Transport Committee on Feb. 28th, 2008

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

I don't think we have a problem with that except for one thing. I'm sorry I didn't see Mr. Masse's hand up. I wouldn't like to see the inventory of witnesses and potential respondents to potential questions then dictating where we will go from there.

So we've agreed that we'll do the navigable waterways for the next couple, but building up, as I say, a vast reservoir of potential witnesses on this thing is not going to dictate whether we continue going beyond one or two weeks of discussion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I think that's a fair comment. I know that Mr. Bell has been waiting patiently for the rail report, and I think we've decided as a committee that when that comes forward we would like to finalize our report.

I have Mr. Masse, and I presume you would like to present your motion.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I can wait for further discussion on the motion, but I'm a little bit concerned, and I only tabled it now because there is a difference between what was agreed upon in the subcommittee and what we have today. It is a departure from what had happened there, and I will table these as well for the committee members.

I'm concerned about how far we go down this line and whether we're going to be looking at a review of the Navigable Waters Protection Act. I'm not opposed. I support doing some work on that, but I have already from my motion the groups that are supporting or writing to me about that. I have the national union of transportation workers, the Hotel Association, the Canadian Trucking Alliance, Chrysler, the Auto Parts Manufacturers' Association. We have the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association, the Canadian/American Border Trade Alliance, Teamsters Canada, the Canadian Meat Council, CAW, as well as Bombardier and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. The scope of what we can potentially do is important to the productivity issues.

I'm open to amending the motion. I'm open to spending time on the Navigable Waters Protection Act, but I'm a little bit concerned that we go full into this and then we depart on everything else that we can do as a committee.

I'm looking for compromise, but....

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I might just try to summarize it first.

I think what Mr. Jean has proposed is that after the agreement we reached earlier in this meeting, we would move forward with the study of navigable waters, with the idea that when the rail safety review comes back, as a subcommittee we'll make a decision on when and where we want to deal with that and address it.

As Mr. Volpe has said, if legislation comes forward, that may very well interrupt what we're doing as a committee to deal with those issues. I don't think anyone is saying we're not going to move away from navigable waters to deal with other issues that have either come before us or that will come in the future.

What I might suggest, Mr. Masse--and I know you've presented a large collection of people who are supporting your--

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

It's just the idea of doing it. It is not at the expense of anything else. I'm not suggesting that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

And that is understood. I think what we have to do, though, rather than having this discussion, is to bring it forward as a motion to deal with it, or leave it on the table and you can perhaps bring it forward as you bring everyone else onside to--

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I can leave it for today so we can move ahead, and then maybe we can meet and then go from there. I don't want to occupy the committee and go in a circle on it. If that's helpful, I'll leave it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Laframboise.

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

No, that's fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Okay.

Mr. Jean.

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

Very quickly, I don't think we've departed from what we agreed to in the subcommittee, but I'm still in the same mind frame, and I don't know how we missed that.

I was going to suggest that since you have the motion anyway, you can bring it forward at any time, but once we've heard from the department, it might make it a little bit clearer as far as where we're going and what we should do. I certainly have not departed from what my intention was during the subcommittee. I just wanted to make that clear.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Bell.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Quickly, if I understand regarding the rail, then I would like, prior to receiving the study that was done for the minister, to get whatever summaries were put together and have them recirculated to us from our committee so that we can be up to speed and ready to roll on that when it comes, and we can start thinking about it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Absolutely.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Secondly, general infrastructure--which is one of our main mandates--is important. It is important to the municipalities. I don't know what the steering committee talked about in terms of establishing work on that, but we need to have a good discussion about that.

The third aspect relating to this motion is the issue of the gateways. As critic for the Pacific gateway, I am particularly interested in addressing what the infrastructure needs are so that we can assess that.

With the Asia-Pacific--and I would refer to that again specifically--we know that within 10 to 15 years China will either be the number one economy or tied for the number one economy in the world. We know that the opportunity for Canada lies in tapping that market--whether it is India, China, Korea, or Japan--through the Pacific gateway. We know that the U.S. is building up its ports to take advantage of that. We know that Shanghai has quadrupled the size of its ports to deal with its growing business, so the capacity is going to be there. If we don't rise to the occasion, they will bypass us.

There's already talk about another kind of canal to parallel the Panama Canal. There are South American ports. We can't afford to be left behind, so I'm interested in that.

I realize that's trade, but it's also the issue of what we're talking about: the transport provided for that, making sure we've got the adequate rail links, and the provision for trucking and road services that are needed to serve that.

The other aspect, of course, is airports and the ability to handle tourism, and the significance, to some degree, of not yet having achieved the approved destination status with China, which impacts on the volumes that would come through the airport.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Okay.

I am hoping I have an understanding here for next week--Tuesday and Thursday--that we would send a request to the major departments that are going to be impacted by the navigable water, which would be DFO and probably Natural Resources. We'll let them know what we are doing as a committee and ask them to come and be prepared to respond and make a presentation on their role in dealing with navigable waters. Hopefully we can either glean some recommendations or make some recommendations to approve it.

Mr. Jean?

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

It's not on the same point, Mr. Chair. I think that's pretty clear from my perspective.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Okay, so any new business?

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

I just wanted to pass on to the committee members that I made a speech yesterday to a marine association, and except for my jokes, the biggest applause was in relation to Bill C-23, our amendments, and the regulatory changes. They really believe that regulatory changes are absolutely critical, and it's probably the best reception I've received from any group thus far. They were very happy with what we've done with Bill C-23. I just wanted to pass that on to everybody. I forgot to do that earlier, but they were very, very pleased.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Okay. I guess if we are passing out accolades, I will let the committee know that I received a personal phone call from the grain shippers to thank us for our speedy passage of Bill C-8. They were very pleased with that too.

