Transport Committee on Oct. 17th, 2017

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Yes.

On NDP-2, before Monsieur Aubin moves this amendment, may I suggest that if he strikes the words “on the Internet site of the Department of Transport”, that may make the motion more palatable for all the members on this committee to vote for.

I support the motion as it's currently worded, but I sense that other members on the committee may not support it because it's prescribing something very specific that may not exist in 10 years, as a result of the development of social media.

I propose removing the words “on the Internet site of the Department of Transport”. That way, the other committee members might support your amendment.

I heard clearly from officials here that normally they publish within about 36 hours, so to me two days, which is 48 hours, seems entirely reasonable.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Go ahead, Mr. Hardie.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

We have heard that two days may be impractical. That's what I've heard from staff.

I could certainly support the change of just simply replacing the word “or” with “and”, and that would make sure that something reliable is always happening—i.e., it would always be on Transport Canada's website—and whatever other channel was available, including social media, if necessary, to make sure that it reached the proper number of eyes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Go ahead, Mr. Aubin.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe I heard someone say that 36 hours was doable. I want to be a team player and plan for unforeseen eventualities, so I'm happy to set the time limit at three or four days; I'm not adamant that it be two days. The idea behind behind the two-day deadline was to ensure the legislation specified a prescribed time limit, as opposed to the vague reference “as soon as feasible”, which I think is unacceptable. If everyone could agree on a three- or four-day time limit, I wouldn't insist that it be two days. As for the “and”, I think we've discussed it enough to understand one another.

Mr. Chong, unless I'm mistaken, you're suggesting that I remove the words “on the Internet site of the Department of Transport” from my amendment.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Yes, because members have reservations about that language. The officials said communication methods can change a lot. In 10 years, there may not be an Internet site.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

I hope that, in 10 years' time, we'll have had a chance to update the legislation. Again, I would point out that, even if posting the information on Transport Canada's website became an outdated practice, which I doubt, all other means of communicating the information would still be possible thanks to the word “and”.

I wouldn't remove those words because they describe the first tool the department has to communicate the information. We are trying to make sure that consumers always have at least one safe place, one that doesn't change, where they can find the information in a timely manner. Whether the time frame is two, three, or four days is negotiable.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Go ahead, Mr. Lobb.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Aubin is right on the money here. We can have a discussion about two days or three days or four days, but we are talking about conditions for granting an exemption, so the department and the government owe it to Canadians to at least have it published. In the wording here it says “as soon as feasible”, but probably the politicians will be out taking their photo ops whenever they are testing these vehicles, so it will be within a few days of this. If it is two days or three days or whatever we can agree to, and if there is a friendly amendment from the Liberals on this, I don't think it's unreasonable, because what we're talking about are the conditions under which you would grant an exemption.

With regard to being responsible to Canadians, the word “feasible” can be interpreted many different ways. We'll assume that the lead-up to the granting of the exemption would have had a long lead time, so all the information, the facts therein, would be well established, and it would be a condition of granting an exemption that it be published in an appropriate site, which in 2017 is on the website.

I'd love to hear if the Liberals are willing to accept the time requirement as is or if they would like to propose a friendly amendment to make it three days, but it seems to me it is a little irresponsible to leave “feasible” in as the time requirement.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm not hearing anyone move a subamendment.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

The reason for that, Chair, is I would ask the Liberals to do it because they have the majority on the committee, and from the onset they wanted to work through this process by doing each one bit by bit, amendment by amendment. That's why I'm asking them to propose the friendly amendment, because if I amend Mr. Aubin's amendment to three days, they might say that's not enough and they need four days. I just thought we'd get it from them right from the beginning.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Go ahead, Mr. Fraser.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Yes, I still do have a problem with prescribing it generally. We might be creating a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, or at least exists in very limited circumstances.

There are a couple of things that I'd like to confer on with my colleagues. Would it be okay to suspend for one minute to discuss a few of the ideas here?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Okay. We'll suspend for two minutes.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We are reconvening our meeting. We are back on Bill S-2.

Go ahead, Mr. Fraser.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I will pick up where we left off. I still don't like to prescribe the timeline. Changing “and” to “or” so that it goes on the Internet in every instance is fine.

I have a little bit of hesitation to specifically say the Department of Transport website, for two reasons. One was the testimony we heard from Ms. Benjamin about how sometimes there's already a way we collect it under a different department's website. Also, I think government websites are, quite frankly, often terrible. I have grown up in a generation that has seen good websites and bad websites. Prescribing content for a specific website is something I'm very hesitant about.

On the amendment that you've proposed, if we want to make it mandatory that it goes on the Internet, I have no problem. I can't support setting a prescribed timeline, because I think that in some situations the timeline might not make sense. That's where my head is at. If you're interested, I would entertain a friendly amendment to modify the original text and replace “or” with “and”, but the two-day criterion I can't support.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Go ahead, Mr. Lobb.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I think Mr. Fraser is incorrect in his assessment on the time frame, because it isn't as though they drop it on them one day and the department finds out about the whole project and then two days later is forced to do it. It could take two years to work towards getting an exemption to test on a road.

I don't think we're asking a lot of the department to publish a year's worth of work, two years' worth of work, two days after they decide to grant the exemption. I don't think that's too onerous for the department. They may need three days or four days, but to put “feasible”....

I don't see what we're afraid of here. This isn't a snap decision. These are long term, so why not make the department accountable to do it? If they're good enough to grant the exemption, how can they not be good enough to put on the website to inform people about it?

By the way, if Google or Amazon or Tesla or any of the other companies has one of these vehicles, they're going to test it. They're probably going to do an announcement of the kind they did in the City of Ottawa a couple of weeks ago, so there could be a press announcement, a public announcement, and there's a chance it would not even be on the website.

I don't know why you wouldn't have it on the website. Do your due diligence and be responsible to Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you, Mr. Lobb.

Mr. Aubin is next.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

I'd like to thank Mr. Lobb for making the point I was going to make. I'll take less time now.

I really can't understand this concern. Even the department officials told us that a 36-hour publication deadline was realistic. In rare cases, it might take a bit longer, but we don't have any examples in which that time frame couldn't be met. We're in the process of inventing something that doesn't exist simply out of fear of publishing information about a completed process. On that, I agree with Mr. Lobb. The goal isn't to buy more time within the process, because there is ample time for the decision to be reached. The goal, rather, is to have the decision published within two, three, or four days of its being received. I don't understand why that causes so much concern.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We have one last speaker, and then I'm going to call the vote.

Go ahead, Mr. Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

I believe Mr. Fraser proposed a subamendment to strike the words—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

He mentioned it, but he didn't move it.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I asked if Mr. Aubin wanted to propose a friendly amendment that would capture that, and I'd entertain it. To me it's—