Debates of March 14th, 2001

Sales Tax And Excise Tax Amendments Act, 2001

[The Speaker]

When the House last had this matter under consideration the hon. member for New Brunswick Southwest had the floor and he had eight minutes remaining in the time allotted for his remarks.

[Greg Thompson, Progressive Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for your generosity. Those eight minutes will mean a lot to our party at this end of the Chamber.

What we are talking about on Bill C-13 are technical changes to the GST. The point I was making when we last debated this is the fact that our party will certainly support those technical changes to the GST.

It is somewhat ironic that we are supporting a bill on the GST, which the government said it was going to eliminate when it took office in 1993. I think it is important that the government address that very issue of the elimination of the GST and why it did not live up to that red book promise dating back to the 1993 campaign.

As everyone well knows, just about every member on that side of the House—possibly yourself, Mr. Speaker, although I am sure you were probably more reserved in your comments on this than some of the members—went door to door talking about the elimination of this dreaded tax. Now this dreaded tax which the government promised to eliminate is one of the taxes that is certainly filling its coffers and helping to balance the books.

One of the other points I made and that I think will be made later today by our party as the debate unfolds is the fact that there are other matters of urgency on the economic side which the government should be but is not addressing.

The Prime Minister and the finance minister are sort of whistling by the cemetery in their walk through la-la land. There are some troubling signs that the economy might be stalling, that it might be in trouble. They are ignoring those signs and not even extending some sort of courtesy to the House in terms of at least introducing a budget.

The last time the House actually discussed a budget was with regard to the so-called mini budget on the eve of the last election. Things have changed in the last 120 days. I suggest that it was probably a strategic move on the part of the Prime Minister. Knowing full well that there were some troubling signs on the horizon in terms of the economy, he made what would turn out to be the right decision, I guess, in the timing of the election.

Again, a lot of things have changed in the last 120 days. What we are saying is that the minister should introduce a budget to address some of the concerns we see and to possibly offer some suggestions to the government on how it can deal with the faltering economy.

The belief that we are going to be somehow insulated from what might happen in the United States is absurd when 80% to 85% of our exports go to the United States. They are our biggest trading partner. When they catch a cold we are most likely to catch pneumonia. It is possible.

The truth is, those are some of the considerations that should be taken in the House to address some fast changing circumstances on the economic front.

With that I will conclude my remarks. As always, I look forward to questions and comments from my colleagues.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

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

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

[Some hon. members]

On division.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill is referred to the Standing Committee on Finance.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

The House resumed from March 12 consideration of the motion that Bill C-14, an act respecting shipping and navigation and to amend the Shipping Conferences Exemption Act, 1987 and other acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Canada Shipping Act, 2001

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-14, an act respecting shipping and navigation and to amend the Shipping Conferences Exemption Act, 1987 and other acts.

With such a long title, members will surely understand that the bill will be better known as the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, its short title.

Once passed, this bill will replace the Canada Shipping Act, other than the portions that concern liability. So, basically it will modernize the current legislation and will promote the safety and economic performance of the commercial marine industry as well as ensure the safety of those who use pleasure craft.

Referring to Clause 6, it states that the objectives of the bill are: first, to protect the health and well-being of the crews and passengers; second, to impose standards as to the proficiency of the crew; third, to protect the marine environment from damage due to navigation and shipping activities; fourth, to protect the vessels and the environment; fifth, to develop a regulatory scheme and consequently to design administrative sanctions for violators; sixth, to ensure that Canada can meet its international obligations under bilateral and multilateral agreements with respect to navigation and shipping.

Before getting any further in the review and analysis of this bill, I would like to draw you attention to a clause that raises many issues and intrigues me a lot. I am talking about the definition of the word “passenger”, in fact, about what comes after that definition.

Clause 2 of the bill defines the various terms used in the act and gives an interpretation for each one. The word “passenger” is defined as follows, and I quote:

—means a person carried on a vessel by the owner or operator

So far, so good. Traditionally, with this government, the definition of “passenger” has always been very clear. The term refers to a person who boards a ship that belongs to the owner or the operator.

