Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this bill at the third reading stage.
I became a member of the Standing Committee on Transport when we were at the final stages of the bill. We looked at the bill as a whole, and the amendments moved. I could see that the committee members had put a lot of work into it, and that there was a desire to correct a situation that had existed in the past, namely the problem of controlling the costs of air navigation.
The Bloc Quebecois also saw, however, that the situation was a bit like a pendulum, having gone from one extreme to the other with no stop in the middle. The bill could, in our opinion, have turned into something worthwhile and acceptable. Its purpose was to create a not-for-profit organization in an attempt to involve representatives of the entire industry, with everyone having the opportunity to sit on the board. It seems, however, that the small carriers will not have a say, despite their expectations.
This is one of the negative aspects of the bill, and one which has not been corrected along the way since it was introduced. No amendment in this connection has been made, despite the numerous representations made about it.
Today, however, at the third reading stage, what I would like to tell the government is that, if it were to agree to modify the bill to give precedence to air safety instead of the financial stability of Nav Canada, this bill would have the potential of becoming an acceptable one, in our opinion.
That is what is missing from the bill at present, and our concerns have grown because of the government's refusal at other points, for example, to add a preamble to the bill which would satisfy the need for giving precedence to air safety. This is a very important aspect because of its considerable human impact. We have just had an example of this with the recent U.S. crash, with the loss of many lives, and all of the personal and economic aspects of it.
Canada has, in the past, acquired a reputation for air safety, since we have not had an undue number of accidents. From that point of view we have had a good reputation; our problem lay more, as I have said, with controlling costs.
By trying to settle the problem of controlling costs, we are leaving the door open to the creation of a new air navigation problem: safety. In its present form, the bill does not address that aspect satisfactorily.
This is why we want to ask the government once again to consider the question and, if possible, accept an amendment from us that would make the bill acceptable to the official opposition.
Why does so much importance need to be given to safety? Well, this is an area where mistakes are fatal. Newspapers regularly carry reports of events that have taken place. In this area, for both equipment and people, the most important thing in getting the job done is safety.
We were told in committee, particularly by the spokespersons for the Air Canada pilots' association, by those who came to talk about the use of French in the air and by representatives of the general population, the users of air services, that this was an important consideration and that the government's responsibility should be carried out by Transport Canada.
This distinction is not in the bill. Why is the government not agreeing to include this request on safety in Nav Canada's mandate? The question arises when we look at the make-up of the board of directors. All the representatives of the industry are there, people who are obviously in an industry aimed at making money. The major carriers, like Air Canada and Canadian International and others, are in the air transport business to make money, obviously, and this is perfectly normal.
These people are on the board of Nav Canada and will have to ensure the services they receive from Nav Canada are charged at an acceptable level and that they, after calculating their own costs, will be able to declare a profit.
So when they arrive on the board of directors, their first concern will be to look at the effect of the decisions on their own companies. As for public protection, as it appears in the legislation establishing Nav Canada and in the mandate defined there, we will see whether the members of the board of directors in fact do abide by acceptable standards of safety.
Except that the mandate establishes no such requirement. There is no provision for anyone in Canada to refer to, in the event of an accident or for prevention purposes, saying: "In a certain airport, in a certain situation, Nav Canada decided not to provide a certain sort of equipment or service, and we would like it to do so for safety reasons".
The legislation as it stands contains no provision for appeal or consultation and certainly no legal clout making such arguments possible. So, as far as safety is concerned, there is some anxiety.
The method of financing Nav Canada is also worrisome. Let us take a brief look at how it will work. There are some very large carriers who will bring in a significant amount, who will provide a lot of money to finance Nav Canada, because of the frequency of use of equipment and of Canadian air space, while use by others will be considerably less.
Accordingly, when the time comes for the board of directors to make budgetary choices, when decisions have to be made about what equipment to invest in, certain individuals will have a greater say than others. I am speaking of those who control air transportation.
