I am pleased to have the support of the secretary of state.
The Lieutenant Governors Superannuation Act would also be changed to respond to a request from lieutenant governors to bring their pension arrangements in line with those of the federal public sector by allowing them to receive a pension at age 60 instead of age 65. I understand they are the only group in the public sector that has this particular requirement right now. It would bring it more in line with others because of course a number of people can retire at age 55 and so on.
I want to assure the House that there are no changes to the overall pension policies or arrangements for lieutenant governors.
Given the other large files we are studying this fall in the House of Commons, the amendments in this bill do not in themselves really merit separate bills. These are minor amendments after all. They are therefore grouped together in this bill.
The government therefore decided to introduce this bill so as to use parliamentarians' time more effectively and, of course, to ensure that our legislation is as accurate and up to date as possible.
By going ahead without further delay with this technical amendments bill, parliament can examine minor legislative amendments without waiting for other bills, which would make fundamental changes to the same bills, to be introduced.
I would now like to go over certain provisions of the bill. A number of amendments have to do with the Fisheries Prices Support Act. If members are wondering what purpose this act serves, it is a good question because this piece of legislation is obsolete. The Fisheries Prices Support Board is dissolved. Because it is obsolete, it has served no purpose for a good number of years.
These provisions were part of the draft amendment act to which I referred earlier. The committee had requested additional information about them while they were examining this bill. That information was provided and, in its report, the committee did not object to our going ahead with these provisions. However, because of the concerns raised during committee study, they were not incorporated into Bill C-40 passed by the House a few weeks ago.
Since we have now provided the information requested, it should be possible to go ahead and examine these provisions without delay.
With respect to Bill C-40, it is interesting to note that the structure that was established was that if one parliamentarian objected to a clause, it was simply removed from the bill at committee study stage. In return, Bill C-40 was passed at all stages in the House without debate. This is the structure which is always used for amendment acts. It is why we are examining some of these amendments today.
Under clauses 5 to 15 the name of the Canadian Film Development Corporation would be legally changed to Telefilm Canada. I was quite surprised to hear this because I for one, and probably all members of the House and the Canadian public, generally thought that Telefilm Canada was the legal name. It appears that it was not inserted in the law although it was the commonly used term. Telefilm Canada is the name that the corporation has used since 1983. It is bilingual and clearly identifies what the corporation does and the name change would be included in the legislation.
The National Capital Act would be amended to take into account changes to the Ontario and Quebec municipal structures. I note that the changes to the Quebec municipal structure only take effect on January 1, 2002. If parliament were to pass the technical corrections bill this fall, the final clause of the bill would allow a national capital provision to be brought into force on or after January 1.
For those members who are not from the national capital region, we have had amalgamation of municipalities. The regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton in Ontario is now the city of Ottawa. Almost the same thing occurred on the Quebec side in the national capital region. It is now one city bearing the name Gatineau. However I understand the jury is still out on that.
Therefore we have to change the National Capital Act for the number of seats to be on the National Capital Commission as a result of the amalgamation of municipalities in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec.
The National Film Act would be changed to allow the National Film Board to administer its human resources in the same way as other separate employers. At the present time it needs a special governor in council approval for certain appointments. That is over and above the treasury board oversight which exists for all similar organizations. The amendment would simplify its hiring practice while not removing the government's oversight of the expenditure of public money.
In other words, we have two cabinet committees reviewing the same thing: the committee that does orders in council, which is called a special committee of council, and treasury board. This would be streamlined since they were essentially doing the same thing twice.
The Nuclear Safety and Control Act would be amended to allow the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to set terms and conditions of employment in the same way as other separate employers and to fix the amount of service contracts. I assure the House that the commission would remain subject to treasury board policies on contracting similar to other federal employers.
There is also an inconsistency in the English and French versions of the Yukon First Nations Self-Government Act which would be corrected as part of the bill.
The bill contains in part technical corrections but substantive changes are also included to a degree. The fact that the city of Ottawa is no longer called the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton is something that has to be fixed along with bills that no longer have a use. The bill is a mixture of all these things.
These amendments are minor and technical in nature and do not reflect any significant policy issue. None of the provisions of the bill are substantive in nature, at least not to a major degree. Almost all of them were in the draft miscellaneous statute law amendment bill, 2001.
I understand that the information provided to committees addressed the concerns noted during the committee study regarding the information required for those parts that were in the MSLA. Further material on these provisions has been included in the communications material for the bill. I understand that all parties received this documentation.
I hope all members would support the timely passage of these housekeeping amendments. This would ensure that our laws are up to date and in order. I indicated earlier that if the House were agreeable we could have done all stages of the bill today. I am told that it was not agreeable. Therefore we will not.
We will send it to committee. I hope the committee would give it speedy approval. We could bring before the committee the officials we have prepared so that they are available to answer the technical questions hon. members might want to ask.