Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House to speak to motions put forth on Bill C-49. Motion No. 1 states:
The Authority must, before December 31 of each year following the Authority's first full year of operations, submit an annual report for the preceding fiscal year to the Minister, and the Minister must cause a copy of the report to be tabled in each House of Parliament on any of the first fifteen days on which that House is sitting after the Minister receives it.
The report must include:
(a) national, provincial and regional data on the effect of the air travellers security surcharge on passenger travel and economic development; and
(b) a review of the impact of all the other surcharges levied on air travel.
I will comment on all the motions being debated today during my 10 minutes and then I will speak about them all in one block.
The second motion has been proposed by the Minister of Transport. It states:
Two of the directors must be nominees submitted by the representatives of the airline industry designated under section 11 whom the Minister considers suitable for appointment as directors, and two must be nominees submitted by the representatives of aerodrome operators designated under that section whom the Minister considers suitable for appointment as directors.
Obviously the amendment was put in to cut out the amendment that would have allowed two representatives from the unions to sit on the board.
Motion No. 10 states:
(a) an aerodrome north of the 55th parallel of north latitude that is not served at least five times per week by non-stop round-trip jet service to an airport south of the 55th parallel of north latitude, or
(b) an aerodrome where the population of the adjoining city is less than 3,000 persons.
This is an attempt to waiver the fee.
The Speaker ruled those three motions admissible. Of those three motions, we would support two. However the third motion on behalf of the minister is an attempt to override the democratic process of the committee. The committee already established a bona fide case and allowed an amendment to be put forth that would allow for fair and equitable representation on the committee, but the minister decided to overrule it. This is very typical of not only this legislation but of a lot of other legislation that the government has passed. It just does not seem to understand the responsibility that we all have as members of parliament to ensure that we put forward legislation that is meaningful, representative of all Canadian society and has some built-in process that allows for accountability.
Bill C-49 needs several amendments. If the amendments are not brought in, then the measures that were announced in the December budget will be.
The specific amendments which deal with the Canadian air transport security authority are most important and should be looked at first. Probably there are two tests that should be applied to all those parts of Bill C-49 that set up this authority.
Given the amount of money it would spend, with the lion's share of the revenue being raised by the $12 ticket tax, is the governance structure adequate to protect the taxpayer money? I argue quite vehemently on behalf of taxpayers that there are not enough sections in the in bill to protect their money.
The second rule that should be applied is if there will be sufficient mechanisms for Canadians to judge whether the authority has significantly improved air traffic security or whether it has just become another expensive and bureaucratic boondoggle. Surely there should be a sufficient mechanism built into the authority that would allow us to establish a scale. Is the system working? How will we know whether the system is working or not? We do not see anything built into this.
A number of areas are troublesome. The tabling of information to parliament is extremely troublesome. The directives from the minister are quite heavy-handed. The process for review for the bill and the access to information and privacy are all areas that were not taken seriously enough when the bill was introduced. All these areas need improvement.
Tabling of information to parliament is the very life and breath of the House. Under clause 32 of Bill C-49, the minister would be allowed to block the tabling of information in parliament under section 10 of the Financial Administration Act if he or she felt it would be detrimental to public security. This would affect three specific types of information: directives from cabinet to the entity, which are under section 89.1(4) of the Financial Administration Act; significant problems that may be found during an annual audit that the auditors feel should be drawn to parliament's attention and to inclusion in that entity's annual report which is under section 132(v) of the FAA; and significant problems that are found during a special examination. The examiner possibly, in this case the auditor general, feels these should be included in the entity's annual report.
A special examination must be conducted every five years. Its purpose is to give the board an independent opinion on whether the corporation's financial and management control, information system and management practices are proper. There are absolutely no safeguards built into the legislation to ensure that the minister does not use transportation security as an excuse to simply prevent publication of embarrassing information. It should be further questioned whether any directive would ever, under the legislation, be allowed to be tabled before parliament. It is very questionable how much information parliament will get under the legislation.
At the very least, the bill should have included a motion that would have forced the minister and the board to table information that could present a security threat and have some type of accommodating legislation to prevent such information that was not a security threat, but would simply prove embarrassing to the minister, from being tabled.
Under the directives from the minister, the minister may issue written directions to the authority on his or her own matters of air transport security without going to cabinet. Maybe the minister should not have to run back to cabinet every time he or she wants to deal with any particular issue in Canadian legislation. However we have seen an increase in this type of behaviour on behalf of the government. It is just sheer arrogance that would allow any minister not to refer back to cabinet and never refer back to parliament. He or she need not consult the board. There is no requirement that any directives be tabled in parliament.
Further, Bill C-49 specifically declares that there are no statutory instruments. There is no mechanism for review. For that matter, there is no mechanism for even informing parliament.
There is much more to be said on this legislation, particularly under access to information and under the Privacy Act. There are major areas of concern, typical of a lot of legislation that the government has put forth which has been poorly crafted, not thought out and absolutely not accountable to the Parliament of Canada.