Transport Committee on May 4th, 2006

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Chair, I am speaking very directly to the deferral motion. What I am doing is indicating what the possible consequences would be of taking action without doing due diligence. Since there are consequences to taking action on rural service delivery, for example, as the Ontario Court of Appeal has pointed out, by taking action that is not responsible, not providing for due diligence, not having the witnesses before us who we have requested, not providing for a deferral means that we are taking a hasty decision that has potentially perverse consequences.

I will continue to read this. If Mr. Jean would prefer to hear my voice rather than the court documents, that is his choice, but please allow me to read the two other paragraphs.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Fast, on a point of order.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Just to expedite the process here, perhaps we could release the witnesses. It's clear Mr. Julian is intent on filibustering my motion and the amendment that Mr. Volpe has made. So since he's so intent on filibustering, why don't we just let the witnesses go? I'd like to hear the witnesses for a full hour when we have a fulsome opportunity to ask questions of them. And given the fact that this fairly straightforward motion, which will protect thousands of jobs, appears to have run into some obstacles on Mr. Julian's part and he's intent on filibustering, let's just extend a courtesy to the witnesses and let them go. We'll bring them back another day.

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

On the same point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Jean.

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

I would just like to inform the committee that the government side would be prepared to reconvene at a time that would be convenient for these gentlemen to hear their testimony. I think that would be fair in the circumstances.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Laframboise, on the same point of order.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Regarding the same point of order, I just want the witnesses to know that we have scheduled them for the first hour. The Conservatives were the ones who decided to table a motion to delay hearing the witnesses. I think that it would be fair to dismiss the witnesses and invite them to come back at another meeting, if only to show them due respect.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Bell.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

I asked my staff just to speak with the witnesses to find out if they would be available, for example, next week, and I understand they're not. We need to get on with this rail safety before we end up closing for the summer and to be in a position to report. So I'm prepared to have an extra meeting if that's necessary at a time convenient to them. It could be next Thursday, for example; it could be next Tuesday. I don't know what our schedule is, but perhaps the chair could organize something if the committee is agreeable to that. If they're not available Wednesday, is there another day?

Mr. Chairman, just to give notice, on Monday I'm going to be in Vancouver as an observer at the rail panel hearing that's taking place in Vancouver. So other than Monday, I would be available.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Well, in the fact that we had originally talked about an hour to interview our guests today, I would regretfully say that we're not going to get that hour today.

Through my office and through the clerk, we will accommodate your schedule, if possible, to attend. On behalf of the committee, I apologize for bringing you here and being unable to hear your testimony on a very important issue to Canadians.

So I do regret that, but we will work with your schedule for the next meeting. It will be a request of the committee to ask you to tell us when you can attend, and I do apologize.

[Brock Winter]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's very, very unfortunate that the Conservatives have basically shut down this hearing of the Canadian Pacific. We would like to have asked our guests questions.

They made the choice to try to ram through what they knew was a divisive motion. They made the choice to try to push something through when the due diligence had not been done, despite opposition requests to have simply put into place a couple of—

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, again Mr. Julian is not relevant here. The motion on the floor is a deferral motion. Would he please restrict his remarks to that issue?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I would ask you, Mr. Julian, to stay on the deferral motion.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Chair, I'm going to continue reading the two other paragraphs that I have the intention of reading, because they are very clearly linked to the whole issue of deferral—very clearly.

The reality is, when you have a court decision from yesterday that speaks specifically to rural mail delivery, we have to take into consideration what the implications are of ramming through a motion without due diligence and without calling the appropriate witnesses back.

Here are the paragraphs the Conservatives are taking such objection to, and they're taking objection to it because it points to the fact that they haven't done their due diligence:

However, many Canadian communities cannot be served economically. Hence, Canada Post needs to engage in the lucrative letter mail business and Parliament has granted it an exclusive privilege respecting the collection, transmission and delivery of letters. As the respondent notes, the exclusive privilege granted to Canada Post enables it to provide ordinary mail service throughout the country at the uniform rate despite its many geographical challenges. This is because the relatively low cost of providing services to the 80% of the population that lives largely in dense urban centres within one hundred and fifty kilometres of the southern border with the United States offsets the relatively high cost of providing such services to the remaining 20% of the population that lives throughout the more remote parts of Canada. Spring is ultimately owned by the postal administrations of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Singapore. It carries on the business of collecting, transmitting and delivering international mail, including letters, from senders in Canada to overseas locations.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, he is not relevant. He is continuing on the same type of speech-making that he's been doing for the last ten minutes, and it's inappropriate, because he's wasting this committee's time.

