Madam Speaker, I would like to address a few items in Bill S-2. I cannot resist the temptation to draw attention once again to the fact that Bill S-2 comes from the Senate. I would ordinarily have no objection to a bill coming from the Senate. I know some members of the Senate. Some are very honourable people and they work very hard. That is fine, but I really wish they were elected.
There is something wrong in a modern day democracy when members can actually introduce bills which affect our lives and they are not even elected. It is like reverting to a time when kings used to tell people what to do. If the people did not obey they were clubbed with a mace, similar to the one we have in the House. That was the original purpose of the mace, to enforce the law of government or the law of the king.
I object that the bill comes from the Senate. It should have been introduced in this elected House. We will not flag in our zeal to have an elected Senate. I have had several conversations with some senators and have urged them to push for an elected Senate. As I told them, I am sure that with their popularity they would probably be elected anyway. They have nothing to worry about. It would give the position a lot more legitimacy.
Today we are dealing with the liability insurance of shipowners. It is curious to me that shipowners of the few ships registered in this country are not required by law to actually carry liability insurance. It is very strange.
I have a couple of vehicles. I am required by law to carry liability insurance, not only for someone who happens to be in my vehicle but if I happen to injure someone in another vehicle.
As a matter of fact, I had a conversation with someone just a few weeks ago about the required liability insurance on my motorcycle. I said it was really unfair that the liability insurance on my motorcycle was almost as high as it was on my car. I said that was really wrong because if I was in an accident, although I am well padded, it would still result most certainly in serious injuries. Yet I had this huge liability. I said my little 400 pound vehicle with a 400 pound rider was not going to cause nearly as much damage as if I had hit somebody with my 6,000 pound Suburban. So that insurance was very unfair.
The point I am making is that I am required to carry liability insurance in the event that something happens, so I comply with that law.
It is beyond me why the government would choose not to include such a provision for shipowners and the protection of their passengers. It really boggles the mind. Every provincial government has required public liability insurance. Taxis have to. Buses have to. Airlines have to. Who does not have to? The shipowners. Again, s stands for senate and s also stands for ships.
I have to digress. I am on the finance committee and so I have great interest in taxes and things like that. It is a curiosity to me that there are some Canadians who actually own ships who do not even register them in our own country. I suppose they think that the tax regime here is unfavourable to them, so they fly flags of convenience, as they are called, registering their ships in some other country where either the taxes are lower or do not exist at all. I am not aware of this, but it seems to me that this particular bill would possibly not even apply to ships which are not registered in Canada. That is a whole other question which ought to be addressed.
There is an amendment put forward by our transportation critic which is a very fine amendment. During the committee hearings on the bill, there were representatives who said we should have compulsory insurance. There were representatives from the insurance industry who said they were ready to provide it, that they would write it up and that everything would be in place. Notwithstanding that, government officials said there was some barrier and that they could not do it. However the insurance people said “Yes we can. What is the impediment?” They said it was all ready to go. The government said in those committee meetings that it would introduce regulations which would make insurance compulsory.
Listen to this very fine amendment. I know it has already been read into the record but it is such a fine one. The motion that our party is putting forward, which must be passed, is just common sense. It says “The Governor in Council”, that is the Cabinet, “shall make regulations by January 1, 2003”, that is over a year and a half from now, “requiring insurance or evidence of financial security be maintained to cover liability under this part”.
I do not see a person in the House rising to speak against the amendment. There has not yet been one. That is because there is no rational argument against the amendment.
My big task then is to persuade the 172 Liberals over there to support the amendment. That is the challenge. I feel that I am doubly offended. First, the bill came into here from the Senate and not from this elected place.
The second way in which I am offended is that I do not know if the Liberal members, who are in the majority in the House, all 172 of them over there, are even hearing my arguments. I am telling them there is no rational reason to reject this amendment. If they would only show that they have an ability to hear an argument, to understand it and show some wisdom when the vote is called and rise unison say that yes, it is a great amendment, it makes sense and is consistent with all other transportation facilities in the country, therefore we will support that amendment. There is just no other way.
In a way I am wasting my time putting forward this argument. Anybody who would read it and think for about .38 milliseconds, because that is how long it would take, could compute that is the only reasonable response.
Will they do it? Dare I express my pessimism about it. It seems to me that for the sole reason that this amendment came from the opposition rather than from the government the members will be told “No, we want to be agin this one”. In unison they will stand up and say that they will not vote for common sense, that they will not vote for a rational argument and that they will not vote for the protection of passengers embarking on trips on ships which originate in Canadian ports. They will do as they are told and vote against the amendment.
That is what I cannot understand. That is where I suddenly have difficulty understanding what goes on here.
I have stated the case as strongly as I can on that amendment. It is absolutely mandatory, it makes sense and it is for the protection of passengers. Furthermore, it is totally doable. The insurance people have told us it is. There is no loss to the government. All it is is a requirement that these shipowners who take passengers on will have the ability to cover a possible loss. That is so standard in the industry all over the world. It is unbelievable that in this country we even hesitate on that.
I have about two seconds to say that the NDP motion is the backup one. It says that in the event that these Liberals do not think on the Canadian Alliance amendment, they have an opportunity to bail themselves out partially by requiring that these shipowners post a notice clearly visible to passengers boarding their ships that there is no insurance on their ships. That also makes sense. We insist nowadays that consumers be informed of what their food contains, so they should be informed of what coverage they have when they go on a ship.