Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-29, known in brief as the Canadian Parks Agency Act and introduced by the Minister of Canadian Heritage.
The aim of the bill is to turn Parks Canada, one of the three programs of the Department of Canadian Heritage, into an agency separate from the department, to be known as the Canadian Parks Agency.
At the moment, Parks Canada has 5,000 employees, more than a third of whom work seasonally. It administers 38 national parks and national park reserves, three marine conservation areas, 131 national historic sites, seven historic canals, 165 heritage train stations and 31 heritage rivers.
In addition, Parks Canada works with 661 national historic sites it does not own. It administers policy on some 1,000 heritage federal buildings and shares responsibility for eight world heritage sites with UNESCO.
The government gives three reasons for the creation of a new agency to replace Parks Canada: to simplify structures, improve administrative efficiency and establish more flexible staffing and financial procedures.
In order to achieve these objectives, the agency will have new or revised financial, administrative and human resource management powers. To this end, the agency will become a separate entity, a public corporation as defined in schedule II to the Financial Administration Act and will become subject to part II of schedule I of the Public Service Staff Relations Act.
In terms of responsibilities, the agency will report directly to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, who will be accountable for the agency's activities to Parliament. The Agency will report to Parliament by tabling the following five documents: an annual report on the agency's operations; a summary of the five-year corporate plan; management plans for the national parks, national historic sites and other protected areas; a report every five years on the human resources management regime; and a biennial report on the state of protected heritage areas.
In addition, the agency's financial statements will be examined by the auditor general, who will report to the government and who will also assess the agency's performance against its mandate, its objectives and its corporate plan.
The Canadian Parks Agency will remain subject to official languages, employment equity, human rights, access to information and privacy legislation.
As for financial provisions, the bill will give the agency several new financial powers, including; a two-year budget better suited to the investments made to develop parks and historic sites; the power to keep and reinvest all revenues, except fines; the creation of a standing dedicated account funded through parliamentary appropriation and the sale of excess property.
This account will be used to finance new parks and national historic sites. Finally, the agency will be able to make advances for unplanned land acquisitions when the context is favourable. It will have to repay these advances subject to current interest rates.
As for human resources management, the agency will be a separate employer under the Public Service Staff Relations Act. The CEO will have the authority to appoint employees and to define the conditions of employment of agency personnel, including collective bargaining, and the implementation of classification and staffing regimes.
These changes will give the agency the necessary flexibility to develop the human resources management regime best suited to its operating context. The parks and historic sites network spans the country, operates around the clock in several different time zones, four seasons a year, and employs many seasonal, temporary and part time workers.
All employees performing duties that will be transferred to the Canadian Parks Agency will receive a job offer. Their present job is guaranteed by Treasury Board for two years. The federal government claims that the establishment of a Canadian parks agency will allow it to fulfil more efficiently and at a lesser cost the mandate currently held by the Parks Canada program, under the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Let us not forget that, in the last four years, the government reduced Parks Canada's budget by $100 million. That budget is used, among other things, to develop the network of national parks and marine conservation areas, and to maintain and promote national historic sites and monuments.
The financial constraints imposed on Parks Canada led the government to consider a restructuring of the program's operations. The bill before us is the result of that exercise, and the proposed change is the creation of a Canadian parks agency.
The Bloc Quebecois has long been asking the federal government to streamline its operations wherever possible, and to fight waste, instead of cutting in social programs and education. This is why we support the principle of the bill, provided it will truly improve the effectiveness of the parks' management, without jeopardizing the mandate to preserve, protect and develop Canada's national parks and historic sites for future generations and for all Canadians and Quebeckers.
At a briefing, government officials gave us the assurance that this bill is not the first step toward the privatization of our parks. In fact, when he appeared before the Canadian heritage committee, on November 20, the Secretary of State for Parks Canada said “There's something I have said over and over again, and I will take an opportunity to say it here when we are talking about finance. It is not the intention of this government to either privatize or commercialize Parks Canada. We believe the maintenance of our special places in Canada is an important trust given to us by Canadians. That stewardship Canadians want to see exercised publicly, and we will continue to do that through our agency and through the oversight of Parliament”.
