Mr. Speaker, I will start by telling the government I am recommending to my party that we support this bill going to committee after first reading, which is contrary to our normal policy.
When the House first started the concept of sending legislation to committee after first reading, it sounded like a great idea. It was supposed to be easier. Nobody would get their back up in the House before the bill went to committee. However, we were blind sided by that because once a bill got to committee, we found that it was treated in a very autocratic manner.
I opposed Bill C-101, which later became Bill C-14, going to committee after first reading. Of course the Liberals used their voting might to ram it through. In all fairness at committee level, notwithstanding the fact there were still things in the bill which I did not like, it was dealt with in a much more open handed manner than had previously been the case.
I see no advantage in debating the bill at this point. Debate does not answer questions. It postulates each of the various positions, but it does not answer questions. I have some questions which need to be answered and this can best be done at the committee level. I would like to see the bill go to committee so we can start dealing with the real questions that have been brought up. Before I proceed, I would like to put the government on notice on some things I am concerned about and will be looking for answers to in committee.
I would like to comment on one of the remarks made by the member from the Bloc Quebecois. He talked about his concern that the anticipated formula will charge more for aircraft landing than it will for aircraft overflying. I should tell the hon. member that unfortunately for him, he does not seem to know very much about the air traffic control system.
An aircraft that overflies, probably in the high level air space, stays under the control of a series of sectors but in one spectrum of the air traffic control system, high level control. Where an aircraft landing may have started in high level control when it came into the air space but had to descend through low level control, then into terminal control and then ultimately airport control, there is a much greater workload, more people involved and more equipment requirements. Therefore, there is a rationale for this.
If the member has small airlines or operators who are concerned about this, if he cares to share those with me, I would be happy to talk to them. I have talked to a lot of large and small operators as well as all the other players in this and I have not found this particular opposition. It does not mean I am not open to hearing it if he has something to bring forward.
The minister in his opening remarks talked about this great windfall of $1.5 billion that is going to come in. He suggested that it will be used to reduce the deficit. If he does I just hope he keeps in mind that it is not going to come in every year. It is not going to do much for deficit control. It is just a little short term thing. The reality is that it is probably not going to be used for the deficit at all. It is probably going to be used to try to buy off some provinces where they are signing on to the new GST scheme.
I am in favour of a lot of things about the program as it stands now, for example the not for profit corporation as opposed to the crown corporation which I had the impression the government was pushing and pushing rather hard at the beginning. In fact, I could see a lot of senior bureaucrats jockeying for a high level position in the new crown corporation.
I am very pleased to see that the various users involved in this did get their act together and sat down and presented a united front to transport and did manage to bring in the not for profit concept. I am sure it will work much better than a crown corporation ever would. It is good to get it out of government hands, not only out of transport but out of the crown corporation concept as well.
Under the previous government control we have seen something known as RAMP, the radar modernization project. That has been on the go for a decade and it is now way behind schedule. It is over budget. After over 600 software applications, it is still not fully operational. That is a good example of government efficiency. I hope to see much better being done by the private sector.
A number of questions need to be answered and I will just touch on a few. One of the things the new corporation is banned from compensation for is anything the government does by way of an international agreement. I do have some concerns there. We can certainly expand on this in committee. I raised my concerns at the briefing we had on this and I will be taking this further.
I have a concern that the corporation had a very vested interest in taking this over. It is their own organization that impacts on it more than anyone else and consequently they want to have a say in this new operation. Therefore, it was incumbent upon them, one way or another, to ensure that they were successful in taking over this privatized or commercialized air traffic control entity. I have some concerns that they may have been in a situation of negotiating with a gun at their heads as several of the airport authorities did and
now find after the fact that they do not have enough capital to operate properly.
In talking about capital, the Nav Canada corporation has advertised that it is now going to go for a bond issue, seeking possibly as much as $2.5 billion to $3 billion. One question I have not heard answered is about the pension fund the government has turned over to Nav Canada for the pension earnings and positions of all those people who have current pension time earned. That pension fund has to be invested if it is going to grow and continue to have enough revenues in it to pay the pension obligations that the various employees have earned. Can that pension money be invested by Nav Canada in the Nav Canada bond issue? A lot of employees in the organization would like to know the answer to that as well.
I have concerns about a couple of other areas. One is northern operations. When and under what conditions can Nav Canada be required to continue to operate in the north when it seems to be no longer practical to do so? If it is ordered to continue when there is no commercial sense in being there, will there will be any compensation, and if so, in what form?
I come to the AWOS, the automated weather observation system. I assume this will come, at least partly, under the parameters of the new Nav Canada corporation. I am very concerned about how this will be handled. AWOS is a dangerous piece of equipment. It has been installed in 60 locations. The former Minister of Transport acknowledged that it has problems and decommissioned it at two airports, but still left it in 58 others.
Why are the lives of the people at two airports where it was taken out more important than the lives of the people at the other 58 airports where it is still in service? How does Nav Canada fit into the AWOS system and what are its plans for it?
There is also the matter of the Hughes contract. This new computerized concept of radar is way behind schedule, away over budget, but the government rewrote the contract so that it is now in theory back on schedule and back on budget. It did that by giving a considerable time extension to Hughes, along with an increase in what it is going to pay for a system that is going to have most of its major features removed.
The government cannot stand up and say the Nav Canada corporation loves this because it is paying $1.5 billion. These were gun at the head negotiations and someone has to speak on its behalf. I will be raising that issue in committee.
I will give the government the opportunity to prove that it is being more open minded, that it is going to follow with the intent that it stated when it brought up the original concept of going to committee after first reading. I trust that it will be as open in committee this time as it was to some degree under Bill C-101. If it is, then perhaps we will support going to committee after first reading several times in the future.
On the other hand, if the government does what it did on Bill C-89, which was to ignore all the input, all the amendments and ram the bill through the way it was, then I can assure the House that this will be the last time that we support this concept.