However, when I keep on reading, I start wondering. Right after, it says, and I quote again from Clause 2:

—other than a ) a person carried on a Safety Convention vessel who is

(i) the master, a member of the crew or a person employed or engaged in any capacity on board the vessel on the business of that vessel,

It is quite clear that the master and crew are excluded from the passenger category. What is strange is the exclusion coming next: a person who is under one year of age. Why?

Why is a child under one year of age not a full-fledged person under Canadian law? What would be the impact of that definition, or rather that exclusion, in the event of an accident or a shipwreck, for example? Since they are not considered as passengers, would children under one year of age be excluded from any insurance settlement?

Puzzled, I sought to know and I asked questions. I got answers, but disturbing and rather strange ones. The Canadian government would have been forced to include this exclusion clause for children under one year of age in the bill because Canada would be bound by international treaties, protocols or resolutions it had signed.

Has Canada forgotten that former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney himself presided over the community of nations that agreed to sign the Convention on the Rights of the Child? Is it really necessary to add that the United States were not part of that community of nations?

After having been such a leader on the issue of children's rights, how can Canada accept that children under one year of age be considered as non-beings? This is unacceptable according to me.

If there are countries which do not respect children, we must refuse to sign conventions or protocols with those countries. If we do sign such documents for valid reasons, we must require that this exclusion be removed.

Canada should be ashamed of including such a clause in one of its laws. Canada should be ashamed of hiding behind a document signed with another country. Since when has Canada relinquished its sovereignty?

There is hope however. Three clauses in this bill refer directly to international conventions, protocols or resolutions. Under clause 31, Governor in Council may even amend international agreements. Therefore, the government cannot use the signed documents as an excuse to justify refusing to amend clause 2 in order to delete that exclusion of children under one year of age.

As the answer was not satisfactory to me, I continued to investigate and ask questions. Someone pointed me in another direction. What I was told is so far out that I want to share it with you. To have a good understanding of the explanation given to me, I will go back to the bill and quote clause 115:

1. (1) Every passenger on board a vessel shall comply with any direction that is given to them by the master or a crew member to carry out the provisions of this Act or the regulations.

(2) Every passenger on board a vessel shall comply with a direction to leave the vessel that is given to them by the master before the vessel embarks on a voyage.

Perhaps this clause excluding children under one year of age was included in the bill because these children who are 364 days old and under would not be able to obey the captain's order, whereas those who are 365 days old and over would.

I am a pre-school education expert and I can assure you that several captains and several crew members will soon be encountering multiple problems when asking children barely over a year old, at least up to five years old, to leave a vessel. They will need help to make these children obey that order from the captain.

That explanation given to me to justify the exclusion of children under one year of age is totally ridiculous. A 364-day-old child could not obey the captain's order, but a 365-day-old child could.

I have another question regarding this clause excluding children under one year of age. Nowhere in this bill does it say that these children cannot board a ship. It just says that they are excluded from the definition of “passenger”. Then how should we interpret clause 110? I quote:

1. (1) The master of a vessel shall ensure that the number of persons carried on board is not more than the number of persons authorized to be on board under any certificate issued under this Part or under an international convention or protocol listed in Schedule 1.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, this legislation provides that children under the age of one are not passengers, but it does not define what a person is.

Consequently, the definition of person has to be a reasonable one, and, in this case, a child under one year of age is a person without being a passenger. The child is included in the total number of people who must not be aboard the ship to ensure that the number of people on board does not exceed the number of people authorized under the certificate. Even if they are not passengers, these children should be treated the same way as the master and crew of the vessel and counted among the persons on board.

While I am making my comments on the bill, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the legislation clarifies the respective responsibilities of the transport and the fisheries and oceans departments. Clause 35 even provides that either one of the ministers can make recommendations to the governor in council for the making of regulations implementing the bill after it has been passed by both Houses and it has received royal sanction.

