Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill S-2, an act to amend the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board Act and to make consequential amendments to another act, the Canadian Labour Code.
This bill is a reprint of Bill C-86 which was introduced during the last parliament on March 6, 1997. It passed first reading, but it was never considered by the transportation committee of the House of Commons.
Before I speak to the bill I would like to say a few words about the process that is being followed.
I am on the transportation committee and this is the first time I have heard about this bill. Would it not make sense for the transportation committee of the House to see the bill before it is introduced for debate in the House of Commons? This is one good reason for the House not to accept bills originating in the Senate.
The transportation committee of the House of Commons is the scrutineer of all legislation pertaining to transportation matters in this country, not the Senate. At no time should the transportation committee be left out of the process.
We on this side of the House support this bill in principle, but we need an opportunity to clarify some technicalities in the bill, hopefully at the committee level. We agree that there is a need to modernize Canada's transportation safety investigation regulations to align them with the recommendations made in a 1994 review commission report on the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board Act and the 1992 Moshansky commission report on the Dryden air accident.
One of the goals of the review was to uncover cost efficiencies as well as increase the flexibility of the board's operations. Included in its recommendations allowing for part time board members was that the ratio of the full and part time members would be left up to the governor in council. That makes a lot of sense. For example, should there be a large serious accident or even a series of serious accidents it may seem necessary to the governor in council to appoint five full time members. At other times a full time board would not be necessary.
Is it necessary to have three full time members all the time? Would it not make sense to leave it up to the government of the day to hire on need?
The good news is that this amendment, unusual as it may be, would not result in new programs and new expenditures. This is indeed unusual in most government bills.
The amendments to repeal the Transportation Safety Board's mandate to initiate and conduct special studies and special investigations on matters pertaining to safety in transportation puzzles me. This amendment appears to take away from the Transportation Safety Board the authority to be independent and to initiate investigations on its own.
This amendment would make the Transportation Safety Board very reliant on directions from government on what it can and cannot investigate.
Bill S-2 will also place a greater emphasis on the identification of safety deficiencies in the transportation sector. It will prohibit other federal departments, except the Department of National Defence, from investigating a transportation occurrence for the purpose of making findings as to its causes and contributing factors. An investigation for any other purpose is sanctioned.
Bill S-2 will strengthen the distinction between safety investigations and court disciplinary proceedings. It will also provide for greater protection of information provided to the Transportation Safety Board. It will prohibit the use of on-board recordings in legal proceedings and will generally relieve investigators from the obligation to appear as witnesses in any such proceedings.
The Reform Party supports the bill. It is critical to the process that the bill originated in the Senate and should pass through the transport committee of the House of Commons.