Debates of April 6th, 2001

Questions Passed As Orders For Returns

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-12, an act to amend the Judges Act and to amend another act in consequence, be read the third time and passed.

Judges Act

[Rahim Jaffer, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, before we began question period my hon. colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca used his speech to express his concerns with the judicial process in Canada. One of the government members got upset with him and said that basically the status quo is acceptable.

We have to be proud of our judiciary. We have some great people involved in the justice system. Most Canadians would not dispute that. We have to focus on how we can make our current systems better. In many cases the status quo is not acceptable and I think most Canadians feel that something needs to be done to keep the judiciary at arm's length from the government to some extent.

My hon. colleague mentioned a number of solutions. He mentioned elections. I do not know whether he necessarily supports them but he mentioned them.

Another option I would like him to comment on is the idea of setting up an independent body that would review the applications for judges and the process of appointments so that they would be taken out of this place and out of the hands of the Prime Minister. That would make the system work a little better and would keep the judiciary at arm's length from the government and from this place.

I would like my hon. colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca to comment on that particular area of improving the justice system.

[Keith Martin, Canadian Alliance, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague has asked a very good question and has basically articulated the solutions I have put forth here.

The issue is accountability. The issue is about removing power from the Prime Minister and giving it back to the people. While we have an excellent judiciary, we can do certain things, such as having an independent body, which the hon. member spoke about, such as having supreme court appointments made not by the Prime Minister but ratified by parliament on an advisory from the Prime Minister. The same thing could happen in provincial legislatures across the country.

On the issue of elected officials, it happens at a certain level in the judiciary. It happens in California and it works very well. It takes the power away from a single individual, which is what we have in our country today, gives a little broader accountability and gives members of the public the opportunity to have some say about who will judge them when they are in front of the courts. It works very well in California. Very few judges are removed. Most of them stay. Only those who are really not doing a good job are removed.

In Canada, as my colleague mentioned, we have an excellent judiciary. These solutions are just a way to perhaps make it a little better.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The question is on the motion. 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 yeas have it.

[Some hon. members]

On division.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the third time and passed)

The House resumed from April 5 consideration of the motion that Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology, be read the third time and passed.

Canada Foundation For Sustainable Development Technology Act

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-4, the Canada foundation for sustainable development technology act.

The premise of the legislation is that it will establish a foundation to fund innovative projects, primarily within the areas of climate change and air quality. This is a premise that the PC Party supports.

We all know that Canada made a strong commitment at Kyoto to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and put into place measures to help reduce the impact of climate change.

In fact it was the Conservative government, in 1992 at Rio, which first established a strong position respecting the environment, one that the current government has allowed to lapse.

The legislation before us fails in its effort to improve the environment and to bring forward new sustainable development technology. The fault is not with the premise of the bill but with the specifics or lack thereof.

The bill clearly states that the foundation would be established with an initial fund of $100 million. Although the fund may be increased over time, it is unlikely that it is the government's intention to do this. That would be determined based on the success of the foundation to meet its objectives. However I question how the foundation would determine whether its objectives are being met.

The amendment put forward in committee whereby the foundation would be required to submit detailed reports on specific projects, namely the extent to which they were successful in meeting their goals, was denied. At most steps in the process the government has refused to accept amendments from any of the opposition parties.

It has been a very trying job in committee listening to government deliberations and listening to it defending its position on particular aspects of the bill. If all parties had gone to committee with an open mind, the bill could have been improved. The Conservative Party would have supported it along with the NDP, the Bloc and the Canadian Alliance.

We are left with legislation that promotes sustainable development but without guidelines in place to allow the foundation to determine whether those objectives are being met. There are some air quality issues that are difficult to accurately measure, but that does not mean there should be no standard in place to do it.

The government has been widely criticized by the auditor general for its lack of accountability on various projects or programs. Too little information is being made available regarding the spending of public funds. Yet the government will continue the tradition with the legislation.