The enactment organizes the contents, updates the terminology and streamlines substantive requirements to make the law much clearer and easier to understand.

The enactment amends the Shipping Conferences Exemption Act, 1987 to inject greater competition within shipping conferences, to streamline the administration of the act and to ensure that Canadian legislation covering international liner shipping conferences remains in harmony with that of Canada's major trading partners.

This bill has 14 parts, some under the responsibility of the Department of Transport and others under the responsibility of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, although three of them are standard in legislation providing for transitional measures or consequential amendments to various bills.

Under the responsibility of the Department of Transport are: part 1, defining the terms and the application of the legislation; part 2, providing for the registration, listing and recording of vessels; part 3, which includes provisions regarding the skills and the hiring conditions of crew members; part 4, providing for the safety of passengers and crew members; part 6, dealing with incidents, accidents and casualties. This part defines the right to salvage, the obligations in case of collisions, and the powers of inquiry into causes of death. Part 9 defines the responsibilities of the department as regards pollution prevention. Finally, part 11 deals with enforcement and various powers of the Minister of Transport.

Under the authority of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans are part 5, which contains provisions relating to navigation services, the creation of vessel traffic zones and the obligations of vessels during search and rescue operations; part 7, which deals with wreck, particularly their ownership and disposal; part 8, which determines the responsibilities of the minister in the area of pollution and provides for the making of regulations on pollution prevention and response; and part 10, which contains provisions relating to pleasure crafts.

As we can see, this bill contains two parts dealing with pollution: part 8, which is under the authority of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and part 9, which is under the authority of the Department of Transport.

Part 8 is entitled “Pollution prevention and response”, while part 9 deals only with prevention. Each part begins by giving the definitions which apply in it. Three expressions or words are found in both part 8 and part 9: oil pollution incident, polluted, and discharge.

Surprisingly enough, even if part 8 and part 9 use the same word, namely discharge, each part does not give the same definition of the word. I really wonder why the word discharge is not given the same meaning by both parts of the bill dealing with the same matter. This seems to be, at the very least, an anomaly.

On the face of it, the Bloc Quebecois supports the purpose of the bill. This is a bill we want to modernize. It is high time that we did what is necessary to be up to date in the area of shipping. Furthermore, the Bloc Quebecois has also given its support to Bill S-2 respecting marine liability.

However, one thing is interesting. When the Minister of Transport introduced his bill on March 1, he was quoted in the press release as saying that the purpose of the bill was to promote economic growth in the shipping industry.

The Bloc Quebecois has already often indicated, and uses every opportunity to repeat, that the only way, as far as it is concerned, to increase, promote, enhance and develop economic growth in the shipping industry is to adopt a real federal shipbuilding policy and to take concrete measures to assist the shipbuilding industry.

It is high time that the government decided to put aside the Minister of Finance's personal interests and take to heart the interests of the people of Quebec and Canada and give us a shipbuilding policy.

The questions I have raised require meaningful answers. I hope the Canadian government will never pass a bill where children under one year of age are excluded.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Order, please. Before we get into questions and comments, it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Dewdney—Alouette, Ethics Counsellor.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Canadian Alliance, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, our reading of the act is that it imposes high standards for Canadian shippers in terms of safety, the environment and the qualifications of people who man and operate the ships.

For clarification, the area we are concerned about is where the act refers to the offshore registration of ships. My reading of that section indicates that we would accept offshore companies if they met or exceeded Canada's very high standards. I think this area needs clarification. Many Canadians feel legislation too often leaves loopholes. Many Canadians feel, for example, that the family trust legislation allowed well to do people to escape taxation.

The concern I have is that there are lots of international shippers registered in countries such as Liberia and the Bahamas. For example, there is a company called Canada Steamship Lines International. I think some of the members on the other side might be familiar with the company. About the only thing Canadian about it is the name and maybe some of the ownership.