What, however, will happen to small carriers, as well as people living in remote areas, for instance? I do not necessarily mean the Far North, which the bill covers quite adequately by making provision for special rules, but regional airports. I could mention the Mont-Joli airport, in my region, or the one in Sept-Îles, or any other regional airport in Canada. If Nav Canada decides not to add a particular piece of equipment to their airport so that a particular plane can land, that would have an important regional economic impact. This is a reality communities will have to live with. We have a very telling example, the situation now being experienced in the area of Montreal and Mirabel, with ADM.
You will recall that this was an organization created by the former Conservative government to manage Montreal's airports. We have here the same financial objective as Nav Canada's. There is a decision to turn the management of the airports over to the private sector, just as the question of air navigation services is being turned over to the private sector, through Nav Canada. In both cases, the organization created will have a phenomenal amount of leeway and will not necessarily have to be truly accountable for its actions.
In the case of ADM, we now see what this leads to. Without in any way saying whether the choice of Dorval or of Mirabel is right, what can be said with certainty is that the public is not now in a position to judge the best possible decision. They must pretty much rely on ADM, which is not accountable for its actions to either the Government of Quebec or the federal government.
Even if the federal government owns these airport facilities, even if there is a lease between the federal government and ADM for the management of the Dorval and Mirabel airports, the government has not left itself any position from which it could say to ADM that the decisions it takes will have a major impact, a direct economic impact on air navigation, as well as on the tourist industry, the industrial sector, and all sorts of other impacts. Again today, during question period, the federal government, through the responsible minister, could not tell us anything other than that ADM is autonomous and can do what it wants.
I give this example because, in the case of Nav Canada, it seems to me that there is a risk that we will find ourselves in exactly the same sort of situation in the years to come. There will be quite a heated battle in certain regions for safety equipment accommodating particular types of planes and people will practically be begging Nav Canada for this equipment.
No appeal mechanism is provided by which a community, citizens, organizations or users can be heard and can obtain rulings reflecting the economic impact of these decisions.
At the same time, I would also like to make a comparison with what happened with Canada Post Corporation. This is a Crown corporation with considerable leeway, which was given a mandate of becoming cost effective. Because this corporation was showing deficits, the only criterion was to require it to be cost effective. This led to a policy of brutally closing down post offices, with the determining factor being quite simply the age of the postmaster. It had nothing to do with the number of clients served.
It took a political decision, a moratorium by the present government to stop this operation. The same mistakes are being made, as though we were in some sort of neo-Liberal model, where, when we see the pendulum swinging back, we say: "Before, we interfered in everything and it was costing too much, because we were doing it badly. Now, we will not interfere in anything and we will give people free rein". But between these two extremes, a balance must be sought, and in the case at hand, it is the issue of safety.
This raises another problem as well, and that is the question of transparency. Even if Nav Canada makes the best decisions in the world, for them to be accepted by the regional communities involved, public debate must be possible. Certainly public debate brings about delays on occasion, but the time spent in public debate is often shorter and more profitable than that spent in legal wrangling.
We need only think of what is happening with the ADM, in the case of the Montreal airports, Dorval and Mirabel. Since we are not allowed access to all of the studies on this, we are now faced with citizens who want to institute legal proceedings, and unacceptable delays may result. The bill we have before us now will not solve this problem of transparency.
Let us just look at the question of the small carriers. In Canada, there are carriers that can be identified as major carriers with high volume and a heavy influence on air travel markets. There are,
however, also many small carriers. These are found just about everywhere in Canada.
There are, for example, tourist carriers which take southern hunters or biologists to the north. There are many of these in the west, and many also in northern Quebec. There are also small charter companies. These are not companies that do a lot of business, but they will be considerably hindered by the fee scales set by Nav Canada.
Setting fees in this way will not impact only on the economic survival of the small carriers. The rates set could well have only a minimal effect on the major carriers, but a considerable one on the smaller ones.
