Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in the debate on Bill C-31, the Canada lands surveyors act. The bill as the parliamentary secretary has stated transfers the responsibilities of the existing board of examiners for Canada lands surveyors to the Association of Canada Lands Surveyors.
The Association of Canada Lands Surveyors is a non-government association with mandatory membership. In other words, one cannot be a Canada lands surveyor without having membership in this association.
As with any bill introduced in the House for second reading, it stirs an interest, a curiosity as to why it is introduced and what efficiencies or benefits Canadians gain from either the change in legislation or the new legislation.
Upon inquiry and investigation this is kind of a curious situation with the Canada lands surveyors in that it seems to make perfectly reasonable sense to do what this bill proposes to do. However, one has to wonder why now. Every province in Canada has for years had a professional association of surveyors, and the surveyor general assures me that the reason for this is it will provide better service to Canadians than the Government of Canada has been able to provide in the past.
That raises questions as it has raised in previous times. If it is good for the country why did it take so long for this government to admit it and to get on with the business of introducing and passing the bill?
I would like to go through how the bill will serve Canadians better. First, it would transfer responsibility for developing and maintaining professional standards among Canadian lands surveyors from a federal agency to a non-government agency. This non-government agency, the Association of Canada Lands Surveyors, will be responsible for designing and implementing a complaints and discipline process that the government itself does not seem to be able to put in place, or to maintain to the same degree at least, as this non-government organization.
Currently there does not appear to be any formal process to deal with complaints of quality of workmanship or professionalism of Canada lands surveyors.
Under existing legislation the board of examiners must prove gross negligence or corrupt practices to discipline a land surveyor. Certainly those are pretty draconian measures and not an easy task to achieve.
Through the proposed changes, however, there will be very clear processes by which the complaints may be filed against individual surveyors. These changes call for the formation of a complaints committee and a discipline committee, the latter of which will have the power to discipline a surveyor in a number of ways if proved negligent or incompetent.
I wholeheartedly agree with the creation of two committees. We need to protect the good name of responsible and reputable surveys as well as the integrity of the Canada lands survey system. As my colleague the parliamentary secretary pointed out, the Canada lands surveyors have a long and glorious history of service in Canada and certainly in opening up this country for settlement.
I believe the implementation of a formal discipline process will help us to accomplish the goal of maintaining that integrity and that reputation. The complaints and discipline committees set up as a result of this transfer will have the power to discipline surveyors guilty of incompetence or professional misconduct.
It would be very time consuming and costly for the federal government to design and implement such a process. Therefore I was delighted to learn that through this transfer the association will assume financial responsibility for this process as well.
The association will not receive funding through the government but rather through the collection of membership dues from its member Canada lands surveyors. Second, through the transfer of responsibilities this bill will result in the creation and operation of a practice review program that will ensure that Canada lands surveyors maintain professional standards.
Lands surveyors will be required to continue to upgrade skills in order to ensure high quality and accuracy of surveys. The practice review program will be fully funded by the association, as will the continuing education program through which surveyors can continue to upgrade skills.
Currently each of the 10 provinces has professional associations operating in much the same way as the Association of Canada Lands Surveyors.
Like other professional associations, ACLS will have mandatory membership and similar standards to its sister associations in the 10 provinces. The proposed changes mean that surveyors surveying on public lands, including land in Yukon and Northwest Territories, on Indian reserves and in national parks as well as in offshore areas, will be adhering to the same standards as surveyors elsewhere in Canada. Surveyors across Canada will be expected to show the same level of skills and professionalism.
I support the government's efforts to eliminate and streamline government agencies. This transfer would not eliminate but streamline the responsibilities of the legal surveys division of Environment Canada. It would relieve this agency of the burden of setting and enforcing professional standards among Canada land surveyors. The surveyor general would continue to establish standards for and manage surveys made under the Canada Land Survey Act. The surveyor general will also retain custody of records of all such surveys. These changes will simply shift responsibly for the licensing and continual review of the performance of surveyors without infringing on the surveyor general's control over the surveys produced.
Such government downsizing and streamlining is purported to serve the interests of the Canadian public. However, in reviewing the proposed act I wondered if this act would truly benefit the average Canadian. The government has itself admitted that the introduction of this act was largely driven by the interests of the Association of Canada Lands Surveyors. The association has been asking for this role for 10 years. However, as history has shown, it is often the case that many professional associations act in the best interests of the professionals they represents rather than in the interests of the clientele the professionals serve.
Therefore I was interested in how this transfer would protect the interests of the average Canadian. It is, after all, the average Canadian I was elected to represent. In answer to this I found that the proposed changes would standardize the quality of surveying services received by all Canadians. This act will establish the Association of Canada Lands Surveyors as a non-government professional association that adheres to similar standards as its provincial counterparts. This means that residents in Yukon and Northwest Territories, Indian reserves and town sites within national parks will receive the same quality of survey service as Canadians living elsewhere in Canada. Approximately 450,000 Canadians residing on Canada lands will directly benefit from these changes.
This in itself does not positively reassure me that Canadians are being well served by the changes being proposed by this act. However, I am reassured by the fact that the professional association will not be completely autonomous of the federal government. The association will be a self-governing body within federal jurisdiction. Through this act the minister retains the power to take such measures as the minister considers appropriate to fulfill any objective of the association the minister is of the opinion the association is not fulfilling. Providing the acting minister has the best interests of Canadians at heart, this clause can be used as a means of government intervention should the association fail to meet its obligation under this act.
It is not uncommon for Canadians to engage in disputes over property lines. Many Canadians do not notice the errors in the surveys of their land until they go to build a fence, pave a driveway or plant a tree. Although this is only one small aspect of land surveying, it is my hope that this transfer of responsibility will raise the quality of surveys to a level whereby such disputes can be avoided from the outset by high quality surveys. It is also my hope that ACLS will honour its obligation to the Canadian public by serving the interests not only of the member surveyors but of the Canadian public as a whole.
I believe this act, if properly implemented, will result in an association of responsible, professional and reliable surveyors equipped with the most current skills and knowledge. Therefore I and my party support Bill C-31.