An issue of major concern to the Bloc Quebecois about this bill is to guarantee that, once in operation, the agency will ensure continued accessibility of parks to all citizens. This bill reflects an unequivocal desire on the part of the government to raise fees on park users.
Given that taxpayers already contribute to funding parks through their taxes, fees imposed on visitors should not be increased beyond a reasonable limit.
In addition, extra revenue from user fees, royalties or the sale of assets should be used to provide more services, better fulfil the parks' mission or expand activities. This increase in revenue should not be used as an excuse by the government to further cut appropriations allocated to the agency.
In the same vein, we want to ensure that the agency's fiscal targets and the federal government's stated wish to see the number of visitors increase in order to maximize economic benefits do not lead to an overuse of parks and historical sites.
We would like this bill to state that the agency must balance the need to preserve and maintain natural or historical sites against the increase in the number of visitors and the related expansion of tourist and commercial activities.
The Bloc Quebecois' concerns are shared by many. In November 1996, the auditor general presented a meaty report to Parliament on the protection of national heritage in Canada. The auditor general had examined the systems established by Parks Canada to maintain and enhance the ecological integrity of national parks.
At the time, the auditor general pointed out that park management plans focus mainly on economic and social factors and little on ecological factors. He noted also that Parks Canada should upgrade its knowledge of the condition of natural resources in national parks in order to be able to select a sensible management approach, based on the ecosystems.
Following this report, Parks Canada took a number of corrective measures and, last fall, the secretary of state forwarded to us Park Canada's response to some criticisms made by the auditor general. The bill calls for measures relating to the creation and implementation of park management plans.
Much still remains to be done, however, before all the auditor general's recommendations can be implemented. The data on park conditions still needs to be updated, and the policies on ecological conditions need to be applied on an ongoing basis as well. The ecological objectives set out in the legislation must be translated into concrete actions if they are to become reality in spite of budget restrictions.
Parks Canada has drawn up some ambitious development plans aimed at completing the national parks system, expanding the network of national historic sites and creating a system of maritime conservation areas. At present, 24 of the 39 natural regions defined by Parks Canada are represented in its system, and its objective is to develop the remaining 15 by the year 2000.
The federal government claims these objectives will be attainable because of the enhanced efficiency resulting from reorganization, which will enable it to do more with less. As well, the government is committed to not decreasing the parliamentary votes allocated to the agency.
Nevertheless, we question the new agency's ability to consolidate and fully develop the existing sites, while maintaining its objectives of expansion in today's context of budgetary restraint.
What we do not want to see happen is for there to be a very vast but badly maintained system, with insufficient services and no ecological integrity. We wish to ensure that the development of the system of national parks and historic sites is durable and sustainable.
Our support at second reading of this bill must not be interpreted by the government as a blank cheque, however. We have let the government know that, when this bill is studied by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, we want the committee to call as witnesses representatives of all groups of employees, including seasonal and part time workers, whose status might be changed as a result of the bill's planned changes. We want to ask them to tell us about their concerns with respect to this bill, to check what guarantees they have been given with respect to job security and working conditions, and to see whether these guarantees are contained in the bill.
In addition, we want the committee to hear from representatives of environmental protection groups, in order to find out where they stand on the bill and the creation of the agency. Among other things, we would like to know whether environmental groups feel that the reorganization proposed in the bill will allow the new agency to fulfil its ecological mandate.
We also want to ensure that the bill will provide a means of controlling contracting out, and ensuring impartiality and transparency in the tendering process for all contracts awarded by the Canadian Parks Agency. The new structure and wide-ranging authority of the agency's CEO in the management of human resources must not pave the way for arbitrary decisions and patronage appointments.
The government can count on our support in principle for Bill C-29 establishing the Canadian Parks Agency.
We will, however, be vigilant during clause-by-clause study of this bill in the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, in order to ensure that the bill makes it possible to deliver services more effectively, while respecting the existing mandate of Parks Canada.