The way the board is set up, small carriers will not have enough representation to make themselves heard. I believe that Nav Canada could, in good faith, take decisions that are not intended to hurt the small carriers but will in fact do so. There will be a negative impact, and that is the first consequence of the fee scale.
There is another. Obviously, because there is more air traffic between major centres, the small ones, the small airports will find it harder to defend their arguments for obtaining relevant equipment.
As small carriers are the ones using small airports, a sort of vicious circle is created. We have people who are not represented on the board of directors-small carriers-and small airports with limited traffic, providing essential services to the smaller centres. In the end, this could even lead to lessening economic activity in certain regions. The effects of the choices made will be felt in two, five, ten or twenty years with the small carriers being shifted to the larger airports or simply eliminated. These are some of the effects of Bill C-20.
Despite the government's best intentions, despite the work in committee, the finishing touches are lacking. There is one element that was not given sufficient consideration. Accordingly, if there are no amendments, the official opposition will be unable to vote in favour of this bill, because some things need to be changed.
Let us consider for a few minutes the various decisions that will have to be made by Nav Canada and that may have negative effects because of this lack of concern for safety.
For example, Nav Canada could decide to set up new navigational equipment in an airport. As the bill now stands, the cost of the aircraft will be reviewed, as well as all the charges for the whole country, but not the issue of whether this equipment is really needed in this or that airport to ensure adequate safety. There will be no advisory committee to warn us of an inadequate level of safety in a given sector.
This is not an area in which things can be fixed afterwards. In air navigation services, any mistake that causes the death of people or that has a major economic impact is very harmful to all of society. You may appoint as many inquiries as you like, but all it takes is one or two major accidents to have bitter regrets about not making safety a top priority right from the start.
Another decision that can be made by Nav Canada is to redistribute the equipment. For example, if air traffic in eastern Quebec was down, it could be decided that the facilities in Mont-Joli are no longer be needed and some of the equipment could be transferred to the national capital region, for instance. There is no control, no requirement to inform the regions concerned that part of their equipment will be transferred to another airport or to tell them about the possible consequences. This bill does not provide any mechanism for appealing decisions or consulting the communities affected.
Several amendments to that effect were put forward during consideration of the bill at report stage. Those amendments were rejected.
Now that we are at third reading, we would like the government to at least pay attention and realize that making safety a priority would have a direct impact on such decisions. Through this bill, the government could prompt Nav Canada to take into consideration the security of any given airport when moving equipment. We do not feel this was emphasized enough in the bill.
Generally speaking, this bill will no doubt make the whole cost control issue easier. I hope we will see a marked improvement. At the same time, it seems to us that it has deficiencies in terms of safety, by not making safety the first consideration. This is something we feel the government should reconsider before giving this bill the force of law.
In the coming years, we will live through the situation I described earlier and already experienced by other organizations, where the federal government has relinquished so much responsibility that it does not even have the nub to pull the door shut with. One, two or three years from now, it will not be able to tell Nav Canada that its decisions do not meet an acceptable minimum level of safety.
It is all interconnected. It does not allow citizens or users to request information about Nav Canada under the federal government's Access to Information Act because it has been decided that this act would not apply to this particular organization.
All the more proof that this bill is only about economic and cost effectiveness considerations. But what we are dealing with is not a cannery or some private sector enterprise where safety is not that important. This is an area where the federal government must always have some responsibility over safety, air safety and related regulations. It must give the organization it is establishing and
which will be in operation for many years to come the mandate to give top priority to safety. The bill does not contain anything to this effect.
That is why I move the following amendment:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "That" and substituting the following:
"this House declines to give third reading to Bill C-20, an act respecting the commercialization of civil air navigation services, because the bill does not give the safety of passengers, airline personnel and the public priority over all other considerations in business decisions made by Nav Canada."
I move this amendment, which I have signed, seconded by the hon. member for Blainville-Deux-Montagnes, hoping that the House will debate it and see that it can help ensure that the final product meets all public requirements in that respect, so that the bill is acceptable to all members of this House.