Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a pleasure to speak on this bill today.
I have but one little problem with it and that is that I was not here in the last Parliament. My constituents decided to give me a little vacation and while I was home for three and a half years, the transport committee of the House of Commons researched this particular bill for approximately a year and a half.
In our case, it was really thrown at us and we did not have a lot of chance to review it. We were denied the opportunity to hear witnesses other than the minister and his officials. Therefore, I feel that the committee and Parliament were let down quite a bit. However, we are going to address these motions in Group No. 1 today.
As much as we understand the thought and the purpose behind this motion, we are going to vote against Motion No. 1. In some ways we feel that it makes sense, but on the other hand it would allow an unlimited number of directors to be appointed to the CPA boards. We think that would be a mistake. It already has a large number of members and many of the ports have asked for smaller boards, not bigger boards. With this amendment to the bill, it would allow for a much larger board.
We are also going to vote against Motion No. 2 because we feel that it will prevent port authorities from expanding, using their own resources. It will deny them the ability to grow if a port authority is successful and is able to grow. There have been some very exciting examples of this lately. However, this motion would deny them the right to continue to grow. It reduces flexibility and creates an impedance against growth for successful port authorities.
It basically says: “The minister may fix the limits of a port that is to be managed by the port authority”. That really would restrict imaginative, successful, viable port authorities.
It was interesting to hear that the airport authority in Vancouver recently get a contract to build and manage an airport in another country on another continent.
Motion No. 3, from the member for Beauport—Montmorency—Orléans, I am pleased to say we are going to vote yes on this one. We feel that this is a much better idea than the original one. It creates flexibility and removes politics from the board. The way it is established now there is opportunity for patronization and politics to be involved. This removes some of that and we support it. It is much more efficient and certainly is in line with the streamlining objective of the whole bill, to make it efficient and put control in the hands of the users and the people in the ports. This amendment goes a long way toward that.
Motion No. 12. I am going to vote against this motion. Again it changes the situation quite a bit concerning the property and the limits “matters and zoning by-laws that apply to neighbouring lands”.
We feel this is far too vague in that local and neighbouring municipalities could change bylaws and therefore affect what goes on in the port authorities. The port authority may establish a certain fashion of operation based on the bylaws that are in place now in the neighbouring municipality or jurisdiction and then all of a sudden, if that jurisdiction were to change its bylaws, it could cause the port authority to have to make substantial and profound changes in the way it operates.
We feel that this amendment is too vague. It gives too much control to the neighbouring jurisdictions. We do not support this motion.