moved:
Motion No. 2
That Bill C-28, in Clause 4, be amended by deleting lines 18 to 26, on page 3.
Mr. Speaker, after having worked on this bill in committee for several days, we have finally reached the report stage at which time we can propose improvements in the hope of convincing the House that such improvements would give us a clearer piece of legislation which could survive many years without being called into question.
Similar in spirit to the previous amendment, this amendment would ensure that the minister, who in clause 3 may designate for a province an appropriate authority, will not have the power to muzzle the appropriate authority. Perhaps as a result of the previous vote this will no longer be the case, but the basis for this amendment being moved is that this provision of the bill will not be amended. The portion of the clause that would be deleted reads as follows: "The Minister may give directives to any appropriate authority respecting the exercise or performance of any of its powers, duties or functions under this Act or the regulations, and such directives are binding on the appropriate authority".
Since the legislation must provide for all possible situations that could arise, it is possible that in a given situation, the directive given by the minister would be unacceptable for some legal reason to the appropriate authority. The fact that the proposed legislation gives the minister the right to compel the appropriate authority to comply with his directive is tantamount to saying that the appropriate authority is not needed because he would have to implement any decision taken by the minister.
The clause in question states that the minister designates and gives directives to the appropriate authority and that these are binding on him. In our view, deleting lines 18 to 26, as proposed in the amendment motion, would remove the sword of Damocles that is being waved over the heads of the designated appropriate authorities and would give them a minimum degree of flexibility to be effective. Clearly, this piece of legislation, as was the case with the previous student loans legislation, applies more to the other provinces than to Quebec which is the only province to have opted out, or the Northwest Territories. Our duty as legislators is to ensure that the legislation is the best it can be.
While Quebec will certainly continue to exercise the right to opt out-because in Quebec, we have developed an entirely different system, we have a completely different approach to student loans-and continue to do its own thing, legislation is needed and, in the provinces which will be governed by it, this legislation must be administered correctly, honestly and effectively.
In committee, serious work was done and a number of amendments were proposed, some of which were adopted, thus improving the legislation.
I think it is important to note also that in that respect, we end up in a rather symbolic situation at the same time. The hon. member inquired earlier as to where the money came from. Ultimately, grants and bursaries in Quebec are financed by the program, through exchanges between governments. But in fact, it has never been denied that Quebecers' tax money ought to come back to them in the form of grants and bursaries, under a program managed by the province, as this has become the practice, and Quebec has demonstrated that it has the expertise required to grant loans to its students.
In this case, as far as the designation of the appropriate authorities is concerned, we believe that in the spirit of the Constitution and its provisions on jurisdiction, the bill could have provided that the provinces have the authority to appoint them and to delegate this authority to the federal government if they so please, which could have been the case in nine provinces out of ten. A wording along these lines would have avoided infringing upon provincial jurisdiction, which we end up doing with this bill with I must say some contempt for the authority of the provinces. That is what motivated the amendment I have moved.
Seeing that infringement is to be expected, as legislators, we want to make sure that these authorities will retain a minimum of leeway as we move from the old provisions under which the government of each province designated the appropriate authorities to new ones whereby the federal minister will designate the appropriate authorities for each of the provinces. If we cannot persuade the government to change that, let us at least make sure that, as far as the performance of their duties is concerned, these authorities retain some leeway, because the minister might decide for example to sign agreements with banking institutions which could affect the student loan and bursary system, and the authority representing a province may feel this decision was not the most appropriate.
I can give you a specific example: francophone and Acadian students in all provinces of Canada except Quebec asked that caisses populaires be formally identified as banking institutions that could be accredited for loans and bursaries by the government. In a situation like that, one province, for example, could realize that the minister would sign an agreement with only one bank for all of Canada; then the authority in the province might say: "That is not how we want it to apply here and we have some suggestions for you, Minister".
Theoretically, as it is now written, the minister can impose it and the appropriate authority cannot even challenge the decision. This means that even if a provincial government held hearings on loans and bursaries because it considered opting out, for example, those designated as appropriate authorities could receive a notice from the minister that they are not allowed to testify at the hearings.
In the bill as it now reads the minister has indeed too much authority in his spheres of activity, and even more so when past experience is considered, especially in Quebec, which has opted out.
We also considered-because we must always look at the laws regardless of the individuals who apply them and a long-term view-we want to ensure that we will not have a recurrence of what has happened in many other fields, a sort of competition between governments. For example, if the program of a province that wants to opt out is not what the federal minister wants, he might try to override the province, and his power over the appropriate authority would be one way he could control the situation, perhaps to the detriment of the provinces concerned.
That is why we consider it important to support this amendment.