It is good to see the committee receiving good news.

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

The royal assent on Bill C-8 is this afternoon at 3:30, if anybody's interested.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Okay. I think we've got that pretty much wrapped up. I guess we have to adjourn this meeting, or can we just move into it? We've got our high-priced talent sitting at the back and ready to join us, I'm sure.

Thank you. We will now move on to the order that we just approved this morning, “The study of the current status of navigation protection of the Canadian waterways, including their governance, use and the operation of the current Navigable Waters Protection Act”.

Joining us once again is Mr. Marc Grégoire, the assistant deputy minister of safety and security, and Mr. David Osbaldeston, the manager of the navigable waters protection program.

I guess you received the letter where we asked you to provide us with some of the low-hanging fruit, I think was the term, so we could improve this as quickly as possible.

Do you have an opening comment that you'd like to make, Mr. Grégoire?

[Marc Grégoire, Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport]

I have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Then I will ask you to proceed.

[Marc Grégoire]

Thank you very much. That will allow me to answer many questions and to lay the groundwork for your questions.

Good morning. Thank you for allowing us to return to the committee today and continue the discussion on possible amendments to the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

During our last discussion you requested additional information, which I believe has been distributed to members.

Has it been? We sent you a letter yesterday or two days ago. Does everybody have everything?

I would first like to touch on some of the information items that we have provided. The first item is the study on navigation protection in foreign jurisdictions. It is not an in-depth study, but rather a high-level overview of how works are constructed in navigable waters in other countries. It revealed that the Navigable Waters Protection Act is in fact not that different from similar legislation in other countries.

You have all received copies of the minor works brochures that were recently developed. The intent of these brochures is to reduce the regulatory burden on proponents by excluding from the act those minor works that are known to have no, or very little, impact on navigation. As the brochures were only implemented last year, in 2007, we have no quantitative data yet on their effectiveness. But it is estimated that they may ultimately result in a 25% reduction in the number of applications received.

We have provided a breakdown of the application numbers that were the cause of considerable discussion at our last appearance.

Finally, the most important item is a short list of items for consultation and for consideration in the act. This is the name I gave them. I can't call them “low-hanging fruit”, because there's no such thing as low-hanging fruit for this act. These items, however, would provide some limited relief to proponents and to the department.

In your letter of February 15, you asked the minister what could reasonably be done to serve the needs of stakeholders, specifically with respect to the current definitions in the act. The revised proposal focuses on two key definitions in the act, namely the definition of “navigable waters” and the definition of “work”. The intent of amending these definitions is to focus the application of the act upon those waters and those works where federal oversight provides the greatest value to Canadians.

In addition to the two definitions l've just mentioned, there are another five items we would like the committee to consider. Combined, these seven items represent what we believe to be the absolute minimum changes required to the act to benefit stakeholders.

l will now discuss each of them very briefly.

First, amending the definition of navigable waters to exclude minor waters and replacing it with the term "waters in Canada" as we had originally proposed does not solve any of the issues related to the term "navigable waters". Nonetheless, the amendment would benefit those wishing to construct works in minor waters and provide some workload relief to Transport Canada staff.

Second, amending the definition of work to explicitly exclude minor works will benefit or could benefit those wishing to construct minor works in navigable waters. Here again, we could anticipate some workload relief to applicants and to Transport Canada staff.

Subsection 5(2) of the act contains four named works. They are “bridge, boom, dam...[and] causeway”. These four works were originally named, back in 1882, specifically in the act, as they completely blocked the waterway and thus were traditionally considered significant interferences to navigation. Today in 2008, this is not true any more.

The result of naming those four works specifically in the act removed departmental discretion in the review process applied to them. This review process is prescribed in the act and is considered unnecessary in many cases—a large number of cases, indeed.

There would be significant benefit for stakeholders in removing those four named works from the act, as the review process could then be tailored to impact the work on navigation. This proposal could result in a moderate reduction in the number of environmental assessments conducted by the department.

Next, current fines in the act range from $500 to $5,000 maximum. They no longer act as a real deterrent to non-compliance and they require updating.

Here is another suggestion. In May 2007, the international Maritime Organization adopted the Nairobi International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks, 2007. Given the large number of questions that members of the committee had about wrecks when we last appeared, we thought that it was important to bring this for the committee's consideration.

it is proposed that only the operational elements of the wreck removal convention be inserted into the act. It is also proposed that the mandatory insurance provisions of the convention be placed into the Marine Liabilities Act.

The removal provisions in the convention apply to vessels of any size, and, for that reason, they complement the limited removal provisions of the current act.

The convention provides additional tools for Transport Canada to undertake removal of derelict vessels in all regions of the country as Canada chose to opt into the territorial waters provision of the convention.

Next, the act currently does not contain explicit inspection powers. Inspection powers are required to ensure compliance with all provisions. Good examples of inspection powers can be found in other similar legislation--for example, in part 10 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, or the enforcement section of the International Bridges and Tunnels Act.

Finally, it is desirable for stakeholders and the department to have a five-year review clause in the amended act. It would provide for an opportunity to correct any deficiencies identified through implementation, especially in light of the fact that we may not have new protection legislation for some time to come.

On a last point, on the copy of our guidance document that we gave you, the explanation on the chart on page 3 has been amended. The description of the light blue bar has been amended to reflect requests received per calendar year. On the version you received, it mentioned the number of applications. It did not in fact deal with the number of applications, but with the total workload. We realized that this included all the requests or enquiries that had been made but that were not applications as such. The new table clarifies this point, as do the additional tables that we have provided you with today.

Thank you for putting so much attention toward the Navigable Waters Protection Act. We truly hope this committee will make recommendations to improve this legislation.

Thank you.