Transport Committee on April 18th, 2007

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Strike that from the record, Mr. Chair.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I'm joking.

If all of us get five minutes apiece, that's only 35 minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Again, I can't speak for the minister. I only know that he's available that day on Bill C-6. I guess I'm more or less looking for confirmation that we could have him here.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I don't know whether Brian wants to—because we're all friends here for at least the next couple of minutes....

Mr. Chair, are you looking for a suggestion or a motion? Or do we want to reach a consensus about what we'd like the minister to do in terms of his availability? He could come here and say, “Guys, you've read the bill. My department wrote it. Ask me any questions you want.” Or do we want a...? Is that what you're looking for us to do?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

No, I'm not, really. I'm just advising the committee that the minister will be here. We'll have a two-hour meeting at which the department will be present for the full two hours and the minister will be present for the first hour.

Mr. Jean.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I would like to first of all respond that of course we're all friends here—except for Mr. Watson and me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

We do have two motions to get to.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I can ask the minister, and I can relay to him that what you're suggesting is a short five- or seven-minute speech and lots of questions. How does that sound?

[An hon. member]

You're off my Christmas card list.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Monsieur Bélanger.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

There are two things, Mr. Chair. Can we do better than assume that Mr. Preuss will be there?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

He will be there, I'm told.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you. You may recall that last time I had some questions to ask of him, but pulled back because of your ruling, which I respected.

Second, would you know if there's a policy that this new government has imposed on its ministers that they can only attend meetings for one hour? Of all the committee meetings I've been to when ministers have attended, after one hour they leave. Is there a policy that I'm not aware of that has been set by cabinet to limit their ministers to one-hour meetings?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I can tell you that the minister has advised through the committee, or to me, that he will be available for two hours on main estimates. So I don't believe it's a policy; I just believe that's the minister's time.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Knowing that, then, on Monday we will deal with Bill C-6 with the minister, and departmental officials for the full meeting.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Does that mean that as a follow-up we'll resume the CN matter and then Transport Canada in two subsequent meetings?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

What I want to do is get Monday's meeting organized so that everybody isn't surprised. But I'm going to ask at the end of the motions that we talk about a subcommittee meeting early Monday, or sometime Monday.

But we are going back to rail safety.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

We should likely give CN early enough advance warning that they can be here on Wednesday, and—

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Yes. We have confirmed CN for Wednesday. We are waiting to hear from CPR. I can tell you that, but I didn't want to do that pre-empting a subcommittee meeting.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

And then a subsequent meeting would be Transport Canada, where we can take all the information we have and ask questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Again, I think it should be under a subcommittee that we make those determinations.

We're going to deal with Mr. Fast's motion. I think everyone has it in front of them in both official languages. For time purposes, I won't read it unless it's necessary. I know we have votes at 5:30.

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We heard a number of witnesses on the remailing issue. Ms. Greene was here. Unfortunately, she wasn't as forthcoming as perhaps she would have been had there not been an ongoing negotiation with their union. It was very clear to me, and certainly to members of the committee on this side of the table, that we need to provide some support to the international remailers who work within Canada.

I just want to list a number of facts that I think are salient and need to be considered.

For well over 20 years, remailers have been allowed to do business in Canada. Suddenly, about three years ago we had a challenge by Canada Post to an industry that has developed in reliance upon their understanding that this was a legal activity. Canada Post assumed this was a legal activity, and then somebody pointed out to Canada Post, probably a smart lawyer, that there was a difference in the wording of section 14 of the Canada Post Corporation Act in the French and English versions. The English version refers to “collecting, transmitting and delivering letters to the addressee thereof within Canada”. The French version doesn't use the term “within Canada”.

Even with my primitive understanding of the French language, it's pretty clear from that particular section that there is a difference in the two languages. Based on that distinction, the matter was litigated all the way to the Supreme Court, and of course the remailers lost. Ultimately, it is for Parliament to address this issue.

Just to outline additional facts, it's estimated that the contribution to the Canadian economy by the remailing industry is somewhere around the $300 million mark in terms of total profits annually. There are hundreds of businesses that employ thousands of people across Canada. They are engaged in different aspects of the business, including preparing, designing, translating, sorting, printing, and delivering letter mail, and that is mail weighing 500 grams or less, to destinations outside of Canada. There are seven or eight major companies in Canada that simply deliver international mail.

After more than 20 years, suddenly the rules are changed for these companies that have relied on an understanding that was even concurred in by Canada Post. This is a huge industry in Canada. We're talking about thousands of jobs. We, as Parliament and as a committee, have to do something about that.

My motion is very simple. It simply asks that the government amend the Canada Post Corporation Act to clarify the English and French versions of the section so as to remove Canada Post's exclusive privilege to deliver letter mail to destinations outside Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Monsieur Bélanger.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I pass. This motion is highly premature and I will not support it. I certainly encourage my colleagues to defer it, which would be best, so that the committee can deal with it appropriately, but if the government is in a rush to have me concur in this, then they won't have my concurrence.

I don't have a difficulty in studying something before making a decision. We've had one session where we had witnesses who were not able to connect and talk to each other. And I have a ton of questions as to whether or not we should even consider this. I'm quite prepared to listen, but I have questions in terms of what the magnitude is, and I can't just rely on a document. I don't know what Mr. Fast has read and where he got it, but I'd want to have some witnesses here, and we should have a thorough examination of the issue, including what the consequences are of affecting the exclusive privilege of Canada Post. We haven't even touched that.

So I will not participate in what could become the dismantling of the exclusive privilege if it could affect first class mail delivery across the country, especially in rural Canada. That affirmation has been made here and it hasn't been rebutted. We need to hear from Canada Post. We need to hear from the remailers. We need to hear from our research staff in terms of the law. We need to have a sense of what's going on around the world.

There are all kinds of things that we were throwing around during the one-hour session we had with them that I've not had a chance to get answers to, and I think this is jumping the gun. It may be that we may want to come to this conclusion. I suspect not, but I certainly can't do that today.