The question I am getting at is that we had the beef boycott in Canada, and in protecting the public interest we shot first and checked second. What safeguards does the public have in this act that international shippers, if they should come into our waters, will comply with our standards regarding environment and safety and the qualification of the people who operate the vessels? If they run afoul of those requirements what enforcement remedies do we have? What can we do with a company such as Canada Steamship International if something like that should happen? That is the question on which I would like clarification.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is a very interesting question, but it ought to be raised in committee. The bill will soon be referred to a committee and we will have to put questions directly to the officials who will come before the committee and to the government so they can give us some explanation for the extremely important problem raised by my colleague.

We should see to it that Canada's shipping industry register its ships in Canada and that these ships sail proudly under the Canadian flag, at least in Canadian waters. The heritage minister should provide flags to those Canadian shippers who are unable to get them or who get their flags from other countries because they are cheaper. Perhaps we should ask that the government see to it that we truly have our own shipping industry in this country.

If we had a shipbuilding policy, we would not have to be ashamed to think that the finance minister's ships fly the flag of countries other than his.

[Marcel Gagnon, Bloc, Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague. I happen to live on the shores of the St. Lawrence River. I hear about many incidents at sea involving ships that are carrying oil or other dangerous substances. Not a month goes by without a major disaster happening, which causes pollution in some part of our planet.

What I fear, as do other people living along the shores of the St. Lawrence River with whom I spoke, is that some day one of those disasters will happen right here. Just imagine an oil slick on the river and the damage it would cause.

Under clause 11 of the bill, the minister can have vessels inspected. Would my colleague agree that, in order to improve safety on the St. Lawrence River, we should have mandatory inspection of vessels coming from the sea, when they enter the St. Lawrence River? Vessels would be automatically inspected to provide the level of security needed to protect the shores of the St. Lawrence River.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Champlain for his question, which gives me an opportunity to get another very important message across.

We realize that the Food Inspection Agency is not working properly because of a shortage of veterinarians. Yesterday morning, at the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, we also realized that Fisheries and Oceans Canada is not operating properly because they do not have enough inspectors to inspect the lobster catch, for example, in the bay, in New Brunswick and in Prince Edward Island.

People are very concerned when they see the government buying huge expensive trucks equipped with nice shinny mirrors, but forgetting that fish has to be inspected in water. Fisheries and Ocean has forgotten that.

I can see improvements in this bill, but we have had across the way for the last seven or eight years a mean government trying to save money everywhere it can and making sure that we do not have the means to respect the policies and the legislation it puts forwards.

While this bill is promising, if the legislation is not implemented better than the Food Inspection Agency or inspection scheme at Fisheries and Oceans, which is now using beautiful red and white boats—because we just love red and white in this place—that can be spotted from 150 miles away, it will be as useless as everything else.

[Grant McNally, Canadian Alliance, Dewdney—Alouette, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from the Bloc is a very knowledgeable member who has spoken quite eloquently on this bill. I know she is very concerned about the environment. She has made many interventions in the House on that particular topic.

Could she elaborate on the aspects of Bill C-14 which deal with the environment and pollution? Does she think those are strong enough measures and would she be able to support them?

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I got really worried when I read the part about pollution prevention and response.

I do not understand why we need two different parts within the same bill to deal with this issue and why each part has to be the responsibility of a different minister. When two people share the same hat, the hat is never on the right head when a disaster occurs.

As I said in my speech, we will never know what definition of the word discharge is to apply, since it is not the same in the both parts. This will give rise to some interesting arguments and challenges. Lawyers will say “You know, the word discharge in part 8 does not mean exactly the same thing as it does in part 9. Are you talking about part 8 or part 9?”

I am not sure how good this will be for the environment, but I think it will be very good for Liberal lawyers.

Business Of The House

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think you would find consent of the House to rescind the request earlier today for a recorded division on the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and deem the said report adopted.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Is there unanimous consent?