Transport Committee on May 28th, 2007

[Luc Bourdon]

I'll just add a comment on fatalities. Can we eliminate fatalities? Fatalities are the consequences of accidents. Sometimes you're amazed that someone got out of something with nothing, and at other times you're surprised at how severe the consequences are. The only way to eliminate all fatalities would be basically to try to eliminate all accidents. I was involved, when I worked for the railways, in many investigations of fatalities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

We are going to have to wrap up there. I'm sorry. We are squeezed really tight for time right now.

I would thank our guests for attending. If we have any further questions of you, we'll be in touch with you. Thank you very much for attending today.

We have a motion by Mr. Bélanger, and we'll deal with that.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Will we be able to invite these gentlemen back?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I'm sure we can. We'll have to decide when.

If you'll check your order paper for the day, we have a motion on the floor by Mr. Bélanger. I'll turn the floor over to him.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I believe this motion speaks for itself. When the minister appeared before the committee to speak to the estimates, he indicated that he was thinking about launching a review of Canada Post. I know that it is the right of the executive branch to review the operations of crown corporations, but I believe that the committee also has a say in how the government should do this. It's as simple as that.

There is no mention of a schedule because the minister did not refer to one: he simply said that he was thinking of undertaking a review. The objective of the motion is to give the committee a chance to study and provide recommendations to the terms of reference of any review, should the government decide to go ahead with it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Are there any comments?

Mr. Laframboise.

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

This is what the motion says:

[...] provide the committee with an opportunity to study and provide recommendations to the terms of reference of any review of Canada Post prior to its commencement.

I would like to clarify certain things. I do not want to hold up the work of the committee, but I would like to hear the minister explain to us the scope of such a review, and I would like us to make recommendations. Is that the objective of the motion, Mr. Bélanger?

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

Yes.

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

Your objective is that we make our recommendations to the minister before he commences the review, right?

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

That's right.

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

So we will not wait for him to make his recommendations to make ours.

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

Indeed. It may not be very clear in French; I realize that. The idea is that the minister, the department's representatives or representatives from the agency appear before the committee and tell us what they intend to do and how they intend to proceed, so that we can share with them our thoughts and recommendations, if we do make any, before the work begins. We certainly do not want to hold up the process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Julian.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The French translation is indeed incorrect. It should read " [...] provide the committee an opportunity to study and provide recommendations to the terms of reference of any review of Canada Post prior to its commencement''.

I personally support the motion. I assume that the English version is correct. It would make sense to me that we be given an opportunity to provide recommendations to the terms of reference of any review and that we be able to do that in a timely manner.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Before we can make an assessment of this motion, we want to know what the French version is going to say. Is that possible? We've had that problem before--the same in English. We've even had Canada Post litigation arising out of it.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

We have translators in the back room. They could read it out to us.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Perhaps we could have it read back the way it's going to sound before we vote on this, because I'm concerned.

Is anyone aware of when this has been done before? Have other committees demanded that the minister come to them with the terms of reference before he acts on them?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Volpe.

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

I don't want to seem to have the definitive view on this. It is not uncommon for a recommendation to come forward from a committee saying, if you're going to study it, this is what we suggest you look at.

In this instance the committee has expressed concerns on both sides of the table about the definitions--the French translation and the English translation--that led to the issues that received a lot of attention and debate. Without reading Mr. Bélanger's mind, this is one of those cases where everybody agrees that certain protections have to be in place, and that the department and the minister have to move in a direction where all interests are taken into consideration. I think that's what the intention of this is.

There have been occasions where committees have said the same thing. Regardless of whether it was a minority or majority government, they've said they wanted the minister to hear what they have to say.

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

I have a direct response to the question, Mr. Chairman.

The same kind of motion was adopted, you may recall, Mr. Fast, at the heritage committee vis-à-vis a review of the mandate of CBC, and it was supported unanimously. It was a similar kind of thing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Be that as it may, Mr. Chair, my concern with this is that, first of all, this has the chance of delaying what the minister's actions will be on this file. And we do have a fairly short timeframe. I believe the motion has a drop-dead date of December 31 of this year.

So if I could finish, my concern is that we have thousands of Canadian jobs hanging in the balance--and I think that's been acknowledged by a number of the members of the opposition here--and I think we share the same concern that those jobs not be lost.

In a spirit of non-partisanship, we agreed on a form of motion, thanks to Mr. Bélanger, Mr. Volpe, and Mr. Bell. You crafted something together with your colleagues here that was acceptable to us.

We don't want this process to become bogged down. The minister has clearly indicated that he's going to do a review of Canada Post, and we want to make sure that whatever portion of that review actually addresses the issue of the remailers and their employees is done on an expedited basis. I don't want to go through the same process as we went through last time around, when we were really up against it and we had to act quickly because otherwise there would have been serious consequences to that industry.

Those are my comments, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Monsieur Bélanger.

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

I don't have any difficulty with what Mr. Fast just said. The two are not linked. We have a job to do. We've committed to doing it by the end of December on the one particular issue regarding Canada Post, and that's remailers, and this motion doesn't detract at all from that commitment.

This is vis-à-vis a larger review that the minister indicated he might be thinking of doing. And if the government proceeds with such a large review, it'll likely take much more than a few months. These things have a tendency to take a little longer. And I'm suggesting that if this is adopted, before that larger review, if ever it's done, is started, this committee have a chance to look at the terms of reference that the government might be putting together and offer suggestions and modifications. That's it.

That can be done in one meeting, and it doesn't even require the minister. Apart from the fact that the minister mentioned this, I'm not suggesting that we need to call the minister, even. This is a matter of a simple procedure, of saying, get us as a committee involved in setting your terms of reference; at least get our opinion on the record, and then proceed. That's all that says.