Really, Mr. Julian, I implore you to respect this committee. Don't abuse the privileges you have as a member of Parliament to have input into something as important as remailers. To simply delay and delay and delay and to actually disregard the chairman's rulings that you need to restrict your comments to the point at question, which is a deferral motion, really shows disrespect to the whole committee. So please stay on point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Mr. Fast.

Although it is not a point of order, and I believe I have been giving the member as much latitude as I possibly can, I do sense that to some degree you're discussing the motion, not the motion to defer—

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

No, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

—so I would ask you to just keep your comments within the parameters of the motion to defer.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

I have three sentences left, Mr. Chair. It is, as you know, very relevant and pertinent. Over the last 15 minutes, we've spent 10 minutes listening to the Conservatives with their points of order, wasting committee time. To read three paragraphs takes about four minutes, Mr. Chair, and that is the amount of time that I needed.

So on the deferral motion, again, to avoid hasty, irresponsible action, we look to the court decision yesterday, which states:

Spring’s operations focus on the largest corporate and institutional mailers in Canada, who reside in the more densely populated and easily serviceable areas of the country. Spring does not serve the more remote areas of Canada where the costs are high in relation to the revenue generated. Unlike Canada Post, Spring is not required to bear the high cost of providing services to the more remote regions of Canada.

Mr. Chair, there it is, very clearly, in the court judgment: the relationship between universal provision for postal service and rural postal delivery.

So rather than making a hasty decision, despite the Conservatives stonewalling and refusing to hear some of the important aspects of information that has come forth since this motion was tabled, it is important for this committee to defer this discussion, get the witnesses in that Monsieur Laframboise, Mr. Bélanger, and I have been calling for, get their due diligence done, do their homework, and then we can proceed to a discussion on the motion that is honest and where we've done our due diligence.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Mr. Julian.

Monsieur Bélanger.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think that we must remember some important facts. I have been here for quite a few years, and I have always tried to be respectful toward Parliament, toward my colleagues and toward the procedures that we have refined over the decades as we resolved various conflicts and confrontations. All that was done to enable parliamentarians here today to work in conditions of mutual respect. You said that Mr. Julian's comments must be clearly relevant to the subject at hand. Mr. Chairman, I have a few points to make about this important issue.

There were good reasons, at the outset, for providing the option of deferring a debate or a motion. The procedure was then refined over the years. Someone might have tried to "pull a fast one", or someone might have tried to have used his majority position, or someone might have tried to have a motion adopted more or less blindly, without sufficient debate or proper information. Mr. Chairman, at such times, members must have recourse to procedures that were traditionally handed down to us, and that is what is happening here today. I do not really know why my colleagues opposite are laughing—perhaps there was an error in translation—but, Mr. Chairman they can laugh as much as they want.

We are seized with a motion that the government is trying to ram through. This motion could have very important consequences for the Canadian public. There seems to be some inability, or even worse, some unwillingness to ask for the information that we could use before making a decision.

This is the reason why motions like the one I tabled two weeks ago and that I am tabling again today have an important role in parliamentary debate.

One should not try to fool one's colleagues. Once again, there is an attempt to table a motion without giving us the information that we need in order to debate it. Those who believe, as I do, that we might be mistaken in adopting such a motion have the right to get information, to hear witnesses and to ask our researchers to provide the historical background of the issues at hand.

Let me emphasize that I have only dealt with procedure. I have not even mentioned the substantive issue. I think that everyone understands what I am driving at. As responsible parliamentarians, I think that it is our duty to hear witnesses. If we don't take the time to do so, what are the remaining alternatives available to opposition members? We can only table a motion like the one we are tabling today and defer the debate until the minister has done what he promised to do or until we get the information that we need to make the decision. Mr. Chairman, that is not the case.

As long as I am under pressure to swallow a pill that I do not want and do not know, as long as I do not have all the information that I need to understand why certain measures should be taken, I will continue behaving in this way. I think that I am behaving just as responsibly as are my colleagues opposite who want to adopt a motion immediately without any opportunity to hear witnesses from Canada Post, who are the experts in this field, and without understanding why they did not put up more a fierce opposition to remailers over so many years. I want to have answers. What would be the impact of such measures on first class mail? This is what is really at stake. If we really want to serve the Canadian public—