Mr. Speaker, I will speak only very briefly on Bill C-9 as it was reported from committee.
This is a flawed bill. It had a lot of promise. The foundation and the framework are excellent, reflecting a lot of diligent effort in the last Parliament.
Unfortunately, the builders lacked finishing skills. The final construction has a leaky roof and rather ill-fitting doors. There are no real excuses for the deficiencies in this bill.
Every member of the standing committee was fully aware of the shortcomings which had been identified by the stakeholders. The standing committee, rather than addressing the problems in the legislation, simply rolled over and played dead.
Dozens of innocuous government housekeeping and drafting amendments were passed but let us for a moment consider what could have been.
The most common complaint against the bill is its provision for a federal levy on the gross revenues of each port authority at a rate to be arbitrarily fixed by the minister.
Can members imagine entering into a royalty agreement with a property owner and telling him to set his own price, based on what he felt he could afford to pay? Imagine, moreover, that the same owner would also be leasing property to your competitors and would be free to set different rates for them, again at his discretion. That is precisely the situation in which the various port authorities will find themselves under this legislation.
Changes requested by shipping companies, stevedoring firms, unions and producers were never seriously considered. In the end, at the crack of the parliamentary secretary's whip, the advice of departmental bureaucrats prevailed over the wishes of the people who have to live with the legislation.
Not only did the government members fail to respond to stakeholders, but they lined up solidly to vote down every single amendment presented by opposition members on behalf of the stakeholders.
A motion to levy a charge based on clearly defined net revenues at an equal percentage rate for all port authorities was rejected by all Liberals present.
Second, an amendment requested not only by unions but by shipping associations to guarantee a union representative on each board of directors was rejected by the Liberals and, rather curiously I thought, by the sole NDP member of the committee.
The presence of a union member at the executive level could have had far-reaching effects on the maintenance of labour peace on the waterfront.
Nowadays, labour relations do not just involve wage disputes, especially at the waterfront. A lot of disputes revolve around policy decisions and an atmosphere of mutually beneficial co-operation would go a long way to maintaining future labour peace.
Third and finally, one of the most galling Liberal responses was the rejection of amendments that would have weakened pilotage monopolies, especially on the St. Lawrence. Our proposals would have made it easier for the captains of Canadian vessels routinely plying the same waters to be certified to pilot their own vessels.
Under the terms of the motion, applicants for pilotage certificates would have had only to prove their competence and knowledge of the waters in order to be certified.
St. Lawrence pilotage is widely acknowledged to be one of the worst examples of pork-barrel politics and union featherbedding in the world. A few hundred people with incomes from $80,000 to $180,000 for nine months of work are holding the entire inland shipping industry hostage. The estimated cost of excess pilotage to grain shippers alone is about $4 million annually.
In refusing to accept the proposed amendments, the Liberals demonstrated that they care more about a small legislated monopoly in central Canada than they care about the interest of 50,000 prairie farmers.
I will be introducing proposed amendments to this bill. At that time I would like to speak not about what we did not get in committee, but things we hope to get here, things that could be done to make this a better bill.