Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to debate Bill C-17. I feel like I am in a time warp. Perhaps it is deja vu all over again, only backwards. I remember sitting here years ago when the government members formed the opposition. They opposed measures like this. Now that they are in government they are supporting them.
Many of these measures were originally proposed and instigated by the Progressive Conservative government 10 years ago. At that time Liberals were vehemently opposed to them. The Teleglobe divestiture bill was introduced in March 1987 and the Liberals voted against it. They said it was an awful thing, it would hurt Canada, it was bad for Canada, we cannot have free trade of this sort of thing.
In December 1991 a bill was introduced to privatize Telesat Canada. Again the Liberals voted against it. They said it was a terrible thing, we need all this protection.
The telecommunications bill was introduced in 1993 and again the Liberals opposed it.
All the aspects of the bill we are debating today enhance and endorse the proposals we made in 1987, 1991 and 1993. They go even further than we went. It is another example of a flip-flop, a change of direction on behalf of the Liberals who opposed the GST so strongly and then all of a sudden adopted it as their own. They love it. They want it. They have tried to expand it and they have tried to foist it on the provinces.
We all know the Liberals stood in the House hour after hour, night after night, pounding the table against free trade. Now they have enhanced, endorsed and expanded it. They want to expand it even further.
The next thing we will see happen, I predict, is the EH-101 helicopter position which we adopted. We ordered the helicopters and the Liberals cancelled them. It will be really interesting to see what decision they come up with. Certainly the search and rescue people and the people in our military want the EH-101 helicopters. That was a decision made by us and changed by the Liberals. It will be interesting to see if the Liberals again follow the Conservative lead. They have certainly established a consistent pattern of following that lead. They can say what they like, but actions speak louder than words, and their actions truly say we endorse Conservative policies and love them and think they are great.
I am pleased to join the debate on Bill C-17. From the outset I would like to say that because it was our idea in the first place and because we support the general thrust of it and the fact that it makes the business much more competitive and viable, we are going to support the bill. The Conservative Party will be voting in favour of it.
Bill C-17 implements many of the commitments made by Canada under the agreement on basic telecommunications to the general agreement on trade and services, which again is a form of free trade that was opposed by the Liberals when in opposition. When we are back there in a few more years we will probably be doing the same thing again.
This agreement was negotiated among 68 nations. It liberalizes international trade in basic telecommunications. It enhances freer trade in the telecommunications sector and it opens opportunities for Canadian businesses. It makes it more competitive which will bring down the price for consumers. Everyone wins with this bill.
Under the terms of the agreement, Canada is committed to end the carrier monopolies and to remove certain restrictions on foreign ownership. In return, the other signatory countries will open up their markets to us. Our companies, which have proven to be very competitive in this field, will be able to compete in other countries which they are now locked out of.
Obviously this is good for Canada. That is why Progressive Conservatives support the bill.
There were a few concerns which we had. Fortunately the Minister of Industry made some amendments after hearing testimony from the users and the people in the industry. Appropriate amendments were made, and we even supported them.
The first amendment which we were really concerned with dealt with licensing only for international carriers. Bill C-17 originally proposed licensing for all carriers.
However, the committee had many witnesses argue that this is an additional and unnecessary burden placed on a national industry which was already functioning well without it and contradicts the whole bill. We believe this will continue to be the case even under the terms of this new bill and, therefore, licensing for national carriers would be unnecessary.
The second major amendment put forward deals with clause 46.1(b) where the governor in council may prescribe changes in any area that is related to the provision of telecommunication services by Canadian carriers. Witnesses again came before the committee and argued that this would provide the commission with powers well beyond the intent of the legislation and far beyond what they needed.
The amendment now in place deletes that clause altogether and it proposes a more specific description of the powers of the commission to be placed in the preamble to limit their power and leave the decision making up to the users and the people affected.
These major amendments were primarily industry driven and we support them. We believe they offer a greater degree of freedom for the industry to compete and there is now much less regulatory burden than originally proposed, while maintaining adequate protection for consumers.
We have also believed this industry would thrive under a framework we established when we were the Progressive Conservative government and authorized the Telecommunications Act and privatized Telesat and Teleglobe in the first place. The proof today is in the success we have witnessed in this growth industry. Certainly Canada is one of the major leaders in the whole world in this sector and has been able to access these markets and foreign markets through these approaches. Our industry has already taken on the telecommunications world.
We are confident they will succeed and consumers will benefit from the competitive pricing in both national and international services.
When the Minister of Industry spoke on this bill during second reading on November 4, 1997 he said “The purpose of Bill C-17 is to pursue the liberalization of Canadian telecommunications which started more than 10 years ago and has already benefited Canadians and Canadian telecommunications companies”. That was really nice praise from the Liberal Minister of Industry for the Progressive Conservatives who initiated this whole process in the first place. Certainly it is encouraging for us to see the Liberal government adopt and proceed with them and even take them further than we did.
That ends my remarks. We will be supporting this bill. We approve of it in principle and we approve of it in particular.