Debates of May 15th, 2000

Canada Transportation Act

[Val Meredith, Reform, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the hon. member from the Bloc, I think that his amendment is totally unnecessary. The bill already states that the Official Languages Act would be respected. Personally, I think that is all that is required. The motion is redundant.

[Stan Keyes, Liberal, Hamilton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I did not want to get up and unduly delay any activity in the House, but I have had the privilege and the honour of being the chair of the Standing Committee on Transport. I also have had the privilege of being a member of the Standing Committee on Transport since 1988 when I was first elected. I spent five years in opposition and when we became the government in 1993 I was chairman and had the privilege of being the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, three of them, and then chairman of the transport committee.

I have an understanding of where the opposition is coming from in the hope that its motion at report stage of the bill would be successful. However I must appeal to the members of the New Democratic Party. If they had talked to the employees of the airlines, both Air Canada and Canadian Airlines, then certainly they would understand that they are making it increasingly difficult for Air Canada to meet its commitments to all the employees not just of Air Canada but also of Canadian Airlines where there are 16,000 people working. By rolling back from 15% in the agreement of December 21 to 10% will limit the airline's ability to generate the revenue it must in order to support its employees and to meet its commitment to keep those employees employed. This is about saving 16,000 jobs.

Any delay will also trigger a chain of events. By asking the House to delay the vote until tomorrow means we must return tomorrow night to vote on this amendment and then our House leaders will have to find another day for third reading debate. Then we will have lost a week. I am sure it is not the intention of the New Democratic Party to lose a week.

I am concerned that any amount of delay will delay the oversight ability that is built into the bill. That is what is important. It is important for the travelling public. It is important for the employees of the airlines. It is important for the regions of the country to be served. Therefore we do not want to do that. I would hope that the NDP would see the advantage of moving on, and thereby would not call a vote that we would have to carry to tomorrow night, but to move along to the next motion and if need be, pass that motion on division.

[Bill Casey, Progressive Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to these amendments. As I said earlier, this has been a very interesting debate all the way through the several months we have been involved with it. We have seen many changes and a lot of transition. We are seeing transition every day. This is a work in progress.

Our party believes that the flexibility must be left in the system to change direction as things change. We have seen dramatic changes and surprises all the way through the debate, especially since the airline merger itself. Some of us thought that this would put a lot of the problems to bed. Instead it has initiated all kinds of new changes, new challenges, new airlines, new proposals, new entrepreneurs, new routes.

Again, flexibility is very much a part of our position on the bill. It has to be in there for the Department of Transport to make changes as things unfold and as situations change.

On Motion No. 5 to change the Air Canada public participation act, if I remember correctly the committee passed a motion to increase the ownership limit to 20%. Then the government rolled it back to 15%. The NDP motion now is to roll it back even further to 10%. As luck would have it during the debate in committee on the most practical and appropriate percentage, I proposed 15% and the Minister of Transport took my advice and put in 15% exactly what I recommended. He is to be credited with his good judgment and his good consultation powers in consideration of others.

I would be hard-pressed to support the amendment if I had proposed it in the first place. Even though it was defeated at committee, the minister in his wisdom saw fit to bring it back, so I am afraid I have to stick with the 15%.

On the foreign ownership limit of 25% in Motion No. 6, I also agree that the power should be left to the governor in council. Again it is flexibility in the system. The government has the power to change that if at some time in the future it feels it is necessary. It does not have to come back to the legislature. It can be changed after consultation with the industry and as things unfold. This is a work in progress. The government has to have the flexibility to change because we are all getting surprises as this merger takes hold and things evolve.

We are going to support the bill as it was originally put forward. We will not be voting in favour of the amendment.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly not the intention of the NDP to hold up this legislation, although one has to show some amusement at the crocodile tears the member from Hamilton was about to shed in great quantities. Imagine after all this and the NDP members want to hold up things for a day so they can vote on their amendments. This will put a chain of events in motion. Heaven forbid, we would not want to be responsible for the catastrophe the member from Hamilton was about to predict should we not be co-operative.

However we have made our point both in terms of the moving of the amendments and the arguments that were put forward on behalf of those amendments by the hon. member for Churchill.

I listened to the minister. It was a plea for flexibility. However I have to preface my remarks by saying that in the interest of getting this regime into practice, into law so that we can see if it works, to see if some of the things that we are worried about actually need the kind of fixing that we say it will, why should we trust the Liberal government? Maybe we should trust the Minister of Transport, but why should we trust the Liberal government when it comes to questions of foreign ownership?

The Liberals are the people who as far as I am concerned perpetrated one of the greatest acts of economic sabotage, treason, that I have ever seen in Canadian history with the sale of the Canadian National Railway. They are the people who want us to trust them when it comes to questions of foreign ownership, the people who did something which has now resulted in a national railway that was once owned by the Canadian people is now owned 60% by American shareholders. And the Liberal government has the nerve to stand and say “Trust us when it comes to foreign ownership”.

[An hon. member]

Are you talking about Doug Young?

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

I do not even want to talk about Doug Young because I do not want to spoil my day, nor that of others.

The minister said that they have seen the light. I hope they have because if they had not seen the light soon, there would be nothing left to sell off to the Americans. In fact, many people in this country not just on the left but even within the corporate community are saying that this has not turned out the way they thought it would. Head offices are moving. We do not have the same kind of economic infrastructure that we used to have. Maybe all this free trade and lack of protection from foreign investment is not working out the way we thought it would.

We see the ghost of Walter Gordon, not the ghost of Tom Kent because he is still around, but the ghosts of others asking what has happened to the Liberal Party. If the kinds of things the minister said in the House today are to be taken seriously, we hope that perhaps there is a bit of a turnaround over there, but we do say that it comes late.

What did the Prime Minister say the other day? It was not the Minister of Transport; perhaps he has said these kind of things, but I hope not. The Prime Minister says the kinds of things that give us the anxiety that all this will be done, this monopoly situation, in the name of creating a context in which in two, three or four years from now the government, whether it is a Liberal government or whatever kind of government—but of course an NDP government would not be saying it—will be saying that now we have to allow American airlines to operate more fully in Canada in order to compete with this monopoly that people are complaining about. In fact people are already complaining about it in many respects in terms of regional service, et cetera.

I just could not let it pass, the irony of having the Minister of Transport and others on the government side saying “Trust us when it comes to questions of foreign ownership” because they are the ones who did the dirty deeds that not even the Tories did in nine years of government.

I remember Harvie Andre saying that he wanted to privatize the CNR in 1979 and all through those years the Tories never did it. Who criticized them for nine years in the House? I listened to all of it. The Liberals. And then what did they do? They out-Toried the Tories, not just in terms of privatizing the CNR, but they became an uncritical cheerleader for every free trade agreement that came along. We had to watch that we did not talk to the Liberals for too long or they would want to sign a free trade agreement with us even if we had nothing to trade.

If this is the beginning of something new, that would be nice, but I am not going to put any money on it. I rest with those words in the interests of seeing this bill get to the other place and into force so we can see what needs to be done and we can begin this new era in Canadian air transportation and see what else needs to be done. I am sure this bill will not be the final word having been drafted by Liberals as it was.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The question is on Motion No. 5. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In my opinion the nays have it.

[Some hon. members]

On division.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I declare Motion No. 5 lost on division.

(Motion No. 5 negatived)

[The Deputy Speaker]

The next question is on Motion No. 6. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.