Another amendment that would have improved the legislation proposed that access to information be applied to the foundation. That amendment as well as the one I just mentioned would have improved the accountability and openness of the foundation and would have allowed an unbiased view of the projects. It would have enabled the foundation to better determine whether it was meeting its objectives. Without such requirements in place, the foundation becomes yet another institution which allows the government to give out money as it pleases.

We all recognize that some projects would fail. Not every project, in particular those that promote new technology and innovative ideas, would be able to overcome obstacles and setbacks. That is understood and it is not the objective of accountability and quantitative reviews to restrict projects or call into question their ability to succeed.

Furthermore, if it is impossible to quantify the ways in which a project could reduce greenhouse gases to improve air quality, it is not to say that such a project is not good. There should be overall guidelines in place, at least general guidelines, to allow the foundation to achieve some level of accountability for public funds.

Speaking of funds brings me to another problem with the legislation, another area where a lack of detail prevents me from supporting the bill. It is one more example of inconsistency between what the minister said about the legislation when it was introduced in the House and what is actually entailed in the legislation.

As I mentioned, the foundation would be funded with $100 million of taxpayer money. When the minister appeared in committee he continually stated that it would be the intention of the foundation to leverage projects on a 1:4 basis. In other words, the foundation would provide 25% of the total funding required to bring a project to fruition and other private or public sources could be accessed to supply the remaining 75%. In no way is that an inconceivable or unnecessarily restrictive objective.

There are many other government programs available to help fund projects such as the ones that would be considered by the foundation.

I have a list of other public programs. There is the annual allocation of $58 million for the energy research and development program. On March 8 the Minister of Industry announced $62 million in scholarship and fellowship funding to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. On March 12 there was an announcement of funding of $73 million for four new networks of centres of excellence.

The budget of the Canada foundation for innovation is $2.4 billion, plus a recent addition of $750 million announced by the government on March 6. Technology partnerships annual allocation is $300 million. The industrial research assistance program annual allocation is $7 million. Technology early action measures allocation is $57 million. What the list shows is that there are other avenues available for funding for sustainable development projects.

It does not mean that the legislation is redundant. It means that there was ample opportunity for the government to set out specific limits on funding flowing from the foundation. With other options available, the government did not have to worry about funding a project at 100%. The minister said that the object would be to fund projects at 25%, and yet nowhere in the legislation is there any mention of any sort of limits.

I proposed an amendment at committee stage that would have established a limit of 50% funding although the minister had been indicating at the time that the $100 million would be leveraged into $400 million. The amendment proposed a 50% limit so that the board of directors of the foundation would not be unduly restricted or bound by unnecessary limitations. The amendment would have established a guideline for the board, one that was consistent with the intent of the bill as the minister outlined. The amendment was voted down.

The lack of detail within the legislation may be dismissed. The government may say that the legislation should not needlessly restrict the board of the foundation. It is an example of sloppy legislation, one that is loosely worded and open to misuse.

I also proposed in committee an amendment which was successfully adopted with the support of Liberal members of the committee. The amendment changed the date on which the legislation would take effect. As it was worded, the provisions of the act could come into force on a day or days to be fixed by order of the governor in council. It meant that the government could choose to implement certain sections of the act while allowing other sections to be implemented at later dates or not at all.

It also meant that the government could choose not to have the Official Languages Act apply or maybe it would not require annual reports by the foundation to parliament. Such a provision opened the process to abuse. It is one more example of the original looseness of the legislation. While the clause has been amended, other clauses have not.

I do not wish to give the impression that the PC Party does not support the objectives of the bill. Improving air quality and reducing the impact of climate change are objectives that all Canadians support. There are numerous alternative sources for fuel that need to be advanced, particularly as the world continues to deplete its oil and gas reserves. These fuel sources are not only slowly disappearing, but their environmental impact is causing undesirable consequences.

Canada has been a world leader in such areas as fuel cells and solar energy. These are areas that need to be developed so that the ideas and technologies can be applied in the marketplace, even at national and international levels. The Ballard fuel cell is one of the more recognized examples of Canada's innovative leading edge in this area.

One of the parts of the legislation that I appreciate is that the ideas generated with the assistance of funding from the foundation are to be widely applied in the interest of improving air quality for all Canadians. It means that if there can be broad application of the technology or other uses of the idea then it should be promoted since the overall goal is to improve air quality across the country. That is one reason the foundation would assist with the development of projects.

