Mr. Speaker, my party opposes this bill as is for the following reasons.
Bill C-9 will create a patchwork of privately run ports with new mandates supposedly oriented to financial self-sufficiency. It seems less likely that these ports will form an integral part of a coherent national strategy for meeting our transportation and regional development needs. Instead we will have a set of local activities which are not linked to a national vision or plan. The danger arising from the withdrawal of a federal presence in the port system is that we will be handicapped in relation to our principal competitor the United States.
The U.S. government has a transportation policy based on the national interest. It has developed mechanisms to support and fund national transportation infrastructure. The trust fund mechanism is used to fund airports, highways, inland waterways and harbour maintenance. For example in the U.S., dredging of harbours is done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is financed by the harbour maintenance fund.
Under the proposed legislation we are considering today, Canadian ports that need dredging will have to pay for it themselves. This is estimated to cost a port like Saint John between $1 million to $1.5 million a year. This imbalance in funding and resources in the absence of a commitment from the national government will undoubtedly hurt Canada's position in competing for the lucrative business of international container cargo and freight.
The proposed privatization will ultimately have negative implications for many of the people presently working in the port system and the maritime industry generally. Despite assurances from the government about job security, it seems likely that as a new profit driven management approach is broadened jobs will be lost among the longshoreman and administrative workers who presently work within the Canada Ports Corporation. There is evidence from numerous other sectors that short term financial considerations will inevitably prevail over the preservation of jobs and the maintenance of fair working conditions.
As productivity and throughput considerations become more dominant, who will look out for the welfare of the staff who remain in the service of the ports organization? Cuts to workforce inevitably put additional pressures on the remaining staff. The added stress this creates is often reflected in increasing numbers of industrial accidents. These sorts of conditions are rarely reflected in this sort of legislation.
Can the government assure us that there will be a fair and representative cross-section of the different interests who have a stake in the Canadian port system? Will the federal government be able to protect the national interest in the future?
In many cases the most important users of the port facilities, those with a real stake in its performance and fees are the farmers from the prairie provinces. Under the new arrangements they will also be granted only one voice on the board. We believe that the board must be more than just an expression of the interests of the local business community. There is no guarantee under the proposed legislation that this will be the case.
Furthermore will there be a representative of labour on the new board of directors? As a vital player in the activity of ports, surely there is a case for union representation on the decision making structure that will oversee the agencies.
Even more appalling to this scenario especially in light of the statement by the Minister of Industry that if you did not vote Liberal do not expect to be treated fairly, and the Prime Minister's obvious approval of this prostituting of their favours for votes, two or maybe three members of the board will be appointed, not elected, and the remaining four to eight members will be appointed directly or indirectly by the minister.
The former transport minister made the rather arrogant statement that you do not have to be Sherlock Holmes to check surveillance monitors and ensure doors are locked in reference to work done by port police. Although that may be one aspect of the work done, it is still done in a dangerous environment where without question criminal activity, drug, people and weapons smuggling is a major factor.
I think it is irresponsible to suggest that lower cost security guards should have their lives devalued and put at risk. The proposal to remove the Canada ports police from the newly created entity seems an unwise step. Private security firms are not peace officers and do not have the same range of powers enjoyed by the police.
It is likely that drug smuggling, already a significant problem, will increase as a result of this legislation. Neal Jessop, president of the Canadian Police Association in March 1997 was quoted as saying that abolishing Canada's ports police will open the floodgates to the smuggling of drugs, guns and other contraband by organized crime. What passes through the ports will end up on the streets of our towns and cities from coast to coast to coast.
Let us look at the case of Vancouver, for example. The Minister of Transport at the time said that Canada Ports Corporation will provide $1 million to B.C. to cover the cost of one year of a 10-person Vancouver city police unit to patrol the port 24 hours a day. When the $1 million for Vancouver policing runs out it will be up to the city and the port to determine who should pay for more.
Ian Whittington a port police officer and president of the Port Police Association for the Pacific region stated that the level of policing within Canada's largest and most major port will digress drastically. Of course Vancouver will not be the only port affected. St. John's, Newfoundland and Saint John, New Brunswick, Halifax, Quebec City and Montreal, every part of the country is going to be affected.
We need to have commitments that will ensure that all Canadians are safe. The privatization of the ports fits into a pattern of the gradual withdrawal of the federal government from a host of activities and functions vital to the well-being of coastal communities. Cutbacks to the coast guard search and rescue capacity and the demanning and automation of lighthouses form the backdrop to the privatization of the ports.
There are estimated to be approximately 500 public ports and harbours in Canada. It seems safe to assume that communities with ports smaller than those of Vancouver, Halifax and Montreal are likely to feel the brunt of this legislation. Why is the Liberal government turning its back on the legitimate needs of the smaller coastal communities?
When the existing employees of the ports and the St. Lawrence seaway are transferred to the new authorities, there is no provision in the act for the continuation of superannuation benefits for existing employees within the new regimes, as was the case with the air traffic controllers when they were transferred to the not for profit corporation Nav Canada.
It might seem somewhat paranoid to suggest that these types of things are going to happen. However, I happened to be in Churchill, Manitoba the day after the signing for the turnover of the port to the new owner. The prime example of the pilotage situation came into question as a contract had not been signed with the pilot who was then going to be working and bringing in the tugs. Because the contract was not signed and the pilot was thinking about not taking in the tugs, it was suggested that an American pilot might be able to bring the tug in instead. Thank heavens for wiser heads prevailing and immigration seeing fit to make sure that would not happen. It certainly leads us to agree with the Bloc member that piloting was a major question.
The bill fails to provide for the capital financing that would be required to construct new port facilities at some future date. The submission of the Halifax Port Development Commission is highly instructive on this point and worth quoting at length:
The funding needed for construction of major port facilities can only be arranged in part, if at all, in the private sector. No private sector lender or investor can advance the bulk of such funding against user commitments which may or may not materialize when the facilities are completed, and if they do then materialize, may or may not continue until the funding has been repaid. Under such a scenario, funding can only come from governments which have the necessary financial resources and can justify, in the interests of promoting the economy of their constituents, the assumption of the attendant commercial risk. Had Bill C-9 been in effect in the late 1960s, Halifax would never have been able to build and equip even one container berth, and the harbour would long ago have fallen into disuse.
Should these ports be privatized? Will they be required to disclose their capital expenditure plans for local community input and review? The kind of secrecy that normally shrouds the investment activities of private companies must not be allowed to prevail within the ports where a range of public groups have a vital stake in the financial posture of their ports. Why has the government not chosen to make mandated public disclosure of all financial plans a precondition for the transfer of the ports to the private sector?