this report, the industry review, the government is proposing that it be changed from one year to three years. The motions put forward suggest that we keep it at one year, but on top of that, that we produce a new five-year report that would be even more comprehensive than what we have to produce now on an annual basis. I guess our concern is we already produce a very comprehensive report. It is very time consuming. We believe that if we did it every three years, instead of every year, we could make it more comprehensive. We could do what you're asking us to do in the five-year report in the three years, and then every year just put the data on the website.
Maybe I'll take a volunteer measure and suggest something. Would it be useful if we tried to bridge the two motions that the Liberal members have put forward and come up with a one-year report that would not be as comprehensive as what is now in the law? I would have to talk to my colleagues here. Could we then do a five-year report that would be as comprehensive as this, and more, including your state of the industry?
Liberal
Andy Scott Liberal Fredericton, NB
I just have a question. I'm hearing two things. You're talking about how comprehensive it would have to be, yet you're also telling us not to worry because it's all on the website anyway.
Director General, Surface Transportation Policy, Department of Transport
The details, the facts, yes....
Liberal
Andy Scott Liberal Fredericton, NB
I'm trying to reconcile those two comments that you're not going to lose everything every year because it's all on the website, but if we ask you to produce it every year, that's too much to do. I don't understand that.
Director General, Surface Transportation Policy, Department of Transport
Let me explain it this way. When you're trying to produce a report for public consumption, you can't put a lot of data in there. You have to summarize the data. You have to present it. You have to write it.
Liberal
Director General, Surface Transportation Policy, Department of Transport
Right. But I'll ask you this question. How many of you have read the department's report on an annual basis?
And that's what we're finding, that people aren't reading it.
Okay, Mr. Julian is reading it.
It takes a lot of effort for what we're understanding is little value. We would rather put our energies into producing something that might be more useful. When we give you a report every three years, we would rather it be much more comprehensive and actually portray the trends and do a really good product. There isn't a lot of change in the data on an annual basis. It changes very little.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
I am going to make the suggestion that we table this again at the next meeting. We'll deal with it at that point. I know some people are heading out of town.
We'll see you on Tuesday.
Have a nice weekend everyone. Thank you.
The meeting is adjourned.