While it is admirable and something that the PC Party supports, I refer back to the way the legislation has been crafted. The legislation states that at the time of dissolution of the foundation any money remaining would be divided among the projects currently being funded.

While it may sound reasonable at first glance, it is really saying that a project may receive unneeded money simply because it is still considered an active file at the time the foundation ceases to exist, when and if that ever occurs. Understanding that there is no sunset clause in the legislation, the legislation could conceivably go on forever. A project that has received funding may at a latter part of its development no longer require money, but because it is still one of the foundation's projects it would receive a portion of the unused funds.

I am not suggesting it will happen but it could happen. The foundation could literally have tens of millions of dollars on its books and 12 or 50 projects. The money by law would be legally divided among those projects, whether or not they required additional funds. As long as they are open files they would get a portion of those funds.

I proposed an amendment in committee to the clause that would have seen the money revert to the government at the termination of the foundation. Canadian taxpayers would get back any money that had not been allocated at the time the foundation terminated. It would make sense since taxpayers would have contributed to the original funding of the foundation. Therefore any leftover funds should revert to the government. Again the amendment was voted down.

It is important to understand that it is not inconceivable to be dealing with tens of millions of dollars, perhaps even $100 million. There is no limit on the amount that has to be in the foundation, if and when it is dissolved.

There is nothing in the legislation that would prevent the government from providing new funds at any time to the foundation. There is an unrestricted ability for the government to increase the moneys available to the foundation without any guideline in the legislation covering such actions.

It is another example of how little control the legislation would have on how the government manipulates the foundation. The PC Party would tend to support legislation aimed at improving air quality, promoting sustainable energy and developing new technologies. It is the sloppiness of the legislation that prevents me from supporting the bill.

I will now review what is lacking in the legislation. First, there are no controls on spending. Nowhere in the legislation is there a limit on the amount of money the government plans to put into the foundation over the long term. More important, there is a limit on the amount of money that would be provided for specific projects. Even though the minister stated that the foundation would likely provide one-quarter of the necessary funding, nothing was mentioned in the legislation to provide guidelines to the directors.

Second, the foundation is not open to access to information inquiries or to review by the auditor general. Third, the bill lacks clearly defined terms for directors, something that I tried to address through amendments. These are all problems that could easily have been addressed by the government in the legislation.

It is disappointing not to be able to speak in favour of the legislation. Sustainable energy is something that we all need to strive to achieve, particularly given the fact that fossil fuel supplies are decreasing. Moving to fuel cells or using existing fuel sources and more environmentally friendly ways are goals that we should all support if we want to improve air quality.

It is the job of the opposition parties to improve legislation where necessary. In this case the legislation needs to be amended. We have tried to do that. Unfortunately we were unable to improve the legislation to the point where the PC Party could support it.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I have one quick comment on one of the member's points regarding limits on the contributions to projects.

The minister made it clear that the contribution agreement with the foundation would set those limits. The reason he did not want to put that in the legislation was to avoid cases where a good project that went over some arbitrary limit could not be handled. If it is put into the contribution agreement or into the regulation the same function everyone was in favour of in the legislation would be accomplished.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments, but I do not agree with him. If the intent of the legislation is to be clear on the limitation of funding, the legislation should clearly state that and not leave it up to the board of directors.

Regarding the fact that some projects may require 100% funding, such as projects that would be under the purview of hospitals and universities where limited funding is available from other sources, they would still be available for funding under the agreements I have listed.

Although I did not add them up, there was somewhere around $3.5 billion or $4 billion worth of additional government funding available from other projects. In no way would any good project need to be turned down on the basis that it could not be funded 100%, because there would be funding available from other sources which could take up that other 50% or 75% that may be required.

Business Of The House

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

Mr. Speaker, I think you would find unanimous consent in the House for the following motion:

That this debate do now adjourn and that we proceed immediately to the consideration of private members' business.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Does the House give its consent for the chief government whip to put her motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.