Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment today to speak to a few issues relating to Motion No. 35.
To provide some background, the present Railway Act is a piece of virtually historic legislation. It provides railway companies with their own independent powers to expropriate land. This dates from the era when railways were used for the purpose of nation building when just about any government would make just about any deal to achieve the construction of a railway. Under the Railways Act, private land can be taken by the railways. However the Indian Act requires that governor in council approval is needed for taking of reserve lands.
Over the years statute for water related facilities like ports and bridges, although not rail or transportation, adopted the expropriation provisions of the Railway Act. This means that other private companies and some public corporations can also use the Railway Act as an expropriation mechanism to take private and reserve lands pursuant to the wording of other acts.
Bill C-14 is primarily a transportation bill and it cannot advance measures that potentially set important precedents with respect to aboriginal rights. That having been said, the bill does attempt to address some of the longstanding problems which are found in the Railway Act with respect to reserve expropriation. It also attempts to address several other issues which are of interest to aboriginal peoples.
First, the bill eliminates the private expropriation power of railway companies. These companies in future will have to apply to the Minister of Transport following which the provisions of the government's Expropriation Act will be the governing statute rather than the Railway Act, which is to be repealed with the passage of Bill C-14. Other private interests and some public corporations would, like railway companies, also fall under this expropriation mechanism and would lose under the Railway Act approach the rights that they now have.
Second, the new sale and discontinuance process under Bill C-14 requires that if a private sale of a line cannot be made, federal, provincial and municipal governments will sequentially have 30 days to exercise an option to purchase the line for no more than the net salvage value.
Initially under former Bill C-101 from the first session of this Parliament, the federal option applied only if the line crossed a provincial or international boundary. During the review of the former bill, the Standing Committee on Transport approved an amendment which expands the federal option to include reserve lands. This amendment is being made to address the concerns which have been expressed by some aboriginal groups that land in reserves over which rail lines pass might otherwise not be protected when the rail operations cease.
Third, section 96 of Bill C-14 states that a railway company cannot alienate land taken from the crown, except to transfer the land for continuing railway operations or to transfer the land back to the crown. Following review by the standing committee, section 97 of the bill was amended to indicate that nothing in this section would be construed to negate any pre-existing right or interest that anyone might have in the lands transferred under this section. That of course includes aboriginal rights.
Fourth, amended section 145 with one further proposed amendment will require an offer to the minister of any line or portion of a line which passes through land that is or was part of a reserve or that occupies land which is affected by land claims, provided the minister or the railway's owner have entered into agreement for the minister to recover the land.
I believe that Bill C-14 as amended is further evidence of the efforts of the government to accommodate the special concerns of a particular group in our society in transportation policy.