Madam Speaker, in Motion No. 70 we want to ensure that services provided by the minister shall be provided in the most cost effective manner possible. The level and scope of such services as well as the manner of their delivery shall be defined in full ongoing consultation with all beneficiaries.
After listening to the parliamentary secretary's intervention I fail to see how anybody could find this offensive. I think it is offensive to those people who will be required to pay fees for services to be required to do so without consultation. When the coast guard last year announced it was to impose a fee for service that is exactly what happened. We heard a hue and cry from one end of the country to the other as a result.
The coast guard initially maintained it was in consultation with shippers and ports across Canada. I know there are members present today who were sitting on the standing committee, the member for Gaspé and the parliamentary secretary, who heard testimony from witnesses from Halifax, from the port of Montreal, from the port of St. John's, from the port of Vancouver. They told the standing committee they had not been properly consulted.
Let us put this into perspective. We are not talking about a small amount of money. In the current year the coast guard, effective June 1 of this year, is intending to collect $20 million from shippers across Canada and from ports. It intends to escalate that to $40 million in 1997, $40 million in 1998 and $60 million in 1999.
We have with this legislation a window of opportunity. We have the opportunity to ensure the minister and the department cannot unilaterally impose fees for services without consultation and without being able to justify that the services they are providing are actually required by the people who will pay for them, that they are being delivered in a cost effective and that they are being delivered in consultation with those people who will have to pay the bill.
Let me lay out the scenario as it took place in 1995-96. Largely due to the fact that the Treasury Board has told the coast guard its budget is to be reduced, it will have to get by with less money or will have to raise more money on its own, the coast guard decided it would raise an additional $20 million in 1996.
It came up with a plan that would have seen a national rate imposed right across the country. It did not relate the imposition of this user fee to any services it was actually providing. Until very recently we have not been able to get much information out of the coast guard as to how much the services it is providing actually cost because the coast guard has not been able to identify them. It has not been able to identify until very recently what services are actually required.
One good thing that has come out of the round of consultations, which is largely the result of the work of the standing committee its members who have insisted there be a great deal more fairness injected into the equation, is that we now have ports on the west coast which have agreed finally that the coast guard is starting to go in the right direction in terms of how it will impose these fees.
Therefore we view this legislation as a window of opportunity to ensure there is accountability, to ensure the minister and the department cannot impose fees without consultation and without being able to justify they are delivering the services the end users are getting in a cost effective manner.
The only thing I find offensive is the suggestion the minister ought to have this power without any accountability whatsoever.