Mr. Speaker, I will start by saying that I am pleased to speak on Bill C-15. I would love to start my speech, particularly since I have 40 minutes, by saying: C-15 at last!
Bill C-15 was first read on October 30, 1997. I am not going to cry over spilt milk. I am pleased to see it back on the order paper. But it took nearly nine months of gestation before the government could produce a bouncing baby bill for us.
As it was presented for first reading, this bill contained certain irritants as far as we are concerned, and I shall return later to this point. My speech will not have a negative tone—on the contrary. This bill contains several worthwhile elements which the Canadian shipping industry has been demanding for years, if not decades.
I do not want you to think that I am going to start off on a negative tack, but one does have to be realistic. What I have to say is based on what we have before us in Bill C-15.
I will return in a few minutes to certain commitments made by the hon. member for Hamilton West, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, commitments which, if they ever materialize, could make agreement in committee and during debate at third reading much easier to reach.
With this bill, which is called an Act to amend the Canada Shipping Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, the Government of Canada has undertaken a total revision of the Canada Shipping Act, which dates back to early in this century. It ought, therefore, to be brought up to date and into line with the way things are done in world shipping circles in this day and age.
So, in this respect, Transport Canada showed us that it considered this legislation out of date, too restrictive and confusing as it stood and it initiated the current reform. As I mentioned earlier, this law is no longer relevant to the needs and modern development of shipping. Bill C-15 before us could be described as serving essentially to modernize an old law.
We will work hard in committee, even though I said we would be very co-operative. The Bloc Quebecois considers that the aim of this bill is to simplify legislation. Another aim is to make the law compatible with the federal government's regulatory policy. A third aim we discovered involves contributing to the financial performance of the shipping industry.
Shipping is vital to a country like Canada and to a future country like Quebec, which have oceans as borders and navigable waterways. We in Quebec have a road to the sea—the St. Lawrence Seaway—which crosses the entire province. So it is important to have legislation that reflects economic imperatives. In terms of economic development, shipping is vital. I will come back to this later, in any case.
Primary responsibility for this bill lies with Transport Canada, although the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has an important role to play. A few years ago, in 1995 or 1996, I believe, responsibility for the Canadian Coast Guard was transferred from Transport Canada to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The fleets of the coast guard and of the department were amalgamated. However, given that shipping remains the responsibility of Transport Canada, the roles of the two departments are very closely interrelated. We can see, in the bill, that the role of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is very important.
Let us now look at the main features of this reform. Among other things, it sets out to assign responsibility for electronic registration of ships and related activities to Transport Canada, and responsibility for registration of pleasure craft to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I will return to registration of pleasure craft later in my speech.
Another feature of this reform is the possibility of renewing ships' certificates of registry. An additional feature is the new optional registry for certain foreign ships subject to a financing agreement and those that are bare-boat chartered, in other words, that have no crew outside Canada.
The final feature of this bill, and one of the most important, concerns a particular category of employees. I am talking about the modernization of the administrative and financial frameworks of the pension plan administered by the Corporation of the Lower St. Lawrence Pilots serving the port of Quebec City and below. It was partly for these St. Lawrence pilots that my “at last” was intended earlier. As is well known, this professional corporation has been waiting a long time for this reform of its pension plan.
Rapidly, the background to this bill, as the parliamentary secretary and the Reform member for Edmonton mentioned, is that it is an amended version of earlier Bill C-73, which made it only as far as first reading, on December 9, 1996, and which died on the Order Paper when the federal election was called in April 1997.
As the parliamentary secretary indicated, this bill is part of a complete overhaul of the Canada Shipping Act, in partnership with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. More specifically, Bill C-15 is the first component of the first part. The second component, which will parallel the first one, will consist in a series of amendments which, based on our information, should be drafted and ready by the spring of 1999.
Let us now look at the Bloc Quebecois' position regarding certain parts of the legislation. As I said, the bill provides for a sharing of responsibilities between Transport Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
On the face of it, this idea does not present any problems. However, there are certain parts—and hopefully this issue will be resolved by the time the bill reaches third reading—which deserve very careful attention on our part, and on the part of taxpayers and certain groups. You will see in a moment to whom I am referring.
Why are we alerting public opinion about this legislation? Last year, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans held consultations. We know how this is done. The government floats trial balloons, but it has a very good idea of what it wants to do. Since its foundation in 1990, and including during the 1993 Parliament when it formed the official opposition and since the new contingent of 44 members arrived in 1997, the Bloc Quebecois has demonstrated its will to respect democracy on a number of occasions, and not just during the recent flag incident.
But the government, in its desire to respect democracy, undertakes vast consultations that cost tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, these consultations are sometimes a sham because—and this is what I started saying earlier, this is what is good about democracy—whether we like it or not, the government is elected to govern, which means it is there to make decisions.
This does not keep it from making stupid or arbitrary decisions. Such is our role in opposition, to act as watchdogs, to be vigilant. I call upon the public to be vigilant as well.
When I referred to consultations, broad consultations, last year Fisheries and Oceans, via the Coast Guard, carried out consultations on instituting a fee system for pleasure craft.
This is serious. There is no longer any reference in Bill C-15 to pleasure craft. In the second reading version of C-15 we have before us here, there is a reference to “vessels”. I met with Department of Transport officials who confirmed to me that the Bloc Quebecois definition of this term, an extremely broad one, was included in this bill. There was a plan to include that definition in Bill C-15, which we have before us, or in other words to institute a system of fees for pleasure craft.
It was clear that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was using Transport Canada to deliver the bad news. It was clear that the government wanted to assume the right, give itself the possibility of registering pleasure craft and charging registration fees.
At the present time, only those with motors of 10 HP or more have to obtain registration and this is issued free of charge.
When I asked specific questions of senior Transport officials, the government never denied this. The Bloc Quebecois is of the opinion that the intent behind this measure is to impose mandatory registration for all kinds of vessels. One can easily conclude that such a measure will lead to a form of fee setting by government, once again making some degree of cost-recovery possible.
The Bloc Quebecois does not object to the logic of requiring certain types of motor boat, big motor boats, what people call cruisers—my colleague from Berthier—Montcalm should give me a hand—boats with motors over ten horsepower—