When the hon. member gets up I will listen very carefully to what he has to say. I am glad the Speaker is not paying attention. When I am finished with this he will understand what I am saying. It will be very complimentary but he should be patient. Members on the other side of the House are not used to compliments. When we start out they are so frightened by our words that they either hide under their desks or get up shouting in a madman fashion, which we have seen recently in the House. We are asking for a little decorum in the House, Mr. Speaker, by the member opposite. When I am through I am sure he will come over here to shake my hand in support of my speech.
At the end of this process, without a definition we could end up with some patronage in terms of stacking the deck on the panel. I am sure the member will agree that in future governments the same could happen. We do not expect this government to be in power forever and ever, amen. In fact it could come to a crashing end within the next number of months. We are looking ahead to what might happen in the future, regardless of party affiliation. We are saying that potential for abuse had to be eliminated and we are glad to see that something has been done.
We consulted a number of people in order to attempt to define the terms of the bill. I know the member for Tobique—Mactaquac spoke with the Privy Council Office, with some municipal organizations and with the Appraisal Institute of Canada. In this case the institute was helpful in suggesting amendments to the bill that would have required panel members to be selected from a list provided jointly by it and the same organization in the province of Quebec.
This was not a bad attempt. However there are two problems with this definition. First, there are other types of professionals we want to have sitting on the panel such as real estate assessors and representatives of municipalities and federal departments. Second, there is no consistent national definition of an appraiser. It varies from one end of the country to the other. It differs from province to province and most provinces do not require licensing, believe it or not.
For now we are prepared to allow the panel to proceed as the bill describes. I would urge all members to monitor the composition of the panel, particularly the member opposite. Should problems arise in the future the government operations committee has within its power the ability to review the legislation. What more could we ask for than a review of the process?
We were effective in two other areas as well also having to do with the dispute advisory panel. In the original bill it was proposed that the panel be appointed by and paid by the minister. Its advice would be rejected by the minister without an opportunity for appeal. Any or all panel members could be fired by the minister at any time for any reason. For a panel that was supposed to impartially adjudicate disputes between municipalities and the federal government, usually the public works department, this process seemed like it was tilted in favour of the public works department and the minister.
At the time the member for Tobique—Mactaquac likened the process to that of a criminal trial where the accused person got to pick the jury. It sounds familiar in this place. The accused person got to pick the jury, pay the jury, act as judge and face no appeal. It did not look like a very fair system.
We received the same complaints from the municipalities and their organizations. Based on these complaints my colleague drafted amendments to make the dispute panel process much more balanced and submitted these amendments to the committee where they were considered.
The first amendment was to remove the threat of arbitrary firing of a panel member by the minister. If a member could not be fired by a minister then the member could be free to give more independent advice without the fear of reprisal. That sounds like cabinet across the street. Where the bill originally stated that panel members would serve at the pleasure of the minister, we changed that so that members would serve on good behaviour. This means that panel members would now have tenure and could only be fired for just cause.
The second amendment we presented to the committee that was adopted was a change to the appointment process. Bill C-10 in its original form had the panel members being appointed by the minister. The amendment by the member for Tobique—Mactaquac was passed by the committee. It proposed that the governor in council or cabinet would appoint panel members.
The member for Tobique—Mactaquac and I may slightly disagree on that point. That means the Prime Minister hand-picking, but I guess that is better than just the minister himself because at least it would come under the scrutiny of cabinet. The standing committee thought these two amendments made sense and would improve the bill and the performance of the advisory panel. It adopted both amendments unanimously.
Because of these changes the dispute settlement process would be fair and municipalities could seek larger payments. Ultimately this could allow municipal taxpayers to get a break on their tax bills, something I think all municipal ratepayers would appreciate.
Having said that, there is still one area yet to be resolved that has not been dealt with in the bill. That is the outstanding matter concerning business occupancy taxes and certain crown corporations. It has not yet been determined how and to what extent Canada Post, the Royal Canadian Mint, Canada Mortgage and Housing and similar crown corporations would pay taxes and business occupancy taxes.
Certainly the mandate of these corporations has changed over the years since the Municipal Grants Act was last updated. It used to be that these crown corporations served purely for public policy purposes. In the unlikely event they ever made a profit it was more by accident than by design. Profit was never in their vocabulary. Now these corporations serve two purposes. Not only do they continue to serve an important public policy role. They also have a mandate to earn a profit to recover costs and to lessen the burden on taxpayers.
If these crown corporations are conducting business and earning a profit they should be paying business taxes. The question is how much. After discussions our party had with representatives from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and after having questioned witnesses from FCM and public works in committee, I am convinced that this problem will soon be solved. Municipalities and the federal government are continuing to negotiate what portion of each crown corporation is devoted to purely profit making activities. The discussion is not yet finished on this issue.
I look forward to seeing this problem resolved in the very near future. In conclusion, the bill would bring a more balanced, predictable and fairer approach to the process of payments to municipalities.